Pink Floyd - "Us and Them"

Rhetorical Appeals

Pink Floyd does a great job of creating lyrics that tug on your emotions in the song "Us and Them." Their opening line is "Us and Them," creating dissonance in the listeners mind by separating two sides. In their very next line "And after all we're only ordinary men," they resolve this dissonance by rejoining these two sides, saying everyone is just human. What they mean is that there really isn't anything separating us and we should all realize that at our core, we are all the same. This united feeling we get when we hear the lyrics is part of the pathos intended in their song. "Forward he cried from the rear and the front rank died." But yet, we still fight wars with each other, and take orders from men who watch from the safety of the back lines. And for what good reason? Here they break the resonance with the realization that everyday people fight in wars for reasons they don't even know exist, they just take orders from their general without having a second thought, again driving at our emotions. Even though we are the same, we still fight one another. "Up and down, and in the end its only round and round and round." What Pink Floyd is saying is that the war is pointless. Soldiers fight day in and day out giving their lives to their country, but in the end we have not gained anything or solved any problems. All wars start and end the same, with people dead on both sides. Not only do the lyrics grab our emotions but they also make sense. The logos in the song calls to our sense of a common goal. People are just trying to survive and get through life the best they can. War goes directly against this goal, it forces people to kill one another and it creates sadness and distress. Not only is it unethical to fight war, it is also illogical, as it goes against our human need to survive. Pink Floyd wants people to realize this and to think that we are more than just cannon fodder, we are living, breathing men. We all have the love of humanity in our hearts, we don't hate, at least we weren't born to hate.

Audience in Radioheads "Idioteque"

Protest music is not as prevalent as it was 50 years ago, but bands like Radiohead still contribute to the dissidence of modern dilemmas through song. Radiohead has a very unique sound about them that distinguishes them from other contemporary bands. This means that their audience will be a select number of people who enjoy their style of music. The song "Idioteque"sheds light upon many current issues such as global warming, technology, and war. At the time, the target audience for Radiohead is young adults to adults, probably somewhere from 25-35. Radiohead gained their fame in 1993 with their hit song "Creep" so by 2000, when "Idioteque" is released, their fan base has aged. Music had really advanced throughout the 90's so I really doubt they increased their fan base by much since their first album. Also, In 2007, the band let their listeners pay whatever they wanted for their self-released album "In Rainbows" and still turned a profit. Their audience must be loyal enough pay the band the money they thought they deserved for the album. The audience must have also been old enough to have jobs where they full comfortably shelling out some cash for their favorite band. I can't imagine a college student paying more than $5 for the album. The band's uniqueness caught the intention of the musically inclined, who could respect what the band was doing. Radiohead is originally from England so the fan base is mostly throughout Europe and the United States. Now, I believe the song itself is intended for all listeners, although the song most likely won't catch the attention of everyone because of Radiohead's eccentric style of music. So the actual audience will be the band's primary fan base. The lyrics "We're not scaremongering, this is really happening" urge listeners to come to their senses and start dealing with the issues at hand.

Text 1: Radiohead- "Idioteque"
Rhetorical Situation/ Exigence 

Radiohead is a rock band from the UK who came together in the late 1990's.  Although many of their songs revolve around  loves, losses, depression and anger, Radiohead came out with quite a few songs directed at past wars and problems in society to help them stand out from other bands.  "Idioteque" is an example of Radiohead bringing in past wars and social issues to set them apart.  In October of 1962, the United States underwent a confrontation between the Soviet Union and Cuba on the terms of an almost nuclear war.  This put great stress on the United States causing safety precautions to skyrocket; Schools began performing "bomb drills" as regularly as they practiced fire drills, only the bomb drills were taken to the extreme.  People were even building nuclear bunkers in their backyards because they were so scared of the Cold War's nuclear missiles.  Many scientists also believed that an nuclear explosion would cool the earth into a "Nuclear Winter".  The UK also used the political technique of 'scaremongering' to scare their voters into a change during the 21st century.    

Post by Ben Brown

Text 2: Pink Floyd - "Us and Them"

Rhetorical Situation/ Exigence

Conflict broke out between France and Vietnam during the 1940's when France lost control of Vietnam. In 1945, Ho Chi Minh took over Vietnam and declared it an independent country. The United States did not want to get involved in this conflict because it had just finished WW2 and needed sometime to recover. However, Vietnam was communist and this scared a lot of Americans. The fear of communism was greater than our want to stay out of the war and so we eventually joined. Many people were against the war because of how violent the war was. One group that was against the war was an English rock band called "Pink Floyd." Pink floyd wrote many songs protesting the war. One such song was called "Us and Them." While this song is about war, on a much larger scale it is about human nature, drawing a large audience of people, making this a very prominent and influential group during the 1960's anti-war movement.

Audience in Pink Floyd's "Us and Them"

Pink Floyd's anti-war song "Us and Them" from their 1973 album, "The Dark Side of the Moon," strikes a very philosophical point of view on the US involvement in the Vietnam war.  Pink Floyd's song does this by invoking deep thoughts on war in general in the audience. People protested the Vietnam war in the 1960s through the early 1970s as well as the violence used by the police. The song "Us and Them" was geared towards politicians and everyone who was not already protesting and was meant to encourage them to rethink the purpose of war. Many references can be found in the song that are aimed to get people thinking. For example, the first few lines "Us and them, and after all we're all just ordinary men" refers to the men being drafted to the war and how they are just regular people. The next two lines takes this point and pulls it even deeper. The lines, "Me, and you; God only knows it's not what we would choose to do" are referring to the men on the battlefield. They are there but none of them actually want to take each other's lives. This is really powerful and it gets the audience thinking past the big picture of war and thinking about the individual lives of the soldiers. Pink Floyd attempts to target a large audience in the United States and encourages everyone to rethink what war truly brings. Safety from communism? Or needless death?

Text 1: Radiohead- Idioteque (2000)

"Idioteque" 

Who's in a bunker? 

Who's in a bunker? 

Women and children first 

And the children first 

And the children 

I'll laugh until my head comes off 

I'll swallow till I burst 

Until I burst 

Until I 

Who's in a bunker? 

Who's in a bunker? 

I have seen too much 

I haven't seen enough 

You haven't seen it 

I'll laugh until my head comes off 

Women and children first 

And children first 

And children 

Here I'm alive 

Everything all of the time 

Here I'm alive 

Everything all of the time 

Ice age coming 

Ice age coming 

Let me hear both sides 

Let me hear both sides 

Let me hear both 

Ice age coming 

Ice age coming 

Throw it in the fire 

Throw it in the fire 

Throw it on the 

We're not scaremongering 

This is really happening 

Happening 

We're not scaremongering 

This is really happening 

Happening 

Mobiles squerking 

Mobiles chirping 

Take the money run 

Take the money run 

Take the money 

Here I'm alive 

Everything all of the time 

Here I'm alive 

Everything all of the time 

Here I'm alive 

Everything all of the time 

Here I'm alive 

Everything all of the time 

The first of the children