The gentle strum of the bass guitar ends the silence of the night with a soft yet deep note that brings consciousness to me. "Beautiful Morning With You" by the Pillows fills my ears like the soft sunlight filtering through the shades of my window, bringing light to my dark world. I am awake without effort. The light tapping of the cymbals dispels the ethereal world of dreams around me. The strum of the guitar strings come again insistently, pushing my eyelids slowly open as I find my way from the world of dreams. As I sit up at the edge of my bed, vision bleary, the clear vocals of the day-dreaming singer bring the daylight to full realization. A soft synthesized electrical guitar enters and plays a colorful melody, a musical representation of the dreamy haze slowly fading away. The vocalist’s voice rises in volume to match the swell of music pushing through the morning haze. My world speeds up and it's all a blur as I go through the motions of my morning routine paced by an energized vocalist backed by a frenetic guitar rhythm and fast-paced drums. The crashes of the cymbals pump pure energy through my veins, and my morning blazes by.
A harmonious clash and the last clear notes of the vocalist trail off and I suddenly find myself sitting on the transit, everything once again moving along at a tranquil pace, the guitar once again taking up its rhythmic strums that slowly push my day forward. I look outside at the passing scenery, bathed in the morning light. The ethereal sounds of a supporting guitar dreamily laze by like the slowly passing trees outside. The tranquil sound of the consistently timed guitar strums brings peace to my day. Before I know it, I arrive at my destination and I get off.
As my foot hits the ground the...
... middle of paper ...
...it may rest in peace. The heavy instruments cease their mourning calls leaving only a somber guitar and parting words from the vocalist. As the eulogy ends, the vocalist bursts into a mournful cry. The guitarists' lament is unleashed as a flurry of notes are shred across their guitars, fingers tear through the guitar strings as blood form the crimson teardrops of the guitar. The war drums kick into a primal rage and beat down the heavens as the sky pours forth rain. As the vocalist bares his final farewells, the guitars and drums slowly drop their pace, returning to the heavy riff from the beginning. As the song released itself into the world and the finals notes of the guitar died off, I turned away from the bin. As I looked up into the dark skies, I noticed the rain was picking up. I began to walk away from the bin and put on up hood.
It was only a cup of coffee.
There is perhaps a no more plangent or evocative melody played from the brass bugle than that of “Taps”. The sounding of the song arouses in the listener a sense of melancholy, solemnity, remembrance, and loss; a stirring of the soul to recall the essence of a life lost in military service. Often accompanied by a 21-gun salute, “Taps” as a burial ceremony has been employed since July of 1862, where the notes were first scrawled on the back of an envelope by a Union general in the aftermath of the Seven Day Battle in order to memorialize the loss of his soldiers. The notes have a scourging effect on the listener, leaving one cornered to countenance the forbidding realities of death and sacrifice. Indeed, “Taps”, calls out
Music is regarded as a method of passing a message. Though some songs do not intend to do that, the message in them is still perceived. The song, “Get up, ...
The long lines that open the poem represent the movement of the bus through the landscape. When it stops moving to pick up the “lone traveler” in the sixth stanza, it stops the long sentence that has been running since the start of the poem. As the bus resumes and picks up speed, the lines follow suit. It is night, and therefore dark as the bus enters the tree line of the thick woods of New Brunswick. Here, an important change occurs, when a drastic landscape shifts occurs;
The anticipation of this day had been building up for some time over that last few months, and now it was upon me at last. I didn’t feel the same excitement I had leading up to this moment, I even kind of grumbled to myself about how I wished the bus was bigger so that I would be more comfortable. We all had our assigned seats, but no one seemed to be where they were supposed to be. The anxiousness of getting to Colorado was causing a great deal of confusion, chaos, and stress. The noise of everyone carrying on and yelling could be compared to the way a screaming crowed sounds at an AC/DC concert.
Dickey is a mastermind at truly evoking mental images and feedback from the reader through his brilliant writing style. By the end of the poem, the reader has felt as if he or her has ridden on a roller coaster of a keen portrayal of the reality of death, the sentiment felt by those left behind by the dead, and also the power of faith. The ending line of the poem now makes sense to the reader. The son has come down from his father. He has accepted the fact that his father will die and can now be at peace with it.
In “On the Subway” by Sharon Olds, the author contrasts two divergent people. Olds come to many conclusions as a result of the experience. Sharon Olds utilizes tone, poetic devices such as metaphor, and finally imagery.
Owen starts the octave in a bitter tone as he criticizes the treatment of the dead soldiers. He asks rhetorically what the “passing bells” (1) will sound like to the families of the soldiers who perish. Instead of normal funeral bells that one can expect, the soldiers receive bells in the form...
This blues poem discusses an incredibly sensitive topic: the death of Trethewey’s mother, who was murdered by her ex-husband when Trethewey was nineteen. Many of her poetry was inspired by the emotions following this event, and recounting memories made thereafter. “Graveyard Blues” details the funeral for Trethewey’s mother, a somber scene. The flowing words and repetition in the poem allow the reader to move quickly, the three-line stanzas grouping together moments. The poem begins with heavy lament, and the immediate movement of the dead away from the living, “Death stops the body’s work, the soul’s a journeyman [author emphasis]” (Tretheway 8, line 6). Like the epitaph from Wayfaring Stranger, Trethewey indicates that the dead depart the world of the living to some place mysterious, undefined. The living remain, and undertake a different journey, “The road going home was pocked with holes,/ That home-going road’s always full of holes” (Trethewey 8, line 10-11). Trethewey indicates that the mourning is incredibly difficult or “full of holes”, as she leaves the funeral and her mother to return home. ‘Home’ in this poem has become indicative of that which is not Trethewey’s mother, or that which is familiar and comfortable, in vast contrast to the definition of home implied in the
Starr is only credited with lead vocals on eleven songs throughout his career with the Beatles, with all but two being written for him by Lennon and McCartney or covers. A majority of these songs expand the childlike and naïf Starr persona into the musical world of the Beatles from their films. This process is exemplified in three songs, written by Lennon and McCartney, for Starr to perform: “With a Little Help from My Friends,” “Yellow Submarine,” and “Good Night.” “With a Little Help” sees Starr assume yet another persona in Billy Shears, but is still useful in understanding the Ringo Starr persona. The song has a “rather purposefully over-simplified musical vocabulary, … a more advanced antiphonal vocal arrangement, and a much more serious
Tears fall from his already moist cheeks. They will be the last tears. He stumbles from the cemetery in a daze, as though walking through the gates is like emerging from the womb: a blind, raw being thrust into a strange new world. Now he stands like a soldier on the front line--faintly trembling, unsure of what lies ahead, but prepared to face it.
While writing this composition, Dana Wilson included three different movements: “To Smash the Night”, “To Break This Shadow”, and “Into a Thousand Lights of Sun.” To Smash the Night had a varied tempo. In some instances, the song slowed before becoming faster again. It is also noteworthy that the three percussion pieces complemented each other in tone variation and rhythm. In another section of the song, the piano seemed to wait for the clarinet and the violin while in another, the clarinet and violin followed the piano’s lead. In the end, the musical dynamics changed to a crescendo, creating a colorful texture of music that brought out a joyful feeling in the listener. To Break This Shadow is a slow-paced piece of music that was full of sadness. However, it also varied in tempo while still calming the mind of the listener with relative ease. Also, the piano took precedence in this piece with a pattern that was varied from the clarinet. Finally, Into a Thousand Lights of Sun was fast, with a lot of coordinated tonal variations that created a gradual change in texture. All of these pieces are dynamic in their own way. Their varying crescendos and subtleties are what make each of them different from one another. In the end, they all elicited feelings of happiness within the audience by employing a lot of soothing
The third maddening buzz of my alarm woke me as I groggily slid out of bed to the shower. It was the start of another routine morning, or so I thought. I took a shower, quarreled with my sister over which clothes she should wear for that day and finished getting myself ready. All of this took a little longer than usual, not a surprise, so we were running late. We hopped into the interior of my sleek, white Thunderbird and made our way to school.
Auden, the poet who wrote “Funeral Blues,” uses hyperbolic and metaphorical language to convey the thoughts of the speaker. The tone throughout the poem is very consistent, as evidenced by the similar themes of the first and last stanzas. The speaker essentially proposes that, due to the death of this man she so dearly loved, all functions of the universe should stop immediately. The third stanza stands out from the other three, though, because it explains what her feelings were toward this man, and why her sorrow was so deep. She also expresses regret in having believed their love would last forever, which may actually reference the demise of the attraction between them, not the death of a man. Nonetheless, there is more than just language that gets the speaker’s point
Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden is a short poem that illustrates the emotions that he is dealing with after the love of his life passes away. The tone of this piece evokes feelings that will differ depending on the reader; therefore, the meaning of this poem is not in any way one-dimensional, resulting in inevitable ambiguity . In order to evoke emotion from his audience, Auden uses a series of different poetic devices to express the sadness and despair of losing a loved one. This poem isn’t necessarily about finding meaning or coming to some overwhelming realization, but rather about feeling emotions and understanding the pain that the speaker is experiencing. Through the use of poetic devices such as an elegy, hyperboles, imagery, metaphors, and alliterations as well as end-rhyme, Auden has created a powerful poem that accurately depicts the emotions a person will often feel when the love of their live has passed away.
Auden, W.H. “Funeral Blues.” Literature. 5th ed. Ed. Robert DiYanni. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 1003.