Burden in my hand song analysis

In the song “Burden in My Hand” Chris Cornell uses clever irony, descriptive imagery, and negative characterization to put the point across that having a lover or partner is just a burden and not necessary. The artist made this song to show you a negative aspect of a partner, when they are normally thought of as a good thing.

            The artist uses descriptive imagery to give you a picture in your head and so you can see how negatively they can affect you. He says to "drown in alcohol" towards the beginning of the song. Usually when people are in a bad place or sad they will drink a lot to try and forget. There is a picture put in your head with this that you will need to drink a lot to forget about a partner or live with them. Also in the song after it says "she goes” he is "in the sunshine the sun is mine". This shows when his partner leaves he is all full of sunshine and happy, which for the sake of the relationship, it is not good. That shows he is better without them and is happier when she is gone. He says "I shot my love" towards the middle of the song and this clearly means he does not like them. When you go that far and kill them you must not be able to stand them and hate them a lot because that is serious. The pictures put in your head with this song show you very well that he does not like his partner.

            There is clever irony in the song to show the bad side of having a partner. He tells them to "follow me into the desert as thirsty as you are" meaning you will have to do what they say. This shows you are restricted with a partner and cannot do what you want to do. It is ironic because the point of having a partner is to both do things you like together and be happy, that is not happening here. It is said to "kill your health and kill yourself and everything you love", which would not make sense if you have a partner. The irony here is that what you expect which would be being happy does not happen and the opposite happens. In the end here you are dead and everything you "love" is dead too. The irony here shows you that people think they know what will happen sometimes but in the end the opposite of what they expect happens.

            The negative characterization helps you see how bad of a person your partner can be and how bad his is. He says "I left her in the sand just a burden in my hand" describing how his partner is just a nuisance. His logic is if they are such a bad person you might as well leave them behind or "in the sand". The partner is described and "Just an anchor on my heart", which would mean they are holding him down. He cannot love anything because this person is controlling him and holding him down to only love one person and only see one person. They are also "just a tumor in my head", as he says and that clearly is not a good thing. They are like a lump on your head that annoys you and you cannot get it off because you are attached. He is "in the dark" because of them and apparently never in a good mood because he has a partner.

            As this song describes it, having a partner is a bad thing. They hold you down, depress you, restrict you and are just bad people for the most part. You can now imagine what it is like to have a horrible partner and have to live with it. The irony of having a bad partner is clear to see because of their actual purpose. When you have to live with a person whose character is terrible it is just now worth it. There are a lot of negative sides to having a partner.

SA1

In the song "Love The Way You Lie" intense imagery, similar characterization and unimaginable irony are used to show even the strongest love can fade. The artist made the song so you could know what it feels like without having to experience it.

The intense imagery in the song helps you see and imagine what it was like for both of them and how their love faded. At first they say they get "warm fuzzy feelings" and "chills" when they are around each other. They are really nervous around each other when they first meet and do not want a bad first impression. Then they break off and then they are "runnin' back, again" showing that they have tried this before and are fading. Now they have a bad relationship and for the most part hate each other. The woman says "just gonna stand there and watch me burn... and hear me cry". This helps you see what it was like for the woman and shows how much he did not care and just watched her suffer physically and emotionally through their bad relationship. Also at the same time the man suffers and says "it's a steel knife in my windpipe". Showing he suffers too and for him it is like something is cutting off his ability to breath. They are also said to "spew venom in their words" when they are fighting, showing they scream intensely while they fight. There is also physical fighting too and they say they "push pull each other’s hair, scratch, claw, hit" each other when they fight. Showing how intense their relationship is in a bad way. Clearly their relationship has faded from caring what each other think and feel to the opposite and do not care at all.

These two people are essentially the same person and are not much different; to show this the author uses similar characterization. At first they are baffled by each other and "neither one knows what hit em". This shows that both of them in the beginning have the same feelings for each other and are crazy for each other. After a while they are "now in each other’s face" and are fighting a lot and are starting to lose the feelings they had for each other. They say "it's the face that's the culprit, controls you both", meaning that they only have physical attraction for each other. They are almost fully faded now and are only still together because of physical attraction. They now regret what they have done and say "I know we said things, did things that we didn't mean". That shows they both feel bad for what they did to each other while fighting and have feelings for each other. They now "fall back into the same patterns, same routine" of breaking up, getting back together and then back again. Their relationship is like a routine now and there is virtually no feeling so they have now faded a lot. They now say "your temper is just as bad as mine is, you’re the same as me" to show they are both short tempered people and they know it now. Also they say "when it comes to love you're just as blinded", and this shows they both have no idea what love is. They now realize what it is like when two bad things combine like "when a tornado meets a volcano". Their love has faded for many reasons and one would be because they are both the same bad person on the inside.

When you are in love with someone, it is unimaginable to break up with them and to fight with them, in this song that happens and it is ironic. The man asks "you ever love somebody so much you can barely breathe" and this shows that he really loves this woman. Then they are "now gettin' sick of lookin' at em", which is ironic because he loved her a lot in the beginning and now cannot stand looking at her. Yet they "swore you'd never hit em, never do nothin' to hurt em" and this is ironic because they are now hitting and fighting with each other. The woman says "that's alright because i like the way it hurts" and she "loves the way you lie" implying she is talking to the man. She is clearly sarcastically saying this and it is ironic because she used to love him and is now joking about their love and what it is based on now. Their whole relationship is now like "broken records playin' over" and there is nothing there between them now even though they started with unexplainable love but end with this. It is very ironic how they went from absolute and pure love then crashed down to pure hate for each other.

This song shows very well that even the strongest of love can fade. Through intense imagery of how it would be like and what it was like. Also the similarities in people can drive them apart and break them. Then the irony in how unimaginable it would be to actually happen.