The song “Fear and Friday’s” by American country singer Zach Bryan was released in 2023 on his album “Zach Bryan.” Like most of his music, it blends elements of country and folk to relay a story highlighting his emotions. Overall, the song reveals Zach Bryan’s anxiety toward love’s uncertainty.  Zach begins to set the scene of his song by starting the first stanza with:

“Pluck strings on porches, a poor boys’ choir

And my blood’s at a boil, there ain’t no fire

I just love the way the light beams in

But I got bad news, I’m fearin’ Friday again”

This beginning stanza introduces the song’s central theme of the contrasting feelings of hope and fear toward love. He starts by setting a scene of a small town with the joyful characteristics of singing with his friends, then shows that he is yearning for more than this, and the scene becomes less happy. The metaphor of light coming in relating to fear shows Zach’s uncertain feelings about what will occur on this night. In the second stanza, the thing Zach feared was a woman who came into the party:

Chokin’ on some bourbon when you roll up

Said, “Boy, you gotta face it, you’s ain’t that tough”

There’s a house hoppin’ on the edge of town

I’m revved up, thirsty, and ready to drown

This stanza illuminates a story about a new relationship and a night of passion. Even though this woman brings him fear, Zach is “revved up, thirsty, and ready to drown,” implying that he is ready to surrender to the night’s consequences. After these two stanzas, the listener is introduced to the melody of the song:

I got a fear, dear, that it’s gonna end

Won’t you get angry at me, say you love me again

I got a fear dear, that it’s a Friday spark

You only love me like you mean it when it’s after dark

This melody brings the entire song together, showing the deep internal conflict Zach is having about his relationship with this woman and its instability. By describing his passion with this woman as a “Friday spark,” he is saying that their love will only be temporary and will come to an end when “It’s after dark.” Zach fears this as he is scared to truly expose himself just for this love to end. 

To me, “Fear and Friday’s” is a masterpiece not just for its harmonious tune but also because it tells a story many people can relate to. The song’s tones of longing and vulnerability can take one through a rollercoaster of emotions in just three minutes.

Verklärte Nacht, or Transfigured Night, is a string sextet written by Schoenberg in 1899, written in one continuous movement that runs just under 30 minutes. Not a poem in the traditional sense, it instead can be considered a tone poem, a work that illustrates the content of a landscape, story, or poem, rather than following traditional musical patterns. In this case, the music is meant to evoke Richard Dehmel’s poem of the same name. The work can be divided into sections, each of which corresponds to one of Dehmel’s stanzas or sections.

Dehmel’s first stanza reads:

Two people are walking through a bare, cold wood;
the moon keeps pace with them and draws their gaze.
The moon moves along above tall oak trees,
there is no wisp of cloud to obscure the radiance
to which the black, jagged tips reach up.
A woman’s voice speaks:

The music is at first almost imperceptible, slowly pulsing as it builds. It has a distinctly mournful quality. The pulsing is the sound of the two people walking slowly together, a great weight holding them down in the constant bass sound of the cellos. There is a calmness in the music that exists alongside a great sorrow, as if something is slowly and imperceptibly pulling the woman down as she begins to speak.

The next section is based on the following stanza:

I am carrying a child, and not by you.
I am walking here with you in a state of sin.
I have offended grievously against myself.
I despaired of happiness,
and yet I still felt a grievous longing
for life’s fullness, for a mother’s joys

and duties; and so I sinned,
and so I yielded, shuddering, my sex
to the embrace of a stranger,
and even thought myself blessed.
Now life has taken its revenge,
and I have met you, met you.

She walks awkwardly;
Looks upward, the moon races along.
Her dark expression is drowned in light.
A man’s voice speaks:

The section is a catharsis. It is both shame and complete, unrelenting sorrow. Slowly the music becomes calm, and then swells to an emotional high point, as if the woman begins to find peace and is unable to as what she says continues to flow forth. The music becomes atonal, as if the woman is panicking, punctuated with unnatural swells and plucking. It shows the woman’s internal conflict as she realizes what she has said. She wonders what he will think of her, and is flooded with emotion. As she reaches a tenuous sort of calm against the backdrop of two dissonant solo violins, she also enters a sort of shock.

The poem follows

Do not let the child you have conceived
be a burden on your soul.
Look, how brightly the universe shines!
Splendour falls on everything around,
you are voyaging with me on a cold sea,
but there is the glow of an inner warmth
from you in me, from me in you.
That warmth will transfigure the stranger’s child,
and you bear it me, begot by me.
You have transfused me with splendor,
you have made a child of me.

The next section begins also as an emotional outpouring, but one of love and comfort rather than panic. A cello choir shows the beauty all around them, the moonlight bathing the forest in light. Still, it is not a scene of absolute calm, and the music swells, bearing echos of the panic that the women felt. It shows that her worry cannot be quelled so easily. The themes of panic are quoted again. There is no one meaning, and this is exactly what makes it poetry. Finally, the cello choir mixes with the violins’ panic, meshing together perfectly, and they resolve to a satisfied, though unsure melody. Both the man and woman know the future is uncertain, know that they are are voyaging on a cold sea, but are determined to undertake that voyage together. The movement ends in wonder and excitement. The man states the woman has made a child of him, because despite everything, he is filled with wonder, and ultimately hope for what could be.

The poem ends with the following short stanza:

He puts an arm about her strong hips.
Their breath embraces in the air.
Two people walk on through the high, bright night.

Just as the night has been transfigured, so has the music. The metamorphosis of the setting of the poem that has been taking place the whole time is finally complete.The bare, cold wood has become a high, bright night. The mournful, pulsing music is hopeful, reaching upward. The violins play in the same high register as when they panicked, but this do so to strive upwards rather than moving around wildly. The piece ends with a quiet, swelling and contented chord as the two lovers fade away into the high bright night.

The song “Calypso”, was written and performed by the American country artist John Denver. He was a very influential and revolutionary person in the industry of music and used many aspects of imagery and the building of scenery in his songs. Unfortunately, Denver passed away in 1997, in a crash of his homebuilt aircraft.

His song “Calypso”, written in 1975 and released as part of the album Windsong, is a great example of his lyrical genius, and the way he can draw the audience into a scene, and hold them in his gripping use of imagery. The lyrics are repetitive, but built upon a sense of rhythm. The song plays out like a poem but is enhanced by him and his guitar.

The opening line of the song demonstrates one of the key focus points in which Denver uses imagery in this song. While there are many uses across his vast archive of work, this one personally stands out,

To sail on a dream on a crystal clear ocean, to ride on the crest of the wild raging storm.

This quote directly shows how Denver’s incredible use of imagery, can lead the audience to experience this song in a very different way than others of the genre.

The target audience of this song is people interested in the outdoors, who prefer music with a slower rhythm, and who are more focused on the lyrics than just mindlessly listening to the song as a whole. Separating the lyrics from the flow of the song.

The song itself describes a ship that had been to many places over the open water. This can be seen by the many references to the ocean, and “the men who have served you so long and so well”.

Another quote that best describes this connection would be,

Aye, Calypso, the places you’ve been to,
the things that you’ve shown us, the stories you tell.
Aye, Calypso, I sing to your spirit, the men who have served you so long and so well.

Finally, this quote goes to show that this song can be classified as poetry, with many techniques such as imagery and rhymes to get the message across to the audience.