My Book: "The Way Back"

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Don't Stop Believin'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCy7lLQwToI

Don’t Stop Believin’

The song that I selected to analysis to “Don’t Stop Believin’” by the popular band Journey recorded and released in 1981. In my opinion, the main idea for this song is about the common search for love in a world we’re all somewhat lonely. The song discusses how life can make everyone feel lonely and we’re all just looking for love and companionship. The song also mentions the hardships of life and all the things we use to fill that void.

The first verse is about adolescence and the loneliness we experience during it and our will to escape it. “Just a small town girl...Living in a lonely world” and “Just a city boy...Born and raised in South Detroit” both are very different people but they share the same experiences of the world and want to escape it which is discussed in the next line. After both of these lines in the verse the lines “Took the midnight...Goin’ anywhere” are sung this shows that both of these very different people share the same will to escape their lonely lives and leave, even it is just to “anywhere”

The next verse is about the different places and ways that people try to find love or at least something to distract them. “Singer in smoky room...The smell of wine and cheap perfume” is invoking the imagery of a bar a place where people both try to find love and spend their time trying to ignore their problems. “For a smile they can share the night...It goes on and on, and on, and on” this line actually talks about the finding of companionship but to me it still doesn’t mean the finding of love. It really talks about how people are so desperate to not be lonely that they will form a relationship just on the basis of a smile. And the fact that it goes “on and on…” is implying that this is cycle that is continue as we always search of love and companionship.

The third verse is about the people who are searching for love and the deeper meaning to that. “Strangers waiting...Up and down the boulevard” is about how about endlessly search for love just constantly walking about hoping to find a complete stranger to make a connection with. “Their shadows searching...In the night” brings up the imagery of shadows, in the this case meaning people’s hidden selves and secrets. “Streetlight people” contrasts this by discussing light, from this we can probably determine that this means the people that are roaming the streets looking for love can only see the face that people but on in public because the light has illuminated and removed their shadow. “Livin’’ just to find emotion...Hidin’ somewhere in the night” is referring the fact that people are okay with only seeing the fake version of people as long as they get to form some kind of kind of emotional connection.

The fourth verse is about how the trials and tribulations of life affects people and how they try to escape it. “Workin’ hard to get my fill...Everybody wants a thrill” may be about how everybody works hard to get the basic needs of life but still wants something that actually excites them. This line may also be implying how some people will resort to getting cheap thrills, like sex, instead of working for love. “Payin’ anything to roll the dice...Just one more time” as previously mentioned throughout the song people have a lot of struggles in life and rarely find true love to help them. So this line is probably about the great price people would pay in order to get another chance at having a better life. “Some will win...Some will lose” elaborates on this further saying that some people will get a good roll and have a great life, while others will get a bad one. “Oh the movie never ends...It goes on and on, and on, and on” again brings about the metaphor of a cycle that people will continue living out. There will always be people will good lives and people will bad lives.

The chorus takes a different view on all this, by presenting a more optimistic view of life and love. The main line of the chorus is relatively self-explanatory, “Don’t stop believing...Hold on to that feeling” this line is telling people to not give up on the search for love even though it is incredibly hard and rare. The chorus again mentions the symbol of “streetlight people” but in this context it is saying that although we may only form connections with people’s public face it is possible for us to form deeper emotional connections. The main idea or moral of the song is brought to full form in the chorus as although the rest of the song lists all the reasons why the search for love is impossible, the chorus states that it is still important to hold on to love because when you working so hard to find it is what makes it so great.

It is for that reason why this song really appeals to me, because it makes a lot of deep and even dark observations about people, while still giving a positive message. There are a lot of terrible things about life but this song still makes you feel better about it. Not by simply ignoring the problem like a lot of “happy” songs, but by recognizing the problem and still finding something good in it. Overall this song is an excellent observation and analysis of the human condition and love, while still being fun to listen too.

Rejection

It’s not often I get rejected, but I feel like I do

I never give anyone the chance

Long before someone could even think that I would have something to propose I feel rejected

“They would never say yes” “They probably never even thought about” “Why risk it”

These grand fantasies of the possibilities I could have had, they’ve been rejected

Not by someone else but by myself

I never give myself the respect to even consider it

Pure delusions of grandeur

“That could never happen to me” “Why waste my time”

I’m not good enough

Rejection is sharp stab from others but from yourself it’s constant anguish

I never been rejected by another

But I always reject myself

Unwanted

It’s a damp Halloween night as the rain falls bitterly from the sky and drenches everything around me. The bowl I’m laying in is opressive and crowed, despite the fact that it’s filled with colourfully wrapped sweets unlike myself. While the popular candies like KitKats and Skittles are always quickly scooped up, I’ve never gotten a chance to feel wanted. Why? I am simply a lowly piece of salted black licorice.

It's so fucking cold out here. I heard other candies get to stay inside on nights like this. At least I'm near the bottom, so the rain isn't hitting me quite as bad as the ones on top. Some of the others get to stay together in bright, pretty packaging. Not me. I'm here by myself, in a clear, boring plastic wrapper. I guess a single piece of salted black liquorice just doesn't get the same amount of love and craving as a goddamn package of fuzzy peaches. Whatever, it won’t matter in the end anyways.

The children continuously snatch candies here and there greedily from this cheaply made orange and black plastic bowl. I feel little hands of costumed children grab as much candy as they can from where I am currently trapped. The bowl was left outside by the lazy people that purchased me in the first place, giving candies like me zero hope of trick-or-treater’s picky candy selection. I’m so lonely. The longer I lay here, the greater the threat of being left behind and forgotten becomes; but I wouldn’t expect anything better at this point.

Then it happens. A little boy comes up to the porch and reaches into the bowl to grab a handful of us candies when I suddenly notice a warmth I’ve never felt before. I’ve been chosen! The boy inspects the goodies he acquired and spots me among the others.The rush of wind that surrounds me as I fall through the air and back into the bowl takes away any hope I’ve had of being carried off and wanted. I watch as the boy turns away and smiles with joy as he eats the good candy.

The concept of time evades me and the seemingly endless hours go past, countless gleeful children taking the every last bit candy around me, leaving me cold and alone. I watch in agony and disappoint as a light begins to crest above the now nearly empty bowl. I guess it’s over, I’m not wanted.

As I begin to wonder what will become of me I hear something in the distance. It sounds like gasping or heavy breathing or maybe... panting? It’s quiet and small but I can hear it getting louder as the distance separating us shrinks until there is practically nothing in between. I listen as the sound of the small footsteps walking up the concrete stairs stops before me. Looking up towards the edge of the bowl, I see the silhouette of a small dog. It peers above the bowl, and almost looks as if it's smiling as it's muzzle dips below the edge of my confine and grabs me by my wrapper. The dog trots its way down the stairs and continues up the street, towards the breaking dawn and my freedom at last.

Regret II

People are always want more from life, not matter how high I reach I always want to go higher. That's why I regret things maybe even if I think it was the right decision I wish I could have made a better one.

I think I did the right thing but I do regret what I did to you.

 

I regret the time I thrusted the knife through your stomach and watched as you bleed. I regret when I washed my hands of the blood. 

I regret wiping the floor of the blood and carrying you to the basement

At least now I can love you the way I want too

I just regret that I did't do it sooner

Regret

It’s impossible to choose every option when presented with a choice, so no matter what you do you will at one point in time make the wrong choice. Maybe we don’t realize it at the time but someday we will all look back and have regrets based on choices we made or the chances we didn’t take. So what then, if we all have regrets than what makes them hurt so much, it's because deep down we all want more. We always live our lives trying to reach the top but no matter how high we get, we always need more. Even if the good choices outweigh the mistakes I will always think about things I could have had, or the places I could be, but now I’m stuck in place. To me life is like walking through tunnels, sometimes you have a different direction you could move in, but you can never go back, and you can never see where you're going, so once you reach the end and you look back to see the paths you could have walked, and you realize that you lost. We like to say that all people can succeed in life and do something that makes them happy but in reality there really are people who lose at life, and it’s a scary thought so we, myself included like to ignore it. So what can we do about it, well nothing really, we will all have regrets and some of us will be losers but no matter what we are where we are so we might as well find something good in it. I don’t think about the relationships I lost because of a miscommunication, I think of the love I have in the relationship I have now. I don’t think about the tests I didn’t study for or the homework I forgot to do, I think about the tests I did well on and the places I’m going because of them. I don’t think about the fact I might fail to reach my goals I think about the goals I’ve already hit and the ones I’m going to. I don’t think about how I'm probably going to fail, I pretend, and act like I'm winning.
But maybe that's what I'll end up regretting.

Loss

When people think of loss they often associate it with one particular feeling, pain, but to me the two are unrelated. Unlike loss pain is simple, it hurts, that's all, you may think there’s more but that’s all up to context, pain itself just hurts. Pain is stagnant and never changing, no matter how many times you run the knife along your hand it will always hurt, and it will hurt the same. Loss has no pain, it doesn’t hurt, I just wish it did. Loss isn’t like cutting your hand with a knife, it’s like you don’t even have a hand. My loss doesn’t hurt, maybe it should but it just doesn’t. It’s like I’ve lost the ability to even feel pain, all that’s there is emptiness. a contradiction within itself. It’s often said but nothing can ever truly fill the hole left by loss, you can build around it create more in it’s place but it will never fit the hole perfectly. I think of it like a puzzle, we are built perfectly together but life can break apart our pieces, and sometimes we lose pieces. We can try and find new pieces but they can never fit the same. When I heard about the feelings of a great loss I expected it to hurt, I expected a great and tragic pain, but it never came. As soon as it happened I just felt empty, it sounds cold-hearted but never did feel the pain all I felt was guilt about not feeling the pain. Maybe that’s what makes loss so hard, pain is what reminds us we’re alive, so when we don't feel that pain, it seems like we’re dead.