Band: MGMT
In the key of A# major
GENRE:
LYRICS– https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/mgmt/kids.html
You were a child
Crawling on your knees toward it
Making momma so proud
But your voice is too loud
We like to watch you laughing
You pick the insects off plants
No time to think of consequences
Control yourself
Take only what you need from it
A family of trees wanting to be haunted
Control yourself
Take only what you need from it
A family of trees wanting to be haunted
The water is warm
But it’s sending me shivers
A baby is born
Crying out for attention
The memories fade
Like looking through a fogged mirror
Decisions to decisions are made and not bought
But I thought this wouldn’t hurt a lot
I guess not
[6x]
Control yourself
Take only what you need from it
A family of trees wanting to be haunted
Control yourself
Take only what you need from it
A family of trees wanting to be haunted
Control yourself
Take only what you need from it
A family of trees wanting
To be haunted
Control yourself
Take only what you need from it
A family of trees wanting
To be haunted
Control yourself
Take only what you need from it
A family of trees wanting
To be haunted
Control yourself
Take only what you need from it
A family of trees
STRUCTURE: Intro, verse, chorus , bridge, chorus, instrumental, chorus
PLOT AND MUSICAL REFLECTION:
The song is about a child’s loss of innocence as they grow up, this can be seen in verse ones lyric “crawling on your knees toward it”. The lyric is talking about a child’s journey through life into child hood. The pace of the first verse is fast to resemble how fast childhood is taken away from you. As we look at the lyrics and the music video we can see MGMT are telling us that the world tries to take your innocence away at any oppourtunity it gets, our parents are the only thing that portect us from the monsters of the world as children.
In the chorus there is a lyric that says ” A family of trees wanting to be haunted”, this lyric uses the noun “trees” to resemble the most natural thing, which in this song is a metaphor for childhood. He then says the trees are “wanting to be haunted” this is talking about children wanting to get older to do more things, however when you are a child you don’t see growing up as a curse or haunting because a child only see’s good in the world until the world gets to it. The chorus is more or less the same in terms of instrumentals.
After the chorus we head into the bridge and we only have the bass and drums playing. The bridge uses juxtaposition in the lyric ” the water is warm, but its sending me shivers”, warm water is associated with comfort and relaxation and shivers are a result of coldness. This lyric means that the world seems pleasant and nice but once you are in it for a while you begin to realise for cold and heartless it really is. Because of the corruption of society getting to them their childhood “memories fade” because the world is beginning to take all their innocence. The song also says their memories get corrupted by the world to the point that its like “looking through a fog mirror” this means that their memories of child hood aren’t clear anymore and they are beginning to disappear. At the bridge the song is slower at the beginning to simulate the moment of deep thoughts, and as we proceed through the bridge it gets faster to simulate the time of realisation.
Rhythm: The rhythm is on beat with the drums, the beat is also very strong in this particular song. The rhythm also includes 4 to the floor notes in the rhythm. The rhythm is also quiet simple as it only includes 4 notes that are easy to play in time. The metre for the song is 4/4 and the rhythm is very regular.
TEMPO: The song is very upbeat which is common in electric-pop music, the tempo is quiet constant until the bridge where it slows down, but after the bridge it returns to normal. The song has 123BPM, I found out this info from https://songbpm.com/searches/kids.
MELODY: The melody is for kids is staccato. The vocal melody for kids doesn’t have that big of intervals. However the keyboard has is a lot of octave intervals in the song. The melody for the song is really catchy and easy to recite.
INSTRUMENTATION: Synth keyboard, Bass guitar, electric guitar , drums, electric and synthetic instruments
DYNAMICS: The the music is explosive in dynamics from the transition from the bridge to the next chorus, this is because the bridge is low in dynamics compared to the chorus which has a lot more instruments playing and is louder in dynamics. Through the verse and choruses the music is always very powerful and loud, but the chorus is more intense than the verse. This may because their are more notes being played on the synths.
TEXTURE: Kids is a monophonic song as no instrument plays more than one melody, apart from the keyboard but that is really hard to hear. The texture of this song is very complex as it has many musical layers inside of it, the song is full of instruments playing.