Andrea+I

= = =//Wish I Stayed -// Ellie Goulding= from her debut album //__Lights__// (2010)

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Lyrics Analysis
- First stanza: the world of adults. - Growing up and being lost. - Chorus: seek of independance. - Second stanza: influence of our past. - Anonymity of city. - //Why do I always draw triangles?// - Bridge: sense of direction.

Conclusion and Personal Opinion
- How do I relate to this song?

Task
_

__In__troduction.
Ever since I first listened to it, //‘Wish I Stayed’// turned out to be one of my favourite s ongs ever. Even though it can appear complex and chaotic at first listen, it’s in reality a very deep and meaningful song which basically talks about the importance of our childhood experiences and how they have influenced the people we are today. This is a slow song, but her structure is absolutely confusing and it quickly moves on from one idea into another. It was originally an acoustic song, like in the video above, but on her album there is a soft-electronic version of it. I absolutely prefer the acoustic one, as I am myself a big fan of slow songs and I think that, that way, you can pay more attention to its lyrics.

About Ellie Goulding
To truly understand this song, it is essential to learn a little bit about the songwriter’s background. Ellie Goulding is a british singer that grew up near Hereford, in the English countryside. At the early age of 17, she left home to study drama at the University of Kent. This is when Goulding, who is now 23, wrote this song about moving to a different phase of her life, leaving her life in the countryside behind. //Wish I Stayed,// originally a folk song, was therefore her first song and the one that inspired her to continue writing music, and pursuing a career as a pop singer.

Lyrics Analysis
So, what do all these lyrics mean and how are they related? So many ideas are shared in this poem, that it is very important to analyse one by one, because each of them is different but at the same time related to the others. The first stanza starts with Goulding asking out two rhetorical questions to the listener, which represent how the singer is not a child anymore and she’s coming to terms with the real world outside her small town, a world of adults. She then uses the word ‘//uprooted//’ to express how, when we grow up we all ‘pulled out’ from our town and need to travel or go to other places, because we are looking for ourselves and our place in the world. So, from the very beginning, we see that in the comparison between children and adults, the first group represents the positive side of life; Goulding misses her childhood and does not like this new confusing situation she’s living. After that, Goulding addresses the audience and, suddenly changing the course of the song, encourages them to takes risks, or better yet, proves them that they can, as they are free and the owners of their own lives. However, she introduces the main idea of the poem, which is that we all end up growing up and sometimes, it makes us forget who we really are and we can find ourselves lost in this new stage of our lives. In order to be ourselves again, we mustn’t forget our past and where we come from. In the chorus, the songwriter uses some elements from childhood and adolescence to show where we come from and therefore, where ‘our minds will be found’. She wants to show with this that all of our life experiences have taught us lessons and made us the people we are today and even if we have to leave them behind, we must always keep them in mind. She then tells us a very personal experience, which is no other than her own seek of independence, and how the influences of money and her rebelliousness has made her grown up fast, and she regrets it. This regret is what titles the song; Goulding wants to make teenagers learn from her mistakes and appreciate what they have now, and she advises them not to have an urge to grow up, as Goulding herself //wishes she had stayed// home. The second stanza is probably the most confusing one. She starts describing the ‘patterns all arranged in her background’, which can have more than one interpretation. At first, I believed these patters where her ideas of the future and what she wanted to do with her life, organised in her mind. However, then I thought it would also mean what the ‘patterns’ are her qualities, the way she does things, and that they are arranged in her past and infancy. I think she probably means the second thing, as she says that pillars and posts are what make the country what it is, which are past elements too. Later, Goulding goes on to describe one thing she has found after going to the city, which is the anonymity of it. In her small town, she knew everyone whereas in the city people don’t speak to each other and they are distant, and scared of each other. This is described through the image of letters with no addresses. Goulding always mentions how we are always undercover, meaning that, as people grow up, they become more closed to the rest of the world and have more fears than they used to as children. Goulding doesn't understand the way the society works; she had the perspective of a more open world were there are no fears, no doubts, and when her dreams became her present she found herself in a place she would've never imagined. Now it’s the time for my favourite line in the entire song: “//__Why do I always draw triangles instead of the words this paper so deserves__?”// My fascination for this line is probably because it’s really mysterious and open to many interpretations. Unexplainably, I love this line. I think its meaning is simple: she is asking herself why she is different from the rest, probably when she gets to the city and feels an outsider. However, we now know that Goulding left to study drama, running away from home; the triangles can represent that she is an artistic person and wanted to dedicate her life to the arts (music, drama…) and not to sciences or other professions which are less artistic and might have been considered better in her small town or for her parents. The rest of the song is a repetition of the lyrics described before, except for a small bridge we find before the chorus. Goulding says she owns her mind, not her clothes; here, she wants to let us know that she is who she is inside, and what life has brought her to be, regardless of her material possessions. She also gives us a sense of direction; we should focus our lives in the future, ‘what we find’, and not the things we regret, ‘what we’ve lost’. Here, she can also be saying that, as she’s growing up, she’s starting to notice how fast her life is going and that she should focus on the positive sides of it.

Conclusion
You might be wondering, why did I choose this song and not another one, perhaps one that is less complex? Well, the main reason is because I can relate to this song.

I really relate to this song because I understand how Ellie Goulding is feeling and what she means with the song. As she was more or less my age when she wrote it, I can relate even more to it. I think the song’s confusion is part of its magic; how different ideas and unanswered questions go though the teenage mind as we’re growing up and wondering how our life will be and fearing it won’t turn out to be as we always wanted. There is a great difference between wanting independence and finally getting it, and this song portrays in a beautiful way what it meant for this 17-year-old to find herself lost in this big world she was discovering.

I find myself thinking about my future very often, and I sometimes wish I could be already an adult and have my own life. However, this song made me realise that I will get there someday, but it won't be perfect; I'll miss somethings I have now and I probably won't be able to get back. This song also tells me that we all feel lost sometimes but we should hold on to who we are and that our past, all the people we've met and the places we've been to, will have a trascendence in our future lives. Right now, it might seem like it will be a totally different life to the one we have now, but it won't; we'll be the same person we are now. There will be some things we don't understand and probably will not ever understand. We'll have to leave things behind. We'll be different to other people and we'll all feel out of place sometimes. But we can never lose the lessons life has taught us, we can never lose the way we are.

Do you know the lyrics well?
With that skipping rope……………………………… But we didn’t give up h ope

And it has been found................................................Running away

The crafty smoke that made us choke…………….... Wondering around

It’s the simple ways of…………………………………I’d stayed

The carelessness of……………………………………. The trampoline

I wish………………………………………………….... Getting paid

WISH I STAYED - LIVE AT LONDON HEAVEN media type="youtube" key="GpCiGozLnwo?fs=1" height="346" width="576"

//Lyrics://_ Why can't we speak another language, one we all agree on? Why when men look outside, do they see houses, Instead of the fields they grew from? We are constantly uprooted from them, making us tiresome and fearful, Can you get up right now? Endeavour to free-fall.

'Cause you can fall if you want to, it's just a matter of how far, You've treasured your home town, but you've forgotten where you are. And it will stay with you until your mind's been found, and it has been found wondering around...

With that skipping rope, the trampoline, The crafty smoke that made us choke, But we didn't give up hope. It's the simple ways of getting paid, The carelessness of running away, I wish I stayed, I wish I stayed, I wish I stayed.

Patterns all arranged in my background, It's pillars and posts keeping this country on form. Letters were all sent with no addresses so that people can't discover. We're always undercover. Why do I always draw triangles instead of the words this paper so deserves?

'Cause you see, I don't own my clothes but I own my mind, And it's not what you've lost, But it's what you find. I don't own my clothes but I own my mind, And it's not what you've lost, But it's what you find.

We found that skipping rope, the trampoline, The crafty smoke that made us choke, But we didn't give up hope. It's the simple ways of getting paid, The carelessness of running away, I wish I stayed, I wish I stayed, I wish I stayed.