False Hopes in the Land of the Free
False Hopes
"Promised Land", "Land of the free", how much truth is actually found in these widely used expressions? They are geared to make America sound like a dreamland in which nothing goes wrong. Both of these phrases can be found in either, "One Time One Night" or "San Andreas Fault", both songs about America. When comparing these songs one finds many similarities and differences which all tie into the American dream and how it can be misleading.
"One Time One Night", written by David Hidago and Louie Perez, and "San Andreas Fault", written by Natalie Merchant are amazingly similar. "Go West paradise is there", from "San Andreas Fault", starts off by describing a perfect place to live, in a typical American Dream. It goes into detail talking about the food you can eat, and the "jet-set life" you could live. It goes further, in saying that your life could be so great that, "you could never dream", of anything better. "One Time One Night", starts off in a similar fashion with stories of people and their hopeful lives, and dreams. The first stories about of a couple who just got married. Another is about with three boys with great expectations. Finally, another tells of a little girl at a wishing well filled with hope for a better life. Everybody has their own personal dream, but all have the basic universal idea of having a perfect, uninterrupted and easy life. Unfortunately this doesn't really happen, especially in these particular dreams. Everyone of them ends in tragedy with destruction of the original dream. In "San Andreas Fault", the dream was shattered by an earthquake. The song expresses strongly how horrible the destruction was. How there was, " such an awful sound" and, " the walls came tumbling down." In the story of the newlyweds, the husband is tragically shot. In the story with the four boys, one is brutally hit by a car. Finally, the girl at the wishing well is now stuck in a possibly abusive marriage. All of these dreams were not only destroyed ,but they were also done in incredibly tragic ways. This was probably done to enhance the fact that America is not the magical place everyone expects it to be.
Though these songs seem to be parallel, they also have some differences. One of the major differences is how, "San Andreas Fault" has only one story...