Song Analysis 1: 'Human'

Human

By: Christina Perri

Revealing what it is to be human in “Human,” Christina Perri shows wistful mood, touching figurative language, and first person point(s) of view, that help to portray the concept that people are “only human” and they can be built up only to be hurt and fall down.

Christina Perri (CP) sings about putting up with a hurtful situation that gives off a wistful mood throughout the song. The conflict in the song is a hurtful one but CP goes on and “bites her tongue” in order to get through it. But the situation just keeps getting worse and she feels as if the people around her treat her like a machine. As if she doesn’t have feelings and can’t be hurt by their awful words, she is forced to “fake smiles” and “force laughs” she “dances around and plays the part” she has been given, since that is what they have asked her to do. All the while trying to ignore the effects of this hurtful situation, she really wants them to understand that she is “only human”. And she says throughout the song: “I’m only human and I bleed when I fall down and I crash and I break down” all the while explaining that their words are like “knives in her heart” and how those words also affect her by “building her up and then I fall apart”.  She’s “just a little human” and then finally she’s had enough and stands up for herself. Showing them that she isn’t a machine but in truth a human who has been hurt quite a lot! And hopefully she will be able change her situation to a much cordial and happy setting.

CP uses many different phrases in her song to help convey that wistful mood but she also uses those words and phrases, in order to show off the touching figurative language sprinkled throughout the song. CP is trying to make us really feel what the speak is feeling by saying things like: “Knives in my heart” or “I can hold the weight of worlds”. She isn’t really being hurt with a knife and she most definitely cannot hold the actual weight of worlds, but CP wants us to understand that it almost feels like she is doing these things but in an emotional sense instead of a physical one. The figurative language throughout helps to invoke a almost sensitive feeling that is helping to build up to that sense of wistfulness in the mood.

One of the final literary devices used in CP’s song ‘Human’, is first person POV. During her song we don’t really know if the speaker is actually CP or if it is someone else that is talking about their situation and feelings. But regardless of who the speaker is, they tell us this story of how people have treated them as “a good machine”, even though they have said that they “bleed when I fall down” and describe how they “Crash and break down”. By all of these things being told from first person POV we know have this one certain person is feeling, which help us, as the audience, really understand what is going on and make a better almost personal connection with the speaker. And by making that connection it makes the speakers emotions come through to us the listener that much clearer and stronger.

Describing what seems to be a bad situation for the speaker, who through out this song struggles to make a bad situation more bearable but soon reaches their limits and stops trying to make it better and finally say “I’ve had enough”! Christina Perri really gets her point across in this song ‘Human’, by using literary devices such as wistful mood, touching figurative language, and first person POV. All of these devices help us to really understand and appreciate how the speaker is feeling throughout this wonderfully beautiful song.

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