Literature, Me, and My Love for Music
Shelby Buck
ENGL 1100.47

Over the years, I have realized of how much I dislike literature. I think one reason why I avoid reading and writing is because of my childhood experiences with English classes. Reading never came easy to me, so I just found ways to get through my classes and never learned to appreciate and understand literature. Music is my escape from reading. I like everything and anything from the sweet and innocent Martina McBride to the cruel, hateful Eminem. I think music is a way for artists to express themselves freely. I never realized how much music impacts my life, and touches my heart-n-soul until I sat down and looked at myself from the outside in. I guess as people grow up they find themselves searching for things that they can relate to, and I just recently discovered how much music is a part of my life.

As I grew up I never liked reading or writing, or anything that had to do with it, for that matter. When I was in elementary school, I was always placed in extra Reading I classes. It was the class for slow readers; they gave students extra help on the kind of stuff like reading, spelling, pronunciation, and how to put words in past, present, and future tense. It was pretty much everything I hated to do. One reason why I think I hate reading so much is because of these classes. I believe they made me become very self-conscious about the way I read, so I began avoiding reading in every way possible. My confidence in reading went on a downward spiral as well. Throughout elementary school I learned that if I just read the words at a fairly fast pace, the other kids would not make fun of me and think I was dumb, even though I had no idea what I was reading. I did this when we had group reading assignments. I read the words fast as I could and then my turn was up. I made it through each class by using this technique; however, it held me back in the long run because I began to build a mental block against reading. Somehow I ended up making it through elementary school with Bs and Cs in all of my English classes. But then it was on to middle school.

Middle school was a different story. I got really lucky because I had the same teacher in sixth grade as I did in fifth grade. Mr. Bailey was the easiest teacher anyone could possibly have. He was the type of teacher who just liked to talk about anything and everything, so we never really had many assignments, and if we ever did, it was very easy to cheat or just babble on, and he would give credit. I do not really remember having to write many papers, and if we had any reading assignments, he usually just read them to us. As I progressed up to seventh and eighth grade, I had to find a way to "beat the system." I discovered CliffNotes. I would be assigned a book to read and then just go online and read the summaries. One thing about middle school is that it was really easy to find out what was on the test just by asking my friends who had the same class earlier that day. Eighth grade was, by far, my easiest year. At the beginning of the school year, I was in a school-related bus accident. I snapped my collarbone in half and had severe bruises on my brain. I was in the hospital for two nights and three days and missed the majority of the year due to many surgeries and the recovery time. In all of my classes, I had somewhat of a special "curve." I made it through eighth grade English with flying colors. Then I went on to high school.

H igh school was a lot harder than I expected. My freshman year was kind of difficult because of the transition from middle school to high school. The only thing I remember from that year is we watched movies and then took tests on them. My sophomore year, I remember there were many reading comprehension assignments that I never did well on, but the majority of the grades came from vocabulary tests and spelling tests. I always did really well on all of those tests, so my overall grade came out to a B. My junior year, we talked about different time periods of literature. I remember my teacher’s tests were very easy because she went over exactly what was going to be on the test the day before we took it. My junior year was very tough and it was definitely my hardest year in high school, but my senior year was pretty easy because we had a Senior Project that counted for 95% of our overall grade. So, for the majority of the year, we mainly focused on our project. The project consisted of a physical project and a five page paper that related to our physical project. The research paper was the longest paper I ever had to write. This was probably the most writing I did throughout school. In high school, there were never really any classes that really focused on the different types of literature, except a little my junior year, which is why I just thought of literature and English as something I just had to get through, and then move on.

There are many different types of literature. However, music is what impacts my life the most because I listen to it every day, and it is something I really appreciate. This past summer, I met a girl named Ashley Bach who is an absolute music freak. She likes every type of music, and can tell the true meaning of every song. As we hung out over the summer, she taught me how to really feel and understand the meaning of songs. Before, I used to just listen to the beat and kind of mumble the words, but when she taught me to listen to the words and to feel it deep within, I began to sit down and really listen to the words, and then everything just started to make sense. I finally began to understand the music world, and now some songs can really affect my emotions.
Country is probably the type of music that affects me the most.

Some songs would almost bring me to tears, like "Concrete Angel" by Martina McBride. It is about a little girl who is neglected and abused by her parents and how she takes care of herself. At the end of the song it says, "her name is written on a polished rock/ a broken heart that the world forgot." This lyric is so powerful to me. I can just picture this little girl, so innocent, trying to survive on her own and at the end her parents take her life. In the course of the song it says, "but her dreams, give her wings/ and she flies to a place where she’s loved." In a way, I think that, in its own way, it is a blessing that the girl is not suffering anymore by living with her parents, that she is in a place where she is loved. I personally have never experienced a situation like this, but it just makes me think about all the abused children across the world. This song is so powerful and real to me that I just wish I could go into the story of the song and fix all of the little girl’s problems.

There are other songs, however, that I can actually relate to my life. Trace Adkins sings a song called "Songs About Me." This song talks about a guy who doesn’t like country because he thinks all the songs are about the same thing: "I’m sorry but I’ve never been crazy ‘bout that twang and trains and hillbilly thing." This is exactly how I felt before I started listening to country. I always thought it was about a redneck’s red pickup truck and his dogs, and how his woman ran off with his brother. I really thought country was just for the so-called "redneck." In this song, Trace gives the man tickets to his show, and the guy ends up going to watch him perform and realizes that there is another side to country. The course of the song goes like this:

Cause it’s songs about me
and who I am
songs about loving and living
and good-hearted women and family and God
yeah they’re all just
songs about me
songs about me.

The first time I heard this song, I was like, "Wow, that is exactly what I felt like before I started listening to the words and meaning of the songs." I then realized that all country is not about rednecks and their wives.

Country is by far my favorite type of music because I can really understand the meaning of the songs, but I also really enjoy rap and hip-hop music. One of my favorite rap artists is Eminem. I know most people are appalled by him because of his offensive and rude language, but I look at his music for how well he puts everything together. One of my favorite songs is "Crazy In Love." I have never seen an artist who can be so creative, and can put two things that have nothing to do with each other and then make them connect like they belong with each other. This song talks about his relationship with his ex-wife Kim, how that, no matter how messed up the situation was between them, they know deep down that they still loved each other. He says, "But if there’s one thing about you I admire it’s, baby, / Because you stay with me, maybe, because you’re as crazy as I am." Even though in the song he talks about how they beat the crap out of each other, it also shows how much they need each other:

You’re the ink to my paper
Where my pen is to my pad
The moral, the very fiber
The whole substance to my rap.
You are my reason for being
The meaning of my existence
If it wasn’t for you
I would never be able to spit this.

I don’t agree with some of his ideas or lyrics, after him and Kim broke up he talks about killing her, and he has his daughter Haley in parts of the song. In the song "Just the Two of Us," he says:

Da-da made a nice bed for mommy at the bottom of the lake
Here, you wanna help da-da tie a rope around this rock?
We'll tie it to her footsie then we'll roll her off the dock
Ready now, here we go, on the count of free
One.. two.. free.. WHEEEEEE!

I think it is horrible that he has his daughter as a part of a song that verbally abusing his ex-wife in front of the whole world. I don’t really know why I like his music so much because sometimes I sit back and really think about what he just said and I’m like, "Wow, who has the guts to say that out loud, and nonetheless record it and let the world listen to it?" Other than some of his songs, like this one, I am still amazed at how well he can put things together.

Throughout my life, like I said, I have built a mental block against literature and reading. The only thing I sometimes read is the sports section in the newspaper. In high school, I used to enjoy reading about other football teams or softball teams were playing around town. Other than that, I don’t think I will ever overcome my dislike for reading and literature and I do not think I will ever really enjoy and appreciate reading and literature. Sometimes I wish I had had better experiences with my English classes when I was younger, but I cannot turn back time, only forward, but I am glad to say that music is a type of literature that I can relate to my life and it is something that impacts it as well. It is the only thing that I can listen to and really enjoy. There are just so many different types of music that, no matter what mood I am in, I can always find something to match my mood. Music takes me to another place. I go to my own little world when I listen to music.