Figurative Language in Contemporary Music

While my iTunes was on shuffle yesterday, a song came on that got me thinking about how aspects of poetry are used in contemporary musical lyrics. The song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"  by Green Day is a fairly obvious example of figurative language being used in a song. The first verse alone:

I walk a lonely roadThe only one that I have ever knownDon't know where it goesBut it's home to me and I walk aloneI walk this empty streetOn the Boulevard of Broken DreamsWhen the city sleepsAnd I'm the only one and I walk alone



and the chorus:

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'til then I walk alone


show use of metaphor and personification. While this song is kind of a cliche example, it does prove that these devices we trace back to the metaphysical are still being used to express ideas today, even in forms of art other than poetry. Here, Green Day compares the path in life the narrator takes to a road, which he describes as lonely. Maybe there is something about him that has always set him aside as different, or maybe he has made a choice to follow a less common path, but either way he has ended up living life isolated in some way. It may not be a physical isolation, he could just have different thoughts than those around him and feel that others can not relate to him. This idea would be complicated to express without this clear, visual metaphor. There are also the elements of personification such as "when the city sleeps," and "my shadow's the only one that walks beside me," which make simple ideas more aesthetically appealing. It is interesting to see how these tools that are common to poetry work in other art forms, and they seem to be extremely beneficial.