Tool is a band with several albums and many side projects but the song Vicarious seemed to scream out to me as one with a clear-cut message. You could go so far as to say that the even the title “bares all” for the song. The song’s message is that of an eye-opener to the technologically attuned and hyper-numb society of today. Using such phrases as “devour to survive”, “stare like a junkie into the TV”, and “blood to a vampire” Vicarious is able to paint a clear picture of the way our society today feeds off the misfortune or prosperity of others.
Vicarious is defined as experiencing something secondhand or “through something else” such as the television. The song preys on the audience’s emotions while using examples from the artist to create a logical argument about the state of people’s lives. The song claims that we all “live vicariously” through the TV shows, movies, and news of today. Have you ever watched a horror movie or an action flick and not gotten a thrill or a touch of adrenaline through your veins? The natural adrenal and endorphin responses we receive just from watching someone do something exciting or even dying are what the song picks at. Can you deny the fact that there is a severe mental dependency bordering addiction in many people concerning obsession with the lives of others? The juicier the drama or the more horrible the tragedy the more people are inclined to watch and investigate.
If you take a good hard look at our major media they cover many topics such as the war in the
"Killed by the husband", "Drowned by the ocean", "Shot by his own son", "She used a poison in his tea and kissed him goodbye", that’s my kind of story. It's no fun 'til someone dies.” The artist not only uses samplings of our day to day media to portray “us” as a vicarious creature but himself as well. “Cause I need to watch things die
from a distance Vicariously, I Live while the whole world dies you all need it too - don't lie.” These lyrics are used to relate to the human populace as a whole by depending on the credibility of the speaker.
The argument of the artist is well constructed and is well suited for convincing its audience. The song uses the theory of survival of the fittest and appeals to the more primitive and instinctual aspects of the human psyche. These primal needs are explained with the lines, “The universe is hostile So impersonal Devour to survive So it is, so it's always been ...” The argument may not cause everyone who listens to the song to realize how reliant they are on the experiences of others but I believe a good portion of people could easily relate to the thoughts that are expressed in Vicarious. I think the best phrase that could describe this song is “misery loves company” and the misfortune of others makes people feel better about any bad experiences in their own lives.
4 comments:
This essay is very short and needs to be extended to meet the word requirement. The author does a good job displaying the lyrics and analyzing them, but I think he could take it even farther than stating the obvious. His word choice is also very admirable and helps further the description. However, there are a couple of problems in this essay that could help make it not only an easier read but also clearer. The introduction makes a good point, but in this particular case can really slow down the reading because his thesis seems bogged down due to his word choice. "The song’s message is that of an eye-opener to the technologically attuned and hyper-numb society of today." Secondly the transition between points could be a little bit smoother particularly between the second and third paragraph. Double check your punctuation and make sure to state whether or not you thought this song used ethos, pathos, and logos with the same type of examples as mentioned earlier in the paper. I like your conclusion but the beginning seems like it could be its own point as well, so if word count becomes a problem look into using that.
Using the lyrics of the song to back up your argument as it relates back to your thesis and keeping your thoughts organized are two things you did very well. I thought that you did a good job of showing the reader that whether he wanted to or not he lives vicariously every day. You did a good job of using the lyrics of the song to back up this argument that everyone feels this way at some point, and through the song you showed that people use every form of the media to live vicariously through someone.
A few things that you should work on would be to try and offer real life examples to back up your quotes in your third paragraph so to give those who have not heard this song a more realistic picture of what you are talking about. You also should work on the clarity of argument and make sure that your topic sentences and the overall argument of each paragraph relates back to your thesis sentence.
I think that you should focus on using quotes, or lyrics in this case, to back up your argument and also keeping all your thoughts together in your paragraphs so that they relate back to your thesis. You do a good job of using the lyrics of this song to back up the speaker’s argument and you should continue to do so in future writing.
For the most part your paper had some really good points. You seemed to back up your arguments with sufficient evidence from the text, which helps gain you credibility as a writer. I feel that your quotations were appropriate to your arguments. You also kept your thoughts very organized throughout the paper. The essay seemed to flow very well and as a reader and now critic I appreciate that. I also think that you did a very good job of relating back to your thesis, time and time again. It was clear where you were going in the paper. Even though you had some very strong parts in your paper, there were also weaker spots. First off, you need to extend your essay to meet the word requirement. I copy and pasted it in Word and you only had about 550 words. One piece of advice I can give to help extend your paper would be to quote more of the lyrics, to convince the audience even more to believe your argument. You also might want to throw in some real life examples to relate even further to the audience. In the last paragraph you talk about the credibility of the musician but you fail to mention any pathos, logos, or ethos. Mentioning these terms and how the paper relies on it will help show the reader that he is relying on certain methods of the rhetorical triangle. You also don’t explain why he is credible but instead just state the fact. You also mention survival of the fittest but fail to show examples of the text where this is viewed. As a reader I can’t believe your claim without examples from the song. In the first paragraph, there is a typo in the sentence “You could go so far as to say that the even the title “bares all” for the song”, the even the, doesn’t make since. Also in the second paragraph you state “Vicarious is defined as experiencing something secondhand or “through something else” such as the television.” But I ask who defines this. The musician, a dictionary, or you? Overall, I think you make some very valid and interesting points; you’re not far from a close to perfect paper.
Emily Lloyd
Your paper has a great opening paragraph. I like that you start it by giving some history to the band, this is great for people who know nothing about Tool. It helps them visualize who these people are and what this song is going to be about. Your paper is rather short and you need to lengthen it a good bit. Another area to improve is how your thoughts are written. They are all good thoughts but they don’t seem complete, everything seems choppy. Also the thoughts never really connected together. I never got what the main theme of the song was, just what random lines meant. An area to focus on is the last paragraph. Your paper just ends and then that’s it. You should add some more sentences wrapping up the paper and maybe stating the whole song’s theme at the end. Another area to focus on is the middle; this is where you could go into depth about the song. By doing that you could really add some length to your paper.
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