Nick Young Allusion To Swing Low Sweet Chariot

"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" is a spiritual that leaves its meaning up for interpretation, but still makes the point that slaves wanted to cross into a free society. The first way one may interpret this spiritual is by saying it is describing slaves being taken away via the underground railroad to safety. It is written, "[t]ell all my friends I'm coming too" (371), so perhaps those who were singing want to join their friends in safety. The slaves are saying they want to break away from restraint and go to where they can be free. They would then be crossing over the fences of supreme oppression to a place were where

Possibly freedom and perhaps bliss are shown in stanza three. The character is imagining himself on the open road. He’s picturing taking the motorcycle and riding away on it. It gives to speculation if he, being fifteen can even legally drive one, let alone that would then surely be considered stealing. Assuming that he’s not there appears the forbidden imagination

It’s quite hard not to sing a long or at least tap your foot to the beat. Jazz is a time period where “Swing” was about getting up and moving your body; as hard as it is not to get up and move with this piece, Ellington’s intentions were satisfied. Duke Ellington really strives to reach a peak of happiness through this piece. With the repetitive chorus and the song being as catchy as it is, it is rather hard not to get the words stuck in your head. While the music is mostly upbeat and exciting, it is also relaxing. “It Don’t Mean a Thing,” brings a sense of harmony to the listener.

However, in the following stanzas, Carter changes his tone and tense to show how he felt growing up with his father. He states, “I despised the discipline / he used to shape what I should be” (7-8). This shows Carter, even though he disliked the means of reprimand his father implemented, understands his father’s ways were to help him become the man he “should be.” Through this insight, Carter says, “not owning up that he might feel / his own when he punished me” (9-10). This is possibly saying not only did he bear the chastisement, but his father sensed the “pain” as well. Yet again, maybe Carter has a deeper message and is saying fathers and their children share the same troubles and triumphs. In addition, Carter remembers how he “didn’t show [his] need to him, / since his response to an appeal / would not have meant as much” (11-13). Furthermore, he states “his response,” (12) “would not have… / …been as real” (14). Telling such a harsh reality, Carter contrasts his statement and relays to the reader through “those rare [hard] times,” (15) “…the pure joy / survive[d]” (16-17).

In Tracy Chapman's song "fast car", the speaker deals with her reality and longs for a better life situation. By using the metaphor "fast car", she wants to describe an incisive moment in her life. The woman supports this with words which are associated with this conveyance and talks about the escape from her old, deadlocked life to a new place, where she wants to be able to start all over again.

The first simile we are introduced to in the song is line 8. A simile is using the words ‘like’ or ‘as’ to compare to unlike things. In this case, he raps ‘I’m as black as the moon’. After listening, one may think ‘but the moon isn’t black’. In this lyric, he’s comparing blackness to the side of the moon never seen, the back part of the moon that is unlit by the sun and therefore invisible to humans on Earth. Later in the same line, he uses a metaphor. A metaphor is a figure of speech that implies comparison between two unlike entities. The metaphor is ‘came from the bottom of mankind’. This metaphor of ‘bottom’ refers to either an evolution of people from Africa or the meaning of his ethnicity being treated unfairly throughout history. The next metaphor is displayed in line 13: ‘Reciprocation of freedom only live in your eyes.’ This is a metaphor type similar to what we discussed in class. People use parts of the body to represent other things. In this line, he is referring to an ideal of freedom living in the eyes. Eyes are what we use to view and see the world therefore this line represents something that can be seen but maybe not used or felt to the person or persons at

Slave songs, therefore, do not pardon the institution of slavery; in fact, they do just the opposite. They are indisputable affirmations of injustice, accentuating the oppressive cage that is slavery. They are the mode of communication of a living dead who yearn for the blessings of a life unfettered: for liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Slaves sing of ideals that are not theirs to possess—ideals that their country and fellow men have denied them. The caged bird does not sing because it is happy; it sings because it is dreaming of happiness.

I detect that in ‘’sweet home alabama’’ that there are some mixed feelings. Because they are going against everything in Alabama i'm assuming that they don't believe in Alabama's message they're trying to get across. They kinda put out there saying that sweet home alabama wants racism they want slaves. ‘’Alabama’’ wants freedom they are trying to send a message across that they wanted to escape. The slaves wanted independence and ‘’sweet home alabama’’ didn't want them to have any of it.

Cullen uses auditory imagery to draw his readers in to hear what he hears. The meaning of this poem is to take the reader on a journey of what the negro felt about

By telling us this it shows us that the slaves were taught to not feel, and that there was no other way for them to live life. Everyone can relate to the fact that in the moment of a certain situation it might not seem too bad, but when you look back on it you really see how bad it really was, this is what Frederick Douglass was experiencing. By explaining how he felt while hearing the songs, it makes the reader feel the unknowing nature that all of the slaves had and it makes us see the injustice in the situation.

The first image “I came here because I was Mexican” states that he equates himself to other people from the Mexican descent. Later on in the stanza he exclaims with people of the brown skin can do in baseball. “The triples and hard slides” is showing how hard working

The lyrics of the song have contains a handful of imagery describing African Americans being lynched. For example, “Blood on the leaves and blood on the root”, is a very descriptive example and puts an image in your mind of seeing a tree with African Americans hanging with blood dripping from their bodies (genius.com). This line makes it seem like the blood that is dripping from the people hanging is feeding the tree’s root, and this could symbolize growth because America was a growing country back then and still is today. Back then, African Americans were physically and mentally abused, and the point of the song was to put an end to that and it did eventually. Today, African Americans are still being discriminated for job opportunities because of stereotypes people made that make African Americans look bad. Throughout the course of time, we did make changes, which relates to the line, “Blood on the leaves and blood on the root”. Another line the depicts a very cruel image is, “Here is fruit for crows to pluck” (genius.com) This line has a very dark meaning and image because crows always symbolize evil and darkness. The fact that this line puts a picture of bodies being devoured by crows in your mind, proves that Holiday uses very strong imagery in the context of Strange Fruit. From these two lines from the song, we learned that

A spiritual journey dominates these songs, but the concern for physical freedom is there as well. The most pervasive image in the spirituals is that of the chosen people for the slaves believed that they had been chosen by God just as the Israelites had. They also believed that they understood better than anyone what freedom truly meant in both a spiritual and physical sense. The Old Testament characters that the slaves referred to in their songs experienced deliverance by God. The slaves believed that the same God that had granted them spiritual freedom would someday loose the chains of slavery. The wonderful flexibility of the spirituals allowed for that double meaning of freedom. For example, Frederick Douglass claimed that the line” I am bound for Canaan” in one of the songs he frequently sang meant that he was going North, not just that he would experience the freedom of the promised land in a spiritual sense. The flexibility and multiplicity of meanings also allowed for slaves to use these sacred songs as secret communication. Some songs, such as “Steal Away to Jesus,” were used to call a secret meeting where the people could worship without the supervision of the whites. Other songs, such as “Wade in the Water” served as coded directions for runaway slaves. With the eventual emancipation of the slaves, religious music of African Americans became prominently

The next verse in the song addresses privileged class in American culture, the wealthiest of Americans. The song states that, “Some folks are born silver spoon in hand, Lord, don’t they help themselves, oh” criticising the rich who live easier life where things are often given to them and the song also calls them greedy by saying that “they help themselves”. Fogerty further criticizes the rich by saying how they do not help the poorer citizens with the lyrics, “But when the tax men come to the door, Lord, the house look a like a rummage sale, yes” showing how the high class “tax men” are coming to take away the belongings and the livelihoods of the common man. Fogerty’s distrust of the rich in this verse stems from the law which stated that active members in a university, be it undergraduate, graduate, of law school,

In order to occupy her child, the mother dresses her daughter up to go sing in the children’s choir at church in the fifth stanza. She brushes her hair, bathes her, and puts on her gloves and shoes. Randall appeals to the senses in this stanza; he uses a metaphor here to inform the reader a visual that the family is African American. She has “night-dark” hair and small brown hands. She is dressed in white and smells of sweet rose petals. The mother takes the girls mind off of the Freedom March and fixes it on the children’s choir. The tone is one of content. The sixth stanza is a