Thursday, October 16, 2008

I'm So Tired. The Beatles

To be able to view the complete lyrics of the song please follow the link,
http://music.yahoo.com/The-Beatles/Im-So-Tired/lyrics/2024381

The song I'm So Tired was released by The Beatles in 1968 in their album "The Beatles: The White Album." In this song the singer, Paul McCartney, is telling someone or something that he is really tired. Even though in the song it might seem as if he were speaking to either a lady or a man, it can be interpreted in many ways. My own personal believe is that he is not speaking to a human but instead to the drugs he has been consuming. I believe this because The Beatles are not only known for consuming drugs but also for their songs about drugs. In an interview by a British magazine, Uncut, McCartney admitted this and said that many of their songs had
subtle hints of their use of narcotics. In the song it seems like McCartney is speaking to the drugs and telling them that they are causing harm to him and that he needs to stop using them.

In the song there are many obvious and not so obvious examples of rhetoric. Some methods of rhetoric used by the writer include personification, rhyme, alliteration, hyperbole, and triads and anaphora. In the whole song the methods that stood out to me the most were triads and anaphora. The song initiates with the phrase, "I'm so tired..." and that phrase is repeated throughout the song several times. The reason why the author used this method is to convey how tired he is. He not only uses the words, "I'm so tired..." but also the words after that.
After, "I'm so tired..." he always shows how tired he is by saying how he feels and what he would want to do.

The other method of rhetoric used by McCartney in the song is the use of triads. In the last verse of the song the phrase, "...give you everything I've got, for a little piece of mind..." is repeated three times. Even though he could have repeated the verse more or less times he knew that three times would be just the right amount of repetition. To the human ear it sounds awkward hearing a song where things are repeated more than three times consecutively. Next time you hear a song where there is a lot of repetition pay attention to the words and you will notice that you subconsciously know that things will get repeated three times.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Welcome

Fellow classmates and teacher of AP English,
I want to welcome you guys to my blog about rhetoric of songs. My name is Gary Guillermo and I am a senior. From a young age I have always been interested in music. Not only did I like to hear music but I also liked to listen intently to the lyrics that certain lyricists used. I am constantly being awed by their writing techniques using different types of pathos used by the lyricists.
With this blog I want to share my understanding of certain songs with you. I will look at the lyrics of songs in-depth and depict them to you as I see them. I will try to give meaning to the different styles of writing techniques of the lyricists in their music. Some of the lyrics I chose will be mostly of the Hip-Hop and Rap genre. Some of those artists will include Common, Nas, Talib Kweli, and Lupe Fiasco to name a few.

Since I know not everyone listens to just Hip-Hop and Rap I would like to ask you for some suggestions if you would like. My knowledge of other genres of music is very low so I will need the help of you to be as diverse as possible. I would like to thank you for reading my blog and hope to get some song suggestions soon.