Occasionally I have a habit of listening to one song on repeat throughout the duration of writing an essay, if I'm writing in a long block. I think my record was 'Alone again (naturally)' by Gilbert O'Sullivan, playing it 166 times over the course of three days. Yeah, I don't think I'll even manage to break that record (and I feel like that might be a very good thing), but last week when writing my final essay for the semester, I was listening to a variety of musicians and albums, until I ended up listening to Jake Bugg's song 'Broken'.
My iTunes library was on shuffle, and I'm the type of person who has to listen to music when working because it actually helps me concentrate on the task at hand, instead of allowing all the random thoughts that would normally pop up in my mind. After a while, I somehow manage to tune out the songs, still listening to it, but it's just sort of like white noise in the sense that it is always there, but I don't really notice it unless I really change my focus back to the music. But when 'Broken' came on and it was late in the evening after a long day of continuous work, I literally was broken from the "essay-trance" and was quite spellbound. And that's when I began listening to it on repeat. It's one of those songs that has the ability to stop you in your tracks and your heart sort of flutters achingly with a sense of loss, which you don't know where it came from.
The lyrics themselves, I find are quite mysterious, not quite able to grasp the meaning, so I just think it's really open for the individual to reflect for their own interpretation. For me, I imagine it's about someone who tried and then gave up on life, and the singer is mourning and trying to hold on to them and the possibility of hope for a future, despite the brokenness of the person left behind. I don't really know. I may be just completely stupid and missing the obvious which everyone else gets, but that's what I imagine.
The acoustic guitar opening is soothing and when the subtle beat of the drums, it's like a faint heartbeat that grows stronger and it becomes your own heart which motions the song forward as well as the listener. It's just beautiful in every sense.
My iTunes library was on shuffle, and I'm the type of person who has to listen to music when working because it actually helps me concentrate on the task at hand, instead of allowing all the random thoughts that would normally pop up in my mind. After a while, I somehow manage to tune out the songs, still listening to it, but it's just sort of like white noise in the sense that it is always there, but I don't really notice it unless I really change my focus back to the music. But when 'Broken' came on and it was late in the evening after a long day of continuous work, I literally was broken from the "essay-trance" and was quite spellbound. And that's when I began listening to it on repeat. It's one of those songs that has the ability to stop you in your tracks and your heart sort of flutters achingly with a sense of loss, which you don't know where it came from.
The lyrics themselves, I find are quite mysterious, not quite able to grasp the meaning, so I just think it's really open for the individual to reflect for their own interpretation. For me, I imagine it's about someone who tried and then gave up on life, and the singer is mourning and trying to hold on to them and the possibility of hope for a future, despite the brokenness of the person left behind. I don't really know. I may be just completely stupid and missing the obvious which everyone else gets, but that's what I imagine.
The acoustic guitar opening is soothing and when the subtle beat of the drums, it's like a faint heartbeat that grows stronger and it becomes your own heart which motions the song forward as well as the listener. It's just beautiful in every sense.
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