Demi Lavato Song Skyscraper Analysis - Essay

Cassandra Skinner 200393392            

Diane Zoell

English 100-991

1 March 2018

Demi Lovato - Skyscraper

Demi Lovato's song “Skyscraper"(Lovato) is a song of support for people going through hard times, written from her life experiences. She wrote this song during a hard time in her life when she was battling so many things that no one knew of. During this time, she was starting a treatment for severe depression that started at the age of eleven, which was caused by all the bullying she had to deal with. She also battled anorexia, bulimia and cutting because of all the people that used to call her fat and ugly. Later, she discovered that on top of all her problems she was Bi-Polar. This lead to her getting tattoos on her wrists representing how strong she was, to remind herself every day that no matter what she is doing, or how she feels, she needs to stay strong and get through it. In this song, Demi uses similes, metaphors and personification to convey the theme, showing strength through the hard times and to show others that no matter what you're going through you can rise above it all like a skyscraper rising from the ground and expressing all the things she has gone through in her life.

The first Literary device that is shown in the song is a simile. Demi shows this through various lines in the song, the first one showing when she says the line, "Like I'm Made of Glass"(Lovato). With this line, she is not literally made of glass, she is trying to show how delicate and fragile she was during this time in her life. That she felt like she was made of glass because of how she felt and how easy it was to break her. Another example shown in the song is the line “Like I’m Made of Glass” (Lovato). This is very similar to the first one but with this one, she is saying that if you don’t take care of yourself and keep your mind clear of hateful thoughts, you are going to rip and fall apart like delicate paper. The last one shows an example of a simile, the line “Like a Skyscraper” (Lovato), Demi is saying that even through all the hard times, during her treatments, she had to stay strong, never give up, and in the end, rise above all her problems stronger than she has ever been before.

This song also has the literary devices metaphors and personification. One of the metaphors that are shown in this song is the line “ Catching teardrops in my hand” (Lovato).  When we hear this song, we know that she is just not talking about her tears, but about all the pain and suffering that she has gone through in her life. She can not just forget about it, she will constantly feel the pain of her past throughout the rest of her life. The next metaphor that is shown in this song is the line “ I will be rising from the ground” (Lovato). With this one she is saying, she will never forget her past, she has gotten through all the pain, the hard times in her life and for once in her life she is rising above everything, coming stronger and more confident.        Demi is going to show people that no matter how low you can get, you can be strong enough to overcome the bad things in life. The personification that is shown in this song is the line “Sky’s are crying” (Lovato). She shows that the sky that she talks about in her song is her, shows how sad and unhappy she felt at the different points in her life, how she felt that the sky’s were her life, gloomy and never clear. This shows how she felt , that she could not be happy with all the problems she was going through in her life.

These three literary devices showed that the overall theme of Demi’s song is expressing her dark past of depression which she has now overcome. She expresses in her song that you get through the hard things in life by asking for help, that it is ok to ask and accepting that you need help to get better.

Demi also tells everyone what she is going through with being bi-polar and suffering from anorexia, bulimia and cutting. She does this so that she can show people it's ok if you're going through it all, that she is just like them. She shows her fans in this song that she did go through a rough time, but she is getting through it. She "was rising from the ground like a skyscraper”. (Lovato) She is using her experiences to be a role model to not only help her fans but to help other people in the same situations who feel that there is no way out. Demi is now trying to help others who are going through the same problems as her, also working to prevent bullying so that others do not have to go through what she went through. Demi Lovato is doing her best to be a role model to people all around the world. This song also shows that even if you feel like life is knocking you down and taking all the freedom you have, you need to rise out of the dust and stand strong even if the whole world is watching, you can not let them bring you down.

In the end, Demi Lovato's life has been full of difficulties, this song represents that she is not perfect like everyone thinks she was. This is shown through the theme of the song, the theme is about how a little bullying, in the beginning, has lead to so many problems in her life, which she talks about through the three literary devises simile, metaphor and personification, which she expresses throughout the entire song. Even though the song doesn’t go in depth with her past, her story is clear that there was a lot of pain in her life which she expresses and wrote about in her song.

Work Cited

Literary-devices.com. (2018). Literary Devices | Literary Terms. [online] Available at: http://literary-devices.com/frontpage [Accessed 29 Mar. 2018].

DemiLovatoVEVO. YouTube, YouTube, 14 July 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_8ydghbGSg [Accessed 29 Mar. 2018].

Haubjørg, Anja. Demi Lovato Interview About Her Life/Childhood. YouTube, 2 July 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yW_d1aR0KI [Accessed 29 Mar. 2018].

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