"Same Love" by Macklemore & Ryan feat. Mary Lambert

As part of an essay for my Music Appreciation class in college, I decided to pick a song that I enjoy listening to called “Same Love” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis featuring Mary Lambert. It’s a song that has a serious and important message that discussions about basic rights and having equality for everyone. Even ‘til this day, America is divided because of the belief that we have. Sadly, some of us think that it is wrong to fall in love with the same-sex. Even though, in life, we can not pick who we fall in love with, what the color of our skin will be, and whether we will be born a girl or a boy. It makes us question our society and how our culture views humans based on labels and ridiculous stereotypes. Instead of looking at each other and saying that people are just like me, a human… we view others on stupid reasons like the color of their skin or their sexual orientation.

In the beginning of the song, the timbre is clear, light, and starts very simple chords from the piano. As the song continues more instruments are added, but the instruments don’t overtake the vocals and accompany the lyrics with this song. The musical texture of this song is homophonic because the artist’s voice is the most important aspect of the song. The lyrics need to stand out in order for us to hear them and be able to acknowledge the message. By deciding to make the song a homophonic texture it shows the artistic intent and the musical elements.

At around 1:28 you hear the chorus sung by Mary Lambert, while listening you hear that melody that has a deep meaning to it and those words get stuck in your head. “And I can't change, even if I tried. Even if I wanted to. And I can't change, even if I tried. Even if I wanted to. My love, my love, my love. She keeps me warm. She keeps me warm. She keeps me warm. She keeps me warm.” The melody has a short-range where the singer doesn’t switch between low and high octaves of singing it. And it has a clear message of no matter who you are, you can not change and that you are the people you’re supposed to be no matter what you think. Even if it is just a few words being repeated over and over again, it simple and gets the point across for the listeners.

The musical style of this song is hip-hop. The reason why is because it consists of stylized rhythmic music that accompanies the rapping, it’s a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted in this song. “Haggerty said the song's popularity affirms the changes in attitude within the notoriously homophobic Hip-Hop world.” I agree with Haggerty about his comment of this song, because people tend to turn their backs and just outright ignore issues that don’t truly involve them. Although, it’s a topic that people should discuss even if they don’t know what it’s like from the other person’s point of view.

Since we live in the twenty-first century, people listen to their music when and wherever they want to. Nowadays, we have the advantage of technology so we can hear songs whether it’s on the radio, on the web, or on their phone, iPod, etc. Honestly, I think the music is intended to spread the love. So, you can probably hear this song played at a wedding or at a peaceful protest. It’s a song that is supposed to have an impact on humans and make them think positive instead of being negative and hateful. Yes, alternatively, the music was supposed to be listened to for its own sake. Macklemore wrote this song because he was driven to discuss the issue of marriage equality and the uses of using negative “gay” terms. The song I picked was created during the twenty-first time period to express the problems with same-sex marriages and equality rights. It issues that we still have today and still fight for and is basically all over the world on social media.

References

Lewis, Macklemore And Ryan. "Same Love." Genius. July 18, 2012. Accessed February 27, 2017. https://genius.com/Macklemore-and-ryan-lewis-same-love-lyrics.

"Same Love by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Songfacts." Song Meanings at Songfacts. Accessed February 27, 2017. http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=28073.