Trumpets by _by.alexander, 070 shake
look at the damage we have done…
Key: c sharp minor BPM: 103
Fusion of contemporary Jazz with modern energetic synth wave vocals. Catering to a range of audiences from hip-hop, to jazz, blues and neo-soul, the crisp symbols and funky jazz-like bass rhythm entertains the autotuned and electronically static, thrilling vocal melody. The fusion of genres in this song complement each other in a way that takes us to an otherworldly realm of music yet maintaining the unpolished and grit nature of jazz. This song breaks boundaries yet acts accordingly to how jazz is – characterized by Improvision, uniqueness and nerve.
The range of dynamics played throughout this song also creates excitement and anticipation by the use of stopping and starting the jazz drum melody. This song is jazz and groove.
But this song has more depth than what the fused genre itself offers. The theme of regret, escapism and letting go floods through the song. Let’s break it down and how the song plays this out. Let’s dance through the song.
My advice when reading this JOURNALISTIC analysis, is to simultaneously listen to the song to get the full experience.
Cover art from 000 CHANNEL BLACK album
_BY.ALEXANDER
2020
GET ME HIGHHHHH
The distorted, dry to little to reverb, mixing techniques let the lyrics sit close to the listener. The rawness is not passive, it's rough and raw, almost sensual. Making you feel that the evocation and experience feeling tense, until the improv style instrumental lets you to just, release.
Let us look at how the lyrics play out this feeling, word by word:
Regret / Accountability: The “damage we have done.”
Communicating the lack of communication: “You should have called before you come”
Consequences catching up: “you hear the trumpets now you run.” This is perhaps the strongest metaphorical image—the “trumpets” symbolize an alarm, a reckoning; once you hear it, reality strikes, so you flee or try to escape.
Desire to escape / moment of weakness: “Get me high / I need a smoke” can be read literally (craving a cigarette) or figuratively—as a yearning to escape stress, guilt, or pain.
How the Music & Lyrics Work Together
One of the strengths of “TRUMPETS” is how production, vocal delivery, and lyric converge to amplify meaning. The tonal minor key maintains a somber, introspective mood, supporting the weight of regret in the lyrics. The moderate tempo keeps us at a steady pace, to allow us to follow and get lost into the track.
Although it's easy to get lost into the track into a sort of trans, the texture mirrors the emotional conflict within the song; from a minimal texture at the beginning to later, fuller instrumentations echoing the intensification of the internal conflict, what better way to convey this than through jazz, the genre of self-expression, of allowing space to do whatever feels right. The repetition of motifs, lyrical and musical, reinforces the sense of being stuck in a loop, almost like this theme of guilt is haunting.
feel it through
This track pulls you in before you even realize what’s happening. It’s wrong in all the right ways - dirty, grimy, and gleefully abrasive. Autotune tangled with jazz shouldn’t work, but here it practically growls at you, insisting it does. The whole thing feels mean, disrespectful, and unapologetically rude—and that’s exactly why it hits. What better way to convey a theme than to feel it, hear it and experience it.
_BY.ALEXANDER - TRUMPETS (Visualizer) ft. 070 Shake
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Sit in the moment... this is hot…enjoy!
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THE MELting pot
SINNERS X COWBOY CARTER X UK ARTIST OVERVIEW - lets dive in.
You’re probably wondering where the heck have I been.
I’ve been brainstorming new ideas for you guys, waiting to be genuinely inspired. I am so dire bored of commercialism and consumerism even though it seems to appear that I am promoting this as a brand. I suppose that is what the music industry is about right? Finding a niche, finding a label, a brand.. but is that a true reflection of our society and our reality? Is that how true expressionists and artists would live their life? Be confined to a niche just so that it's digestible for a consumer? For a music label to have a prospering business, for an algorithm to squeeze every ounce of you to the world just to pour you back out? I guess so.
Anyways, let me not bore you with my limited capacity of being able to come up with some sort of educable discourse. Let me not just sound like every other whine, mourn or moan bag. Instead, let's talk about songs that sound like they’re mourning, moaning, whining and crying:) Pull out the emotions with a cross genre spectacle. Find the similarities amongst us all and why we feel what we feel. Welcome back to JaneysJukebox.
This blog is going to be about the two most major pop cultural pieces of work this year in conjunction with an uprising UK artist. Analysing the Grammy award winning album Cowboy Carter, one of the biggest block busters of the year, SINNERS (the soundtrack), and UK artist Svn4Vr.
My advice when reading this JOURNALISTIC analysis, is to simultaneously listen to the song(s) to get the full experience.
SINNERS
Sinners premiered on April 3, 2025, at AMC Lincoln Square in New York City, and was theatrically released in United States on April 18, 2025, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film received critical acclaim and grossed $367 million worldwide. - Wikipedia
THE MELTING POT - THE CULTURAL BRIDGE OF MOURNING
Irish elements to highlight shared themes of mourning, resistance, and oral tradition between African American and Irish folk cultures—especially around colonization, diaspora, and storytelling.
Both Cowboy Carter and Sinners use Irish musical influence not for novelty, but to emphasize how Black American Blues and Irish Celtic Folk share deep emotional and historical resonance especially in their lament traditions (Blues, Jazz and Sean Nos and caoineadh). The intersection between their vocal expression with the free movement of their riffs and free movement of their rhythm. Expressing what they were mourning for and reclaiming. Almost like a desperate love letter. EMOTION.
SINNERS
The film explicitly draws parallels between Black Southern blues and Celtic folk traditions, emphasizing shared themes of struggle, migration, mourning, and ancestral storytelling. An intentional interweave of genres to suggest a deeper connection between African American experiences and Irish history.
From a narrative standpoint in sinners, Sammie’s blues sequences represent life, resistance, and community, while Remmick’s Irish songs become instruments of seduction, menace, and undead transformation—signaling colonial/carceral diasporic tensions made literal through music.
American country music is not just Southern or “white”—it is a cultural fusion, with major contributions from Black, Irish, and Indigenous musical traditions. A perfect example of a multi genre fused songs from the Sinner Soundtrack that includes, hip hop, country, irish folk and blues:
I lied to you
Flames and Fortune
Trouble Waters
Traditional Irish elements: Traditional irish instruments such as the fiddle, strong rhythmic pulses for dance, using modal scales and ornamentation.
African American blues, hip hop, soul and jazz elements: Call and response (christian themes to reflect community), blues notes - flattened 3rds, 5ths and 7ths, melisma (similar to ornamentation) where there is an expressive vocal run off from a specific note and auto-tune (a traditional hip-hop vocal mixing technique used to enhance the tone of a song).
EXPANDING THE DEFINiTION OF AMERICAN MUSIC TO REFLECT ITS TRUE MULTIRACIAL DNA - THE MELODIC FUSION OF CULTURE
To begin with some american soul/ country music, I am not going to tell you where and what and how it originated, I am going to tell you to listen to the soundtrack and album back to back and let you feel what you want to feel. Those southern blues will yearn to you, for you in fact. The gospel richness, praises, almost as if it is calling for you to listen, to understand. This is what the sinners soundtrack does. It gives you soundbites of different genres for you to pay attention. Why is there Irish melodic techniques such as ornamentation, why are the soundbites of hip hop rhythms woven through the soundtrack, why is there mixing techniques such as auto tune intertwined between different motifs and what is all of this trying to represent? Sinners and Cowboy Carter are trying to translate the yearn through the different genres like how a tv show translates through different languages so that everyone can relate, everyone can hear the yearn. There is an incentive behind this, to demonstrate that we as people are closer than we know. It overarches the boundaries of the sound that is “supposed” to come from blues. Genres are just a funny little concept really..arent they? And on that note, let’s discuss the cowboy carter album.
COWBOY CARTER
Again, similar to sinners, this isn't a sound you would expect coming from a traditional blues or country album. Because it's not supposed to be a country album, it's supposed to be a yearning album. To represent a true reflection of society. So in depth and rich in the spirit of yearning again, using traditional Irish motifs, rhythms and melodic techniques, interwoven with folk, interwoven with blues and gospel and again like sinners, hip hop. This is cultural integration. Innovation. Demonstrating that there is no limit to what you can musically do or release as an artist and it certainly doesn't depend on your race, or where in the world you're from or how you grew up. These works are here to let you evoke whatever feeling your feeling in the most non generic way possible. We can allow ourselves the space. And again, traditionally each culture has a different sound, but we can still feel the exact same way no matter what you're listening to. The songs listed below are songs that demonstrate the multi-cultural influences:
Flamenco - Folk Guitar plucking/ Stacked harmonies/ Free-movement. These are all elements that derive from Folk, Country and Church influences.
Riverdance - Irish folk, hip hop and Pop cultural influences. I mean its in the title of the song itself. A very obviously multicultural fused song.
COWBOY CARTER - BEYONCÉ
released march 29 2024
SV4VR - Local UK artist
Basically, everything I was talking about in one artist. How our multi-cultural backgrounds can deeply influence our sound, to penetrate right through the stereotypical expectations of popular artists. Introducing: SVN4VR. An artist who subconsciously expresses all of his diverse backgrounds into one sound. Influenced by church choir arrangements and harmonies intertwined with his Yuroba heritage. A spirit of sound you can not shake from your spirit. You can hear the call and response that is heavily influenced by christian music, yet integrates it with the music he grew up with - the ‘sound cloud rap 2016’ era. There are many folk elements in his songs; again, rallying back to the theme of yearning through any sound that can evoke the most feeling, regardless of what may be stereotypically expected. His sound is as expressive as it gets, using every genre possible to get his emotion across to his audience. He uses chaotic adlibs mimicking gun sound intertwined with harmonic rich melodies. A beautiful polyphonic texture with each melody holding a place for a different genre. You guys, MUSt listen. Here are songs I recommend listening to by Svn4vr:
Fleashdeath Anthem - Produced by C WORLD, written by svn4vr (A mixture of rap style adlibs, folk guitar almost similar to ‘Between the Bars’ by Elliot Smith, and the Christian music element of Call and response. Everything one could give to a song to make you feel the way you feel.
Kitchen Nightmares/ cornrows - Produced by Cameron M Baguley, written by svn4vr. Folk fusion with elements of the harmonica/ accordion and guitar, including yodel adlibs and layered harmonies.
These works of ART define what is means to be a true expressionist. To be able to reach the very core, soul and spirit of music and use it to evoke an image, send a message and to make us think and reflect. What better way to convey a message than to feel it, hear it and experience it.
Listen to the tracks below as you read this JOURNALISTIC review on the different works of art.
Black Bird/ Sweet Creature - The intersection between hope and home
The Beatles v Harry Styles? A dialogue between the songs for the indie folk jammers.. oh and for the people who caught the similarities… lets dive in.
The unexpected intersection between these two songs reveal the desire for hope and home, despite their difference in origins - one about love and uncertainty (Sweet Creature), the other about civil rights in America in the 1960’s (Blackbird). Nevertheless, these songs offer a dialogue between hope and home, growth and resilience and the steps towards the unknown. They both share the same key and similar chord progressions on the guitar. Sweet creature may not be inspired by blackbird, yet it is still cool to note how the same desirable feeling, although in two different contexts, can be transcribed through music.
My advice when reading this JOURNALISTIC analysis, is to simultaneously listen to the song to get the full experience!
‘waiting for this moment, for you to bring me home’ - a lyrical analysis
The theme of home anchors both of these songs:
“You bring me home” – Sweet Creature
“You were only waiting for this moment to arise” – Blackbird
Both lyrical lines provoke a sense of arrival - whether it is emotional or security. In both tracks, home represents a feeling rather than a specific place. A final moment of clarity when confusion settles and soul sits. Sweet Creature representing tenderness in the relationship whereby Blackbird representing a long-awaited liberation. Although these songs are different in context, it just comes to show that the sense of belonging and peace is a core human need.
Growth, Resilience and hope
Both songs evoke images of growth, resilience and hope but in their own unique ways - The theme of breaking through a struggle. Blackbird referring to an African-American woman fighting for equality in the 1960s whereby Sweet Creature referring to a potential from brokenness.
“We’re still young” – Sweet Creature
“Take these broken wings and learn to fly” – Blackbird
The theme of growth through adversity is evident through the lyrics of both songs, alluding to hope and how potential can emerge. Youth, being a standpoint before growth and broken wings/learning becomes a metaphor for potential and hope. An optimistic standpoint in both songs, becomes an anthem for a dream - craving, needing what we aspire, a feeling the songs offer.
a dream of Ambiguity
“Don’t know where we’re going, don’t know where we belong” – Sweet Creature
“You were only waiting for this moment to arise”, “Into the light of the dark black night” – Blackbird
The uncertainty which drives the momentum to strive for hope. This sense of ambiguity gives use the image of shooting darts in the dark. The idea of biting the bullet with not a lack of care of the consequence , but with the power of inspiration for a better life. In Blackbird, this idea can be tied to the civil rights movement, where stepping into the dark was part of striving toward justice and dignity. Though Sweet Creature speaks more personally, perhaps romantically, the shared message of persevering without a clear path binds them.
The composition of a sweet blackbird
Another intersection between both songs can be found in the title Blackbird itself, which holds its own romantic connotation. The sweet creature of a bird in British slang, refers to a woman, tying the songs emotionally and culturally together - what a beautiful convergence.
The composition of this song is simple, delicate and fragile, like a bird. This allows a listener to really pay attention to the lyrics of the song itself rather than a complicated melody to help convey the message. Beneath the soft fragile words such as bird, wings, sweet, creature and youth, lies the strength to move, to love and preserver.
Both songs are also in the key of G major - a bright and warm key. Even the plucking of the guitar in both songs, allows movement. With the combination of the key and the plucking pattern of both songs, it creates a guiding spirit of hope.
The liberation through hardship
The similarities between Sweet Creature and Blackbird in my opinion, are uncanny—especially when you consider they’re not speaking about the same struggle. One explores the uncertainty of a romantic relationship, while the other is rooted in a fight for civil rights. And yet, they intersect. The language of safety, home, and hope transcends the specific context of each song. It reminds us that music doesn’t need to be literal to be truthful. It works as a translator of emotion—carrying feeling across genres, generations, and personal experiences. Whether it’s the soft ache of love or the heavy weight of injustice, the core human need for belonging and peace is what both songs ultimately express. We are all just waiting for that moment to arise. We’re all waiting for something sweet to bring us home.
Listen to both of the tracks back to back. What do you think about the similarities of both the songs. Do you think it’s coincidental, intentional, uncanny?
And with that.. what better way to convey an image, a feeling of hope than to feel it, hear it and experience it.
Sweet Creature Official Audio - Harry Styles
Blackbird Official Audio (Remastered 2009) - The Beatles
Check out a playlist with a similar vibe, especially for the indie, folk.
Reflections of God - Jaubi
a psychological and PHILOSOPHICAL analysis on music - lets dive in.
This piece was written by JANEYS JUKEBOX and Jenny Ekeziem (UCD Psychology Graduate)
“Reflections of God” opens with a bright, refreshing mix, allowing the listener to feel as if they’re outside, breathing fresh air even if they are sitting in the stillness of their room. This is a piano led ballad fused with Pakistani drone like instruments whereby the music itself flows like the wind: natural and alive. The title of this song sets a tone which prepares the mind for calm and depth. It allows the listener to surrender.
My advice when reading this JOURNALISTIC analysis, is to simultaneously listen to the song to get the full experience!
“A Sound Heart, Jaubi”
How Rythm (or the lack of) evokes images, feelings and spirit.
This ballad is non-lyrical. It explores how humans and nature mirror each other. This piece is in free time - meaning there is no beat or time signature. It is a free flow rhythm. Flowing arpeggios and melodic motifs on the piano rise and fall which help to create a natural fluidity, evoking an image of nature; like ocean tides or leaves rustling in the wind. Fluidity of the wind, mimicking a comb through fine hair, echoing the sound of one, of the reflections of God.
Modal Sound & mystery
This track comes from a cross-cultural collaborative, Pakistani instrumental quartet. What a beautiful mouthful. A drone like-modal instrument accompanies the piano. Its melody doesn’t mimic the piano but empathises with it, feeling alongside it. Modal music, unlike tonal music (which has a clear tonic and dominant chord) doesn’t rely on the tonality of major or minor keys, therefore it creates more space for melodic expression. Modal music doesn’t tell you what to feel, it gives you the space to decide how you feel. Literally like nature, it is a reflection of something greater than rules and boundaries.
Psychology of how this non-lyrical ballad makes you feel - “what is my brain doing?” “why am i feeling this way?”
To get very technical here, in neuroscience, emotions are processed by the limbic system in the brain (primarily the amygdala). A non-lyrical song allows the listener to engage deeply with rhythm, tempo, tone and harmony. The drone-like instrument sounds like its wailing, which triggers an emotional affect in the brain through embodied cognition. The music shapes the rhythm of our body. Its slow, fluid, pulling our heart in a mournful way and into a reflective space. It allows our bodies to be in a state of rest and digest - activating our parasympathetic nervous system. How riveting! A song that penetrates into our emotions so profoundly, our body responds on a CELLULAR level.
This song becomes a mirror, a mirror for memory. It taps into a reflective, cathartic and evocative space. This non-lyrical sound becomes a vessel to our forgotten emotions, allowing the listener to write their own story. This song involuntarily retracts our inner light into the world to see how nature and humans are ever so similar. It allows us to personify and empathise with nature, the same way the drone-like instrument empathises with the piano - true reflections of God all around. What better way to convey a message than to feel it, hear it and experience it.
Official Audio - Reflections of God by Jaubi
The night me and your mama met - Childish gambino
let me lament to you..
The night me and your mama met. Wow. The title of the song itself hums nostalgia. Taking us back to a time we were not party to - like an old photograph you never took but somehow remember. It beckons us to a suspended time, celebrating the sacredness of love. A simple moment that became the beginning of a family unit, and generations to come after it.
What a story right? But this story has no words, just feelings which pour into the song - creating a wordless space allowing us to reminisce. This song takes us through a journey of tender yet, electrifying love. It’s amazing how songs without lyrics can transcend us through different emotions and help us reminisce on those vulnerable feelings we may not have been able to express with just words themselves. The power of music aye?
My advice when reading this JOURNALISTIC analysis, is to simultaneously listen to the song to get the full experience!
Make it stand out
“Awaken, My Love!,” Childish Gambino
another song in 3/4… gosh we love love here!
The time signature of this song is 3/4 which is a traditional waltz/ love song rhythm. A waltz is a dance performed by a couple, a rhythm that allows the dancers to share a heartbeat. The rhythm slowly sways and lulls us into its hypnotic realm of passion and tenderness.
The mesmerising melody, the spellbinding harmonies, the soulful soundscape.. what does it all mean in the spirit of love?
The Spirit of the Instruments:
This heartwarming instrumental begins with just a ukulele. This portrays an image of the simplicity of serenading a song for somebody - you can only play one instrument. The glockenspiel that chimes in ever so subtly in the song, represents the innocence and purity, almost like a soft, dreamlike alarm that is evoking a memory we yearn for. Towards the end of the song, the electric guitar enters creating an electrifying feeling of love like a burst of fireworks and chemistry, telling its own love story with passion to the fullest, most wholeheartedly way.
The Spirit of the chords:
The key signature of this song is in C# minor. The chords in the loop (A and B), are from the relative major of c# minor (E major). The repetition of these chords throughout the song create a timeless hypnotic loop which gives us a sense of longing as they never resolve to the tonic key of C# minor (the note you feel the loop should end on). The notes of G#minor and F# minor also loop but never resolve. The unresolved chords mirror the feeling of missing someone you love, or longing for a moment that’s already passed. A memory that doesn’t end, but echos..in the spirit of love.
The Spirit of the Vocals:
As the song progresses, the harmonising vocals flood in, representing the embodiment of wholeness almost as if they are embracing the melody itself. The vocals entwine with the song, overflowing the melody to the point that it vibrates off your skin. The ‘ahh’s’ and ‘ooh’s’ are also expressions we use when we are in admiration of something or feeling relief which also aids us in expressing our vulnerability.
Really and truly, this song embodies nostalgia. It aches the essence of reminiscing, echoing such deep passion in a way lyrics cannot convey. It’s soft, intimate and psychedelic. It is, love and what better way to convey this emotion than to feel it, hear it and experience it.
The Night Me and Your Mama Met by Childish Gambino - Official Audio
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Sit in the moment, let your brain wander.. enjoy!
mercury - steve lacy
Lets dive in to this bitter yet soooo sweet track
might be too real
This fusion track weaves flourishing bossa nova rhythms with the elegance of a traditional waltz, creating an electrifying contrast that vibrates both sensual energy with emotional complexity. The track allows us to dance and celebrate romance and pleasure but with the undertone of heartache. This song is emotionally so freeing yet ironically makes you feel like you want to break free from what is holding you back. Steeped in despair until reality slips out of frame, the song melodically becomes slightly unhinged. This fusion melody (already serving complexity) with the build up of vocal effects such as autotune, guides us through the raw reality of the human experience when ‘falling in and out of love.’ The lyrics and music unburdens itself.
My advice when reading this JOURNALISTIC analysis, is to simultaneously listen to the song to get the full experience!
"Can't tell if I'm winning or falling behind”
Gemini Rights, Steve Lacy
well.. what is the significance of mercury?
Mercury in its physical sense, is a poisonous metal. It flows quickly. The significance of its composition may portray the fast pace of falling in and out of love; how love feels to him. Just like the physiological makeup of the metal and how it moves fluidly, the song feels like it is increasing in speed, however it is just becoming more chaotic.
Additionally, mercury in retrograde in astrology is associated with confusion, delay and frustration. The name of this song perfectly conveys the imprinted turmoil underneath the track, capturing the emotions between longing and exasperation.
oh that rhthym.. am i dancing, am i longing, am i running away?
The time signature of this song is in 3/4 which is traditionally the rhythm for a waltz dance or love song. A waltz is dance performed by a couple. The waltz rhythm is also fused with a slick bossa nova beat which traditionally based on Brazilian music to celebrate romance and sensual pleasure. Nevertheless, the ecstatic rhythm juxtaposes the lyrics - making us feel good and bad about the song, creating our own internal conflict when listening to the track; the theme of the song itself. Usually when a love song is sad, it is about longing for someone but here, Lacy sings about the magnetic yet poisonous, emerging emotions that arise from toxic love.
The music video
Let me tell ya! So much can be unpacked here. From the symbolism of the cage, the dog and ripped clothes… but what does it all mean?
In this music video, Lacy is alone in a cage guarded by dogs. The dogs are unable to get in, yet as the video progresses, his clothes tear, and he becomes injured without actually being physically harmed by the dogs. This may be an analogy of how he is his biggest threat. He is protected by the cage yet he still manages to be harmed. This analogy may be used to reflect his mental state and internal mental deterioration and turmoil. A depiction of an avoidant attachment style - not allowing your emotions or love to run free and instead, cage them up inside until you cannot take it anymore.
The dogs may also be a symbol to represent love in this video, as dogs are affectionate, domesticated animals that stay loyal to their owners.
The end of the music video ends abruptly (before the actual track ends) once we see the dog has entered inside the cage. This may represents how when you finally allow your emotions/love in (the dog in this case) it can be too intense to bear, too intense to continue. The abrupt ending may also represent the fear of unknown - once the emotions/love is in, you lose control of the situation one ‘protects’ themselves from.
How the melody reflects this theme of avoidant attachment
As the song progresses, vocal effects such as autotune are added to help disrupt the original sound of the song. Letting go of the original vibe of the song, may be more so having less control of it (just like his mental state throughout this song). The song becomes more energetic, liberating, and chaotic. Especially when he sings ‘I don’t even know how to feel.’ More instrumentals are being played at this point: including synths and flutes. This enhances the mental state of cognitive dissonance.
Really and truly, this song is about not being able to have control of your emotions, no matter how hard you try. The melody, rhythm and music video not only reflect, but imitate this exact feeling with its complex fusion, build of melodic chaos and vocal effects. What better way to convey a message than to feel it, hear it and experience it.
Official music video
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All these Changes - nick Hakim
It all begins with an idea.
sooo, what about it?
All these changes is a song about the destruction we as humans are causing to the earth. The song melodically and lyrically conveys how human desecration and exploitation is hurting mother nature. This synth-soiled, deep detuned piano conveys the hurt, tension and tire mother nature has been experiencing whilst humans overexploit what she has been freely providing. The ghostly vocals echoes the non-existent future we may be near, our Earths demise. Nicki Hakim uses techniques such as onomatopoeia to emphasis words, modulation to take us to different themes, ascending and descending arpeggios to convey drifting and floating and panning to represent chaos. Concisely, this song instrumentally conveys such a strong image of damage and weariness which leaves a daunting message to listeners.
My advice when reading this JOURNALISTIC analysis, is to simultaneously listen to the song to get the full experience!
“she’ll flood us out, her heart is flaming..pretty soon we’ll be underwater”
WILL THIS MAKE ME GOOD, NICK HAKIM
Technical/ melodic/ lyrical features
Mixing tech..and other tech
Mixing techniques are also used to represent the theme of global warming. Muffled vocals represent the theme of the world going under water. Muffled vocals can be achieved by cutting the highs and lows on the EQ, compressor or altering the frequency.
The monophonic melody towards the end of the song may symbolise how hope is fading, we will destroy the earth until we exist no more. The song ends quiet and eery. The use of echo displays lack of life. The last few seconds of the song, you can hear how Mother Nature has given up after its last and final call; the candle flickers out.
what about Chords and ummm… modulations?
Modulating from different chords and keys is sooooo important in music. It creates excitement but also takes us on a journey from theme to theme. In this song, the use of modulation creates a perfect bridge that swims into the different segments of the song. The modulations in the song help to drift the song into various sections comparable to the way an ocean moves. For example, the modulation from the first verse into the bridge before the chorus is comparable to the ocean as it conveys how gets ahead of itself. The song in this section nearly feels like it is losing itself, until it goes back to tonic key. The percussion is also more faint here to convey drifting. Instrumentally wise, strings come in a soft swing like manner. The strings move in arpeggios and the dynamics get louder as they ascend, and lower as they descend. This rising and falling movement embodies a drifting tide.
After the chorus, the song instrumentally modulates back down to its tonic chord, compressing itself back under water.
The lyrics, the feeling.. tell me more
Oh I will…
We’re pulling out some Junior Cert English/GCSE technical words here so brace yourselves.. ever heard of onomatopoeia ? Well, this technique made great use in this song! Onomatopoeia here is used to emphasise the lyrics about the worlds demise and how it is fading out of existence. Listen to the lyrics specifically when Nick Hakim sings the words "fading” or “hurting.” The emphasis of the lyrics perfectly encapsulates the feeling of pain and erosion.
The lyrics towards the end of this song describe detachment in contrast to the floating or chaotic melody that is previously heard in the song. Mother nature has reached its limit, so the song emits its last hopeful cry knowing that it’s the end.
Really and truly, this song sings about hurting, in a way of raising the point that it makes us weaker, more vulnerable, detachable. Much like the human experience, it is difficult to acknowledge your pain when you are suffering as it feels as though you are not fully there, normal or complete – its almost as if a part of you has slipped away, leaving you disjointed and adrift. Accordingly, the emphasis of detachment conveys this feeling of how mother nature is truly hurting.
This song may just be a warning of what may happen…what better way to convey a message than to feel it, hear it and experience it.
NICK HAKIM - ALL THESE CHANGES (OFFICIAL AUDIO)
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Thanks for reading.. more song analysis’ soon!!