Character and Setting in Popular Music :: Music Communication Essays

Character and Setting in Popular Music Whether it is through music or written literature, such as a novel, characters convey emotion and thought. The audience understands through the characters present. Just as we find characters we love we also find characters we despise. Setting is much the same. Whether the setting is explicitly given or simply implied, the audience has a picture in mind. Sometimes it is a place of great beauty and sometimes it is a place we would rather disregard. It is my observations however that character and setting are to some extent present in every song I listen to. Character and setting are not only additions to music and songs, but seem to be what makes the songs. Of the popular music available today, we can find songs dedicated to telling a story about a lost loved one, a favorite place of recluse, love in general. But not each of the popular songs lay out the setting or give the embodiment of a character. Listening to these songs however, the listener is transposed into the song and can see as the speaker talks. For example, Alicia Keys’s song â€Å"Diary.† This song is the voice of a woman speaking to her lover. â€Å"Lay your head down on my pillow,† she sings. â€Å"Here you can be yourself.† So from the beginning we are invited to witness the sweet whispers of lovers in a room. The bed, inviting and comfortable, sits in center stage. We listen to the woman tell of her love and the security her man can find in her and she in him. â€Å"I am the pages of your diary,† she sings. Again, Alicia does not tell us all the details, but somehow the picture is so clear. Another example of a popular song that has setting and character is a song by India Arie entitled â€Å"Nature.† In this song she is telling a loved one to slow down: â€Å"Let’s sit and watch the flowers grow†¦let’s sit and watch the river flow.† She believes that nature is a show and there is music there. And although she doesn’t really give us a clear character we can relate to, we can see the singer as the character.