Analyzing Alison Krauss's Speech In The Song 'Broadway'
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In the history of music, there have been many songs pertaining to New York City. Some have been positive, others negative, and still others left ambiguous. However, every song contains some part of the same general idea about New York City: it is a memorable place that the speakers will never forget, whether they want to or not. New York City has affected many different people in many different ways, but each of the speakers in these songs found it to be a memorable, unforgettable location. The song “Broadway” by Alison Krauss begins with the lines “I stood on faith and the corner of ambition/I came here to sink or swim/And to show them all that they were wrong”. The speaker in this song went to New York City to succeed, presumably on Broadway. She finds Broadway and New York City to be places where one can make their dreams come true, even when others don’t believe in them, which is implied in the phrase “show them all that they were wrong”. In this context, the speaker is referring to the people who believed that in going to Broadway, she would “sink”, or fail, rather than “swim”, or succeed, and how she wants to prove them wrong by succeeding and making someone…show more content… In this song, the speaker says, “I’ve a prince who is waiting/And a kingdom downtown”, referring to Manhattan. Princes and kingdoms often represents richness, comfort, and pamperedness, and places where a person has those things are often highly important to them. Also, the speaker says, “Brooklyn holds you/And holds my heart too”. Brooklyn “holding” someone or something would mean that that place was important and meaningful to the person or thing. So Brooklyn holding the “you” the speaker refers to and the speaker’s heart would make Brooklyn very meaningful and thus memorable to