How Watsky uses Shifts in Meaning – A Review

“Language is transformative.” You’ll get this phrase beat into your head if you ever have the pleasure to be taught English by a post-modernist. The simple phrase actually makes several drastically different points.

The adjective “transformative,” means that it has the capacity for change. Meaning language can change and that’s where the layers start. See, this could mean that language itself changes itself, which is true, see the thirteen million articles about the word “literally.” But it also means that language changes those who use it, see the thirteen million essays about the novel 1984.

Part of the beauty of language is its capacity to simultaneously create and absorb context. There are so many different permutations and connotations that can be derived from a simple sentence such as: “oh no I was waiting.” Adding just one pause anywhere in the sentence or stressing one word changes the meaning heavily. Another example is the phrase: “I mean it,” different stresses and pauses make this sentence indicate blame, guilt, or maybe even sarcasm: e.g. “I MEAN it.”

Great poets use connotation, the hidden meaning of a word, to awesome effect. You can say “energetic” or you can say “spaz.” One of these words has leagues of offensive undertones relating to individuals who were born with a situation they can’t control and the other is “energetic.” But connotation can also come from context. I can say “that’s depressing” and you’d initially think I was talking about something sad, but what if I’m pointing at a popsicle stick in a doctor’s office. That’s a forced example, no need to tell me twice, but it also gets my point across.

It’s rare to find a writer who can utilize this form of connotation, because most of the time it goes unnoticed or is simply incidental, which is a shame, because shifting a phrase’s meaning is genuinely one of the most interesting ways to get a reader’s attention. Which, brings me to Watsky.

George Watsky is a spoken word poet and a rapper. He’s at his best when he’s weaving stories into song and showing off his impressive ability to meld the rich styles of 20th century American poets with detailed metaphors, pop culture references, and short stories inside of his lyrics. Each song has at least one line that is heavily quotable, sometimes they’re part of a chorus, other times he says them so fast you don’t fully comprehend it until your third listen.

Hey. While I was writing this, Watsky released a new music video for one of the songs that I planned to reference, give me a second.

Okay. It’s been two hours. That was a really weird video.

Anyway. One of the most prodigious things Watsky does is shift the meaning of his lyrics in the middle of the song. Either by advancing the speaker’s character/moral standing or by motivating the listener to understand additional context. The two most clear examples of this come from his songs “Conversations” and “All Like Whatever” (This is a cautious PG-13 warning on the second music video).

While context reveals that the speaker in “Conversations” is Watsky himself, it tells the story of a young man having a conversation with his father over the span of 20 years. When the conversation starts, the speaker is eight years old and is going over the concept of death and what happens when people die. During the conversation the father reassures his child that “it isn’t for a long long time,” and this becomes the pseudo-chorus of the song.

As the narrative continues, there is a time skip where the speaker moves to Brooklyn and is now 28 years old. At this point, the father tells his kid that they should start discussing his arrangements for when he dies. The child responds in turn by explaining their own morality when it comes to death and money. The kid makes it clear that there is no reason to dwell on these issues because they’re both going to do their best and that in all likelihood the problem won’t be a problem for a “long long time.”

The speaker at this point is echoing their father’s words back at him, and using the phrase to bring the same amount of comfort that was provided to the speaker when they were eight years old. But now, the phrase carries the emotional context of an approaching mortality.

Both of them have lived long enough to see death, in the song the speakers says “everything dies except for papaya king and hotdogs on 86th street,” to which the father replies “It’s been the same since the 50s.” The point is nihilistic “everything dies,” but then he produces some exceptions. The speaker is making it clear that the city itself has certain touchstones that seem immortal, but the two of them make it abundantly clear that they understand they themselves are not and that death is inevitable. While that point is sobering, they both suggest that “it isn’t for a long long time,” bringing hope to the situation.

The real shift, however, comes in the ending lines of the song. The father says “I didn’t always love the city but damnit [I’ll] miss [you].” To which the speaker replies “How can you miss something after you leave? I agree that it’s sad but please, don’t dwell on it dad, it isn’t for a long long time.” This makes leaving into a decision, and is a full reversal of form. Now the father is expressing the same sort of stress that the speaker was when he was eight years old, putting the son in the father’s role.

Watsky discusses mortality in a lot of his works. The song “Conversations” is actually part of a collection of songs called “The Lovely Suite,” these songs all deal with death and leaving. The first is “Conversations;” the second is “Knots,” which deals with a famous failed suicide attempt; the third song is called “Roses,” and it’s the song I’d like played at my funeral. There is a fourth song called “Theories,” which bridges all of the previous songs and is the most direct out of all of them, but also ends abruptly, just like life. The final three minutes or so of the song (and the album) are just sounds recorded from a subway.

On a completely different note, “All Like Whatever” deals with a potentially budding relationship where the speaker acts like they’re ambivalent toward their own emotions and the emotions of their partner. However, the chorus features a meaning shift in which it becomes clear that the speaker’s own diffidence is actually a form of dedicated romance. The song opens with a hauntingly monotone “la la la la,” which is then followed by the chorus:

I look at you and I'm all like whatever

I think of you and I'm all like whatever

I dream of you and I'm all like whatever I got to do

Whatever I got to do.

Clearly, the meaning takes a huge twist with the final two lines of the stanza. It’s clear that the seemingly coy demeanor is either a front or simply a misdirection for the speaker’s true intentions. The speaker seems intent on finding a way to either make this relationship last or to make it start despite their words denoting a certain emotional distance.

As the song continues the speaker acts defensive about their actions that prove they are quite committed to the idea of being with their intended partner. The song itself deals with a certain sect of emotional insecurity that can come with being open about your feelings, while simultaneously proving that the speaker’s interests are relatively extreme in comparison to their tone and diction.

The concept isn’t nuanced, the imagery of a figurative mask has so many iterations in film and literature that it’d be impossible to create an exhaustive list. HOWEVER. The way Watsky approaches the “issue” is not something I’ve ever experienced. He captures the character from the outside looking in, using a narrative built around the character’s dialogue with either themself or their intended partner, which is, to be frank, pretty spectacular.

Figurative language and other similar literary elements have been utilized for centuries to add layers of meaning, humor, or intrigue to all forms of entertainment. It’s rare to find a unique way to catch readers off guard with a writer’s own cleverness, but Watsky’s approach is one I’ve never really seen in literature. A lot of poets do combat the reader’s expectations with techniques like eye rhymes, the three-beat, and dissonance, but by giving readers two lenses with which to view a specific frame Watsky encourages multiple interpretations and makes the speaker into a much more “human” character.

It’s good to see that the world of literature still has some tricks up its sleeve for me as a consumer. It gives me hope as a writer and makes me all the more ready to find something new when I’m reading.

Happy Friday, friends. Have a great weekend!