Today I'd like to introduce you to my very first one, “Owl
City Allegory,” and note that while I’ve had themed posts turn up in
sequence over time, I have yet to organize them together in a concerted “blog
series.” This first one will draw on similar analytical methods as used in Poignant Music, for example, and that
article may be interesting to readers who were unaware of it, buried as it is
in the middle of a sequential, but unorganized logjam of 150+ posts.
Part I: Lyric Interpretation of Owl City Songs
As we begin, I want to explain that these are going to be intentionally pigeon-holed at times, after enough lyrical evidence has
convinced me of the possibility of an allegorical interpretation, in order to
suggest a way for the whole song to cohere together into one thematic message.
These are my own interpretation, and I don’t insist that each conclusion must
be what Adam Young (the writer, singer and producer behind Owl City) had in mind when writing, but the point will be that, intentionally
or unintentionally, he has crafted the lyrics so that they can indeed be
validly interpreted as a subtle theological message, without going to
interpretive extremes. I believe my analysis will be fair, and I will point out
shortcomings where I consider them to be. It must also be noted that Owl City
music, especially the early variety, is characterized by whimsicality, and in
many cases they are impossible for a bystander to interpret in the sense that
they can be at all sure what Adam was thinking when he inserted those lines.
However, Adam is a sincere Christian and based on his public expressions of
faith on his blog and elsewhere, I don’t believe he would object to people’s
attempts to find hidden spiritual meaning in the texts of his songs, so long as
the conclusions didn’t amount to doctrinal confusion, of course. And with that
preface, this endeavor of mine is primed to begin.
Side note:
One
of the benefits of Adam’s meticulously preserved formlessness (he has said so
comparably little about his personal life and views that one article about him
online even called him “completely non-political”) is that his fans have the
opportunity to see themselves in him, even though they are very different in
terms of life experience. There have even been some who claim he's gay--not as an insult to his music, but in a desire to more deeply connect with him in a shared identity. As it turns out, melancholy musings on inexpressible
yearnings by an eccentric mind is something many share. We’re all a little bit
odd, and the oddities in Adam’s lyrics, combined with their optimism and hope,
have in my view given a lot of young people something to connect to and lift
them up. They have, in Adam’s music, an alternative to contemporary offers of
sympathy for their weirdness and desire to know they’re not alone. Consider
Lady Gaga’s fans, affectionately (?) called “Little Monsters” by the artist.
There is also a community of the strange and the burdened in her fan base, but
I have yet to hear of someone vomiting on Adam during a concert. There is a
huge difference in how the base is encouraged: Owl City doesn’t shy from
quirkiness but it never encourages listeners to fester in despondency and feed
their discouragement. So much of pop culture encourages “acting out” as a way
to deal with personal struggles. Adam never has. I’m incredibly grateful to
Adam simply for what I know he’s done to the young adult culture. He’s shown
that if you’re sad, you don’t have to express it through attention-seeking
delinquency or self-abasement. It’s okay to be sad, lonely, afraid and a little
bit different from “everybody else.” These are normal things, but they don’t
mean that your life is over. Instead, his songs offer a thoughtfully different
approach.
It’s
almost too easy for me to draw similarities between me and Adam. We’re both
tall, though he’s taller. We’re both chronically uninvolved in long-term
relationships, though we’ve both had romantic experiences in the past, and
clearly think about love a lot. Which may be due to the age factor. He’s
roughly 3 years older, so a lot of the things we’re dealing with in life are
bound to be similar. We're both introverts and spend a lot of time alone just thinking or working on various projects. Hopeful optimists, but cynical realists. Adam deals
frankly with issues like shame, death, depression etc and ‘calls it like it
is,’ but he doesn’t wallow in grief, he looks up and always has a positive
angle to the calamity around him. Or is it me? I am so passionately a fan of
what I call “cynical optimism” (for an example, read the whole book of
Ecclesiastes in a straight shot). You can’t ignore the flawed and terrible
things in the world, but you can’t submit to the idea that those things will
have the last word. In Adam’s lyrics, I see the innocence and childlike glee
that I know at times, in my clearer thinking moments. The public face of Adam,
and his song persona, is like the very best of me—if I also could sing. In the
vein of “meditating on what is good and excellent and pure (Philippians 4:8),” listening to
his songs can elevate my mind to dwell more naturally on positive things over
negative, and in a very direct yet subtle way, make me a better person. I enjoy
the occasional metal-rock song, but I can’t listen to that stuff all the time.
Part of the reason is that they nearly never contain any hope. But Adam’s songs
contain hope. And there’s a very simple and subliminal reason for that. It’s
what I intend to show in this blog series. So let’s get started. :)
~ Rak Chazak
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