are there any poetic devices in this song "mad world" by gary jules?

Question

im trying to see if there are any poetic devices in this song. i would be grateful for any comments you have on this song. please help!!! :)

"mad world" by gary jules

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere

And their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tommorow, no tommorow

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
Cause I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World

Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen

Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me

Answer 1

Firstly this song can be classified as a lyric poem, because obviously...it has lyrics!!

It has quite a rigid structure in the layout of the stanza's (paragraphs), what can be classified as mechanic form rather than organic. It operates in closed couplets as opposed to open couplets, which tend to run onto one another. The only place this differs is the chorus, which you could say changes to open couplet format.

The rhyming is quite different; in order for you to see the patterns in poetry you can label each line with a letter. Everytime a line rhymes with a previous one (within its paragraph/stanza) you give it the same letter eg:

"That you were once unkind befriends me now," (This we would call line A)
"And for that sorrow which I then did feel" (This we call line B, however had it rhymed with A, we would have also called it A)
"Needs must I under my transgression bow"#, (As you can see, this rhymes with the first line, A, so we call it A too!)

And so on and so forth. If you have lots of lines that don't rhyme, don't worry, just assign them different letters.

For 'Mad World' the rhyming pattern is:
Stanza 1:
A, A, A, B
2
A,B, C, C
3 (Chorus)
A,B,C,B,D,E,F,G,H
4
A,B,A,C
5
A,B,C,B

It is very messy with its rhyming, there is no particular pattern to it.

As I said before, the stanza's are quite rigid. Apart from the chorus, each stanza has a meter (rhythm) of 10 syllables for the first line, 8 for the second, then 10 again and then 8. The chorus' first line has 8 syllables, second has 6, the next five lines has 7 syllables, then it goes back to 6, then 2.

The meter is very sedate and slow, more a backing beat to the piece than an all out drum solo...to use a bad metaphor.


Now for the poetic terminology....

The rhythm of this song is trochaic, which means the first word of the line is stressed and is followed by a light syllable. You'll notice the way the end of each line has a light syllable, which is very common with trochaic format.

In the first line there is mild use of alliteration ('repetition of speech sounds in a sequence of nearby words, only relating to consonants'*). "(f)amiliar (f)aces."
This is also repeated in stanza two line three, "(h)ide my (h)ead."

He seems to really, really like caesura's, which are pauses in the syntax (er...sentences ;) ) indicated by comma's. If you can't pronounce caesura's, like me, then call it a medial pause(mee-dee-all) which means the same thing.
eg: "No one knew me, no one knew me."

The only reason he uses these is because he's very fond of repetition. He has to pause there, otherwise it would be grammatically incorrect. But you can see that the use of the medial pause and the repetition acts to change the mood and speed of the song. Instead of being a boring description of the person in the songs life, the repetition adds a dream-like quality to it, making it sadder and the 'narrator' if you like appear almost childlike.

There isn't alot of imagery in this song, but there are a couple of lines, "tears are filling up their glasses," which gives a nice descriptive element, and "worn out faces" which really adds to the depressing mood of the piece.


Okay...here endeth the lesson LOL. If you need more help with English homework, let me know, I'm doing an English major :)

Answer 2

Well, the line "And their tears are filling up their glasses" is very metaphoric- I mean, we aren't meant to really believe they are crying and filling a cup up with their tears, so it's a metaphor.

There's probably more, but I haven't brushed up on poetic devices in a long time.

By the way, I LOVE this song! It's so sad, pretty, and atmospheric.

Answer 3

The one poetic device that I see immediately is repitition. Its all over the place.