Behind Blue Eyes By The Who Literary Devices

As one listens to music of any genre, one typically hears but does not recognize the elegant use of poetic and literary devices used to make the music more alluring to the human ear. Different sound and literary devices are used to invoke and create different emotions within the listener. Many musicians enhance these techniques well and go on to successful careers although very few achieve fame. The Who is one such band that wrote many successful songs and was among the few, who properly utilized these techniques and went onto be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. In Behind Blue Eyes by The Who, the speaker discusses the repercussions of a traumatic history of drugs and divorces as displayed in the simple word choice and
rhyme scheme, deliberate repetition of love being vengeance, and metaphors to traumatic experiences in his past. The use of simple words within Behind Blue Eyes creates a tone of simplicity and depressed self-assurance that what the speaker has done in his past will not influence his future as greatly as one would expect.
The use of rudimentary vocabulary words suggests that the speaker was trying to convince himself that he was going to persevere and prosper in the future through recognition of past mistakes. The speaker states that, “no one knows what it’s like to be the bad man, to be the sad man…” in lines 1 and 2 of the song. The use of elementary internal rhyme with the words “bad” and “sad” display that the speaker was struggling to cope with the internal conflict he felt between his past and his future. The speaker later forms an anger for the actions of his past and the acquaintances he had during that period stating that “no one knows what it’s like to feel these feelings like I do, and I blame you,” in lines 15-18 of the song. This expresses that he may have been guilty by association to these people or that he was forced into participating in potentially illegal activities. This builds the depressed state in which the speaker is enveloped and from which the speaker is trying to escape. Additionally, between lines 29 and 36, a rhyme scheme begins that mirrors a-b-c-b for two stanzas that creates a mood of lessened severity as compared to what the speaker is declaring and asking of the audience. Moreover, the anaphoric usage of the word ‘to’ in the second stanza emphasizes
the idea that the speaker is describing past events because it is used in context of a cause-and-effect comparison of his past to his present state of being.