My first media analysis post is going to be about a song that immediately came to mind when I thought of a media product that displays mental illnesses embedded in the real meaning of the song.  Like many country songs, they all have passionate meanings that are about loving one another and finding love, etc, but once I really noticed the lyrics of a particular song, I really saw how there could be meaning of a mental illness deep within the meaning.  The song is “How Do I Live Without You” by Leanne Rimes and even the title in itself is a little possessive now that I think about it.  Here’s the lyrics to the song:

How Do I Live

How do I,

Get through the night without you?

If I had to live without you,

What kind of life would that be?

Oh, I

I need you in my arms, need you to hold,

You’re my world, my heart, my soul,

If you ever leave,

baby you would take away everything good in my life,

and tell me now

How do I live without you?

I want to know,

How do I breathe without you?

If you ever go,

How do I ever, ever survive?

How do I, how do I, oh how do I live?

Without you,

There’d be no sun in my sky,

There would be no love in my life,

There’d be no world left for me.

And I,

Baby I don’t know what I would do,

I’d be lost if I lost you,

If you ever leave,

Baby you would take away everything real in my life,

And tell me now,

How do I live without you?

I want to know,

How do I breathe without you?

If you ever go,

How do I ever, ever survive?

How do I, how do I, oh how do I live?

Please tell me baby,

How do I go on?

If you ever leave,

Baby you would take away everything,

I need you with me,

Baby don’t you know that you’re everything,

Real in my life?

And tell me now,

How do I live without you,

I want to know,

How do I breathe without you?

If you ever go,

How do I ever, ever survive?

How do I, how do I, oh how do I live?

How do I live without you?

How do I live without you baby?

… So in essence, someone would write these lyrics and really sincerely mean them if they truly had no independence whatsoever and if they really needed this one person in their lives to survive.  It is a nice ballad if you take the song lightly, but otherwise, pretty much every line of the song can be related to something someone would say with a mental illness.  Everyone in the world can be independent and no person really needs another to survive because we were all made to breathe on our own.  The entertainment industry would be the producer of a work like this because it is a song that is meant to be made for two significant others to enjoy together, not to realize the real meaning/obsessiveness of the song.  This work has been made to be a romantic song between two people who have a relationship together.

The redundant words of the song, “how do I live without you, how do I breathe without you, how do I survive, you are my world, my heart, my soul, don’t you know that you’re everything”…and the list goes on and on.  A big ego boost and confidence is given to the person this song is being sung to, and it makes them feel good that they mean this much (the world) to one person.  A person with a mental illness could write this song because the content is very much so obsessive, infatuated, or even neurotic as one feels that they must have this one person to survive.  The person singing the song with the illness could be caging the opposing person in by stating that they always have to be by their side at all times and that they must live for this one person and no one else.  The song may feel confining and uncomfortable to the other person because no one really wants to be loved or rather obsessed over as much as this song really portrays.  The language in the song makes it clear as to what the motive is of the person singing the song; it is clear that they have to be with their loved one until the day they die and they must always be by their side, kind of like the idea of Siamese twins when they are attached at the hip for example- being that you literally need that other person to live- they are your lifeline.  The song almost forces the other person to be with you whether they like it or not because the singer has a selfish tone and is only concerned with their needs.  We can make judgments that  whenever people hear this song they take it lightly and not too literally because they know that is isn’t an obsessive mentally ill person singing it.  Another statement of the song that stands out to me as stigmatizing is the line, “I’d be lost if I lost you” is the ultimate in depending on another person- they literally can’t live/function as a being without the other because they would be in a state of confusion and unable to do anything-they can only live if the person is there, like you can’t have one without the other such as a plant needing water to survive/grow.

http://www.youthink.com/forum.cfm?action=read&forum_id=7&q_id=2237322&archive=0

This link is interesting because it has some songs that people thought were about mental illnesses, and in a way many songs can be stretched to be interpreted that way such as the one I chose.  People first tend to think that only metal/rock songs are about mental illnesses maybe because the people that wrote them had illnesses, but in fact, more songs with an “illness” connotation are written by normal, perfectly sane people.