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Write about a song (or musical track) that has personal significance for you and respond to it—referring to specifics in both the song and your own life.
Choosing a song
The song can be in any genre. It does not have to have lyrics. If it does have lyrics, they don’t have to be in English, as long as you can include a translation of any lyrics you quote.
Main task of the essay
Given that you’ve chosen a piece significant to you, you’ve obviously already had some kind of response to it—maybe it makes you cry, makes you remember something or someone, etc. In the essay, your job is to tell and show your reader what this response is and why it is—in other words, why do you feel the way you do about it?
Content (what the essay should include)
Since you’re writing about your own experience and the song itself, your body will likely toggle between the two: referring to specific parts of the song (maybe lyrics, maybe a drum solo, etc.) and referring to specific parts of your life.
» Writing about your own experience: When you do this, you will likely include some narrative (telling a story)—for instance, maybe you’ll talk about when you first heard the song. You should also include some reflection on how and why this song is so significant to you. As an example of this, you can look to the essay you read about the Green Day song, where the author explains that the song brings her back to a pivotal time in her life and reminds her, several years later, of the validity (and necessity) of feeling and expressing deep emotions.
» Writing about the song: To show your reader how and why the song is significant to you, you’ll want to refer to specific parts/aspects of it, whether they be the parts you love most or examples of what you really like. If you’re not familiar with music terminology, refer to pp. 334-336 of the “Writing About Music” reading for some ideas. Note: If you’re talking about lyrics, you will probably want to include at least a couple of quotes.
Audience
Consider your audience to be someone who may have heard of this song (or artist) but is not necessarily familiar with it. Therefore, you’ll want to include some basic information about the song and artist in your introduction. At the very least, your intro should state:
» Song title (in quotation marks—e.g., “Jingle Bells”)
» Artist name (capitalized—e.g., Michael Jackson or Green Day) » Year of release
» Genre (e.g., hip-hop, rock, jazz, etc.)
You can weave other information (about the song and/or the artist) into the piece later and more subtly (as, for example, the author of the Green Day essay does in paragraph 7).
Thesis
A thesis statement is simply a summary of the main idea of your essay. Since this is a response essay, your main idea is your response to the song. As an example: even though the essay about the Green Day song doesn’t have an explicit thesis statement (since it’s not an academic essay), my earlier summary of the author’s response could work as a thesis statement: “The song, ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ brings me back to a pivotal time in my life and reminds me, now, of the validity (and necessity) of feeling and expressing deep emotions.”
Just make sure your thesis statement is located in your Introduction but after you first introduce the song you’ll be writing about.
