Free Post 4.16.12

Song Analysis: 'Hurts Like Heaven' by Coldplay

  For this free post of analyzing a song of our choice I had a really tough time choosing a song. I went through my iTunes Library for like thirty minutes yesterday listening and looking up lyrics on Google for this assignment! Finally I hit one of my favorite bands, Coldplay, and knew I had to do one of their songs for this assignment. So the Coldplay song I chose was 'Hurts Like Heaven' on their newest album 'Mylo Xyloto'.  I've always seen Coldplay's songs are poetic but it was just like reading a poem with these song lyrics!

  From just looking at the title 'Hurts Like Heaven' I saw a simile which was a positive start to this assignment. Throughout there is enjambment and caesura as I annotated my lyrics {http://www.elyrics.net/read/c/coldplay-lyrics/hurts-like-heaven-lyrics.html}. I saw so much repetition in the song but the repeated words are 'written', 'you', 'control','street' , 'heart', 'heaven', 'weapon', 'cold', & 'mark'. The repeated sayings/lines throughout are 'It's so cold', 'Still I won't let go', 'Oh you use your heart as a weapon', 'And it hurts like heaven', 'Concrete canvas', 'Armed with a spray can soul', 'Yes, I feel [a little bit] nervous', 'How come they're out', & 'Let [them] take control'. I notice alliteration of the letters C & B. In one stanza the alliteration of the letter C is throughout, 'So on concrete canvas under cover of dark Concrete canvas I'll go making my mark Armed with a spray can soul I'll be armed with a spray can soul'. While only in a line I saw the alliteration of the letter B, 'Fire from the belly and the beat from heart'. All of these repeated lines and words bring emphasis towards the rebellion of the song.

  While reading the lyrics and listening to the song I got two different images but I still got imagery at the same places for both. Imagery in the song are 'Written in graffiti on the bridge in a park 'Do you ever get the feeling that you're missing the mark?', 'Written in marker on a factory 'I struggle with the feeling that my life isn't mine', 'See the arrow that they shot trying to tear us apart', & 'On every street, every car, every surface are names'. After reading and listening to the song many times I notice rhymes, which should of been the first & easiest things for me to find! The rhymes I found we always end rhymes, because they were at the end of the lines making a rhyme. The rhyming lines are 'Written in graffiti on a bridge in the park 'Do you ever get the feeling that you're missing the mark?', 'Written up in marker on a factory sign 'I struggle with the feeling that my life isn't mine', 'Oh you, use your heart as a weapon And it hurts like heaven', 'See the arrow that they shot, trying to tear us apart Fire from my belly and the beat from my heart',  'On every street, every car, every surface are names And at the streets arise, I'll be rather insane', 'So on concrete canvas under cover of dark Concrete canvas, I'll go making my mark'. One small thing I noticed were that there were the occasional opposites put next to each other! Examples of these opposites are 'It's so cold, It's so cold See the arrow that they shot, trying to tear us apart Fire from my belly and the beat from my heart' & 'Yes, I feel a little bit nervous Yes, I feel nervous and I cannot relax'. Both the rhymes and opposites were kind of ironic in the song.

Lastly I noticed that when I read the lyrics out loud them seemed to mean differently to myself than whenever I listen to Coldplay perform the lyrics which I thought was odd. There are a lot of important tone changes and diction in the song that make certain lyrics more important than others. There are a lot of sounds and important guitar bridges which I think add the drama of this rebellious love song. Whenever I heard Coldplay songs I knew the words but after looking at this song I've found that they have a lot more meaning than just a catchy beat which makes me love Coldplay even more!