The song I chose is “Until We Bleed” by Kleerup featuring Lykke Li. It’s a song about a doomed relationship that both partners can’t find themselves walking away from. It has shown it’s fatal consequences more than once but still they come back to eachother which just ends up hurting more than it helps. In a way it feels the speaker loves the other more than they love them which is what kills the speaker the most, as demonstrated in the line “I need you to need me” in the 4th stanza.
This song is like a poem because of its fragmented sentences that leave you somewhat questioning the meaning as well as its use of repitition and poetic devices. It’s different than a poem because it doesn’t follow a definite structure or set of lines per stanza. Another difference is its spontaneous and scattered rhymes.
The poetric devices include alliteration, assonance, metaphor, metonymy and hyperbole. Alliteration was found in the first 4 lines with “Im Naked, I’m Numb” and “I’m Stupid, I’m Staying”. Assonance wasn’t significant but in the last line of the 2nd stanza “Fall apart in parts” uses it. Metonymy was found in “If cupid’s got a gun, then hes shootin'”, because cupid is meant to take the place of love and gun the pain it causes. In a way it’s like the speaker is saying that in love if theres a way to get hurt, you will get hurt. The repeated line “Love until we bleed” uses hyperbole as love will not cause blood shed but it demonstrates just how deeply and dangerously they loved. Metaphor was the most popular of the devices. “You’re my drug” was the easiest example as the speaker compares her love to the addictive nature that a drug causes. The bridges in “And if bridges gotta fall, then you’ll fall too” are a symbol of a once existing relationship that has now fell or ruined and is no longer. The final metaphor is found in the 4th stanza “Stay clean” which followed the lines “You’re gone, come back” which hints at her previous metaphor “you’re my drug”. Staying clean is used to describe a former addict who has now become sober, their lover was their drug, they have now left and now the speaker is “clean” or seperated from their partner.
The effect given off by this song is that of despair and defeat. The speaker has been hurt enough by this love and they are now weakened by it.
You can find the full set of lyrics here
