The Script: "Breakeven"
I’ve always found it difficult to find a specific genre that I prefer over the rest when it comes to music. I listen to rap, pop, country, classical, oldies, and everything else under the sun. However, I think that I am able to pull out a few themes that are consistent. There tend to be two things that I look for in a song. I want a catchy beat and usually romantic content. I can listen to songs that make no sense to me at all if they have a tune that I can dance to. However, I enjoy very mellow songs as well, if they have lyrics that I can respond to on an emotional level. Most prominently, I think that I am drawn to songs that are about lost love. I like songs about unrequited love, breakups, or love from afar. If you throw in a catchy tune as well, I am hooked.
One song that I think signifies my preferences for music is the Script’s “Breakeven.” This is a song that has several key changes and a rhythmic beat that is very emotionally driven. It is about a man who has just broken up with his girlfriend. He talks about how a heart cannot break even. There is always one person who is in more pain, and in this case it is him. He is grieving for his lost love, while she is doing just fine. Every time I listen to the song, I become consumed by it. When I first heard it, it was impossible for me to do something else while I was listening to it. I felt affected. I could feel his pain. I could feel his heart.
I think that the song is quite poetic. While the topic may be discussed over and over again in music, I believe the writer takes an interesting twist on the idea. He says lines such as, “I’m praying to a God that I don’t believe in” and I instantly start to wonder, has he stopped praying to God because he has lost faith or has he started praying because he sees no other choice? I can begin to relate to both, as I think back on times when my own faith has faltered. Every line that he says I can see some connection to or I can at least feel the emotional turmoil that he is expressing. His voice is simply magnificent in my opinion. While I may not know much about the specific techniques that he uses, he is able to imbed his pain into each note. He lengthens certain notes to add more feel to them and he makes it impossible to let them go.
While I have never had my heart broken by a romantic partner, I can still relate to this song. I can relate to the idea of pain and to the idea of missing out on something that you had or always wanted. I connect to his song on a human level, as I see the pain of this singer and I instantly feel for him. I instantly feel sympathetic and I begin to commiserate. It is almost like an instant pity party, which is always emotionally cathartic.
I think that if I were to teach this song, I would want to discuss how the singer creates a connection to his audience. What makes this song successful is its ability to bring the reader in, to make the reader sympathetic. I would ask the students to decode the techniques that he uses to create this connection and why it is important to the success of the song. I would connect this to the process of creating tone. This song clearly works to create a tone of pain and hurt and every image, line, and note is dedicated to adding to this tone. This would be a very simply example to use to start working on the idea of tone in writing and media examples.
This technique of building a connection is evident in the music video as well. In the music video, we see the singer by himself in snapshots throughout the song. He is usually alone in a black abyss, with no visible surroundings around him. He is completely isolated. In between these snapshots, we see pictures of the girl. She is happy and beautiful. A few times there are pictures of them together, happy and in love. These pictures appear quickly and sporadically, as if they are memories resurfacing. It is as if he is living through these memories. He is unable to let go, as they become the only thing worth holding onto.
When the singer is alone, the tone and color of the video is dark and gray. However, the woman brings light with her. Even when she is alone, she appears like an angelic figure, with white light encompassing her. The video makes a clear distinction between life with her and life without her. It also emphasizes the loneliness and despair that the singer feels. He again, reaches out to his audience, as he extends his hand out to the air. His face is crinkled in pain and his expression is always tied to tone of agony.
Thus, I believe that song appeals to its audience through its ability to pull out the pain that every human has eventually felt in their life at some point. Even if you are the happiest you have ever been when listening to this song, I think that there is part of you that is forced to stop and to relate to the emotion that he is expressing. This song tackles a universal emotion and thus attracts a more universal appeal, if the audience is accepting of the tone and emotion that he is working to create.
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