Adam Sandler's "What the Hell Happened to Me?": How Music Affects Culture

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by: Guest
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Word Count: 649

 
            This song means that culture affects how we grow up greater then most people think. I shows that when Adam Sandler was young, he was a well-rounded boy that liked to have fun. The song is also saying that our culture is affecting innocent youth that are forced to deal with the problems that the previous generations made for them. This song shows how all people are affected when they are really just innocent bystanders that have to witness the world at its roughest. They are forced to deal with it although they are truly unprepared for such a harsh treatment.

Traits

        The song presents cultural traits in that it shows how we grow up and are affected by culture. Cultural traits presented in this song are how we teach children and what we subject them to. Our methods of education and entertainment both affect how we turn out in the long run. The song shows how these traits affect how people grow up, and what they value in life. For example, the song talks about selling lemonade, eating popcorn, and watching parades. Then it goes on to say he's "only happy when [he's] drinking JD" The point is that people are changing because of society and our culture's lack of certain elements, such as respect and discipline.

Values

        The values presented by this song include the value of respect and discipline, and the need for more strict ways to keep a young mind safe of destruction. These values are presented in the line "I only did the things that Mama said I should, but now I do whatever I want." That line shows that values change as we age and the reason is because of society; obviously if Adam only did what was allowed, culture's values of discipline and respect must have turned him the wrong way, because his mother did not.

        Other values presented in the song are education and entertainment. This is shown by the lines stating that as a boy, Adam was well-behaved and had fun in parks and carnivals. He played in the snow and he loved sports, but as an adult he only finds pleasure in things he would never had imagined he could have only 20 years ago. Also, it is shown that culture has made such a mess of his mind that he can't understand why he would be in this shape. he presents this information to us in the lines "It makes no sense, I can't believe I'm me.' He says this meaning "Why did I end up like this and how? I never saw it coming."

Language

        This song really does not demonstrate the language of the culture besides his use of shortened words and contractions. This shows that in our culture, we are lazy and don't really care enough to finish complete words or to make full sentences.

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