Son Analysis 1

                                                                                                                                    Colin Feeney

                                                                                                                                    10/24/11

                                                                                                                                    Class-G

                                                                                                                                    Song Analysis

                In “Life’s Been Good” one of the songs we listened to in class that I really enjoyed listening too, Joe Walsh uses lots of illustrated imagery, serious slant rhyme, and masterful mastery to show all of his song listeners that he will do anything to have fun in his life.  Maybe not anything, but Joe Walsh wants everyone to know that his life has been good to him even with all the struggles he has been through.

            Joe Walsh uses some illustrated imagery in this song and he uses it really well.  When he says, “So I got me an office, gold records on the wall.  Just leave a message, maybe I’ll call.” When he says this it makes me think of that wall in his house with the gold records on it.  When he talks about his mansion he uses imagery because it makes me think of his huge house, but he won’t tell us the price of it. “I have a mansion, forget the price.  Ain’t never been there, they tell me it’s nice.”  He is basically bragging when he says this because everyone wishes they could say that. These are two examples how Joe Walsh uses imagery in his song.

            Also in this song, Joe Walsh uses a slant rhyme. When I was looking through this song I could only find one of them. He talks about how hard it is to deal with all of the fame that he is getting and also how he hasn’t changed. “It’s tough to handle this fortune and fame. Everybody’s so different, I haven’t changed.” This is a slant rhyme because he rhymes “fame” and “changed”. These two words don’t look like they rhyme, but they do rhyme when you say the two words. So that is why this is considered to be a slant rhyme.

            Another literary device that Joe Walsh uses in this great song is mastery.  I chose this device because it is just a great song.  I had never heard this song before in my life until the day in class we listened to it.  As soon as the song came on and he started using his lyrics I got attached to the song right away. I don’t know why it is just the way he did the song wicth  was so good. After I heard it I couldn’t stop thinking about some of the lines in my head.  They just stuck in there because my brain loved it so much. Once I got home I put this song on my ipod and I will probably listen to it for the rest of my life.  Since this was the issue, I had to put mastery as one of the devices just because I couldn’t say this about any other song that we have listened to. I just got hooked on to it right away. This is why I chose mastery in the song “Life’s Been Good”.

            Joe Walsh is a great song writer and he has a really good voice to put along with his lyrics.  I haven’t listened to any other songs by him, but I’m sure I would like them. He uses great literary devise in his songs and he puts them together really nicely.  Joe Walsh is awesome and I hope to learn a lot more about him and a lot more about his songs.  Eminem is still my boy though!