"Stressed Out" by:Joanna Campos

While we were waiting for my after school program, First Graduate, to start, we were listening to music. All of a sudden a song that Rosisela chose to hear catched my attention. “My names is ‘Blurry face’ and I care what you think.” “Rosisela what song is this?” I asked. “It is called Stressed Out by 21 Pilots,” she answered. I wanted to get to program so I could search up that song, and listen to it more carefully. Once I heard it I could connect with the song. My mood went down because I realized that society has expectations for everybody, and by having expectations everybody feels stressed out, so they want to go back to their childhood, where they did not have to worry about anything. 21 Pilots is a band, which includes Josh Dun and Tyler Joseph. A little more than a year ago they came out with an album called “Blurryface.” In the album there is the song “Stressed Out”, Which got more recognition out of all the songs in the album. Josh and Tyler grew up in a christian household. Since they grew up with christian parents they did not let them hear pop or rock because of their religion. Even though their parents did not like rock or pop they both still wanted to continue with their singing career. Eventually their parents got used to it. Now they are getting popular and popular everyday. 21 Pilots uses rhyme and loaded language to convey the message of the song “Stressed Out”, which is, enjoy every part about your childhood because once you grow up things change.

By using rhyme, 21 Pilots helps his listeners understand that you should enjoy every part about your childhood because once you grow up things change. In the bridge of the song 21 Pilots sings about what they used to dream of in their childhood and how people treat them now. 21 Pilots sings, “Used to dream of outer space but now they are laughing at our face.”(Stressed” 30). By rhyming “used to dream of outer space” with “now they are laughing at our face”, 21 Pilots is contrasting what they would dream of in their childhood but now society/people are laughing at our face. This reveals the theme that you should enjoy every part about your childhood because once you grow up things change, by saying that when they were kids they would be free, and able to enjoy their childhood since they did not think about negative comments. But now that they have grown up they understand all the bad comments so they wish to go back so they won’t have to deal with mean comments and just be happy and free. Mean comments are one of the reason people change because, society puts a label on you, so you have to look and be that way or else your poor, lesbian, gay, etc. So when they say something like that about you, they get stressed out. Also people change so they can be able to fit in society.

21 Pilots uses loaded language to explain the message, that you should enjoy every part about your childhood because once you grow up things change. In the chorus it talks about how they wish they could go back on time to their childhood so they would not have to be stressed out. The lyrics say, “Wish we could turn back time to the good ol’ days,/ When our mama sang us to sleep but now we’re stressed out,”(Stressed” 9-10).21 Pilots uses the word stressed out to convey a sad attitude towards growing up. This reveals the theme that you should enjoy  every part about your childhood because once you grow up things change, because it says how they wish they could go back to their childhood since it is a totally different story now that they have grown up. Since they are stressed out about how they look and what they do because their afraid of what people are going to say about them.

What makes “Stressed Out” powerful is the chorus. I do not think I have ever seen a chorus like this. The chorus that 21 Pilots sings is, “My names ‘blurryface’ and I care what you think,” (“Stressed” 7 ). This helps make the song more powerful because the term Blurryface is a character to represent people's insecurities, which not a lot of singers do this in their songs. While 21 Pilots uses the term Blurryface as a powerful tool they also had something not as powerful, which was a part of the song lyrics. The lyrics are, “We used to build a rocket ship and then we’d fly it far away.”(“Stressed” 29) This was a down for most girls. The reason is because boys usually play with rocketships, so instead they should of said a game that is not gender bias.

In conclusion, 21 Pilots uses rhyme and loaded language to convey the message of the song “Stressed Out” which is, enjoy every part about your childhood because once you grow up things change. This issue is relevant to everybody because once people grow up everything is different because you're not as free and you have to try to act like like society tells you. By that people get really stressed and all they want to do is go back to their childhood and not worry about anything. This song is unique compared to other songs, since they are almost all about love, hate, etc. 21 Pilots in the other hand focuses on people's insecurities and how they feel. If we want people to be more secure about themselves we need to request this song to the radio, and recommend this song to family and friends.