Eli Moskowitz

Existentialist Comparison Essay

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV4r47lctV4

Based on the American Heritage Dictionary, Existentialism is defined as “a philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one’s acts.” In The Stranger, Meursault goes through life with very little excitement, and acts as if there is no meaning to his life. He sees everything in his life as he wants to see it, and it is all based on his perception. He also is stuck in many absolute systems in his life until the end, when he breaks free of them and becomes a true existentialist. For most of his life, he lives a life filled with absurdity, with no meaning. “Church” by Outkast and The Stranger by Albert Camus are connected by three existential ideas: Absurdity, Authenticity, and Absolute Systems.

In both mediums, absurdity is one of the main themes. Absurdity is the idea that there is no meaning to life or anything. In the opening lines of the song, the question is posed “why are we here, what is the meanin to all of this?” The speaker in this song is wondering what the meaning of life is, or if there is one at all. For most of his life, Meursault has a similar view towards life, but instead of wondering if there is meaning, he accepts that there is not meaning in his life. When Meursault says “…nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I’d lived… (Camus 121)” After killing the Arab and being sentenced to death, Meursault realizes how meaningless his life was. He even uses the word “absurd” to describe his life; showing how he believes his life was truly meaningless. Meursault’s comment about his meaningless life and Outkasts’s lyrics that question the meaning of life both bring up the idea of absurdity.

In both the book and the song, authenticity is a clearly visible idea. Authenticity is the idea that one decides what the truth is in their life, and, to a person, the world is how they perceive it and their life is based off of their choices. In the second verse of the song it says “Life, is nothing but a dream, so peaceful and serene, Unless you’re being evil then you on the devil’s team, Well you perceive what you want to believe.” This refers to how one perceives their life, and a person can see what they want to believe. Also, it refers to the choices a person makes, if one is good, their life can be peaceful and serene, but if they are evil then their life will be negative. Meursault shows this idea of authenticity when he says “I had been right, I was still right, I was always right. I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. I had done this and I hadn’t done that. (Camus 121)” The first sentence of this quote shows how Meursault believes he was always right about everything, showing how he decides what is true in his life, as what he believes is right may be wrong to someone else. Then in the next two sentences he refers to how he made the choices that make up what his life his, which shows how he believes that his life happened the way it did completely because of the choices he made, and it could have turned out differently had he made different choices. Meursault’s feeling that he is always right is exactly what Outkast was referring to when saying “You perceive what you want to believe,” because Meursault believes he is always right, and that is all he knows.

The last theme that can be seen in both the book and the song was Absolute Systems. Absolute systems are organized systems that control peoples’ lives, usually by enforcing rules or regulations. Near the end of the song, Big Boi says “Talk to the coach or break out the huddle.” This refers to making a change in your life in order to “break out of the huddle.” The huddle could be considered your everyday routine, which is controlled by absolute systems. The huddle in the book is essentially Meursault’s boring, absolute system filled life. He breaks out of it when he kills the Arab, going against the laws and moral rules of the world, which are ruled by absolute systems (Camus 59). In the song, the speaker talks about breaking out of absolute systems, and in the book, Meursault actually breaks out of a few absolute systems that he is in.

The three ideas that are talked about in “Church” by Outkast are shown in The Stranger, during and after Meursault kills the Arab. Absurdity is shown in both, as the song wonders why we are here, and Meursault is very blunt in saying that life is meaningless. In the song, Outkast talks about how a person is in the life that they chose and that the want to live in, which Meursault agrees with, and believes his life is exactly how he wanted it to be. Absolute systems are also referred to in both, the song believes that one should get out of absolute systems, and in the book, Meursault breaks out of his absolute systems. In conclusion, “Church” by Outkast and The Stranger by Albert Camus both have strong agreeing existentialist themes.

Cam Ca$hman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgfgFpFaxgw

Comparing The Stranger and existentialism to Edguy’s “King of Fools

The song “King of Fools” has lyrics that show existentialist themes like individuality and not following absolute systems, and some lines can be compared to scenes in The Stranger when Meursault is being questioned by his Lawyer and the judge during his trial. The song’s lyrics describe a character, who is similar to Meursault in that he lives the way he wants to rather than the way society wants him to, however the song’s character seems to have more emotion, in particular anger, while Meursault doesn’t express his feelings outwardly. The song goes on to describe how the character doesn’t follow the crowd and absolute systems and chooses to walk his own way, calling the leader of these people the “King of Fools.”

What do you think when you spit in my face? How does it feel to accuse and to haze? Now look at me, I’m not one of your kind, and I prefer to stay behind. The first verse is demonstrating a couple of existentialist themes. The first two lines represent alienation, as the speaker is describing how the other people don’t understand him and mock him for how he lives his life. The line “I’m not one of your kind” alludes to not only this, but also individuality, because the speaker is describing how he chooses not to follow the crowd and their absolute systems because he wants to live his own life. This attitude can be directly compare to Meursault’s, although Meursault never explicitly states it in the book as the speaker in the song is. The other people mocking the song’s speaker could also be compared to when the judge calls Meursault “Monsieur Antichrist” because he doesn’t understand the way that Meursault lives his life.

We don’t wanna be like you, don’t you get that King of Fools? We don’t mind your life is trite, you are the King of Fools. The chorus begins with the speaker saying he doesn’t want his life to be like the others who blindly follow the King of Fools and absolute systems. The next line uses the world “trite,” which means lacking in originality or freshness. In this line, the speaker is mocking the others for their lives being controlled by absolute systems. We are never gonna be like you, we don’t follow – King of Fools, you’re the blind who lead the blind. In this line, the speaker is saying that even the leaders of this absolute system are blind as well as the followers, and nobody is making choices for themselves. Since the chorus is kind of insulting to the others, this is where I think the song’s character differs from Meursault. While Meursault is largely emotionless and often keeps to himself, the speaker in the song is quite angry and insulting the others.

The line “And walk the wicked way!” is used multiple times throughout the song, and it is a very important line in the song. The speaker isn’t saying the way he “walks” or lives his life is actually wicked, he’s saying in the eyes of the others, his strange way of living is unusual and they shun him for it, so in their eyes it is wicked.

You feel at ease as you flock with the masses, what do you see with your heads in their asses? This is the most existentialist line in the song. It uses harsher language to really push the message of the song. In this line, the singer describes how he sees the rest of the people, all in one huge flock. Not literally, of course, but they’re all following the same absolute systems that he doesn’t like. He says “What do you see with your heads in their asses” to describe how many of them there are, so many that they’re so close to each other their heads are figuratively up their asses. This shows just how different this character is from Meursault, because Meursault very much keeps to himself and isn’t really outspoken about how he lives his life, in fact, Meursault might not even be aware how existentialist his life is, meanwhile the speaker in the song is very much aware of how he lives his life and is outspoken and insulting to the people who don’t share the same views as him. The next line, Keep on railing at what I believe, call me insane and I am proud to be, describes even more that even though these people make fun of him he’s still proud and stands behind his choices, which is something that existentialists do. This line I think best represents the scene in The Stranger when the lawyer is questioning Meursault. Meursault mentions that “I had pretty much lost the habit of analyzing myself…I probably did love Maman, but that didn’t mean anything. At one time or another all normal people had wished their loved ones dead” and the lawyer, shocked “Made me promise that I wouldn’t say that at my hearing or in front of the examining magistrate.” Even though the lawyer is not directly insulting him for his beliefs, Meursault has chosen that he wants to live and feel this way and the Lawyer warns him against expressing this because he feels that it is strange.

It is very clear that the song “King of Fools” has a lot of specific existentialist themes and can be directly connected to Albert Camus’ The Stranger.

Katie Ameida

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_CydL91xZak&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D_CydL91xZak

“Crooked Teeth” by Death Cab for Cutie conveys responsibility and forlornness; tenets of existentialism. The tone of the music and the tone of the lyrics are contrasting. The music displays emotional depth, unlike in The Stranger, where the simplicity and monotone speech demonstrates a lack of emotion. The lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie, Ben Gibbard, recently lost a lot of weight. He took his life into his own hands, created and defined his own life. He is also a singer, songwriter and guitarist. Through his band, he searches for something to fill the empty void of his forlornness. His existentialism leaks into the songs he writes, which in the song “Crooked Teeth”, is displayed through many of the lyrical verses.
The theme responsibility is illustrated in “Crooked Teeth” by Death Cab for Cutie. Responsibility is creating meaning for your own life. No one can define it for you or create it for you. In this song, the lyrics demonstrate this tenet. “Cause I built you a home in my heart, With rotten wood it decayed from the start.” Here the artist writes about how he took responsibility and began to create his own life. Although creating something from something that is already rotten will only decay after time. Something that starts broken can never be fixed.
Similarly, in The Stranger by Albert Camus, Meursault begins to create his own life, but he also begins to build his life on things that are broken. On page 41, Meursault says, “When I was a student, I had lots of ambitions like that. But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered.” Meursault constructed his life without the values that had once been important to him. This quote leads you to believe that when Meursault was younger, he had ambitions and cared about things, but he gave up on them and built his life with his own values outside the absolute systems.
Forlornness is conveyed in the lyrics of “Crooked Teeth.” Forlornness is the feeling of despair, isolation, hopelessness after realizing that one must create their own meaning. Being in a state of forlornness can happen whenever a part of your life is based upon something that can break down, like a relationship or an athlete that gets injured. In “Crooked Teeth”, the artist sings lyrics that say “Cause you can’t find nothing at all if there was nothing there all along. No you can’t find nothing at all if there was nothing here all along.” The artist describes here the loneliness and hopelessness he feels. He has lost a loved one, but realizes that there was actually no love. He has been alone and is alone again now. As said in the lyrics, you can’t create something if there was nothing there in the beginning. No one can experience what you do or know how you truly feel. This is attributed to the sense of anxiety one feels.
In The Stranger by Albert Camus, Meursault also experiences forlornness. He has a lack of caring and is lonely because he has no one. Even after he finds someone, he doesn’t even know if he loves her. On page 41, “That evening, Marie came by to see me and asked me if I wanted to marry her. I said it didn’t make any difference to me and that we could if she wanted to. Then she wanted to know that I loved her. I answered the same way I had that last time, that it didn’t mean anything, but that I probably didn’t love her.” Meursault is unable to feel emotion or actually love for somebody. He has realized that it is his own job to create his own world and identity. Because he has realized this, he is unable to feel love for Marie.
The emotional depth displayed throughout the lyrics of the song does not coercively match the tone of the music. Through the song, the music is happy and upbeat, misleading you to believe that without the lyrics, the song would be about positive and blissful subjects. The lyrics reflect the artists struggling emotional life, while the music and sound don’t reflect anything. The music is just a happy sound the band created to trick one into believing that the song is not sad, but is happy. The lyrics in “Crooked Teeth” are very unlike the monotone writing in The Stranger.
The text in The Stranger is the opposite of the lyrics in Crooked Teeth. In The Stranger, the text is very simple and monotone, making it impossible for the reader to create emotional depth while reading. This is the style of Camus’s writing and it is written in this way, for a specific reason. All the sentences are short and simple, while the opposing script, in Crooked Teeth, the lyrics talk a lot about the inability to feel emotion and the artist describes specific scenes and explains in detail.
“Crooked Teeth” by Death Cab for Cutie and The Stranger by Albert Camus both illustrated many tenets of existentialism. Specifically chosen were the characteristics of responsibility and forlornness. Contrastingly, the actually text in each of the pieces are different. In the song, the lyrics are emotional, yet still displaying existentialism, while in The Stranger; the text is very simplistic and monotone. Both of these pieces successfully display similar tenets of existentialism in comparable ways, as well different ways. Although the band Death Cab for Cutie and Albert Camus are from completely different time periods, and create different styles of literature, music and novels, both pieces compared here have still been able to relate to each other because both have the foundation of responsibility, forlornness and a perpendicular style of writing.

The Head and the Heart-Down in the Valley

“Down in the Valley” is a song that was released in 2010 by the folk/pop band The Head and the Heart.  The band’s name describes its sound of their music perfectly; the lyrics and music are both inspired by intellect and emotion.  By analyzing the lyrics and sound of “Down in the Valley”, one can detect existential themes as well as relate it to Meursault inThe Stranger.  One interpretation of the song’s poetic lyrics is that it is telling a story of the life of lead singer Jonathan Russell.  He can do what he wants in life and he travels around, but other things that he has no control over come into play and he always returns back to where his life used to be (the valley).  His life is very repetitive, and eventually he turns to drinking because there is no purpose to his life anyway.

The sound produced in the production of “Down in the Valley” are driven by guitar and piano, with accents of violin and drums. The singing is made up of soft male voices, sometimes singing different lyrics in the background of each other.  If you listen closely, the song has a female voice as well in a few parts.  The singing is made up of a trio of voices, with three more people playing instruments completing the music group.  The song starts out with just a guitar tune, and a low voice begins sorrowful lyrics.  A violin steps in for a moment, and then the voice continues to tell his story and a piano and drums kick in.  The lyrics step up to a slightly higher tempo, but then they slow down again and it is back to a violin and guitar only.  After a series of oh oh’s created by multiple voices, the faster pace picks up again.  The next series of oh oh’s is accompanied by all of the instruments by a soft voice in the background pronounced lyrics that are hard to understand, which continue on.  The song picks up in the most hopeful tone of the entire thing, and then the lyrics and instruments slow done again before the song comes to an end. The final lyrics and sound of the song are the same depressing lines and tones as the song ends with.  The sound of the music alone delivers the message that life is repetitive.  The song ends the exact same way that it starts.  In the middle, there are a lot of different sounds and lyrics, but in the end none of it matters.

Many of the lyrics from “Down in the Valley” relate to existential themes.  Jonathan Russell portrays his perspective on life as that he has free will, but life is absurd and mundane.  The opening lines of the song “I wish I was a slave to an age old trade” and “…my rough and rowdy ways” show that he does not follow absolute systems, which is an existential idea.  Slaves are forced to do certain things by absolute systems, so if he was a slave he would be forced to be someone he’s not.  Instead, he has “rough and rowdy ways”, doing his own thing and not following the rules.  Existentialists believe in free will, and they believe that following absolute systems because they limit personal meaning to life. The singer also seems to believe in absurdity, feeling as though there is no meaning to life.  His life is hopeless and repeats over and over again.  The quote “But it don’t make no difference if you sit or you stand” means that no matter what he does in life, nothing changes.  “We do it over and over and over again” and “’Cause they both end in trouble and start with a grin” suggest that he feels his life is the same thing over and over again, and nothing ever ends up worth it.  The singer also expresses that he feels alienated.  The lines “Down in the valley with / Whiskey rivers / These are the places you will find me hidin’” show that he feels alone in his life, hiding, and the whiskey rivers reference implies that he drinks.  Throughout the song, the singer refers to the valley, which represents where he always ends up in life, when there is no sense in going anywhere else.

Many of the existential parts of this song can be related to the character of Meursault in Albert Camus’s novel The Stranger.  In the book, Meursault breaks free from absolute systems.  On page 59, he shoots the Arab.  Although it is against the law and societal norms, he does it unexpectedly and does not even feel guilty afterward.  In “Down in the Valley”, the singer suggests that he already does not follow absolute systems.  Both do things without thinking them through first, making their own decisions.  Another thing is that Meursault does not feel emotion.  Although “Down in the Valley” sounds very sad, there are no lyrics that prove the singer is sad.  He is depressed because he turns to alcohol, but that makes him feel numb.  His life is meaningless, with everything occurring over and over again, getting him nowhere.

Another example of how the lyrics of “Down in the Valley” relate to Meursault in the novel The Stranger is the part of the song that is difficult to understand.  It is the part of the song when the singer is talking about a girl, but he never connects her to any emotion.  The most common lyrics applied to this part of the song are “I hear your name and then / I saw you standin’ out / I saw your face in the crowd and you came out / You saw me crossin’ the valley and you came in”, but many people claim to hear different things and there is no published version of the lyrics so one cannot be sure.  Based on these lyrics, this part of the song could be compared to parts in The Stranger when Meursault is with or thinking about Marie.  On page 35, Meursault says “she asked me if I loved her.  I told her it didn’t mean anything but that I didn’t think so”.  Throughout the book, he focuses on the physical aspects in life, and never his emotions.  This quote shows that even though he is with Marie and is attracted to her, he doesn’t have feelings for her. Based on the lyrics from the song, the lead singer of The Head and the Heart could feel the same way about the girl he is discussing.

It is surprising how many songs include existentialistic themes.  The lyrics and sounds of “Down in the Valley” were easily analyzed for existential themes and things relating to Meursault’s existential character.  This song seemed out of the ordinary for The Head and the Heart because they typically write love songs, and most do not contain any existential thoughts at all, but they do portray a sense of depression and longing as well as alienation.  Within this song, the singer expresses existential thoughts relating to free will, absurdity, repetition, not following absolute systems, and alienation.  Jonathan Russell and the rest ofThe Head and the Heart, as well as Meursault feel that their lives or on repeat, think that life is absurd, make rash decisions whether or not they are rough, and demonstrate ideas of having free will and not predetermined destiny.  One would not be able to sense this by listening to just one of another of The Head and the Heart’s songs, but by listening to this one and a group of others, existentialism becomes obvious.  The group was created in 2009 after meeting through a series of open mic nights in Seattle, Washington.  It is a tough lifestyle, with repetitive shows and very little money, but that is their own choices that they have made.  Though they may believe that life has no meaning, their decisions are completely up to them and they can make their lives into whatever they want them to be.  Through free will, the band creates beautiful music and lives their lives to the fullest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4jFyOsY54M

Lyrics of Down in the Valley, from: http://lyrics.wikia.com/The_Head_And_The_Heart:Down_In_The_Valley

I wish I was a slave to an age-old trade
Like ridin’ around on railcars and workin’ long days

Lord have mercy on my rough and rowdy ways
Lord have mercy on my rough and rowdy ways

Call it one drink too many
Call it pride of a man
But it don’t make no difference if you sit or you stand

‘Cause they both end in trouble and start with a grin
Yeah they both end in trouble and start with a grin

We do it over and over and over again
We do it over and over and over again

Oh-oh
Oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh

Oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh

Oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh

I know there’s California, Oklahoma
And all of the places I ain’t ever been to but
Down in the valley with
Whiskey rivers
These are the places you will find me hidin’
These are the places I will always go
These are the places I will always go

I am on my way
I am on my way
I am on my way back to where I started

Oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh

Oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh

One more for the stars and their eyes in the walls
I hear your name and then, I saw you standin’ out

I saw your face in the crowd and you came out
You saw me crossin’ the valley and you came in

Look at the sign on the door and it reads to me
Just like the grass and the sign when you walked in

Oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh

Oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh

I am on my way
I am on my way
I am on my way back to where I started

California, Oklahoma
And all of the places I ain’t ever been to but
Down in the valley with
Whiskey rivers
These are the places you will find me hidin’
These are the places I will always go
These are the places I will always go

So I wish I was a slave to an age-old trade
Lord have mercy on my rough and rowdy ways