Analysis of the song “peace”

The present work is meant to analyse and discuss the song “Peace” by Ed Cash.

Just considering the title the reader expects the song be about peace, that can be an interior one, regarding only a person, or an exterior one, therefore a political kind of peace, which concerns the countries. Just reading the title the reader is also curious to find out if the world “peace”, highlighted being the only word in the title, would be a key word in the economy of the text.

The main topic of the song is the adoration of the speaking voice towards a you, that the reader can suppose would be a divine entity, which helps him and all believers in dark and difficult times. Later the reader finds a confirmation of his hypothesis in the Briedges, where the speaking voice uses the word God. Therefore, the goal of the present work is to find out the message of the song.

The song is organized in eight stanzas and it hasn’t a regular patter, indeed it’s in free verse. All the stanzas have a different number of lines and, in particular, strikes the reader attention the last stanza, that’s the longer one in the economy of the text and it probably contains the most important message of all the song.

All the song is a praise to the divine entity. Therefore, each room has the same function: to expand and extend the central topic. To praise the god the speaking voice describes the beneficial effects of prying and believing in him.

In particular in the first, second and third stanza the speaking voice refers the god helps him in dark and difficult times. The divine entity brings him the interior peace when his mind seems a battlefield, when in him there’s an interior fight and all his world is crashing down, It gives him hope and courage to continue living, not to run away and hide from difficulties and enemies, metaphor of thoughts and negative emotions, but to face them.

In the fourth and the fifth stanza the speaking voice resume the speech of the first three stanzas. Indeed in the fourth one the author describes another situation of difficulty, of an interior war, and then he saying that in this situation he can hear his angels, messengers of god and for this reason metaphor of his help. In the fifth stanza, instead, the speaking voice says the God he believes in protect him, creating a shelter and renew his hope, that born from his promises.

In the sixth and the seventh stanza the speaking voice reports that he feels his God always close to him, that he never abandons him and for this he feels safe, he is not afraid because he can protect him from his enemies (negative emotions and though). These two stanzas are a sort of refrain, in them is repeated the same concept, maybe to highlight this characteristic of the god that speaking voice may consider the most important and to underline it even more in the second lines of these stanzas he uses a litotes.

The eighth and last stanza is a sort of repetition of the third one, in which the speaking voice reports that when his world is crashing down the God he is praising brings him the interior peace, saving him from the oblivion created by the inner crash, the depression. The function of this repetition may be to highlight this effect of the god, that the speaking voice would probably consider as important as the one highlighted in the third room.  In addition to this in the last room there is also a sort of conclusion of the song, the narrator ends the adoration stating, as the top of the climax of praise, that it is the only existing deity.

Finally, the reader finds out the message of the song is that the faith, for who believes in it, it’s a salvation.