Dream by Priscilla Ahn
I was a little girl alone in my little world who dreamed of a little home for me.
I played pretend between the trees, and fed my houseguests bark and leaves, and laughed in my pretty bed of green.
I had a dream
That I could fly from the highest swing.
I had a dream.
Long walks in the dark through woods grown behind the park, I asked God who I'm supposed to be.
The stars smiled down on me, God answered in silent reverie. I said a prayer and fell asleep.
I had a dream
That I could fly from the highest tree.
I had a dream.
Now I'm old and feeling grey. I don't know what's left to say about this life I'm willing to leave.
I lived it full and I lived it well, there's many tales I've lived to tell. I'm ready now, I'm ready now, I'm ready now to fly from the highest wing.
I had a dream
The song Dream by Priscilla Ahn tells the story of a person’s life, one that encourages the audience to dream. It then implies that if you have lived with dreams and aspirations you will be pleased with how your life was lived and you will be ready to go.
In the second verse the metaphor, “The stars smiled down on me,” is used. It is referring to the situation where the girl asks God who she’s supposed to be. This metaphor gives the audience a positive feeling, one of comfort. Stars cannot smile, but the metaphor brings feelings of joy and allows the audience to know that the girl has received her answer from God. This helps set the mood of the second verse.
In the third verse Priscilla Ahn uses diction to convey her message. For death, she uses unique word choice, “I'm ready now, I'm ready now, I'm ready now to fly from the highest wing.” The diction used gives the audience a pleasant feeling about death rather than a morose feeling that usually comes when the word death is heard. Priscilla Ahn wants the audience to understand that the girl in the story has lived a full life that she is happy with and is ready to die. The diction helps the audience understand this and changes the emotion that is felt at the end of this song to one satisfaction.
Overall, the tools used by Priscilla Ahn allow the reader to feel the emotion that is trying to be portrayed by this song. Without the tools used in the song, the audience could have gotten a completely different message than the one presented.
3 comments:
It's very true that these tools apply in lyrics. Most of what is said in songs is a metaphor or uses different wordings to get what they really want to say across but with the desired emotion.
It seems like this song really is one big metaphor portraying someone's life. It is really neat that the rhetorical tools used in this song have such a big impact on the feeling the listener feels.
I like the fact that this song takes a different view on death. I feel like it uses its rhetorical tools to cause the audience to agree with their view.
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