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Samantha Urena - Final Essay

Page history last edited by SamanthaUrena 9 years, 3 months ago

Samantha Urena

Alan Liu

English 149

December 15, 2014

 

Mapping Lyrical Sentiment

 

     When approaching literature, the reader is essentially looking to figure out the meaning of the literary work. Meaning in literature can be drawn out in many different ways. Some readers are looking to grow more socially aware, more politically aware, more historically aware, or more self-aware. Meaning can be discovered and explored through many different avenues of literary analysis. A reader will observe a myriad of aspects like context, plot, characters, themes, motifs, and symbols. If the reader is doing their job correctly, he or she will do both a close reading and a far reading to understand all these different aspects. The more angles a reader approaches a literary work, the more meaning can be uncovered and affirmed. This project, Mapping Lyrical Sentiment, set out to do just that: to approach a written work from a new angle to uncover and affirm the meaning of the work.

     The importance of location: One of the most important aspects to understand of any written work is its context, both its geographical context, social context, and historical context. Literature is shaped by where it is written and characters are shaped the setting they are placed. To understand a work, it is important to look at when and where it occurred. Location has the power to reshape events and events have an affect on the characters in the work. Therefore, it is crucial to consider locale when analyzing any literary work.

     The importance of word choice: All of the things that help a reader gather meaning about a story - from context to tone to symbols to characters to setting - are all utterly reliant on words. The writer conveys the tone, the mood, and the sentiment of a work through their careful word choice. Good story-telling rests in its careful use of words. Therefore word choice is crucial to consider when observing a literary work.

     This project, Mapping Lyrical Sentiment, looks at these two things to uncover meaning. It looks at both the importance of location and the importance of word choice when conveying the overall sentiment of a work. The sentiment contributes to the overall meaning of a work. The project’s objective was to observe the overall sentiment different kinds of places created by analyzing song lyrics about six specific cities. This kind of research would provide different ways of understanding both a location and the feelings that location conveys. After looking at how word choice conveys the sentiment of specific places, the second part of the project is about observing how word choice conveys the sentiment of a less-than-specific kind of place: home. This project set out to understand the sentiment cities and “home” create within a writer by taking a close look at word choice.

     Description of Project: Using Spotify, the project creators charted the top six songs about six specific cities. The project looks at three cities in California (Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego) and three cities in New York (New York, Brooklyn, and Manhattan). Using Sentiment Analysis, the project creators plugged the lyrics to each of these songs into the tool and added and subtracted the sentiment of each stanza (whether it was positive, negative, or neutral) until having the average of the overall sentiment of the song. After compiling the sentiment of the song lyrics, the project creators charted the song on one of three maps (a Positive Map, a Negative Map, or a Neutral Map). By looking at any of the individual maps, one can observe the immediate sentiment an artist feels towards a particular place. One can explore the Positive Map, for example, and notice reoccurring themes and word choice shared by the songs. Therefore, the created StoryMap allows one to explore feeling as much as location.

Again using Spotify, the project creators charted the top twelve songs titled “home”. Similar to the first half of the project, the Sentiment Analysis tool was used to gauge the overall sentiment of each song. Another StoryMap was created so that one can explore a map of “home”. The points on the StoryMap are determined by the city the songwriter is originally based. A person can then explore the many physical and geographical locations different songwriters might consider their home.

     Overview of California: The three cities observed in California each have a different overall sentiment. Los Angeles has an overall positive sentiment, San Diego has an overall negative sentiment, and San Francisco has an overall mixed sentiment (half of the songs are positive while the other half are negative). All three cities are characterized by their location on the gold coast; at least one song per city includes lyrics about the ocean. Los Angeles is characterized by its heat and by the bustling city life. Its music is characterized by upbeat rock sounds: steady drums, driving bass, and gritty guitar riffs. San Diego is characterized as a city of uncertainty and as a city that one merely visits, but does not stay. The music is a mix of some acoustic sounds, acoustic pop, pop rock, and rap. The genre of music is a mix and therefore matches the overall feeling of uncertainty the city evokes. The weather and landmarks of the city characterize songs about San Francisco. Every single song looked at includes mentions or alludes to either the Golden Gate Bridge or the well-known fog that rolls into the city.

     Overview of New York: The three cities observed in New York are Brooklyn, Manhattan, and New York City. Brooklyn has an overall negative sentiment, and Manhattan and New York City has an overall positive sentiment. Brooklyn is characterized by the identity and belonging a person can claim by being in this city. Manhattan is characterized by its ability to shape the feelings of any person located there. New York City is characterized as a place that brings answers and comfort to the individual that finds himself or herself there.

     Overview of West Coast vs East Coast Comparison: The objective in observing California and New York was to be able to compare and contrast the west coast and the east coast. Does one coast convey a more positive sentiment than another? While Los Angeles is the most positively sung about city, both east coast and west coast convey the same overall sentiment. The east coast has a total of nine positive songs, two neutral songs, and seven negative songs. The west coast has a total of nine positive songs, one neutral song, and seven negative songs. Therefore, both coasts are marked by an overall positive sentiment. Tom Waits has a line in his song “San Diego Serenade” that sings “I never saw the east coast 'til I move to the west”. It is this idea of comparison to create understanding that caused the project creators to compare and contrast the two coasts with one another.

     California: The analysis of cities in California provided more dynamic differences because of the distances between cities on the California coast. The three cities looked at in New York were more closely knit geographically speaking and because of this, the songs are more closely knit in their meanings as well. The three California cities have greater distances between them and vary in weather and cultural atmosphere.

     Los Angeles: Los Angeles provided the most positive sentiment. Los Angeles was characterized as a living thing by many of the songs. Lyrics like “the city is alive and breathing,” sung by Sugarcult emphasize this living, breathing Los Angeles. Peter Bradley Adams sings of Los Angeles like a dear, old friend with lyrics like “and you held us in your city lights”. The song being addressed to Los Angeles like a person makes the language more intimate and dear. According to the Sentiment Analysis tool, the most positive lines in the song are “And we made our peace with lonely nights / And you healed our broken hearts”. The words the sentiment hangs on are “our peace” and “healed… hearts”. This song could be imagined as a love affair with the city. There is affection between the songwriter and the city. The songwriter has feelings of gratitude for the city and its hospitality towards him. These lyrics cause the listener to imagine the city as an entity. Los Angeles becomes more like a living, breathing, thinking, and imaging creature rather than and so on. Los Angeles is known as a city of promise to many kinds of people. Adams sings of how Los Angeles carried “us in broken dreams”. Los Angeles holds iconic places like Hollywood where many people go to fulfill their dreams. Even if a person does not get to live out their dreams, their first imagining of Los Angeles is one of hope and affection. A song like this one by Adams captures feelings of love and longing for a city.

     Not only is Los Angeles characterized as a living thing because of its bustling city life, but it is also characterized as a nearly coastal city. While some songs are focused on the heat of the city, other songs take a laidback vibe because of the ocean’s presence. Morten Harket sings about nostalgia for a love that took place in Los Angeles. He wishes to go back “to that room by the sea with the view and the moon of Los Angeles”. There is a kind of ownership taking place within these lyrics. It is not any moon Harket is nostalgic for, but for that “moon of Los Angeles”. His song is musically marked by dreamy harmonies, organ, melodic guitar sounds, and with the occasional crashing of cymbals likened to that of the crashing waves of the sea. The lyrics are nostalgic, yet hopeful. Musically, the song reflects the quiet night by the sea in Los Angeles.

     Frank Black’s song about Los Angeles captures the buzz of city life. One of the most positive stanzas is Black explaining Los Angeles containing “a church like a beehive”. The word “beehive” reminds a listener of the nature of bees and how bees busy themselves from flower to flower and back to the beehive. Bees do not slow down to rest, but continue their work. Likening the people of Los Angeles to bees emphasizes the hustle and bustle of city life. Another positive stanza in Black’s song continues the theme of the hectic Los Angeles: “counting helicopters on a Saturday night / The symphony of the fair light”. Unlike other places where one might be able to count stars, a person would spend their time in Los Angeles counting the helicopters hovering over the city reporting news, tracking down crime, or maybe transporting some celebrity. So while Los Angeles’s city lights and helicopters do not offer the same kind of peacefulness of counting stars, there is still a kind of beauty in this modern night sky. The lights in this city play like a symphony. So even though the city lights are artificial, they are still grand and beautiful just like Los Angeles itself.

     San Diego: San Diego is sung about less than cities like New York, Los Angeles, or even San Francisco, but it is still sung about. Songs about San Diego are characterized by uncertainty, but also hopefulness. The Avett Brothers sing about a boy meets girl situation and the refrain of the song is “far away I hear the rhythm of a song / far away I get the feeling I belong”. It is this refrain that continually gives this song a positive sentiment. San Diego becomes a place where good things almost happen, which is apparently good enough to be considered positive. For many, San Diego is a place one passes through to get somewhere else where things actually do happen. British songwriter Danny Malone sings of trying to make it to San Diego just to make it to one of his own show on time. His refrain, which makes the song negative, is the line “what’s happening to me / I’m sick of myself / ain’t one thing / because it’s probably something else”. There is a lack of confidence in this line and an uncertainty in problem solving. This one line of insecurity and self-deprecation affects the whole songs sentiment and therefore affecting the way a person might imagine or experience San Diego.

     Even though many songwriters consider San Diego only as a place of uncertainty and as a place to pass through, others consider this city their home as well. Lil Rob sings of San Diego as a place he loves and belongs to even though this song has an overall negative sentiment. Some of its shining, positive lines in a song mixed with so much negative sentiment are “though my town ain’t what it used to be, it still means everything to me”. So in a song singing of the shady drug deals and terrible things that have happened in this city, Lil Rob still takes a stanza to acknowledge that this place is home to him. Through all the changes this city has experienced through the years, through all the changes he might have experienced while in this city, this changing place still means everything to him.

     San Francisco: San Francisco, unlike any other city observed in this project, had the most mixed sentiment. Half of the songs sung about San Francisco are an overall positive sentiment and the other half have an overall negative sentiment. While the sentiments were an even positive/negative mix in the city of San Francisco, its weather and its landmarks characterized every single song. Because of the mixed sentiment, it causes a person to re-think the way they experience the fog or the Golden Gate. In one of the positive songs, Cascada sings “we’re crossing the Golden Gate / party at the Frisco Bay”. The entire song is about partying in San Francisco and this line captures it well. Another song, sung and written by Ingrid Michaelson, sings the lines “San Francisco in November / the water, it's still warm … Jumper is what they'll name you / just another jumper / you're not the first”. With these lines, Michaelson paints the picture of a person before they commit suicide, jumping off one of the San Franciscan bridges and into the water below. In two songs about the same place, a bridge can get someone from one side to the next – both physically and metaphysically. Singing two songs about the same place with two different sentiments forces the listener to imagine this city more complexly.

     Home: The purpose of another piece of the project centered on the idea of home was to be able to continue to think about places complexly. Places affect the people that encounter them and inhabit them. Cities themselves have particular attitudes and vibes because of the things that happen within that city. Mapping Lyrical Sentiment looked at six different cities to examine the overall sentiment and themes that pervade songs about each city. A person might move to the same part of San Francisco as another and have a completely different experience. The fog rolls in and it might inspire a person like it did for Gregory Alan Isakov. For another person, the fog in San Francisco might make him or her feel lost like it did for The Mowgli’s. So while different feelings are experienced in a mutual place, exploring “home” means exploring mutual feelings, but different places. Everyone has a home, but that home is not the same physical place to every person.

     The hypothesis going into this portion of the project was that many mutual feelings would be sung about through all of the songs: feelings of comfort, love, and belonging. Mapping these songs created a new understanding of a world map. Looking at the Home StoryMap means that a person could look upon twelve different points on a map where a songwriter has experienced feelings of comfort and love. Because of this, the map immediately has an emotional affect on the viewer. The viewer is no longer merely observing points on a map, but also points of feeling; places are now marked by more than landmarks and weather, but also by deep feelings. The hope in creating the Home StoryMap was that a viewer would look upon the map and it would create empathy within him or her. The viewer would then look at a simple map and remember what he or she considers their home. The viewer could then explore the Home StoryMap by clicking through and listening to different songs. This has the potential to create nostalgia within the viewer and get them to connect with places and people they may have never interacted with before or ever.

     The purpose of this project was not to uncover new information, but instead, to get people to reimagine the way they think about places. This project sets out to get people to begin to think about how feelings shape places and how places shape feelings. The positive, negative, and neutral StoryMaps give a viewer an understanding of the overall sentiment of a place and allows them to reimagine how landmarks and weather affect sentiment. The StoryMap of home allows for people to relate to others they may have never met and imagine similar experiences in places they may have never been to before. Taking music, something experienced audibly, and having a person experience it visually forces them to exercise new ways of thinking about a place. Essentially, literature is written so that people might be able to think about and imagine experiences that are different from their own and this project simply set out to add a digital humanities approach to develop new perspectives.

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