The song “Pumped Up Kicks” is a very interesting song with an upbeat tune mixed with dark lyrics. When you first listen to the song it’s almost like you get addicted to it because you want to listen to it over and over again or you keep singing it in your head. When you first realize what the lyrics are you think to yourself why are they so dark and twisted lyrics with such an upbeat tune? I think that Foster and the People used such an upbeat tune so that more and more people would listen to the song. When more people listen to the song the author is more likely to get their message across. The song is about a boy named Robert that gets bullied at school and/or at home that uses a six shooter to murder class mates. When the author says “outrun my gun” he is talking about the kids that he is trying to murder. Foster and the people use the words “pumped up kicks” to show that the kids that have been bullying Robert are more upper class citizens that can afford fancy expensive shoes. This can also indicate that Robert is from a more lower class family and cannot afford to wear fancy shoes, which could indicate why other kids bully him.

The author Mark Foster was bullied at a young age during school. He later overcame this obstacle and started to follow his dream with music. Shortly after moving to L.A. Foster became addicted to drugs. I think that the main reason why this song is so catchy is because Mark used to be a jingle writer when he first moved to L.A. since Mark has the back round of writing jingles he knows what and how to get a large amount of people to listen to a certain song. Since the song has an upbeat tune it is more likely to have an audience of teenagers in high school and college than adults. This is very helpful since bullying happens more often in high school and college than it will any other place. The song more or less is making listeners aware that bullying needs to be stopped and more people need to help stop it so that there are not anymore bullying related shootings. The upbeat tune can also show that “Robert” pretends to be okay and that nothing is bothering him when he is really depressed and is going to in essence go crazy. Analytically this song is constructed almost perfectly to show how serious the bullying issue is.

William Miller (431)