Music is an empowering and enriching form of sound that conveys nuance, meaning, and messages to its audience. The presence of music evokes certain feelings, emotions, and intuition among individuals that relates to events, memories, and moments that they have experienced throughout the course of their lives. The melodious, harmonious, and rhythmic elements of music allow people to develop different perspectives of the world, endure the different aspects of life, and experience sentiments of pleasure, enjoyment, sorrow, misery, uncertainty, anger, etc. American singer, songwriter, and musician Gavin DeGraw illustrates the significance of self and individuality in his song “I Don’t Wanna Be”. The soulful and profound lyrics of the song symbolize …show more content…
While singing the words of “I Don’t Wanna Be”, DeGraw portrays the symbolism, repetition, and diction implemented throughout the song in order to express the relevance of self-identity. The meaning of the song encompasses the brutality of society’s deplorable perceptions of individuals and their character. DeGraw’s expression of individualism throughout the song attracts the attention of many people that struggle to embrace their identity and selfhood due to the presence of societal norms that degrade their individuality and self-worth. Similarly to DeGraw, medieval philosopher Boethius would strongly believe that the melody of the song would likewise draw the attention of many individuals that struggle to cope with society’s corrupt nature and allow them delight in the simple but meaningful tune of the song.
As DeGraw profundly sings the words of his song “I Don’t Wanna Be”, he expresses that humans must learn to embrace who they are and present themselves to society as they choose. The words “I’m surrounded by liars everywhere I turn/ I’m surrounded by imposters everywhere I turn/ I’m surrounded by identity crisis everywhere I turn/ Am I the only one who’s noticed?/ I can’t be the only one who’s learned” illustrates the presence of stereotypes that often degrade and demean individuals throughout society, as they are hindered from being able to express themselves and who they are as humans. The implementation of such words throughout the song
In today’s society, people are taught to conform to the masses in order to fit in; however, it is imperative that one’s individuality is maintained, as it preserves their identity and encourages uniqueness. For example, in the song, “Outside of a Small Circle of Friends”, Phil Ochs discusses the social norm where people are too afraid to stand out, often times, leading them to pay little to no attention to the wellbeing of others. Instead of adhering to their own judgment and moral values, the person in the song continues to abide by the notions of the rest of the group. In addition, in “The Dying Girl that No One Helped”, Loudon Wainright describes the brutal murder of a young 28 year old women, while over 38 of
Taylor, S. (2009) ‘Who We Think We Are? Identities in Everyday life’, in Taylor, S., Hinchliffe, S., Clarke, J. and Bromley, S. (eds), Making Social Lives, Milton Keynes, The Open University.
These lyrics send a message of how at first he was being someone who he wasn’t but then eventually found out who he actually was. He grew up living in a society where a person couldn’t be their own individual self and everything was done collectively. He never knew about individualism because of the fact he’s been in a collective environment. After learning about the Unmentionable Times and the forbidden word “I”, he knew at that moment who he really was. “I tried to be someone else/ I know now this is who I really am inside,” are two lines that can be used that momen...
Subject- The lyrics in this song brings up a reoccurring problem that everyone faces throughout their lifetime. Everyone wants to fit in or belong to someone, or something. This song easily compares to the book Frankenstein, when the reader is introduced to the monster. The monster that Victor created does not understand the world he has been put into, or how to operate in everyday society. In the first stanza Phil Collins writes,
In my paper, I argue that artists capture important insight in their personal experiences through music. In particular, I assert tha...
“This is who I am, this is how I stand up for myself” as quoted by Shane Koyczan was about his identity by people labelling him as pork chop. In school, many students had experienced bullying that can destroy someone’s identity such as a girl who called ugly. Therefore, it is all about bullying about the appearance of a person. This slam poem was about the internal and external surface defining of an identity; the idea of conformity. With that in mind, Koyczan talks about what is being against normality. He was against this conformities and stand up for himself, and at the end of the day, we needs to accept who we are as He stated “I will love myself despite the ease with which I leaned toward the opposite”. Koyczan describes the rejection
Like most humans, we all want to be accepted by society. The way we look, dress, or even how intellectual we are, we are judged by these factors. We either become one of the following things and have “meaning” to this world, but if we are not, then we then succumb to our depravity. “Unable to endure
Within the confines of “Graduation Day” by Maya Angelou lies the intricate story of an African American girl struggling with the societal standards of the 1940s. This societal imbalanced resulted in the Caucasian race discriminating, and even segregating from the African American race. Although various issues are held responsible for this societal imbalance, one major contributor to the predicament includes communication and word choice. The classic saying, “sticks and stone may break my bones, but words can never hurt me” Has ran though the head of every Human at some point in their life. Although words can never physically harm, how do they profile human identity? Words shape and define human identity, specifically personal image, through the forms of encouragement and discouragement.
Identity and its underlying issues have existed for countless years without having been critically discussed and analyzed. However, in a current age that is becoming increasingly aware of political correctness and normalizing taboo subjects, identity issues have become a polarizing topic. Claudia Rankine, poet and essayist, has furthered the discussion of identity issues with her book, Citizen: An American Lyric. Rankine’s work describes the unavoidable invisibility that individuals experience, the trouble minorities have with identifying themselves, and the ways in which people question their own identity and character.
To be put in a place of no diversity is detrimental and damaging to many aspects of one’s life. It comes to a point where one doesn’t even know themselves. By not having people different from who you are, you aren’t being challenged or reflecting on your own identity. By the lack of integration we are ultimately hurting ourselves. Audre Lorde says in her essay, The Fourth of July, that her parents ignored the prevalent racism, she says, “perhaps it would go away, deprived of her attention(Lorde 255).” By ignoring and not facing what is in front of her she is depriving herself of truly knowing her self. She is exhibiting the ignorance of the world around and within her. Hurston describes how she sometimes feels discriminated against but it doesn’t really make her angry, rather, “it merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? (Hurston 188)” again people are not making the necessary steps into meeting new people. Just think about the number of missed opportunities that occur when we aren’t able to make the move. Our existing prejudices and stereotype is what is hold us back from the acknowledgement of others, which leads to a detrimental state for our own sense of identity. How do we learn about our selves? The answer is through reflection; this reflection happens through seeing how others view themselves. In a world where people are separated, misjudged and misperceived, we
Music can take on many meaning and there are many forms of music that come in different languages through out the world. So is it reasonable to conclude that music does affect a person mood and personality through out his or her life. Despite the fact the music play such an important role in a person life, there are still people that do not care about the art the cultural behind different type of music that we experience in everyday life. In his podcasts, “Why Do Listeners Enjoy Music that Makes them Weep?” professor David Huron talk about how his research of psychology help him related to the study of humanities which could be connect to the understanding of systematic musicology in a human mind. With this idea we as listeners can engage it with the different way that people can interact with music in their life and understand more about what cause the mood and emotion that a person feel when they experience music.
For many of us, one of the most accurate and effective ways to express the feelings that really matter to us is through music. We don’t only grow to attached to songs that are catchy, but also those with lyrics that we can relate to. It is not uncommon to feel like sometimes, artists can convey the way we feel better than we could ourselves. The storybook-like lines you read at the start of this page are a collection of lyrics
For example, in Emily Dickinson poem " I 'm nobody! Who are you?" Shows that she is excited about being herself and not letting the society change her views. She says "How dreary – to be – Somebody! How public – like a Frog – To tell one 's name – the livelong June (line 3-5). " Dickinson point is that it 's better to be a somebody than a nobody. In addition, she thinks being a famous celebrity it would be dreary. When you are always in the public eye, you will tend to lose yourself during the process. People who want to be a someone are show offs. Not only that, but they are not being true to their real selves. “Dickinson’s poems of selfhood communicate at times a heady sense of power and autonomy of the self, by itself, without need or dependence (Howard 138).” In addition, the exclamation point expresses the confidence she has in being a nobody. Not only does Dickinson embrace individuality but also Robert frost does. In the "The Road Not Taken”, Frost is making a decision on which route to take. As the prominent philosopher Frost says "And sorry I could not travel both, and be one traveler, long I stood, and looked down one as far as I could (line 5-7)". In this poem he says "I" a lot. The I 's shows that Frost is uncertain of which path to take. Either it the less traveled one or the most traveled one. He is taking his decision in a serious
Some may say music is just music; a song is just a song. However, music plays an enormous role in our psychology, because a single song has the ability to bring about many kinds of thoughts and emotions in the listener. Music is subtly one of the main factors in which people identify with certain groups and establish their belonging in society. It shapes people’s perspectives on how the world functions and the roles they play within it. Music can function the same way in a culture; it can reflect many of the culture’s values and ideologies. Music can have many effects on culture and the people’s idea of who they think they are within that culture. Music can serve in a way that promotes cultural identity and pride, yet it could also play a role in the separation of social and economical identities in within cultures.
Although music provides an aesthetic value according to DeNora, it still makes us feel in a specific way i.e. in terms of emotions. “Our response to music is in any case not always congruent with what we would objectively characterize as its emotional content” (Ball, 2010). This song for me acts as a gateway that leads me to a very special emotion by the time the song ends. In conclusion, I can say that I have made a very self-conscious choice of deep engagement and in addition, it is almost as if the music is trying to reach to me and to speak with me.