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Destruction and Passive Aggression in Songs!

Should songwriters consider the messages that they are sending?

Rachel Dodman
5 min readMay 12, 2020
Photo by OC Gonzalez on Unsplash

I ❤ Music!

I‘ve been listening to a wide variety of music just lately. I’m a rock chick at heart — I love a bit of Iron Maiden or Marillion, but just recently I have found myself listening to different genres and wondering how I would dance to them (I dance Modern Jive and Blues, as well as bopping at discos). I have developed a new love for Lewis Capaldi and some of the 80’s pop ballads, many thanks to Smooth Extra radio station. I’ve been listening to the lyrics of the songs — I am a words kinda girl, after all!

I’ve noticed that some of these songs have a terrible message!

I'm as free as a bird…

Take Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I can’t list all of the lyrics here — it would make this article far too long, but go and google them if you’re not familiar with the song. He is saying that he needs to be free (as a bird) and that he can’t be changed. But ‘she’ (presumably his partner) shouldn’t take it so hard! He’s essentially saying ‘I’m leaving you because I want to have as many girls as I like — oh and stop being upset’. He can bog off! She should be singing I will Survive by Gloria Gaynor back at him! “Go on, now go — walk out that door…

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Rachel Dodman
Rachel Dodman

Written by Rachel Dodman

Rachel is a freelance writer from the UK. Check out her latest novella Downhill From Wednesday on Amazon! www.racheldodman.com

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