" 7 years" by Tristhan Garcia

 I’m at home listening to any music i can find, not knowing what’s good or bad.Suddenly a random song  caught my eye, i saw it’s popularity and  it’s unthinkable how many views it had. By curiosity, i was bound to click the play button and it started playing. At the beginning,i thought it’s one of those hip hop song  that everyone is listening to and also surprisingly love,but my guess wasn’t even close. I had no idea what the genre of the song is even if i played it again and again. Besides, i was so into the song that i didn’t bother to find out. I That is first time i heard Lukas Graham name, but his music is like meant for me. How he writes every verse in his songs is something you can never find in any artist today, his choice of words are simple and yet so complex and deep that will get you to agree to him.

  Lukas graham is a Danish pop artist and his band started their career in Denmark in late 2011 when they released two homemade YouTube videos of themselves singing “ Criminal minds” and “Drunk in the morning” recorded in Lukas’ home. The videos were shared on social media among friends and family , and soon they had several hundred thousand views. Lukas Graham said he was influenced by Dr. dre’s song “2001” when he was still not popular. In 2015, the band released their follow-up album “ Blue Album” with three of its track making 1st on the Danish singles chart, but it’s most controversial is “ 7 years “ became one of the most favored songs around the world including America.  

Lukas Graham uses symbolism and rhyme to convey the important theme that you need to cherish your memories as you get older. Because in his song “7 years” he shaped it like a story about his life as he aged throughout every verse.

One interesting way Lukas Graham convey his theme is by using rhyme. He express and tell the listeners that you should  cherish your memories as you aged and get older. In the 4th verse of the song, Lukas Graham reveal his dream is to be an artist but never wanted the fame and the glory. It states that, “ I always had that dream, like my daddy before me/ so i started writing songs, i started writing stories/ something about that glory, just always always seemed to bore me.”( years 10-13 ) In the song, by rhyming “Glory” with “ bore me” in line 13, Lukas convey that he wanted to write stories and songs, but never wanted and expected fame. This reveals the message that you need to cherish your memories by showing us how he never asked for the glory, he just aim to tell his stories and sing his songs to anyone. By showing his dream and admiration to us listeners, interpreted to everyone why and how he became an artist.

Lukas Graham also uses symbolism to express his message that you need to cherish your memories as you get older. In the the 2nd verse of the song, whereas in the first device, i used rhyme as a way to explain his desires in that verse. The second device Lukas Graham uses is symbolism as  he explains  his harsh and difficult life in his childhood years, Lukas sings, “ By   eleven smoking herb and drinking burning liquor/ never rich so we were out to make that steady figure.” ( years 6-7 )

Lukas symbolized herb and burning liquor to clarify how crucial his youth is by needing drugs to go by his life. This reveals the theme that you need to cherish your memories and your dream by showing us Lukas’ unpleasant childhood and never forgetting how he passed that obstacle. By exhibiting and telling and telling us how his young young childhood went, Lukas is able to convey that you don’t need to be the absolute most perfect person to reach your dream for the approaching days.

A specific strength of the song “ 7 years ” is it talks about Lukas Graham’s life so far and what he hopes for the future. What makes the song so satisfying and great is in the first verse, Lukas talks about his childhood. But mostly every verse after that , he aged and get’s older throughout the song to the point where the song ends. For instance, he talked about his mom saying that he needed friends or he’ll be lonely. However, In the next verse, it discusses about him smoking and using drugs. Obviously, that explains how unpredictable each verse is. Clearly This strengthen the song by how each verse talks about major parts about Lukas’ life

The weakness of the song is some verse i don’t quite get. An example of this is when in the 10th verse, it states, “ soon i’ll be sixty years old, my daddy got sixty-one/remember life, and then your life becomes a better one/ i made a man so happy when i wrote a letter once/ i hope my children come and visit once or twice a month.” ( Years 36-39)

This weakens the song because this particular verse,  i don’t understand quite that much as the other ones.

All in all, “ 7 years” is a great experience for a song to turn into a story about the artist’ life and what he see he himself in the future, it tells us how we must cherish/remember the dreams  and memories you had. This song reminds me of how my childhood. And as a kid who had a pretty normal and great childhood, i never experienced the harsh and difficult life Lukas had when he was still young, but if mine was similar to his, then i wouldn’t survive even if i had to . As long people never see the important past and dreams they have,they will never understand how they made it through all the obstacle they had to deal with. I understand because Lukas Graham, he convey by telling us through his songs.