One of Phil Collins’s most recognizable and best-selling hits, “In the Air Tonight” can be analyzed using the tools of literary criticism. The formalist approach takes the text at face value, ignoring extraneous elements that would interfere with the meanings embedded in the text. A biographical approach takes into account Collins’s personal history and how it impacts the lyrics of “In the Air Tonight.” Finally, the psychological approach to literary criticism lends a psychoanalytic lens towards the embedded meaning of Collins’s lyrics. The formalist approach focuses on the literal interpretation of the lyrics, which initially stress the titular motif of air. The speaker can “feel it coming in the air tonight,” intuiting a new inspiration. With the words “Oh Lord,” the narrator also reveals a prayerful state of mind, which builds tension throughout the song. The lyrics also indicate the underlying bitter tone of the song, with lines like “You can….

"When I was your Man" By Bruno Mars
Gifted Grammy award-winning singer, Bruno Mars, in his "When I Was Your Man," has largely utilized sad and regretful lyrics portraying longing for the woman who left him. However, does this really indicate he's now more sensible and mature, or is it simply wishful thinking? "When I was your Man" strikes straight at the hearts of people who lost a special person or loved someone deeply but did not realize it and failed to value them till it was too late. This song's lyrics depict a multitude of emotions such as remorse, discontent and miserableness expressed effectively through the singer's voice (Louis).

Same bed, but it feels just a little bit bigger now

The musician begins with the typical picture of a ruined relationship: an empty bed with a lone occupant, speaking of loneliness and sadness (Popdust).

Our song on the radio, but it don't sound….

Charles Ivey Song Lyrics
"Charlie Rutlage" by Charles Ives (1920), from Cowboy Songs and Other Ballads

The song "Charlie Rutlage" by composer Charles Ives was released in 1920 as part of Ives' collection Cowboy Songs and Other Ballads, and the work is distinctive of his signature style. The lyrics are mournful and melancholy, as Ives eulogizes "another good cowpuncher (who) has gone to meet his fate," telling the story of Charlie Rutlage, a hand on the XIT ranch who was killed after his horse fell and crushed him underneath. Ives sings the opening lines of the song with a celebratory bravado, lauding Rutlage by saying "Twill be hard to find another that's as liked as well as he" to suggest that the fallen cowboy was beloved by his friends and family. In my estimation, this passage is used by Ives to form an emotional connection between his listener and the titular….

The narrator is identifying both himself and the audience as people who would be better served by a world that disregards the notion of trespassing, and thus the ownership of land. The folk tradition allows Guthrie to insert this political identification and implicit critique smoothly, without breaking the rhetorical flow of the song.
Guthrie's critique only become more pointed, as the narrator describes seeing "his people" "by the relief office […] / as they stood hungry," which makes him ask "is this land made for you and me?" Guthrie contrasts the idealized world of the first few verses with the bleak reality of hunger and poverty in America after the Great Depression, and he uses the image of hungry people to vividly demonstrate the fact that American capitalism is not a system made for the majority of people living within it. Instead, it is based on a system of exploitation….

Song lyrics reflect the culture and social norms of their time period. Examining song lyrics from two different time periods can therefore reveal the ways these two generations differed in terms of messages about core subjects. Love is a universal theme in all song, making it an especially good subject for analysis. Songs about love will differ according to the definition of love, how love is expressed or shared between two people, and also gender roles in relationships. In 1975, one of the biggest-selling songs was by a band called Captain and Tennille. The song is called, "Love will Keep us Together." In 2010, there was a song called "Boyfriend" by Best Coast. Both of these songs are overtly about love. Although "Boyfriend" is about unrequited love, and "Love will Keep us Together" is about relationships, these two songs have similar lyrics about the meaning of love and about gender….

Courtly Lyrics
Western ideas about romantic love came in large part from the classical Greek and oman past. However, they were also filtered through the very different culture of the European Middle Ages. One can trace the concepts that dominated Western thinking until recently to the mid-12th Century. Before that time, European literature rarely mentions love, and women seldom figure prominently. After that time, within a decade or two, all transformed. Passionate love stories replaced epic combat tales, and women were praised to goddess status (Brians). Since courtly love was often a very complicated and confusing social interaction, in the 12th century, Andreas Capellanus, or Andreas the Chaplain as he was known, wrote the Art of Courtly Love, including the "rules of love." Below is one of the lyrics of the 14th century by songwriter Guillaume de Machaut. Capellanus' corresponding rules are written as well.

I want to stay faithful, guard your….

Music on Teens Actions
In the past 40 years all kinds of music has turned out to be more and more overt predominantly towards the negative side like sex, drugs, aggression and violence. Lately two of the genres which have caught great attention is hard rock music and rap music. In most of the cases, the lyrics of the music are made in such a way that they induce negativity in the developing minds of the teenagers. This negativity is reflected in their actions in the form of drug abuse, aggression, violence, sex and rebellious actions towards parents, family, family and society in general. This kind of negative music is a major concern these days because it poses mental and physical threat to the teens of today. Some of the other alarming effects of such music are pregnancy, STDs, accidents, killing and this has resulted to be the normal lifestyle….

social poblem of using and selling dugs is potayed in music. I'm inteested in studying this because music has at once been accused of gloifying dug cultue and also as being one of the few means of allowing uses to vent on the ealities of dug cultue. Clealy, the elationship between dugs and music is a complex one. This pape will seek to shed light on the motivations fo atists to incopoate dug cultue in thei songs and what they pesumably gain fom it, and what society pesumably gains fom it as well.
The fist song that this pape will examine when it comes to the teatment of dugs as subject matte fo songs is in the wok of 2 Pac in his famous song, "Changes." This song is so emakable in that it addesses a temendous amount of social injustice in that is still alive and well in the….

Tori Amos
In music, most artists will face a number of challenges. This is because there are struggles they will endure to become successful. At the same time, they have to be able to remain relevant and adapt with the music. This means creating a unique sound which can combine a number of elements together. In the case of Tori Amos, she was able to create a one of a kind genre that took the traditions of the singer -- songwriter from the 1970s and augmented them with an alternative -- punk sound. This created a new form of women entertainer, who wanted to use this as a way to highlight social messages in their songs. While at the same time, it is giving women a sense of empowerment in the way they carried themselves and performed.

As a result, there will be an examination of the influences of Tori Amos and….

Though formulaic language expressions have been in regular use, in popular media forms, for at least the majority of the twentieth century if not indeed for centuries longer, their recognition and study is recent development (Van Lancker-Sidtis & allon 2004). Some texts have even been found to be comprised of a quarter or of formulaic expressions, demonstrating at once a reliance on collective cultural interpretations and a marked lack of originality in popular media language use (Van Lancker-Sidtis & allon 2004). These phrases make for interpretations that are both more colloquially colored and less symbolically imbued for their necessarily repetitive nature (thus their emergence as formulaic expressions) and their needed consistency in order to remain meaningful (Van Lancker-Sidtis & allon 2004).

Music and Language

The relationship between music and language is the subject of a great deal of debate, and ever researchers that support comparisons between the two uniquely human cognitive phenomena….

The whole concept of Christianity is that all people are sinners, but that God will forgive those sins and those sinners if they only ask for redemption. The lyrics say, "I lost my way but now I'm on my knees / if it's not too late won't you tell me please / You gotta place for me / a little grace for me" (Bentley). That lyric is not about the prodigal son, it is about all who have lost their way, which is every Christian. hat this song makes clear is that the idea of redemption as it has been portrayed in Christianity may have its beginnings in the parables told by Jesus, but those parables were broadened by the crucifixion and resurrection, and they changed them in the same way that they changed all of the other traditions of Judaism.
orks Cited

Bentley, Dierks. "Prodigal Son's Prayer." AZLyrics.com. N.p. 2011.….

Again, he uses dialect that his fans can relate to instead of being concerned about 'proper English'. This is very effective at making the words identifiable to his audience. The more people can relate to what you are saying, the more likely they are to take it to heart and actually do what you are asking them to do: "It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes." The most ironic thing about this song is the last few lines. I cannot help but wonder if 2 pac was having some kind of premonition when he wrote: "Cause I always got to worry 'bout the pay backs/some punk that I roughed up way back/comin' back after all these years/rat-tat-tat-tat-tat that's the way it is."
That may be the way it is, but to 2 pac, that did not mean things had to stay that way. "Keep Ya….

Gender and Sex: Blurred Lines or Clear Boundaries?
One of the hottest songs of summer 2013 was a song by Robin Thicke called "Blurred Lines." The song gained popularity because of its catchy tune, and many people who found themselves dancing along to the song found themselves surprised by the lyrics when they actually listened to the song. In fact, the lyrics to the song were sufficiently suggestive that discussions about whether they were a symbol of rape culture became almost as popular as the song itself. The lyrics were not helped by the video for the song, which featured Thicke, two guest artists, and three scantily clad models in situations that could only be described as bizarre, leading to allegations that the video marginalized its female performers. Adding fuel to this fire was a performance by Thicke featuring Miley Cyrus, in which they seemingly referenced the video and Miley engaged….

Media Has Shaped the Ages through Music:
Music is a medium that has shaped the ages in relation to its significant role in social movements. Actually, music has acted as one of the various methods and vehicles through which social movements have existed and developed. The role and significance of music in shaping the ages is primarily attributed to the fact that it represents more than entertainment as it has spoken for generations and exemplified belief systems. Generally, music has had a tremendous relationship to and impact on social movements in every decade from the 1960s through 2000-2010. Music has been used as a means of exemplifying the mood of the decade in terms of high profile events or movements that took place in the respective decade.

Music through the Decades:

As previously mentioned, music has played a significant role through the ages by shaping social movements and exemplifying the mood of….

Social Analysis of the lues Music in the American Society
The blues, or blues music, has been considered an important and popular music genre in the history of American music. Its history goes back many years ago, during the black slavery period in the American history. lues music was said to have traced its roots in the cotton plantations commonly found in the South, and that blues music sang by the African-American slaves were their forms of protest against the slavery system that the white American society encourages. However, blues music did not proliferate and became prevalent among the black and white American society until after the Emancipation period, wherein most African-American slaves were now freed from bondage to slavery legally, and slavery was now abolished and prohibited to practice in the society, especially in the white American community.

The blues is defined as a "musical style created in response to….

Music is important for several reasons:

1. Emotional expression - Music allows us to express our emotions, whether it be happiness, sadness, excitement, or anger. It can help us cope with difficult times and enhance our positive experiences.

2. Cultural significance - Music is an integral part of many cultures around the world. It reflects the history, traditions, and values of a society and can bring people together in a shared experience.

3. Cognitive development - Listening to and playing music can improve cognitive skills such as memory, attention, and problem-solving. It can also stimulate creativity and critical thinking.

4. Therapeutic benefits - Music....

Compare and Contrast Essay Topics

Literary Analysis

Compare and contrast the themes and motifs in two works of literature.
Analyze the use of symbolism and imagery in two different poems.
Explore the development of a character in two different novels.
Examine the differences in narrative structure between two short stories.
Compare the perspectives of two narrators in a novel.

Historical Events

Compare and contrast the causes and consequences of two major historical events.
Analyze the similarities and differences in the strategies used by two different leaders during wartime.
Explore the impact of two different technological advancements on society.
Examine the ways in....

1. The Impact of Musical Theatre on Society
2. The Evolution of Musical Genres
3. The Psychology of Musical Preference
4. The Influence of Technology on the Music Industry
5. The Role of Music in Film
6. The Importance of Music Education in Schools
7. The Representation of Gender and Race in Popular Music
8. The Power of Lyrics in Music
9. The Connection Between Music and Emotions
10. The Role of Musicals in Preserving Cultural Heritage
11. The Rise of Music Streaming Platforms and Their Impact on the Music Industry
12. The Relationship Between Music and Memory
13. The Effect....

The Evolution and Impact of Musical Theatre

The historical development of musical theatre from its origins to modern Broadway and West End
The influence of different musical genres, such as operetta, vaudeville, and rock, on the evolution of musical theatre
The impact of musical theatre on popular culture, including its role in shaping societal norms and values

The Role of Music and Lyrics in Musical Theatre

The importance of music and lyrics in conveying the story, characters, and themes of a musical
The different ways in which music and lyrics can be used to create emotional impact and drive the narrative....