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Slaughterhouse Five. Nicolette Spaccavento. “And so it goes the moment’ll pass… and these photographs keep me alive”. These Photographs b y Joshua Radin.
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SlaughterhouseFive Nicolette Spaccavento
“And so it goes the moment’ll pass… and these photographs keep me alive” These Photographs by Joshua Radin The song is about how different photographs remind him of different memories of a girl he used to be with. He likes to be taken back to the sweet memories of her now that they have broken up. He wants to go back to these moments and with the photos he can. Billy physically puts himself back into memories with the help of the Tramalfadorian aliens. Because Billy is able to become “unstuck in time” he is able to see “his birth and death” and can “pay random visits to all the events in between” (63). At this point, time can be stopped in the form of teleportation. Billy Pilgrim can place himself into previous memories. This allows him to relive happy memories and teleport out of the old memories. Like in the song, both artists want time to be moveable and use either aliens or photographs to get what they want.
Breakdown by Jack Johnson The song Breakdown by Jack Johnson is about him passively wishing for the train to stop so he can take a moment to breathe in life. The train goes too fast for him to be able to gather his thoughts or soak up the good memories of his life. The train metaphorically relates to time. In the song, he wishes time could stop similarly to how Billy constantly hops through time, and Vonnegut writes in streams of consciousness allowing Billy to stop at any point. Billy doesn’t like the idea of time. This is made clear in several places, but specifically when he thinks he died and he turns around and in front of him “his father had taken out his pocket watch” (90). Young Billy is lost in darkness and unsure of his state of being; when he opens his eyes he the watch ticks in his face reminding him that he still ticks as well. The ticking won’t end until the train stops, or until he dies. “I hope this old train breaks down Then I could take a walk around And see what there is to see Time is just a melody”
Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley The melody of this song is quite beautiful. It is serene and makes you rest. As you listen to the lyrics though, it is quite powerful. You may think at first that the song is supposed to be peaceful, but the lyrics are pretty depressing. He has a way of downplaying the sadness of the song lyrics like “all I’ve ever learned from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.” Similarly in Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut uses an casual, informal tone to downplay the severity of war. Like in the line “Everybody else in the neighborhood was dead. So it goes,” (178). The way that the story is written in this ironic tone adds to the sadness because Vonnegut acts blasé. It makes the reader feel sympathy and think twice about the horrible events the words describe even though the tone is quite the opposite. “Love is not a victory march, It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah”
“The broken clock is a comfort It helps me sleep at night Maybe it can start tomorrow from stealing all my time…I’m falling apart” Broken by Lifehouse This song talks about how his clock is broken and it makes him feel like he’s stuck in a moment that he wants to be in. It makes him feel good that time isn’t passing because he cannot come to grips with the thought that part of his life is a memory. Eventually, he realizes time passes even though the clock broke. Also, in Slaughterhouse Five a theme is that time is inexorable. Even though the clock broke, time hasn’t stopped. In a play of Cinderella at one point, one of the actors says, “Goodness me, the clock has struck—alackday, and fuck my luck” (98). Like in the song, time has a negative connotation because it means something has ended; if you are unhappy with the outcome then you cannot do anything but move forward and try to forget which can be difficult depending on the situation.