“Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken” by P!nk is a passionate, and emotion evoking ballad that utilizes P!nk’s powerful voice, on top of an orchestra, and an uplifing message to give it all of the energy it needs to be an inspiration for anyone who listens. In our generation, I believe that we have experienced, and have experienced some of the most pivotal and important protest music in our young adult years. Between around 2015 and now, we have whitnessed and become accustomed to an aray of social justice issues that have reincarnated, or came back into media attention. In these past 7 or so years, we have been living though history, events that will be in our childrens and their childrens textbooks. From racial injustice, to womens rights, to LGBTQIA+ rights, gun control, our government facing a coup, to immigration, and more; we watched it all unfold before our eyes. With this comes anger, fear, sadness… so many strong emotions for young adults to handle themselves. I believe that P!nk satisfies the need to express our emotions through this song. Not only does this song give a outlet for emotion, but gives the feeling of community with expressing these feelings, together. One part of the song where I see this is,
This is my rally cryI know it’s hard, we have to tryThis is a battle I must winTo want my share is not a sin
Another important element of the song that I noticed in my first listening has to do with potential meaning. When I was first introduced to the song, it was at a dance competition in highschool, when a studio we competed against performed a routine to this song, with audio from USA Gymnasts victim impact statements playing in between the verses. On the stage with them was a podium, as they lyrically danced to express the pain and anxiety victims of sexual assault go through. So now, with this song, I associate with sexual assault. Going into my first listen, I made sure to take my preconcieced assumptions about the meaning, and listened with an open mind. I also attempted to put myself in the place of another community of people suffering social injustice. This led me to hear the song entirely differently. While I am still not exactly sure what P!nk is singing about, from an outside perspective… this song could be about any of the social issues I discussed earlier plus more. The general theme of the lyrics is that we must band together and perservere for what we are going through, and we cannot let anyone stop us. I am excited to see where my research leads me, and hear what others think about the song!
October 2, 2022 at 8:23 am
Caitlin,
This is a complicated song because, as you point out, the lyrics are composed in such a way that could apply to any one of the multitude of issues that have confronted the country in the last decade or so, including the ones you mention at the start of your post. So, what you’ll need to do, and what you could have started doing here, is looking to how PInk (and her co-songwriter, Busbee) has positioned the song in statements and the press (later posts will ask you to look to her performances of it, which will shed light on this some more). However, the fact that it is so general is part of what makes it so universal — as Rosenthal and Flack write, meaning is within the listener and generality means it can be applied by listeners in multiple ways.
Still, I’d like you to work on making sure you are both applying features of blog posts — links, short paragraphs, context for embedded media — as well as making sure you are responding to the each item in the prompt. Here. we’re missing a discussion of genre and the addition of links to “examples of the kinds of events that were happening” in the world when the song was written and released. Doing this will help you even more on your way to your podcast.
Bill