Tone Song Analysis

Tyler Derksen

4/5/12

G block

Tone SA

Though both Rock n’Roll band and Have a Cigar both involve becoming famous in the rock & roll world. Rock n’ Roll band incorporates a cynical tone and playful imagery in order to display that is starts off as “sleeping in our cars” to “never worrying about the things they are missing” while Have a Cigar displays cynical tone and deceptive imagery to explain the truth and or corruption in the rock & roll world.

            Both songs have a cynical tone because they are both picking apart the good and the bad of the rock and roll life. Boston takes a more playful view on how it starts off as “trying to make ends meet” to record companies coming up and saying your bands “outta-sight” and everything is just perfect and “When I hear you on the car radio you’re goin to be sensation.”. Where Floyd is playing the role of the Record Company saying that if you let us handle your career your songs could become a “Monster if we all pull together as a team”. But at the same time they don’t really even know who you are. “Oh by the way, which one’s Pink?” no one in the band Pink Floyd has pink nor Floyd in their name.

            Rock n’Roll band and Have a Cigar have different views on imagery which both point out each point of view in the music career of both the artist and the company. Where one is having a grand old time and the other one looks to be the same but is actually lying to the other party. In Have a Cigar the deceptive imagery comes into play when the band says things like “You’re never gonna die” but if you think about it how many bands in today’s society have had just a one-hit wonder. Where in Boston or the bands point of view where all you see are people “Getting’ crazy” and loving their music. In a way both songs are deceptive but only Have a Cigar really lays is flat out for the listener if they look deeper into the lyrics.

            Today everyone in a band wants to “ride the gravy train” or be successful in the industry. But the real question is can the industry be trusted. Can both the band and the money making record companies or mangers work together to make it so people are “Anticipating love and music”? Or are they just going to hand out a Cigar?

Irony SA: Funny The way it is,Dave Matthews Band

                                                                                                      Tyler Derksen

                                                                                                             3/29/2012

                                                                                                                          G Block

                                                                                                                          Irony SA

The way things work in today aren’t so much funny as they are ironic events. In Funny the Way It Is Dave uses situational irony, dramatic imagery, and deep symbolism to show how the world has changed over time and how people overlook some of the simplest events such as a kid walking to school or someone crossing or standing on a bridge.

The way Dave uses imagery makes it seem like both these events whether it's depressing or not these events are happening really close to each other. Such as “On a soldier’s last breath his baby’s being born”. It sort of creates the picture of this soldier badly wounded being rushed down the hallway of a hospital where either in the same hospital or even a different hospital a mother is also being rushed down a hallway about to give birth to a child. All these events that Dave is singing about are dramatic events that are not really funny in any way. And in today’s society these events are not very clearer than they were back than where everyone knew there was a war happening, everyone knew if “Billy” dropped out of school.

In Funny the Way It Is situational irony is shown in all these events Dave is singing about such as baby’s being born, kids walking to school and showing the exact opposite which is people dying and dropping out of school. “A bomb blast brings a building crashing to the floor you hear the children play war”. When someone looks at a topic such as war they don’t usually look at it has a happy joyous moment where you’re laughing and having fun with your friends. But when it’s a child they don’t know the difference is and how big of a difference it is. To them it is all just one big game. But we know it is not. In another sort of way these events are also paradoxes because we know these are not funny events but there may be a deeper meaning behind all these events that makes them funny.

            Some of these ironic events are all symbolism for a bigger larger idea that doesn’t really stand out unless you look at it from a different perspective. “And that war song is playing [why can’t we be friends]”. The symbolism is it is a war song about being friends which is not the case when a war is happening. There is no friendship out on that battlefield. And the big question is when people hear about war now a day’s it is a lot more of asking that simple question “why can’t we be friends?” ; where during times say world war 2 these types of question weren’t as outspoken. “Somebody’s heart is broken and it becomes your favorite song”. When the artist wrote “your favorite song” they had a deeper symbol for that song which might be someone who passed away or someone they loved that left them. But you as the listener do not look at it as that way you look at it as a song that has a good beat or deep lyrics. You complete are ignoring the symbolism of the song. Dave is pointing out how people ignore these deep symbols and it doesn’t affect anyone where music written in the past had meaning and symbols in it and they were not just writing a song to reach their next deadline.

            “Standing on a bridge, watch the water passing under me it must’ve been much harder when there was no bridge just water”. The difficulty of task these days have changed from the past where it seems everyone is sort of in a rush to complete these tasks and not realizing how much easier it is these days. Take buying a music album. Back in the day you either couldn’t buy the CD (because you probably couldn’t afford it) or if you could you would have to run down to the record store and purchase it with the possibility of the store being sold out. And now a days you just can go on your PC and buy it in at least 30 seconds. In Funny the Way It Is Dave uses situational irony, dramatic imagery, and deep symbolism to show how the world has changed over time and how people overlook some of the simplest events such as a kid walking to school or someone crossing or standing on a bridge.

           

SA 1

When you or any solider are one the frontlines of war they tend to have mixed emotions; such as fear or confusion. In the song Frontline by Pillar the band uses strong narration, a serious tone and a first person point of view to display what emotions soldiers in war should show when they’re on the frontline.

The strong narration in Frontline feels as though it is either a high ranking solider or general basically speaking to his troops saying you shouldn’t be scared or confused of what to expect when you are on the frontline of battle. For those of you who don’t know the frontline of a military line in war are the ones taking all the immediate damage from the opposing side. So this could be the general explain what it means to be a solider that has either been on the frontline, positioned on the frontline, or died on the frontline. And the reason he is doing this is because soldiers are all viewed as one in the same. “We live our lives on the front lines, we’re not afraid of the fast times”. What the band is narrating is soldiers on the frontline have to be quick, they have to be able to make decisions right then and their cause when you look at the line “We drive on and don’t look back”.

When someone is telling a story of soldiers they may use a more depressing type of tone to make people feel bad for the solider. Where in frontline when Pillar sings about these soldiers they use a motivating and angry tone to basically sort of display what is happening and what is going through the minds of these men. They don’t want you to see depression in the eyes of these soldiers and you may ask why and they will simply say “Because your sympathy is not our main priority when we are out there and having to decisions right then and there”. “We’ve got to lead the way” this quote shows that it is up to these troops to basically lead the way for all the other soldiers out there fighting.

“We fight to live, we live to fight and tonight, you’ll hear my battle cry”. This shows that we are looking at these insane battles on the frontline through the eyes of a soldier who is literally there in this moment on the front line. It is also obvious from this quote that this soldier is neither scared nor confused. He seems like he’s pumped up or angry and ready for battle. The first point of view works here because if we were seeing this through the eyes of third person we wouldn’t have the same emotional feel that we are getting from the one soldier.     

Soldier have it rough because you never really have to emotional feel for then because most of the time they are offended in some way and start to get mad. They start to say stuff like “you haven’t   seen what I have seen”. But now in this song they are basically saying don’t think or worry about use because it does not affect us in any way shape or form. And that is a complete different reaction than what people usually think. In the song Frontline by Pillar the band uses strong narration, a serious tone and a first person point of view to display what emotions soldiers in war should show when they’re on the frontline.

Pillar-Frontline lyrics(Band/Song)

It's not like I'm walking alone into the valley of the shadow of death
Stand beside one another 'cause it ain't over yet
I'd be willing to bet that if we don't back down
You and I will be the ones that are holding the crown in the end

When it's over we can say, "Well done"
But not yet 'cause it's only begun
So, pick up and follow me we're the only ones
To fight this thing until we've won

We drive on and don't look back
It doesn't mean we can't learn from our past
All the things that we might've done wrong
We could've been doing this all along

Everybody with your fists raised high
Let me hear your battle cry tonight
Stand beside or step aside
We're on the front line

Everybody with your fists raised high
Let me hear your battle cry tonight
Stand beside or step aside
We're on the front line

And we'll be carrying on until the day
It doesn't matter anymore
Step aside you forgot what this is for
We fight to live, we live to fight
And tonight you'll hear my battle cry

We live our lives on the front lines
We're not afraid of the fast times
These days have opened up my eyes
And now I see where the threat lies

Everybody with your fists raised high
Let me hear your battle cry tonight
Stand beside or step aside
We're on the front line

Everybody with your fists raised high
Let me hear your battle cry tonight
Stand beside or step aside
We're on the front line

We live our lives on the front lines
We're not afraid of the fast times
We live our lives on the front lines
We're not afraid

We've got to lead the way
We've got to lead the way

Everybody with your fists raised high
Let me hear your battle cry tonight
Stand beside or step aside
We're on the front line

Everybody with your fists raised high
Let me hear your battle cry tonight
Stand beside or step aside
We're on the front line

Everybody with your fists raised high
Stand beside on the front line
Everybody with your fists raised high
Let me hear your battle cry

Everybody with your fists raised high
Let me hear your battle cry tonight
Stand beside or step aside
We're on the front line

Theme Genre

The genre i decided to use was Christan metal. and the theme i decided on was war. The reason i picked Christan metal is because it was mainly got me into the mainstream of metal. The one band that got me into Christan metal was demon hunter which i band i found on my own time and have forced my other friends to listen. The reason i decided on war was the whole concept of war is a very contriversal topic. Also diffrent artist have diffrent beliefs on what they believe in and it's intresting to see where artist