For my chosen text for my midterm, I am choosing the song Karma by AJR. This song is important to me because to me it is a great representation of how it feels to be living with anxiety. It also speaks towards pressure and delayed gratification, and how sometimes the reward isn’t what we wanted. I imagine my audience to be college students or people who have previously experienced anxiety, and who also enjoy songs by AJR. This is because I believe my interpretation of this work, will allow them to understand better a song they already enjoy, as well as add an additional psychological perspective they may not have considered before.
Some generically similar texts I found through my research are “World’s Smallest Violin” by AJR, and “What does “Karma” by AJR mean?” By Arielle Anderson, and “Fix You” by Coldplay. World’s smallest violin is another song written about anxiety, with a frantic pace and darker lyrics played over upbeat music, similar to Karma. In Anderson’s piece, a relatively in-depth dive is taken into what the verse and chorus of the song mean, and what references it uses. Lastly, in “Fix you” by Coldplay, there are similar lyrics, and an overall focus on depression and anxiety found throughout the song. Overall, what these have in common is they are an expression of anxiety and depression in musical form and mask the seriousness of their lyrics through upbeat tempo and sound. Another source I intend to use for this project is a book called Nobody’s normal by Roy R. Grinker in it, he discusses how society and stigma affect people’s representations of mental health and treatment.
I intend to talk about Karma’s relationship to mental health and anxiety. The song takes on the form of a therapy session, and as somebody who hopes to go into mental health and mental health awareness, I think this kind of representation is important for the field. Not only can the song help to familiarize people with anxiety and depression, but there’s also a long history of mental health care being stigmatized, and I believe songs like Karma by AJ are an important step forward in helping people to understand mental health and seek mental health treatment. the active Destigmatizing therapy and helping people to come to terms with the battle that is anxiety and depression and that just because they do everything right does not necessarily mean they will feel better. So many people expect Mental Health to be similar to treating a broken bone; if you simply follow the instructions for a given period of time, you will heal. However, sometimes with mental health, it takes months or years of adjusting treatment to see progress. Overall, how Society treats the mentally ill affects how many people actually are willing to seek treatment.
Questions: Is it okay to use personal anecdotes in my midterm project? If not how academic do my other sources need to be? Is it okay to use psychology sources that do not have to do with the text I chose?
Citations:
Anderson, Arielle. “What Does ‘Karma’ by AJR Mean?” The Pop Song Professor, The Pop
Song Professor, 29 Apr. 2019,
ttps://www.popsongprofessor.com/blog/2019/4/28/what-does-karma-by-ajr-mean.
ColdplayVEVO. “Coldplay – Fix You (Official Video).” YouTube, YouTube, 30 May 2011,
AJRVEVO. “Ajr – World’s Smallest Violin (Official Video).” YouTube, YouTube, 26 Mar. 2021,
Grinker, Roy Richard. Nobody’s Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness.
W.W. Norton & Company, 2020.