Song of the Week
“Why” by Dominic Fike is a song about making changes to your life and not being afraid to do so. A lot of people find themselves putting up with things in their life that they despise even when they don’t have to. This song is Fike telling you to go for it. I chose this song for song of the week because I feel the message is important and most people have a moment of realization like this at some point in their life.
The first verse starts with “Said the lady with the long legs in the lawn chair / She like the strings on my guitar neck and my blonde hair / I write about her thighs in my latest lines / I remember her eyes when I asked her why”. Fike opens the song with a dialogue between a woman and himself. In the song he is talking to her but in reality he is talking to his listeners. He asks her why she puts up with her life even when she doesn’t enjoy living it. He also mentions the shock in her eyes when he says all of these things.
“Why would you pay for this apartment you don’t belong in? / You take this shit from all your bosses and all your boyfriends / I guess I get surprised when you let it slide / But it’s no business of mine how you waste your time”. People everywhere feel stuck in the quicksand of complacency. Whether it is a job or relationship we forget that there is always a choice. It is hard to choose change over comfort but if you’re not happy with something in your life a little change might not be so bad. The woman in the song got the first job she crossed paths with and doesn’t spend a lot of time planning out her other choices in her for now passionless life. Life is whatever you want it to be and we have more power in ourselves then we would ever need. All it takes is the right mindset and you can do just about anything.
The chorus is pretty simple stating “Do you ever wonder why”? It repeats a few times and is very catchy. We spend so much time complaining about problems that we forget we also have the ability to change them. We as a species have this fatal flaw of needing to be comfortable. Doing something with your life or getting yourself out a bad situation is never comfortable. I can think of so many times in my past that I have wasted time being afraid to do something. Now, I just ask myself two questions. Am I happy with how things are? and Will I be happier if I do this? If the answers are no then yes why wouldn’t I?
The second verse has the following lines “How many warnin’ signs ’til it hits you, darling / gravity’s your friend / You fall out of touch sometime / but your history calls you back to it again”. This song overall is a wake up call to not let your life pass you by no matter how easy that is. When he says “fall out of touch” that is her letting her mind wander onto the idea of change but that history brings her back to her old ways. Stuck in a job, place and with people she doesn’t want. It feels like the gravity of the earth pulling her into this miserable routine but Fike is saying that she can get out if she really thinks hard about her life. Why is she doing all these things she doesn’t want to do?
In the end, The idea in this song is way less complex then my normal song of the weeks, but the meaning of this one is something that changed my life for the better. I kept waiting for good things to happen to me instead of making the things happen myself. Same with a relationship, If that person doesn’t make you happy just change the situation. It really is that easy! That is my perspective! What do you think of Fike’s mindset on life?
What is Perception? 