Audio text analysis

For this analysis I have chosen to analyze Andrea Gibson’s spoken word piece Your Life. Overall, I think that this piece of media does a fantastic job at sending across a sort of hopeful message. Starting out, we have this light piano music. It’s high pitched, it’s almost sad but there is a ting of joy to it. We are immediately hit with the idea that this is going to be a positive experience but an emotional one. Music is absolutely a major part of this, despite the fact that it’s not a song the score is still incredibly influential throughout the entirety of this. It’s perhaps the most important part in fact as even when we don’t hear anything at all there is still something playing that is making us feel. We are never left unsure there is always something guiding our emotion. As it is a spoken word piece I’d say that the most significant bit is her voice. So her tone straight away is something that I found interesting. It gave off this sense of like authority while still being sympathetic. There is also an interesting audio effect on her voice that makes it almost echoey? I think that it almost sounds like in movies when you hear god talking. It’s like someone above you talking down which I think is cool because it creates this sort of authority affect which I do enjoy.

I think it helps that it is her words that she is saying. You can hear the passion behind her words and that they actually matter to her.

For context this is a spoken word about her growth and realization of her trans identity. Straight away we understand this. The very first line is “It isn't that you don't like boys. It's just that you only like boys you want to be.” The very the first thing that you hear in this piece just lays the whole entire scene. It isn’t super obvious. It leaves you wondering what it means. She doesn’t just come out and say “I was trans” but she does give you the hint that this is about gender and you know she is somewhat queer. Queer identity really just is run throughout this entire piece and so it’s good that she establishes it right away.

This is why it feels personal. You can tell that her voice carries a certain amount of truth to it. Cadence is basically the inflection that is in someone’s voice and hers is tinged with a sad recollection but hopefulness.

The words she uses also are extremely visually stimulating for something that is just audio. “David with his jaw carved out of the side of a cliff. Malcolm, who doesn't have secrets, just stories. He owes no one. Chris, the basketball hero with the tic, blinks fifteen times when he makes a shot. You spend hours blinking in the mirror, pretending you're a star like him.” You can see this scene. I can picture David, Malcom, and even Andrea who is standing in a mirror. A major part of audio has to be creating vivid mental imagery since we do not have any actual imagery. I think that Andrea Gibson does this fantastically.

I think the way that she phrases things are just a little weird that makes you think about things more. “Mary Lavine calls you a dyke. You don't have the language to tell her she's wrong and right. So you just show up to her house, promising to paint her fingernails red with what will gush from her busted face if she ever says it again. You're in the seventh grade. You don't even know you want a girlfriend. You still believe too much in the people who believe in Jesus to even feel desire to its hell threat.” Things are just kind of strange phrasing. Like saying that you want to paint her fingernails red with her blood is a very creative way to say you’re gonna deck this bitch. I think that the weird phrasing is super intentional that way you are forced to think about what is actually being said. Again because you don’t have actual video to lean on it’s super smart to make people thing about what’s being said more.

The spoken word ends with “They're gonna keep telling you are a crime of nature and you're gonna look at all your options, and choose conviction, choose to carve your own heart out of a side of a cliff, choose to spend your whole life telling secrets you owe no one till everyone, till there isn't anyone who can insult you by calling you what you are. You Holy blinking star. You highway streak of light, falling over and over for your hard life, your perfect life, your sweet, beautiful life.” I think the use of repetition is fantastic here. It drives home a point. It drives an idea of choice and life. The two things that really matter in this story is that she was making a choice to be happier in her life so repeating these as the end message is incredibly important and I really enjoy it.

This relies heavily on pathos. It spends most of the story trying to make you feel something. It’s about the transgender experience which can be quite isolating but because she shows you what she was feeling and what she was experiencing in such a raw way it is really powerful and makes you understand it more. Even if someone wasn’t necessarily keen on trans rights I think they could listen to this and understand the experience better. They could feel her pain through what she said and through the music and in turn be more open to the trans identity.

Overall, I think that she did a good job sending a message with just audio and utilized the means and she had quite well and didn’t allow using only audio to limit her.