Half term homework: Emeli Sande - "Heaven" lyrics analysis.

A.) Lyric annotations.

Will you recognize me
In the flashing light?

> The flashing lights could connote the paparazzi cameras that are pointed at the celebrities they're taking pictures of, so "will you recognize me" could perhaps initiate a change of her personality, as she could suggest that the flashing light or the paparazzi cameras are going to change her personality and who she is as a person. She's asking the audience if they'll still recognize her when she's drowned and consumed by the celebrity/paparazzi world. 

I try to keep my heart beat
But I can't get it right

> The heart could represent her soul and how now that she's wrapped up in the world of fame, she's struggling to be herself, struggling to revert back to who she was because she's being drained from all that culture of fame; "but I can't get it right" could easily corroborate her struggle for this. 


Will you recognize me
When I'm lying on my back?

> "When I'm lying on my back" could signify her death, and therefore she's asking her audience, or rather, her friends and family, if they will recognize her when she's dead.


Something's gone inside me
And I can't get it back

> In the consumption by the world of fame, she's again, struggling to find herself again, the real her and who she was before this world of fame, her true self is the thing that she refers to as "gone inside me", and she "can't get it back" because again, she's almost enslaved to this world of fame, enslaved to a contract and she can't escape from it and go back to her normal life. However, this lyric can also suggest  that many deep down want to do a good thing and become a good person but there is a theme of regret as people don't live to their own intentions; people want to do what other people do because they think it's "cool" and they'll get more respect in life out of it e.g becoming a celebrity instead of staying your own true person.

Oh heaven, oh heaven
I wait with good intentions

> From another perspective, this could be taken from a religious point of view; this suggest Christianity, these lyrics suggest that many try to do good things in order to become a good person in God’s eyes, allowing them to go to heaven when they die; it's about the younger generation and how they grow up too fast and are influenced by friends, family members, education and the media, how it's "cool" to become famous and that people would almost do anything to have a taste of the world of fame. 

But the day it always lasts too long

> This small lyric could suggest that the "day it always lasts too long" due to the mental drainage and toll it has taken by the celebrity world and she is getting tired of it, hence the day lasts too long; time is slow and she just wants it to be over already.

Then I'm gone
Oh heaven, oh heaven
I wait with good intentions
But the day it always lasts too long

Then I'm gone

> The repeated line ‘then i’m gone’ is ironic; if Emeli believes Heaven to exist, then surely her soul wouldn’t cease to exist – it would live on, so she isn’t gone. Or, from another perspective, it could also be a reference to the fear, that this cycle will keep on repeating until you die, leaving only the memory of your ugly actions.

Will you recognise me
When I'm stealing from the poor?
You're not gonna like me
I'm nothing like before

> Fear of irrevocably having become a bad person, feeling permanently ‘dirty’ and corrupted. whatever happens next you will have to live with, not always having been the good person you wished you’d be.

Will you recognise me
When I lose another friend?
Will you learn to leave me?
Oh, give me one more try again

> Due to having lost herself and who she once was, she's questioning whether people will still like her and who she is now, these feelings are stemmed from insecurity, regret and self-hatred, being disappointed or fed up with herself to the point of not understanding how any sane person could possibly see through her flaws and actually like her or want to be around her.

Oh heaven, oh heaven
I wait with good intentions
But the day it always lasts too long
Then I'm gone
Oh heaven, oh heaven
I wait with good intentions
But the day it always lasts too long

Oh heaven, oh heaven
I wait with good intentions
You say that you will wait
I try but always break
Cause the day always lasts too long