ANALYSIS - Peace

The present text wants to analyse the song "Peace ".

Just considering the title, it’s composed by a word only, which is Peace. This title is very enigmatic, because peace creates a lot of images in reader’s mind, who associates the word to different ideas. For instance, peace can be considered as a post-war peace, when a conflict ends, or as an interior peace, when you are quite and calm with yourself. Anyway, there are many others examples I could quote, but they probably change from person to person or are difficult to sensitize in a few lines.

Moreover, reading the title the reader can expect the song to talk about an ended war, and to have (for example) a humanitarian meaning. Nonetheless, I think this kind of message is very difficult to convey, mostly through a song, and however it usually results boring or not catchy. So, the reader, will might expect the content of the text to be something else he or she will find out only after reading or listening the song.

Taking now in consideration the layout, the song has eight stanzas: a decima, a septet, two quatrains and four tercets. Another element noticeable from the layout is that, in the two biggest stanzas, there are three or four lines which are terribly shorter than the others.

Indeed, these stanzas, already from layout, seem to be similar and the septet is the first part of the decima, with only little differences, however, the song’s content will be treated farther on. Furthermore, besides this refrain, there is another one between the sixth and the seventh stanza. Also here the two quatrains are not perfectly the same, indeed in the last line of the stanza there is a difference: in the last line of the first stanza is specified where God keeps the speaking voice safe, while in the other stanza, in the last line is repeated ‘You always’.

Another element of the two longest stanzas is the curious comparison between the first line and the third. While the first one is Peace and then You give me peace, the third one is always Sweet peace. Therefore peace is in both lines and the reader, even from the title, knows it’s the subject of the entire song.

Let’s now move to the most important and interesting part, the meaning of the song.

The text starts with a suffering speaking voice, he is scared and terrorized from enemies and confusion. After the two introducing stanzas, where is explained what just said, there is the septet. In this stanza, thanks to peace the speaking voice takes shelter and recovers from the bad things he or she experienced. In this stanza, the intelligent reader recognizes a possessive pronoun, there is ‘Your’ in the last line. This led the reader to think, there is someone who helps the speaker to get back in shape, bringing peace; this figure can be associated by the reader to the loved person, for instance. Still in the third stanza, a phonological element easy to notice is a repetition of the sound w of the fifth line.

Moving to the analysis of the next two stanzas, here the idea of a protection is reinforced with the emphasis of the terror, but in the meanwhile of the shelter, too. However, it’s more defined the shape of the someone I mentioned before, are quoted indeed wings and angels, so the figure seems not to be acquiring a human aspect.

In brief, in the remaining stanzas, the speaking voice concludes and tells the reader or the listener the identity of the someone, he or she is God. Indeed, the speaker repeats the refrain, which before didn’t have a subject (hence, the speaker let the reader imagine the subject), giving an identity that is no longer enigmatic. This might be a meaning of the song, that everyone has a protective ‘spirit’ he or she can count on, whereas it’s different for each one.

Anyway, the speaking voice conveys and express his or her opinion, indeed he or she recognizes this ‘friend’ in God and finds protection (maybe from every-day life commitments) in religion and pray.

I imagine this may be the main message of the song, however I don’t actually think it is the only correct interpretation but the most correct and probable one. For instance, the speaking voice might be affirming his thought as a postulate (I don’t know how to describe this in another way), nevertheless I believe it would result arrogant.