Close Reading of Tear by Tear

My dearest friend, Charlie, introduced me to the band Sister Hazel way back in 8th grade. We've attended a few of their concerts, and they're still one of my favorite bands. For my fsem class we were instructed to pick a poem or song and do a close reading of it. I picked Tear by Tear by Sister Hazel.


Here's a link to a video someone made using that song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8tAQIGbfOA


Here's my paper:

          Everyone experiences difficult times; everyone has ‘those days;’ everyone feels sorrow, pain, and despair. Sister Hazel’s song, Tear by Tear, reminds us that everyone suffers, but that life goes on. At the same time, they draw our attention to the spell of desensitization under which our world has been cast. The band strengthens their touching lyrics through use of repetition, meter, and rhyme. Mournfully they sing heart-wrenching stories filled with implications.

We all know sadness

And I feel your pain

Well everybody knows a little loneliness sometimes

'Cause we're all the same

We all have sorrow

We all have shame

Everybody feels a bit of emptiness sometimes

Now what you gonna do about that

          With almost identical structure, Tear by Tear introduces a sense of unity. The song could easily have begun with the tear-inducing stanzas later sung. It is important to note that the verses begin by reminding the listener that we are ‘all in this together.’ Not wanting to ostracize their audience, Sister Hazel draws on moments that all can relate to in some way. “We’re all the same,” they chorus.

          “Now what you gonna do about that,” the last line of the second stanza states. This line is a statement, not a question. It seems as though the writers had already answered the question, a sense that perhaps no one will do anything “about that.”

Take a look around you

Every face that you see

Well everybody gets a little paralyzed sometimes

The epidemic of our insanity

Beginning with a similar structure to the first two stanzas, the third line also beginning in the familiar ‘Well everybody,” the song's mood diverges. The ambience of the piece changes. It no longer possesses the same feel of an almost encouraging sense of union. The last verse has a foreign tone, “the epidemic of our insanity,” or the desensitization of humanity. Nothing phases us; we're so used to the pain. We become paralyzed, apathetic, indifferent.

And the mother she waits

‘Cause her teenager’s late

Till the knock on the door

He says ma’am I am so sorry

Often it becomes natural for us as a culture to simply belt out ‘I’m sorry's’ with no sincerity to back our words. This exists as yet another symptom of our outbreak of apathy. This point is illustrated as Sister Hazel makes another point, the emotionless “ma'am I am so sorry,” the policeman recites. Too often humans listen halfheartedly to someone's plight, automatically blurt out “I'm sorry,” and launch into the story of their own lives, not waiting, and worse - not wanting, to be compassionate.

And soldiers come home

One leg less than they’d gone with

We all walk around like there’s just nothing wrong with it

Sister Hazel poses a question, asking how we can be so insensitive to the suffering of other human being in an indirect manner. A direct route would allow the audience to ignore the question. It’s so extreme they don’t feel as though it applies to them. As before, Sister Hazel puts the song in a perspective everyone can relate to, causing the listener to truly ponder their indifference. The final blow comes in the third to last stanza of the song.

And the fat kid at school couldn’t take anymore

All the taunts and the names and the ugliest words

No one even stopped to notice

Went on with their day

Till he pulled out a gun and blew himself away

         Though this theme of suicide is one audiences have heard about often, it still remains powerful. Sister Hazel chooses to place this most extreme and more commonly used example last for a reason. If it had been posed first, the audience might have distanced themselves from it. Perhaps feeling as though,

since they had never mocked the fat or ugly kid, they were free from the reprimand of the song. Again we see how the band forces the audience to relate and then contemplate.

         “The doctor he cries cause his last patient died/Did I mention before he was a father of five.” This line differs from the past verses. The doctor is the only character not desensitized, though around death and tragedy and suffering as a normal part of his day. He still weeps at the death of a child. His child. This gives us hope. Perhaps the world, although sinking quickly into the mire of impassivity, still clings to a fistful of hope and care.

         Jumping away from the philosophical and examining the poetic devises employed in this song, we see a significant difference in the rhyme scheme of this third to last stanza. The forced rhyme of “waits” and “late,” “cries” and “died” and “five,” “home” and “gone” all occur in the first two lines of these people’s stories. No rhyme scheme occurs in the soldier's story, perhaps because it is not an individual story, but applied to a vast group of people. The stanza about the suicidal boy does not rhyme until the last two lines of the stanza, with the words “day” and “away.” In each story there is tragedy or death, but not of the individual whose tale is recounted. But he's gone, this young man, he blew himself away. His life, over. Sister Hazel’s choice to change the rhyme scheme of this stanza draws the eye immediately, causing one to think more deeply about this epically tragic event.

          Dashing back to the philosophical realm of this song, we find a sense that all is not lost. That we can keep going, despite tragedy, is strongly represented by the methodical words in the chorus.

There's a way to keep going

Step by step

Try to fix what's been broken

Brick by brick

While your life will keep coming

Year after year

Drain the pain

Tear by tear

Drain away the pain

Tear by tear

Sister Hazel prompts us to recall that if we keep going, allow ourselves to mourn, and continue our journey, we can fix the rubble that is sometimes all that remains of our dilapidated lives. Keep walking, life will keep coming. The step by step, brick by brick, year after year, tear by tear, invokes a methodical rhythm of continuity. Life can be hard, often to a point that seems impossible to bear, but we can pull through.

         A genuinely profound and touching song, Tear by Tear, invokes reflection, leaving one with much to consider. Bringing us together through common feelings and then sending us reeling with realization, Sister Hazel accurately invokes thought and understanding. The audience comes to a better understanding of the desensitization of the world. This song is not meant as an accusation, though. The song leaves us with tears melting the corners of our eyes and hearts, but not without hope. It unites and reminds us that “There’s a way to keep going,” a way to “fix what’s been broken,” that life will “keep coming” and that through those tears, we can “drain all the pain,” and begin to heal.