Saturday, April 1, 2017

Poetic License...or In Other Words #3

I've been sitting on this one for a minute, cause it's an easy fix in my head, and also one that adds a little something to the power of the song. What song?

My Name Is Human by Highly Suspect

https://genius.com/Highly-suspect-my-name-is-human-lyrics

I'm only of a mind to tweak 1 line in the main chorus that goes:

"Get up off your knees, boy
Stand face to face with your God
And find out what you are(Hello, my name is human)Hello, my name is humanAnd I came down from the stars(Hello, my name is human)"


It's ironic that the only phrase I have a problem with is the title of the song when it's echoed. There's just so much potential there for pathos since this is in essence a sing-a-long chorus. My first thought was to just change the phrase to:

Get up off your knees
Stand face to face with your God
And find out what you are
(I know I'm only human)
Hello, my name is human

And I cam down from the stars
(I know I'm more than human)


Either of those replacement lines work, and there's no need to use both, but I like the way using both represents the conflict people have with their ideas about their limits and their potential. It's a representation of the existential dilemma that comes with reconciling consciousness, mortality, and, infinity.

Regardless, I dig the song and the way it uses a cadence you'd heard in contemporary r & b for the delivery of the verses. It's the modern equivalent of a spoken verse, but with melody and rhythm giving it a coolness that doesn't compromise the groove. It allows for the the wordplay to be so straight-forward, but still deceptively clever, in plain spoken vernacular. Tweaking those two lines would have been the final revision that put it over the top for me, though credit where credit is due, if you can't get people to sing something that in context, sounds kind of odd, you've struck musical gold.