Writing What Moves You

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” Were the words of Jamaican reggae singer/songwriter, Bob Marley. Though this quote is short, Dylan packs a big punch through the message of his words. This quote from Bob Dylan moves me as a fellow musician, because I know exactly what he is talking about. I have been playing piano for 12 years and guitar for about eight. I love listening to music and appreciate all genres of music as long as the artists are able to perform their music live without having to be edited or use auto tune. I have had music hit me in the past, and I have had times in my life where I was able to take some of the ups and downs in life and create a few songs about them. For instance, back when I was in high school, my girlfriend broke up with me, and I felt that the sadness t I felt at the time could only be translated into music. Just this past year, my best friends grandma past away, and I dedicated a song to her, because she was also like a grandma to be as well. Though I agree with the fact that music can’t physically hurt us, I feel that it can almost internally hurt us by bringing back feelings for people, or memories of loved ones, and in doing so can almost hurt us just as bad as being hit by a fist. One interesting fact about music is that it does not discriminate. Every people group around the world produce music, though they all may have different styles or genres, when you break down music to it’s core, you will be able to decode the melody to it’s simplest notes (C D E F G A B C).

            The only rhetorical term that we talked about in class that Bob Marley used in his quote would have to be a metaphor. Marley compares music to a powerful tool; he uses it as a metaphor in the sense that it is able to hit us. As mentioned before, music cannot physically hit us, however, it can cause us to react in many different ways (maybe tears, maybe a smile, maybe even anger).

Though this quote does not have a lot of rhetorical terms that we have talked about in class, based on previous discussions and articles that we have read, Bob Marley’s quote would pass as a piece of good writing. In the article that we read by Patricia O’ Conner, Bob Dylan would be considered a good writer, because he doesn’t try to hide his message in ways that one would have to take a long time trying to find the meaning of his idea. He was able to grasp an ambiguous theme, then put it into laymen’s terms for us. This goes hand in hand in what Kurt Vonnegut believes. He said that, “Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred.”