James Baldwin’s, “Sonny’s Blues” describes the
obstacles that surfaced in one man named Sonny’s life and how he relinquished
those feelings through his musical playing of the piano. His life is told
through the perspective of his older brother, the narrator, who seems to be
struggling with the relationship held between him and Sonny which is rather
awkward and vacant. This story is set within the streets of Harlem and goes
into detail about Sonny’s life in terms of his downfalls which include a time
in jail for him.
I
made the connection between this story and the song “Life” by K-Ci and Jojo
through the description of struggling times and the ultimate result of going to
jail within the song. I feel that the ultimate idea of “Sonny’s Blues” was that
he struggled all his life and had many obstacles that he needed to overcome
along with making some wrong decisions; this connected to the song “Life”
because I feel that it shares that similarity as well.
The
verse of “Life” reads, “just like a birdie I just wanna fly free and own a
piece of land somewhere, somewhere off in the country” which I related to the
story in the way that I think Sonny felt the same way; he wanted to fly free
and find his own by figuring out what he wanted to do with his life and who he
was going to be which would then set him free within his self. “Shouldn’t have
gone down this way, what happened to my master plan.” I related this verse to
the story because I think Sonny always asked himself this question; he wondered
why and how he made his way down the wrong road and how his “master plan” got
off track so abruptly. “Tell me how did I get life.. life.. life.” This chorus
relates to Sonny because he too went to jail and asked himself how it happened.
I feel that while he was in jail he finally realized that he needed to get his
life together. The overall relation I made was between the title, “Sonny’s
Blues”, and the overall meaning of the song “Life”; the title makes the
statement that the story will describe melancholy with someone in some way and
the song describes a thinking and somewhat depressive thinking about the
choices made in a melancholy way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKv1Dop1rVQ
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