https://guitarnoise.forum/sunday-songwriters-group/wk-48-conflict/ Guitar Noise Discussion Board en-US Thu, 04 Jun 2026 17:52:42 +0000 wpForo 60 https://guitarnoise.forum/sunday-songwriters-group/wk-48-conflict/#post-369493 Sun, 02 Oct 2011 14:25:36 +0000
It looks like part I got your song analysis juices flowing and seeing a lot of connections :D

Thanks for sharing.

James]]> Sunday Songwriters Group jamestoffee https://guitarnoise.forum/sunday-songwriters-group/wk-48-conflict/#post-369493 https://guitarnoise.forum/sunday-songwriters-group/wk-48-conflict/#post-41847 Sat, 01 Oct 2011 04:05:28 +0000
Well, I'm gonna try and keep the subject matter as simple as possible - Surprised? :D

1) The Monkees - What am I Doin' Hangin' Around.
Pretty straightforward what the conflict in the song is.
Boy meets girl/boy falls in love with girl/boy has to make a hasty exit....
Ah, but that's not the end of it.
With choices made, come consequences for actions taken.... Boy regrets making hasty exit :(
Sweet, right?
But wait! There's more :shock:

The song has the chorus of: What am I doin' hangin' 'round? I should be on that train and gone.... I should be ridin' on that train ta 'San Antone'.... What am I doin' hangin' around?

It's actually more than just a chorus. It's a Motif.
And what happens with that device is that a phrase will start out meaning something, then by the end,
it will have twisted in meaning.

In the beginning, it was meant for the boy to get out of the town that the girl was in.
By the end, it was a calling for him to get back to the girl.
Injects a bit of irony into the story :wink:

I think the first time I can recall realizing this device in a song was when I was listening to
E.L.P.'s Lucky Man. It hit me like a 2x4 square to the forehead!
Ooooooooh, what a lucky man, he was!
That started out to denote how lucky the highly privileged man in the song was - All the fine things he had in his life.
Both tangible and intangible.
But the last verse changed all of that as he was killed after going off to war - Ooooooh what a lucky man he WAS! :twisted:

Seger's, Turn the Page seems to have that in place to me as well.
The chorus seems to be a bit bitter at first.... All the traveling and boredom and BS between gigs.
Then in the last verse, he gets up and does what he does best - Performs in front of an audience for all he's worth!
Then the chorus takes on a different meaning.... Prouder, perhaps?

2) Naked Eyes - There's Always Something There to Remind Me.
Boy is madly in love with girl/Girl has broken it off with him and has moved on/Boy finds it hard to move on
when he keeps running into things that remind him of her.
Sweet, right?

But wait! There's more!

Again we run into motif.
At first it would seem that the boy can't get away from her memory - There's always something there to remind me.... It comes as a brokenhearted sob, throbbing throughout the song :cry:
Oh how we feel sorry for that poor boy! Whatever will he do????
Well, by the end of the song, we find that he's actually hanging out in the same old places, ON PURPOSE!
Hoping to run into said girl (if she happens to change her mind :roll: ),
and to help comfort and ease his pain by being nearest the things that they experienced together.

So with the motif, we can put in some irony.... It can 'get us out of a situation'.
It can also point the way to the conflict and help to define it in a subtle way.
It can show us the regret from the choices made.
It can show us what the choice is and which direction the hero took.
It can liberate the hero from the earlier confines they were experiencing.
It can....? Well, who knows what it can do!?

Ken]]> Sunday Songwriters Group CitiZenNoir https://guitarnoise.forum/sunday-songwriters-group/wk-48-conflict/#post-41847