Song Analysis

Young Pilgrim

s

The Shins

Where to start?

The most logical place…the tone.

And it’s not this

Tone

Tone is created immediately by painting a visual with very bleak and depressing words:

•Cold and wet•Emptiness•Dwell•Barking sparrows

Tone

But the speaker battles against this tone within the song reassuring himself and us that he’s “learned fast how to keep (his) head up” because he has a tendency to get caught up in the “emptiness.”

But the tone doesn’t get a lot lighter as the speaker takes jabs at the “lofty tales (of the Bible or religion in general)” that offer a comfort to the masses.

EthosWhich brings me to my next point: Is the speaker better than me if I don’t get bogged down in the “emptiness” of “Modern thought”?

He seems to almost revel in his depression as though it’s rite of passage, a gift/curse: “And end up the kind of kid who goes down chutes too narrow.”

This is the quintessential morbid poet syndrome, but a syndrome that, while we may not totally identify with, we have a healthy respect for. While we see a beautiful sunset, he sees “some gory art from way on high.” We wonder what it would be like to a tortured artist. But we get to move on an be comforted by those “loft tales so tried and true.”

StyleMetaphors and more Yoke from the pilot =

without going too deeply, the speaker’s angst has him

contemplating drastic actions. The “(w)hole mess” is what society has become.

StyleMetaphors and more Slides and chutes

= life’s path. They might be narrow because few have traveled down them…a slight allusion to Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.”

What’s the Message (logos)

The speaker has struggled with staying upbeat and positive. He has a propensity to look and think deeply about life and as a result has a cynical view of things. But he attempts to keep perspective and stay positive.