"Silver Lining" Analysis

Take this silver lining
Keep it in your own sweet head
Shine it when the night is burning red
Shine it in the twilight
Shine it on the cold cold ground
Shine it till these walls come
Tumbling down

We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope
Now can you tell me why
Time after time
They drag you down
Down in the darkness deep
Fools in their madness all around
Know that the light don't sleep

Step into the silence
Take it in your own two hands
And scatter it like diamonds
All across these lands
Blaze it in the morning
Wear it like an iron skin
Only things worth living for
Innocence and magic-amen

We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope
Now can you tell me why
Time after time
They drag you down
Down in the darkness deep
Fools in their madness all around
Know that the light don't sleep

We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope
Now can you tell me why
Time after time
They drag you down
Down with talk so cheap

Fools in their madness all around
-Know that the light don't sleep
-Know that the light don't sleep
Time after time
They drag you down
Down in the darkness deep
Fools in their madness all around
-Know that the light don't sleep
-Know that the light don't sleep

David Gray is a rock/pop artist with the ability to write catchy, yet profound songs. His song "Silver Lining" revolves around the importance of innocence and the inevitable cynicism that clouds our minds as we grow older. The first verse of the song tells us to keep our silver lining--which, in this case, is a metaphor for innocence--and use it when life gets hard ("when the night is burning red", "on the cold, cold ground"). The singer encourages us to use pure bliss and ignorance to help us when we are feeling trapped: "Shine it till these walls come tumbling down". The second verse is similar, using silence as a metaphor for the preservation of wonder and hope. A simile is used: "scatter it like diamonds", as well as imagery. Diamonds symbolize wealth and happiness; the singer is telling us to spread the silence around the world.

In the chorus, the singer talks about the hope we are all born with: "We were born with our eyes wide open; So alive with wild hope". The following lines refer to the tearing down of these hopes, which happens as we learn and experience more in life. Limits are created that did not exist before, and our innocence is lost: "Time after time they drag you down; Down in the darkness deep". The line "know that the light don't sleep" implies that no matter how much it seems to be forced out of us, the innocence we are born with will always live inside us.

Season Poem Analysis

One by one
The days fall beside us

Like yellow leaves

We have no conscience

Oh, what we're becoming

Month by month,

The rings on our tree trunks,

Like old wise eyes,

Grow wider and winter

Lends them a dead disguise

Now time- like an ocean

knows tide - like a notion

To toss about the house

And lose inside the couch

And piles of our thoughts

Run miles in the dark

Just trying to get home

Age by age,

We rhyme with our seasons'

Rehearsed routines

Still turning

And returning

Now I'm wide as the ocean

Now I bleed roses

And you are just a mark

on the map of my past

But I am a road

I wind along alone

All day until the coast


Singer-songwriter Meredith Godreau, of the band Gregory and the Hawk, is a little-known artist with a knack for writing beautiful music. Her song “Season Poem” displays this gift effectively. The song is very poetic, with similes, metaphors, and a large amount of personification. Imagery also exists throughout the song, as there are many references to nature.
Many comparisons are made in the song, mostly in the form of simile: “The rings in our tree trunks, like old wise eyes”, “Now I’m wide as the ocean”. Metaphors are used as well, such as in the line, “And you are just a mark on the map of my past”. Many of these comparisons involve nature (“yellow leaves”, “ocean”), which creates strong imagery. Personification also plays a large role in the song: “Days fall”, “winter lends”. In the chorus, time and tide are personified. The line “And piles of our thoughts run miles in the dark, just trying to get home” is all personification.
All of these poetic devices work together with a single guitar to create a dreamy sound, and vivid pictures come to mind while listening to the words. The main concepts that can be taken out of the song are the constant passing of time and the process of moving on. The singer compares our lives to seasons--they are "rehearsed routines". The ending verse illustrates the way in which all of us are forced to move on and keep going, letting go of the past. "I wind along alone" suggests that in the end, all we have is ourselves.