ANALYSIS - I Wish you Peace

The following text wants to analyse the song by Eagles: "I wish you peace".

Beginning considering the title, the reader expects to be a dialogue between the speaking voice and someone else due to the logical elements of the title (a subject and a term), which let the reader know there is a conversation and the characters of this dialogue. The message is lovely because the speaking voice wishes peace to the listener, and therefore the reader is led to think the song might be a love one, and dedicated to the speaker’s loved person. The title is an augury to the reader or the listener for a peaceful situation, thus he or she is going out from a war or a conflict, for example. Moreover, the world peace creates a lot of images in reader’s or addressee’s mind, indeed it can be associated to doves and social unity.

The title is actually quite mysterious and the analysis can now move to the layout’s discussion. So, taking the layout into consideration, the reader notices there is no regular pattern and the poem is written in free verse. Furthermore, the poem is organized into two irregular stanzas and the lines are all about the same length, besides the middle one of the second stanza, which is longer.

The poem has the same style of the title: it’s a wish to the addressee. The speaking voice hopes for the listener, he wants the listener to always find a solution. The speaking voice wishes the listener a warming fire and a shelter, he wants he or she to be protected and this means the poet takes care of who is hearing. In addition, last but not least, he hopes the addressee to love. That could mean love have to keep existing, even if you are in a bad situation, you have to be in a good shape also sentimentally and psychologically. Therefore, in the text, the feeling’s strength, quoted only in the last two lines, acquires the same importance of physical strength, recovering greatness in few lines.   

What the reader can also notice after a superficial reading are the rhymes and mostly the repetitions of "I wish you". Indeed, besides the title, these words are frequently repeated in the first stanza. "I wish you" there is in the second stanza too, but not regularly: in the first line and in the two last ones. In the second stanza, the structures of the two last lines are very similar each other, and they work as a conclusion. The anaphoric repetition of "I wish you" wants to stick the words in reader’s or listener’s mind, in fact it is the main message of the text and sums up the content of the entire song.

Another element easy to notice is a sort of repetition in some lines: two identical words separated by a comma. The text is a song, and, as a consequence, it’s a poem; that means it has a metric. A song must be catchy and the metric helps. Hence, the phonological and syntactical choices led the poet to prefer this way to write and song. Suffice it to say that’s a metrical choice and I don’t think it has any more meaning.

The general message the song wants to convey is that is important to love and there is always someone that wants the best for us. As already said, the singer’s wish is very frequent in the text, and he takes care of the reader, even in bad times: he hopes you to be always in a good shape. Even if the physical aspect is what actually counts to be in a good shape, the speaking voice also quotes love, and thereby feelings. Love acquires importance and becomes existential.

Moreover, I think this song is a bit actual, because the speaker wishes the reader the best when he is in bad conditions, and in this pandemic many people were sick or worse. This song remembers us there is always someone who thinks us and loves us, even if we don’t see anyone near us.