Analysis

 

Stand

Music is vocal and instrumental sounds combined to make a beautiful harmony.  Many music artists can express themselves and their emotions through their songs by telling their own personal and sometimes fictional stories.  Listeners can relate to music and can hear melodies or specific words and connect them to something they feel or have experienced in life. Many things people experience or go through are the same events others do to as long as feelings.  For example we all at a point in our lives feel happiness and sadness.  And music is what a lot of humans turn to for relaxation and happiness.  The famous country band Rascal Flatts creates a strong variety of songs many people can relate to.  And the song stand just does exactly that.  Stand is one of their best songs because the powerful vocals and the meaning of the lyrics are significantly shared amongst one another at a point in life when we go through hardships. 

 

The lead singer of the band, Gary LeVox has a strong voice that is capable of hitting high melodies and holding notes for an ongoing time.  This is essential in the song. The song starts off with fast steady acoustic guitar strums along with the electric guitar playing another simple beat.  Then the words start to pour out and the rhythm starts to become upbeat.  In addition the first sentences in the song are sung softly but suddenly the beat gets faster and Gary sings with more passion and really emphasizes the meaning of the lyrics.  Shortly after, the chorus is introduced.  The chorus is like the climax, once the climax is reached everything gets more intense and the mood starts to pick up and the focus is on the strongest point or part.  The band uses a lot of variation of high and low notes.  Depending on the word and the high or low note the tone of his voice is also factored in.  Once the chorus is over the tone is softer but still sung passionately because the meaning in the lyrics are so strong.  Towards the end of the song the beat slows down and the great finishing words leave listeners satisfied with the story being told followed by repeating the chorus.  The energy in the song is very inspiring and motivational, it is to help people feel like they can push through the hardest obstacles we sometimes may face and to remind us to never forget how strong we are capable of being.

The band uses a lot of metaphors and similes through out the song along with a great use of imagery.  It is very useful and important when artists use poetic devices in their songs.  It helps listeners connect and understand the song better.  When you can picture what the words say, that is when a song can be very successful and popular.  Therefore Rascal Flatts made their song great! In the chorus the phase “you might bend till you break” creates the picture of someone bending to the point it looks they might break.  But what it really means is a person that has so much stress and sadness in their life that they feel they can’t do it anymore, and they feel like they’re on the verge of cracking.  A great simile in the song is “life’s like a novel with the end ripped out”.  They are comparing a person’s whole life to being like a book but with the end ripped out because we don’t know what’s going to happen in the end or what’s going to be the next chapter for us in life.  The meaning behind these metaphors and similes are so powerful and moving that when you hear it you can’t help but relate to it or think to a point in your life when you felt this kind of way.  The emotion in the song is sad but uplifting at the same time which is hard to make the song be a happy song; which the main goal of the song is.  The song isn’t supposed to be sad it’s supposed to help overcome the sad emotions humans feel at times.   The lyrics “you get mad you get strong, wipe your hands shake it off, then you stand” motivates someone to stop feeling sad and face their battles and to move on.

Emotions get the best of us even when we wish they didn’t, or don’t believe they do.  But at the end of the day you have to keep moving forward in life and push through the obstacles we are faced with time to time.  The song stand is a great song to listen to when you feel hopeless and need to feel alive again.  Music soothes the soul and helps us calm down to a relaxed state of mind.  This song goes hand and hand with just that.  From the amazing rhythm to the perfect words, stand is a flawless song.

Reference
Daly, Blair, and Danny Orton. "Stand." Rec. 22 Jan. 2007. Lyric Street. Rascal Flatts. Dann Huff, 2007. CD.