well I wrote a paper for English class..
if my life were a song it would be...
and picked this song. Probably not the best paper, I hate writing about myself, but hey i got a 92 on it so I was happy. A few errors too(both in phrasing and in spelling), but that's what happens when I do it in one night(I was trying I am Mine but I was having trouble doing more than simply explain and interpret the words in that one, as opposed to applying it to myself loike the paper said I was supposed to).
...
“All or None†by Pearl Jam is a song much like my life, in that it tells of the writer’s struggles within himself to change himself, and the realization that this isn’t always possible. I often find myself in this same situation.
The song’s lyrics would seem to many to be depressing, but in a way, to me, they are almost liberating in the way that they are a realization of qualities. They might be “hopeless,†but the only thing hopeless about the song is that you are basically going to be the same person no matter what you do to try and change that. To me, this isn’t a bad thing. There are always things about ourselves that we would like to change, but these things are also what make up who we are.
The song opens with:
“It’s a hopeless situation
And I’m starting to believe
That this hopeless situation
Is what I’m trying to achieveâ€
This verse applies to my life fairly well. There’s little hope in changing myself, it seems, but then I think “Would I really want to change?†I procrastinate, and I get mad at myself for it, especially for all the stress it causes me, nearly every time. However, I continue to do it every time I have a big assignment. “Why do I do it?†is a question I might ask myself sometimes. But I can’t really give an answer to that question, as it’s just part of my personality. I like to relax, and working doesn’t equal relaxing, even if it mean cramming for a test or typing a paper in two nights.
The lines:
“To myself I surrender
To the one I’ll never pleaseâ€
are some of my favorite lines ever, because they’re very applicable to me. I want conflicting things, and feel bad about abandoning one or the other. I want to be loyal to my good friends, and keep relationships civil with them, but I also don’t like to abandon my morals, which is sometimes required to simply not start an argument with them when they say some things. My best friend is a homophobic racist, two of the worst things that someone can be in my opinion. However, like I said, he’s my best friend. In fact, most all of my friends are homophobic, and a good majority are at least somewhat racist. I’m pretty far on the other side of those issues, but it doesn’t matter when I’m with my friends because I won’t say something for fear of hurting the friendship. I let all of my good friends know my views(that I don’t care about the race or sexual preference of others), but I’m still friends with them even with this conflict in the friendship.
Another application of those two lines is the feeling I get when I know I gave up one rep short at football or gave half effort for a sprint or two. I get disappointed in myself. I don’t have an easy time realizing that s sometimes I shouldn’t care so much and let things drag me down. I’m not pleased with my effort unless I can’t walk and am about to collapse, and even then I feel like maybe I could have done more… It’s a hopeless feeling sometimes, but this song helps put it into perspective, and helps me know that I’m not the only one out there that feels this way.
I feel the words “All or None†work very well for me, since I feel almost worthless sometimes if I only give 95%, and not 100%. Now in some ways this is a great thing, and I would never want to change it, and in other ways I wish I could be a little less hard on myself sometimes. It’s a paradox that is summed up very well by this song.
Another two lines that I love are
“Can we help that our destinations
Are the ones we’ve been before.â€
That couplet is perfect for me. I’m always trying to achieve a similar feeling to some feeling from the past. This is definitely true with friends. Once I get settled with a group, I sort of stick to them, simply due to comfort. I don’t go out looking for new situations very often for this simple fact. I go with what I’ve been familiar to, nothing more, nothing less, for the most part.
The song ends in a somber, emotional guitar solo that fades out. The fade out puts the final stamp on the words of the song in that because of the fade out, the song never really “ends,†which signifies that the conflict within oneself is an unending one.
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