Types of Narration
Background: In my Spanish literature class, we talked about types of narration. While I told my work that I’m getting this Master’s degree to be able to teach Dual Enrollment, the real reason is so I can bring you better blogs. In this one, we will chat about three different types of narrations: first person, third person, and a quasi-omniscient narration, which is an offshoot of third person narration.
First Person Narration 1: “Skyway” by the Replacements
Background: Before we break down this song, I want to apologize to Paul Westerberg (who is definitely reading this) that it took me this long to include a Replacements song in one of my blogs. Being a fellow Minnesotan, I know Paul as an absolutely legendary songwriter, but sometimes it takes sitting down and really listening to the lyrics to realize what an absolute treasure he is. Fun fact about this song’s parent album, Pleased to Meet Me: It was recorded at Ardent Studios in Memphis, and got its name when band member Tommy Stinson went around to label execs saying, “Pleased to meet me.”
Lyrically: The biggest thing to look out for in first person narratives is the use of “I” and “You” while telling the story. To me, this is one of the most common, if not the most common, way of narrating a song, and yet when I actually sat down to think about it, I really needed to contemplate a song that used it. As always, my goal is for you to be more intentional about why you’re using this type of narration, and in the context of a breakup song like this, it’s sometimes heavier to say, “You! Yeah, I’m talking to you!”
In “Skyway,” the narrator talks about his ex-love interest, who “takes the skyway” when she walks. We’ve looked at many different types of breakup songs in this blog, but most of them paint the picture of someone who is clearly in the wrong, and that’s not the narrator. This time, he arrives at this point, but in a very cleverly disguised way. The “skyway” represents the moral high ground she thinks she has by leaving the relationship. He contrasts how he gets around with the subway, which he’s forced to take. He references the bums who hang out by the subway, and says that he sleeps underneath the skyway, which is warmer, but still feels like his world is cold, knowing the cushy life she leads by taking the skyway. The final kicker is when he sees her walking “Down that little one way.” While the narrator is finally up in the skyway, she’s down on the street, and though the street was previously seen as lowly, it’s now a good place, since she is there. So it was never truly about where she was, but rather the fact that she was not with him.
Melodically: The song is written in F major. With a capo on the third fret, the intro uses F and GM7 (the I and the VM7 chords), which gets played twice. Then the verse kicks in, starting with the D and GM7, played twice, followed by Em, A7 (the vii and III chords), played twice, before ending on D (the I). The last verse, however, goes back to the D and GM7 pattern for the last two lines. Before the third verse, there is an instrumental interlude, which uses the chords Em, Eb, A7, and GM7 (The vii, VIIb, III, and VM7 chords). The song contains electric guitar, six string bass (played by Westerberg, as opposed to Tommy Stinson, who normally plays bass), drums, and vibraphone, played by Memphis’ own Jim Dickinson (who also produced the record).
Structurally: The song uses all verses, of which there are three. Since this is a straight story, with all the crucial things in the song coming back to the titular skyway, having just verses is not only a great choice narratively, it also is a great choice for the character. All he can focus on is this woman and the skyway. Even a bridge would have been out of character for the narrator (ironic, given the fact that a skyway acts as a bridge between buildings), and the nail in the coffin comes effectively in the last verse, even though it’s the same cadence as the others.
2. 1st Person Narrative 2: “If You Could Read My Mind” by Gordon Lightfoot
Lyrically: Gordon Lightfoot was a phenomenal songwriter, another one who is tragically late in making his blog debut. There are a multitude of reasons why he was so great, but in the context of this blog, he has at least two different songs that could fit: “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” is a 3rd person narrative, and this song, a more personal one, fits the 1st person narrative category. “If You Could Read My Mind” sees the narrator comparing himself to a ghost, but wishing his love interest could know what he’s thinking. More accurately, she could know what he’s thinking, but chooses not to. The second verse switches things up, wishing that he could read the narrator’s mind. Rather than comparing himself to a ghost, he compares himself to “a paperback novel, the kind the drugstores sell,” comparing himself to the hero in those novels. In the end, the hero always winds up with the girl, but the girl in this song won’t finish the book, because she’s convinced love only winds up sad.
Melodically: This song is in the key of A major and played on guitar with the capo on the second fret. For the first four lines of each verse, the song alternates between the G and the Fb chord. With the song written in A, this is a I, VIb pattern. In the fifth line, he stays on the I chord (the A), before moving to a C (the III chord), then playing D, Em, C, and G (a IV, v, III, VII pattern), followed by C, G/B, Am7, D, and G (a III, VII, i7, VII pattern). The stringed instrumental uses the G, Fb (VII, VIb pattern). Instrumentally, the song contains guitar, strings, and piano.
Structurally: The song uses all verses, of which there are four. However, the first verse and the last verse are the same. I mentioned “Skyway” by the Replacements, which contains all verses. The similar melancholic lamentation does not require a chorus, but unlike “Skyway,” Lightfoot’s song has a more noticeable change within the verse. It’s an interesting juxtaposition within the song, because this part of the song is where he really hammers home that he’s not mad, just coming to terms, but as the listener, we notice that change in his voice and a change in thought as well.
If you could read my mind, I wouldn’t have to tell you that “If You Could Read My Mind” is embedded below.
4. 3rd Person Narrative 2: Omniscient narration
“Harrisburg” by Josh Ritter
Lyrically: “Harrisburg” tells the tale of a man named Romero and his marriage to and deception of a second character, simply named “The Virgin.” There must be something toxic about getting married on the 5th of any given month, because Dylan married Isis on the 5th of May, and Romero married the Virgin on the 5th of July. The latter wedding took place “In Our Lady of Immaculate Dawn,” which sets the image of a very religious setting. That sacredness quickly gets shot down by adding, “They could’ve got married in the revival man’s tent, but there ain’t no reviving what’s gone.” He then sets the scene of Romero’s escape, “in a little white house by the woods,” and after he dropped his wife and kids off at the mission (“With a rose for the virgin”), she knew he wasn’t coming back either. It was so bad that in the second verse, even “the wolves that he ran with sang sad miseries to the moon.”
Now let’s talk about the choice of 3rd person narration, quasi-omniscient narration. An omniscient narrator is one who is all-knowing, including all characters’ thoughts and feelings, and can access the minds of all characters in the story. This type of narrator has also been described as being god-like, but also a dispassionate figure..
This narrator fits many of those characteristics, hence why I refer to him as a quasi-omniscient narrator. He knows everything that Romero did, and how the virgin (and presumably her kids) felt about Romero’s leaving. I went back and forth on the god-like narrator applying to the person telling this story, because at that point, he’d be talking in third person (“Others say God’s a drunkard for pain”) but his follow up to that line, “Me, I believe that the garden of Eden was burned to make way for a train,” and since God is the one who burned the garden, he would be the only one who would know why he did it.
It’s also worth noting that omniscient narrators are mostly dispassionate ones, meaning they don’t throw in their opinions unless completely necessary. And in the third verse of “Harrisburg,” we finally hear the narrator’s opinion on the whole ordeal. It starts off objective, saying that the rose he left for the virgin is “Withered and wilted” then discussing the fall of Romero (“He didn’t make Heaven, he didn’t make Harrisburg, he died in a hole in between.”). After this stanza, he finally weighs in on the matter, the aforementioned, “Some say that man is the root of all evil, others say God’s a drunkard for pain. Me, I believe that the garden of Eden was burned to make way for a train.”
The train, Romero’s method of escape, becomes very important in the song as a whole: the third verse declares that he “Could have stayed somewhere, but the train tracks kept going and it always seemed they left soon,” and in each chorus, concludes that “If evil exists, it’s a pair of train tracks and the devil is a railroad car.” But it’s not until the last verse that we get the narrator’s opinion on the matter. Prior to that, he just seems to be repeating the virgin’s rhetoric about Romero (which, objectively concludes that he’s a trashbag).
Josh Ritter, as I stated in one of my character development blogs, is excellent at writing songs in 3rd person, rather than about himself (though he’s darn good at that too). It’s a great choice in this song, because taking on the character or revealing that he actually is Romero in the last verse (like Vertical Horizon does at the end of “Everything You Want,” going from “He” to “I”), makes the song even cooler, because you get to hear an outsider’s perspective, objectively first, but then also subjectively, where he weighs in on what he thinks of Romero. By that time, we’ve already made up our mind, then he goes in for the kill shot with the aforementioned last line.
Melodically: The song is written in C# minor. With the capo on the 3rd fret the song uses Am, F, C/G, G, Am, F, C/G, G, and Am (a i, VI, III,VII, i, VI, III, VII, i pattern), while the chorus uses C/G, G, F, C/G, G, Am, F, C/G, G, and Am (a III, VII, VI, III, VII, i, VI, III, VII pattern). If you don’t have a capo with you, I typically play it by alternating between Am, G, and F.
Instrumentally, the original studio version of the song uses guitar, bass, and piano. There are two distinct versions of this song: the one that appeared in its original form on Ritter’s 2002 album, The Golden Age of Radio and his version (and my personal favorite) live at the Iveagh Gardens in Ireland. The live version includes drums and some slight lyrical changes. It also includes a stellar interpolation of “Wicked Game” in the instrumental break before the final verse. You absolutely have to hear both the original and the Iveagh Gardens version, so I’ve embedded both links.
Original:
