Do you ever wonder how great music is? Music is not just music and song is not just a song. They can be considered as life itself. Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies. Here are some songs that touched my soul is “All I ask” by Adele, “This is me trying” by Taylor Swift and “Dream It Possible” by Jane Zhang. In these paper I will analyze their lyrics using different theories namely, classical conditioning, operant conditioning and information-processing theory.
“When your dreams come alive you’re unstoppable, Take a shot, chase the sun find the beautiful, We will glow in the dark turning dust to gold and we’ll dream It possible Possible” – Dream It Possible. I’m playing this song once or even twice a day. This makes me hopeful and inspired through out the day. Its like, it is one of my mantra through out the day. I accidentally heard this song while I’m in the mall and it immediately strucked my soul. This lyrics is very important to me in terms of pursuing my dreams, sometimes, I mean most of the times, specially now that we have a pandemic happening around us and we are forced to stay at our homes. One night, and that one night became two, three and more nights until it became months and years, I’m in my room wondering about life and I usually ask myself what will happen to me. How can I be able to achieve my dreams with these situations, is this the end for me? Am I left with nothing to do? But then upon listening to these song, It made me realize I was wrong. I can still do more and being here in my room does not stop me from dreaming. It always reminds me that it is still possible to dream, to chase it and to pursue it. This song reminds me to go and that I am unstoppable into achieving my dreams if only I wont stop.
“I just wanted you to know, That this is me trying. I just wanted you to know, That this is me trying. At least I’m trying” – This is me trying. One of my favorite artist is Taylor Swift. And when she released her album “folklore” I immediately fell in love with all her songs specially “This is me Trying”. At first I was just enjoying the tune and then after some time, I finally realized that this song is about something more. It is about trying, something about what I’m most afraid to do – trying. This lyrics is very uplifting and inspiring. Although the tune is kind of sad, the lyrics touched my soul so deep. Sometimes, I ask myself am I enough? Am I doing great? Am I good enough at what I’m doing? And sometimes, I always say no to myself. No it’s not enough. I am always being too hard on myself. I am always not gentle enough to myself. I always put pressure on me. Not realizing that it is not right. That being here and being alive is something I should be proud of, be thankful of. And this certain lyrics keeps me on trying and trying everyday. That even though I am taking small and baby steps, at least I know to myself that I am trying. And with all those “at least I’m trying” I should be proud of myself for whatever things I achieved with those moments that I”m trying.
“I will leave my heart at the door, I won’t say a word. They’ve all been said before, you know, So why don’t we just play pretend? Like we’re not scared of what’s coming next or scared of having nothing left” – All I ask. Adele is also one of my favorite artist. She can literally connect through our soul with her amazing voice. One of the song she sang that really hit me is “All I ask”. this reminds me of my memories from the past. Memories should not be forgotten no matter how painful it is. And whenever I listen to this song, it reminds me that at some point in my life, I also experienced having a heartbreak. It is kind of funny how at this age, I was already heartbroken. In those times, i do not know what to do. I do not know what to say and I’m really hoping that it will still last. Typical wish of everyone who is experiencing a heartbreak. He told me I always too much. But then realizing it now, I do not ask too much, all I’m doing is asking the wrong person. During those times also, I also wanted to pretend, that if I pretended, he will still be there. I was touched with these song because it represented my life before. Like it serves as a reminder for me of what happened in my life. That I should learn from it.
Classical conditioning has four responses namely, unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, unconditioned response and conditioned response. Everyday, my mind always keeps on asking me is what I’m doing enough? And this song would always remind me to keep on trying. This role of music in my life can be considered to be the conditioned response under classical condition theory because whenever i think of loosing or feel like loosing the grip of life, my response would always be to keep on trying. Operant Conditioning has four targeted behaviors to achieve namely, positive/negative reinforcement, punishment, reinforcers, and reinforcement schedules. One particular happening in my life is to have a boyfriend.I would always give my best and everything to him. This song All I Ask is one of the song that can describe my feelings to him. This role of music in my life can be considered to be a Negative reinforcement under operant conditioning because giving my everything to someone and not thinking about myself to the point that when the he walks out of my life I am left with nothing but experiencing this one, it stopped and it removed my unpleasant experiencing of giving everything. I would consider giving everything to be unpleasant experience and him being away stopped me and helped me realize that it is wrong to give everything. The song “Dream It Possible” is considered to be a long-term memory under Information-processing theory because it talks about my dreams. I intend to dream and dream and dream more dream as I grow older. A long-term memory has unlimited amount of space in our brain and I intend to fill it with my dreams. This song also is connected to what we call episodic memory because whenever I will remember my childhood dreams or what I want to do back then, I would definitely store them in my dreams and make sure to do it in the near future.
Doing this activity made me reflect on my behavior and on myself. It also reminded me of who I really am and how those experiences bold me to become a better person. Listening to music can not only mean about relaxing and supporting your favorite artist. It can also help us learn some sort of things and unintentionally make new personality and even shape our behavior. Having a Negative Reinforcement under operant conditioning like giving everything is something that I should not do helped me become more stronger. Having a conditioned response under classical conditioning that I should keep on trying helped me become more of a hopeful person. Having a long-term memory under information-processing theory for my dreams helped me to become more of a dreamer and to become adventurous in order to achieve it.
Adele. (2018). All I Ask. On 25. XL Records.
Zhang, J. (2015). Dream It Possible. On 我的夢.
Swift, T. (2020). This is me trying. On folklore. Republic Records.