World Spins Madly On

The song “World Spins Madly On,” sung by a contemporary folk-like music group known as The Weepies, is in my opinion a nostalgic, regretful, and contrite song because it sings repeatedly about having done nothing for another person and about doing nothing still, even though the song never clearly specifies that its singer is sorry.
In this song, there are many references to personal focuses. As a matter of fact, all I could find in this song were personal focuses. At the start of the song, the lyrics go “Woke up and wished that I was dead/with an aching in my head/I lay motionless in bed,” which suggest the apathy of the singer towards outside issues, and focuses more on how he himself is feeling and what he is wanting from the day (1-3). Another example of a personal focus can be found in the lyrics “I let the day go by/I always say goodbye/I watch the stars from my window sill,” because it addresses what the singer’s tendencies are and what the singer does (11-13). As for a final example, when the song says “I thought of you and where you’d gone,” I interpret this as a personal focus because I think there is a lot more beneath the surface in this sentence (4, 20). This line shows the despondent curiosity of the singer about the person he once knew, and it also implies that he is missing this person because he’s thinking about them.
In this song, there were a few poetic devices that I was able to identify. Because of its nostalgic tone, it seems suitable to define this song as being elegiac, since the singer seems depressed about becoming separated from someone he used to be so close to. This is demonstrated in the line “I thought of you and where you’d gone” (4). There is also some irony in this song when the singer says “The whole world is moving and I’m standing still” because on one hand, it says how everything is moving; but on the other hand, it says how he’s not moving at all, even though in the literal sense, he’s a part of the whole world (14). Also, when the lyrics go “Everything that I said I’d do/like make the world brand new,” I consider this somewhat of a simile even though it is more of an example rather than a figure of speech, because it still includes the word “like” (6-7).
There were both postmodern and modern characteristics in “World Spins Madly On.” In this song, we see a postmodern example of how the singer is cultivating absence; the lyrics state how the “I” in this case was thinking about his own problems, and how the world moved on without him (4-5, 11-14, 20-21).  Another postmodern example in this song relates to how truth is personal, because the singer sings about his own life and problems and what he had done or does (11-13). However, a modern characteristic in this song is how he was not able to do his part; he sings about how he got lost and didn’t do what he said he’d do, as if taking the blame (6-9).
The voices behind the song, The Weepies, were influenced by the 1960s folk trio of Peter, Paul, and Mary. Upon listening to songs of Peter, Paul, and Mary, one can hear how more acoustically defined some of the songs are, and how they hold a kind of calming tone. In “World Spins Madly On,” the tone is also calming and relaxing (although somewhat depressing as well) and acoustically based. However, even in how similar they sound, The Weepies and Peter, Paul, and Mary sing about very different things: The Weepies about more postmodern struggles; Peter, Paul, and Mary, modern struggles.
In conclusion, the song “World Spins Madly On” reflects on the regrettable past of the singer and how he lost who he was close to because of his idleness in the important moments in his life. However, I think that there is helpful truth to be found in something like this; maybe we can act while we still can and before it’s too late, because all it might take is some effort.

-T