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"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 and basically focuses entirely on it. It is one big dream with high expectations of life in the West. The song is also different in the aspect of it being in the form of advice. "One Time One Night", has however, three individual stories, while Natalie's song is her giving sarcastic advice.
She is saying to, "go West" you will have everything you want, your dream, but it will be taken away somehow. In this case the dream was destroyed by an earthquake. On the other hand, " One Time One Night" talks alot about why no one receives their dream. According to the song, this happens because the people that have the faith die too early to do anything about it, and all the rest of the people figure out their dreams too late to do anything about them. Including both the similarities and the differences, these songs are saying that the American Dream is misleading. "One Time One Night", is written by a Mexican group. Throughout the poem the word America is used frequently.
This shows that they are not complaining about how their homeland is full of tragedy, but how America is. This is because they have such high expectations of America, it being the "land of the free", and "land of opportunity." In, "San Andreas Fault" America is also put up to this expectation of being so great, but again is criticized for not living up to that expectation. All of the stories, including the one in " San Andreas Fault, talk about how the people's American Dream didn't come turn. American is expected to have so much, yet the same tragic things that happened in the stories could have happened in some other country. America has too much responsibility to live up to this title. Overall, "One Time One Night" and "San Andreas Fault" are great songs to compare and analyze over about the American Dream.
Despite some differences, both describe an idealistic country that fails to materialize in reality.
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Research essay sample on San Andreas Fault Land Of The Free
