Popular and influential musical lyrics are just as powerful as any well-known poem by literary heroes such as Robert Frost or William Shakespeare. If Don Mclean can portray a life story in the song “American Pie” in less than 10 minutes while being accompanied by beautiful and spine-chilling musical chords, an analysis of his song is beyond well-deserved. Songs like this that are known by students are more appealing and create an eager attitude to learn. The songs contain imagery, figurative language, extensive metaphors, and many other examples of important literature. With the literary composition that many songs contain, an English class is incomplete without a proper outlook on the chosen examples. Many musical and lyrical geniuses have been born into this world and it would be unfair to the students to not allow them to be enlightened on many generations of pure poetry in disguise.
Some may argue that popular music is too vulgar to be analyzed in such a manner. A great portion of our generation’s music is improper. The people that make this argument don’t realize that there are just as many provocative short stories and poems as popular songs. A book on musical lyrics that a college English class would study would
Brittany Spears or The Backstreet Boys, for example, sing what is in front of them and simply try to be attractive and remain well known by the public. People view them just as they do any other artist and it has become a backlash toward the “real” performers of our generation.
Bands such as O.A.R. have received no credit in a literary sense. They write from the heart and sing what they have written and perform with emotion instead of appeal. They use figurative language to relate a turning point in their lives to a “crazy game of poker”. They leave the interpretation completely open so whoever is listening to it can relate it to their own life. This could spark imaginative and comprehensive discussions in an English class and force the students to comprehend the importance of interpretation and analysis.
not contain the extremely offensive examples just as the books used in classes today do not contain the obscene poetry that has been written.
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