Lyric Analysis and History

Lyric Analysis and History

Directions: Fill out the section below with the following:

1. Pick a song from any artist or genre (1950’s-2001)
2. You may have the same song as a friend, but you complete this assignment on your own, in your own words.
3. Analyze the lyrics looking for connections to subjects or periods we have talked about this year
4. Fill out the information provided
5. Write 5-6 paragraphs total (including the summary of the lyrics/story)
6. This is DUE_May 4, 2020__________________
7. This will count as your Performance Final!

Basic Information

Song Title: Moon River

Artist: Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer

Genre: pop

Original Date Release: 1961

Historical Subject/Time Period within the song: Friendship

Summary of the Lyrics

Directions:

• Write out a paragraph or two explaining the historical narrative being told in the song. Explain it not as a song, but as a story mostly. Who are the characters? What is the plot? What is the message? What does the author(s) want us to learn/know by the time they are done with the song? (Minimum 4 sentences).

Moon River is a decade’s old melody that has turned into an exemplary because of its music that is charming to the ears and its short yet significant verses. The song’s message is that of being a visionary as well as pursuing acting towards the acknowledgment of the dreams people have. Likewise, it mentions about the role that companions take in this journey.

This tune speaks to an exemplary show that of individuals who venture out from home, which is commonly a little spot to scan for acclaim, fortune, and joy in higher places, to always be unable to return or ever feel comfortable anyplace.

Holly herself is a disastrous character, so delightful and glitzy, encompassed by contact individuals and superstars, floating all through her life, entranced continuously with her, never adoring her. In the book, she does not wind up with the imperfect essayist, they are simply companions, and she sends him a postcard from Buenos Aires one day, so mostly she continues floating in these peculiar circles never to discover home again. The song is hugely about companionship (Edwards et al. 150). It reveals to us the significance and delight of having companions who go with you when you down and miserable as well as all for the duration of your lives. It familiarizes us with the idea that companions are essential part of an individual’s life.

Lyric Analysis Section

Directions: Write out four (4) total paragraphs, one on each of the following topics:

• ) How do you see the historical period you mentioned above in the lyrics? (be sure to mention and analyze some specific lines that you feel best to exemplify the historical time period in question) (minimum 4 sentences, must include at least 3 vocabulary terms.)
• ) Which historical figure(s) do you think would most likely agree with the message of the song? A historical figure that would disagree with the song? (Figure out what you think the historical value (s) would like AND dislike about the song) (minimum 4 sentences, must include at least 3 vocabulary terms.)
• ) Imagine it is the historical figure(s) you mentioned singing the song. Who is their target audience? Is he/she responding to any specific idea or another particular person? (minimum 4 sentences, must include at least 3 vocabulary terms).
• ) What are your criticisms of the song/historical figure/historical time period? What does the historical figure get wrong, if anything? Can you think of a song that challenges/suggests a counter-argument to the historical time period/figure you just analyzed? (minimum 4 sentences).

Historically, this is the front of a great tune, which initially turned out in 1961, with the verses being all around indistinguishable. They are founded on the beloved recollections of one of its essayists, Johnny Mercer, with Moon River being a real water body where he experienced childhood in Savannah, Georgia. In any case, when all is said in done, as on account of Ocean’s version, it audience a ton like a motivational track or that maybe he is tending to a lover. “Moon River” was composed by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer. They at the time were making names for themselves in Hollywood gratitude to Mancini’s work on the Pink Panther subject and Mercer’s verses on melodies like “Yahoo for Hollywood” and “air conditioning Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive” from White Christmas. There comes a second in Breakfast at Tiffany’s the place Holly Golightly (played by Audrey Hepburn) is feeling blue, so she pulls out a guitar, settles down on her emergency exit, and delicately sings, “Moon River” (Manchini et al. 50). It’s a lively tune for a New York socialite to pick, yet flawlessly summarizes the open party young lady who, in her calmer minutes, is a little community darling. Mercer experienced childhood in Savannah, Georgia, and had affectionate recollections of his youth there, picking huckleberries and viewing the river move by cool as a cucumber. As per The Telegraph, he began composing a tune about those Southern summer days and delicately streaming rivers, titling the song “Blue River” and joining references to his “huckleberry companion” concerning Mark Twain’s Huck Finn and the joyful huckleberry-picking days of his childhood. At the point when he and Mancini were recruited by Paramount to create a tune for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Mercer adjusted his verses to Mancini’s short theme. Mercer discovered that the title “Blue River” was at that point taken, so he thought of another one, and “Moon River” was conceived.

In terms of the historical figures, the imagery and symbolism the melody present to the audience members away from the persona looking and appreciating the wide river as he mulls over on his musings about his fantasies. The river is portrayed as “wider than a mile”; this infers he realizes that the excursion to progress is a long and troublesome one. The subsequent refrain/stanza then again lets us have a thought of what is going through the brain of the persona (Payri 140). Looking past the strict images this refrain lets us know, it appears that the exemplified being of the river goes with the persona in his quest for accomplishing his fantasies and finally succeeding. The unmistakable emotions that the melody passes on are cheerfulness and idealism.

A few records tell that the Moon River is a great river that is near the heart of the lyricist Johnny Mercer and, it appears that he embodied the river and utilized it as a character in the melody. Audience members (or readers) of the melody’s verses will understand that the ‘dream maker’ and ‘Heartbreaker’ alludes to the river, in this manner, enabling it to dream and break a heart. The verse additionally says of ‘two drifters,’ these strays are simply the persona and the Moon River. This implies he trusts that a companion will be available as he seeks after his fantasies.

This song utilized the unusual expression punctuation with, as the melody is essentially the persona conveying to the Moon River as though they were having a discussion. Looking at the remainder of the verses, it utilized a few different sayings besides embodiment and punctuation. For instance, ‘the rainbow’s end’ can be a metonymy to objectives or dreams that an individual would need to accomplish. There are likewise legends about leprechauns concealing their pot of gold on the rainbow’s end along these lines, this is as of now mention to a title and changes the correlation with something like a prize. Another reference is in the notice of ‘Huckleberry companion,’ which most presumably is suggested Mark Twain’s brave character of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn books (Peusner 35). The companion could be someone else who is there as he faces the world head-on. He depicted the river as both ‘dream creator’ and ‘Heartbreaker,’ which gives us the feeling that the persona sees the chance of neglecting to accomplish his fantasies. Yet, he realizes that when this happens, his companion will get him and guide him back to begin again. The problem is additionally present in tune. In “I’m crossing you in style sometime in the future” and “Any place you’re going I’m going your direction,” you allude to a similar article. Still, then the previous implies that he needs to outperform the river’s (which like this, represents the companion he seeks after) accomplishments, yet the last says that he will follow his lead. This equitable implies that a companion can be a motivation for an individual to succeed and later on, to rouse others, as well.

The target audience in this historical setting is the general society. The melody says there’s “such a great deal of world to see” before we come to the “rainbow’s end,” so if we’ve seen all the world that we can, at that point, I assumed the “rainbow’s end” must be demise which has been metaphorized ordinarily as of now by different scholars as to where the river closures; and it’s where the power that has cleared her along through life is uncovered as an accomplice as well as a companion (VanWweelden 5). Johnny Mercer, the lyricist, likewise came out of the country south and turned into a noticeable, looked for after figure. A portion he had always wanted to be worked out as expected, others did not. Even though he was barely fifty when he composed the tune, he had carried on with an extraordinary life, and I feel that whatever else “Moon River” is, it is additionally an individual summarizing fully expecting to gather his Maker.

Moon River is tied in with looking to the future and the past all the while. The river speaks to the time and the excursion from beginning to end. It is about the journey of life. Mercer said he picked huckleberries as a kid. Not something we have here in England as far as anyone is concerned, yet he held the memory dear. He connected him or her with companionship, having joined the name in his mind to Tom Sawyer’s companion, Huckleberry Finn (Spangler 184). This a huckleberry companion is one from youth in tune. It is a nostalgic perspective on a youth vision of things to come. Two strays wanting to travel over the world they cannot see. The river is streaming round the twist – into the inconspicuous future – and the vocalist and his companion are eager to be going on the excursion of coexistence. I consider it a kinship melody, not a sentimental one. It is concise; however, figures out how to state everything required in just a couple of straightforward lines.

Critically evaluating the song, what is clear is that a nearby partner of the artist, who he alludes to as his “companion,” plays a role. This is a person who he shares comparative desire with, as they seem to be “chasing after all the same.” What additionally appears to be evident is that the Moon River fills him with a feeling of expectation, as in causing him to fantasize about “crossing (it) in style someday” and going “off to see the world,” so from Frank Ocean’s view, the “moon river” doesn’t appear to be a natural area by any stretch of the imagination. This raises the question of how physical appearance relates to virtual dreams. Alternatively, maybe it is utilized more as an image for his goals throughout everyday life, close by his partner, who additionally assumes conspicuous roles in the melody. Hepburn, who was not known as a vocalist, played out the song herself, singing pleasantly, if sparingly on the track, filling it with sentimental longing for a more straightforward life (Eskew 502). Therefore, it is anything but difficult to decipher the start of the melody, “I’m crossing you in style someday” to mean I intend to cross from my everyday old world into an impressive one. In any case, at that point, everything changes. The river is not just a “dream maker,” which fits well with what the start implies, yet additionally a “heart breaker,” which means tolerating that there can be a cost. What is more, the song says, “Wherever you’re going, I’m going your way,” changing from intersection the river to following the river. She and the river are then named “two wanderers, off to see the world,” as she reconsiders the dream maker and heart breaker, which were a sort of foreign power as opposed to herself, as to a greater extent, an accomplice.

References

Edwards, Blake, et al. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Jurow-Sheperd Productions, 1961.

Eskew, Glenn T. “Johnny Mercer:” They Know His Songs.” The Georgia Review 66.3 (2012): 501-508.

Mancini, Henry, Johnny Mercer, and Clay Warnick. Moon River: As Sung in the Paramount Picture” Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Famous Music Corporation, 1961.

Payri, Blas. “‘Moon River and Me’: The film-song as leitmotiv in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” The Soundtrack 4.2 (2011): 137-152.

Pevsner, Leonardo. “A topological graph representation of melody scores.” Leonardo Music Journal (2002): 33-40.

VanWeelden, Kimberly, and Andrea M. Cevasco. “Geriatric clients’ preferences for specific popular songs to use during singing activities.” Journal of music therapy 46.2 (2009): 147-159.

VanWeelden, Kimberly, and Andrea M. Cevasco. “Repertoire recommendations by music therapists for geriatric clients during singing activities.” Music Therapy Perspectives 25.1 (2007): 4-12.

Spangler, G. R., N. R. Payne, and G. K. Winterton. “Percids in the Canadian waters of Lake Huron.” Journal of the Fisheries Board of Canada 34.10 (1977): 1839-1848.