Wednesday, September 26, 2012

"Pumped up Kicks"


                I believe that Foster the People created a song that tried to get their message across but failed when the song came across as such a happy catchy tune. Foster the People has sold over 3 million copies of “Pumped up Kicks” according to Wikipedia, that is a lot of copies but I believe not many of the people really understood there message. Every time I have ever listened to the song I would of never of realized that the song was about shootings. I believe he was trying to raise awareness of the threat of public shootings and the past ones that have happened. People like me listened to the song for a long time and found it to be a happy song with a neat catchy chorus and catchy beat. The first time I really looked into the lyrics and thought about what the message in the song was the other day in class and I was shocked that it was about shootings.  The song writer Mark Foster is a Jingle writer which explains the catchy beat. The beat helped sell the song and that is a good thing money wise for them and for trying to get their message across. I believe it also shielded there message to the average person who maybe would buy the song if they had an idea of what it’s really about. Making the song appeal to more people was something they were trying to do with the beat.

                When I first looked at the song lyrics I think the Foster the people was addressing all of the resent shootings in the country or even beyond just our country. I think the song is going through the mind of the troubled youth. But when you listen to the song it’s hard to pick up on the message unless you listen very closely because the words are very hard to understand at some points of the song. I think the song is trying to show that people can be happy on the outside like the beat seems to portray and on the inside they can be very different and upset like the lyrics show to be true. I really believe in order to find the true meaning of this song you have to look closely because they don’t want the meaning to be known right away because that might hurt the sale of the song. (402)

Zack Girton

1 comment:

  1. I agree that a lot of people that listen to this song have no idea what it even means. It has sold many copies and so many people have listened to this song but don’t even know what the deeper meaning behind it is. I also think that the artist being a jingle writer helped contribute to the catchy beat that made the song so successful. I don’t think the catchy beat takes away from the meaning of the song but that is all open to interpretation. Some even say that the upbeat music to a song that is about shootings condones violence because it isn’t making it sound like a threat. There are many ways you could interpret the actual music in the song but the lyrical content overall has the same interpretation. It could almost definitely be said that the song is about shootings, but it is not certain where the shootings take place. I listened to the song for a while and never knew the meaning to the song either, so it is safe to say that many others do not know the meaning of the song either. I also think the song is trying to go into the head of a troubled kid. (207 words)

    ReplyDelete