Songs are an arrangement of poetic expressions applied into a musical composition. Most are expressed as narrative poems familiarizing the audience of an event that occurred. However, beyond narration, lyricists have implemented other idiosyncrasies of poetic devices into the lyrics. The 1980’s rock band, Queen, have three top selling songs: “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Another One Bites the Dust”, and “Somebody to Love.” Within the lyrics, constant forms of repetition, various rhyme schemes, and narrative stories can be discovered.
Repetition can be located within the lyrics of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Another One Bites the Dust”, and “Somebody to Love.” According to the text, repetition is to carry again or repeat (Roberts 791). Doing so creates emphasis …show more content…
For instance, the stanzas of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Rhyming of “fantasy” and “reality” of the first stanza are imperfect, general, cross rhymes. Furthermore, in the third stanza “head” and “dead” are perfect tail rhymes. Additional tail rhymes are in the fifth stanza, with assonance or slant rhymes of “spine” and “time.” Finally, perfect rhymes can be found within the tenth stanza, “eye” and “die” along with the within the eleventh stanza, “me” and “see”; yet, “eye” and “die” are tail rhymes and “me” and “see” are cross rhymes. To further illustrate, placed into to the lyrics of “Another One Bites the Dust” are different forms of rhyming, The first, second, and eighth stanzas have cross end tail rhymes of “street” with “feet”, “low” with “go”, “seat” with “beat,” and “this” with “rip.” All are examples of perfect rhymes, except “this” and “rip;” these are considered assonance, as they have the same vowel sound. However, unique to this piece, are eye-rhymes, or words having the same spelling yet different sounds. In stanzas three, six, and nine are “one” and “gone.” Although these words are not pronounced the same, the similar spelling classifies the words as a rhyme words. “One” and …show more content…
There has been many speculations as to the meaning or narration of “Bohemian Rhapsody. One may argue that the author, Freddy Mercury is referring to his childhood and his religious beliefs since many of the words within the lines can also be located within the the Qu'ran. For example, "Bismillah" is one of these and it literally translates to "In the name of Allah." Another example is the word "Scaramouch" which means "a stock character that appears as a boastful coward." And the final example is the term "Beelzebub;" this is one of the many names assigned to The Devil. Another explanation one may choose to argue is not referencing Mercury's childhood, but his sexuality - it was around this time that he was starting to come to terms with his bisexuality, and his relationship with Mary Austin was falling apart. The words could be expressing Mercury’s inner thoughts and emotions within third person format. The narration of “Another One Bites the Dust” is also more complex. The words describing a man walking silently down a street with his hat covering his face carrying a machine gun, build up an atmosphere in anticipation what is about to happen. The audience may begin to question whether or not there going to be some kind of fight and if so