Finding Literature Outside of Books and Outside of the Classroom

As we’ve talked about in class, it’s difficult now, after taking this class, to read a lot of things or watch television shows without “close reading” them and analyzing them and their meanings. I’d noticed this a few times before, but nothing really stuck out to me too much. Personally, I’ve begun to do this with music too, looking into the lyrics of the music to see if I could identify any literary devices and being critical of the writing of the song. I especially noticed this after my Joyful Noise concert last Wednesday night when I couldn’t help but notice the true poetry that is such a vital part of the music.

All of the songs from our concert told stories, as does a lot of gospel music. Also, although the songs are very personal and sung with feeling coming from the performer, they are relatable to many people. The songs are used as a type of testimony or praise outside of a church (or within some churches.) These songs are easy to catch on to because of the large amount of repetition used. The repetition is not only so that it is enjoyable to the audience, but more so that a greater amount of people can sing the songs and they are easier to remember. Even though the music sounds complicated and uses multi-part harmony in the verses and refrain, they are typically easy to catch on to after only one or two times listening to the song.

One particular song that has stayed with me is “Help Me Believe,” originally performed by Kirk Franklin. The chorus of the song is as follows:

“Help me believe, can I believe,

Let me believe, I wanna believe.

I’ve been here before

And can’t take that hurt again”

It is easy to see the repetition included here, even in just this small section of the song. The chorus itself is also repeated several times throughout the song, and the verses in between all have the same melody, only with different wording to continue the story of a man’s journey in discovering his own beliefs.

I thought this was important to share with the class because I know I’m not the only one who has begun to have a tendency to pick apart everything they read now as a critic. For me it happened with music, I think I’d be interesting to know what everyone else is learning to look at with a critical eye too!