Country Song Parody

The two artifacts that we will be discussing are the original song “Can’t You See,” by the Marshall Tucker Band, and the song that I parodied from its lyrics. The original song is classified in the genre of country rock. On the other hand the parody that I created would most likely fall under the genre of a comedic parody. I will mainly focus on how in the original artifact the hero just gives up all hope and accepts his fate right from the beginning, while the protagonists in the second one makes an, albeit, small attempt to fight against the antagonist of the story. The way I figured out that the song would would fall under the genre of a country rock song is from reading Robert Fontenot, an oldies music expert, who defines the genre as
something that has an “identifiable "rock" creation that used at least one element of standard country instrumentation,” that uses “Appalachian-style harmonies” to make its own distinct sound. The soft melody and vocals of the song make it obvious that this is a country rock song. It was much simpler to figure out what my adapted artifacts genre was. Inevitably when looking for a song on youtube you are bound to find someone who turns the lyrics into a joke. That was the exact way that I went about adapting it to my artifact. The purpose in the original artifact was to show just how bad a relationship can be.
It is shown by the menagerie of over the top ways and scenarios in which our protagonist is willing to put himself through to be rid of a girl who has been doing him dirty. On the other hand the adapted artifact deals with all of the woes that are brought on by homework and projects in general. I am pretty sure that almost all students end up in this predicament at one point or another. One such scenario that is inevitable in college is when someone forgets to do a thousand word essay until the night it is due. Overall both artifacts serve the purpose of showcasing the hardships that people will face over their
lifetimes. There is a lot of similarities between both artifacts. One such similarity is that they both showcase a hardship that we all endure in life. Whether it be an unfaithful ex who broke our heart or an assignment that has you having a coronary to get it done. In each case the protagonist has an extreme sense of stress over the subject at hand. They also use over the top exaggerations to emphasize their point to make it clear that it is not something to be trifled with. Both artifacts also use the chorus to show what the subject of the song is talking about and therefor frames what the rest of the song will be about. Also at the end of the song both of our heroes give up and just resort to running away from the problem all together. Which kind of leaves this sense of the problem being unresolved and our heroes being defeated. This in and of itself is an unusual path for a story to take, because in today’s society we are used to our stories having happy endings where the hero triumphs over the villain and lives happily ever after. This ending however leaves a sour taste in our mouths that only a dose of reality can. There are also many differences as well.
In the beginning of the the adapted artifact the sequence of events are in the correct order. The protagonist in the original uses a train to go to a train station to get a ticket, while in my adapted one the protagonist uses his vehicle to go to the theatre then gets a ticket to watch a movie. The Original sequence of events has someone going to a station on a train to get on a train.So this change was to make it less confusing. The next one was about the protagonist digging a hole. The hole he, or she, is digging is not a physical one, but metaphorical. The hole is bad grades that a person digs by not doing homework. It later states that everyone is going to know about the hole that is being dug by the protagonist. This is in reference to how everybody and their dog end up asking you about your grades. Inevitably the person is going to tell a lot of people that they are not doing very well, it also has the connotation that even though people know the protagonist does not really care. The original has the protagonist kind of just leaving quietly from the public eye, and going softly into that cold good night. It shows how each scenario creates a different feeling. In my adapted artifact the protagonist feels this kind of resentful rage due to being forced to do this horrendous task. Then after the chorus the protagonist talks about how they are going to go to sleep because they never get any sleep from always having to stay up to
do homework. Again going back to the argument about the original just disappearing from the public eye while in the adapted one we see this protest fight against the machine that our hero is going through. It also show the futility in trying to fight the power is which is shown by the ultimate defeat of our hero when he leaves. Then in the adapted artifact I updated it to both be more relatable to people of today and alaskans. I modernize it by having our average joe protagonist go to the movies which while not unheard of when this song came out it has definitely become more commonplace to go watch a movie rather than a trains station to escape our woes. Also In the second one it is more relatable to alaskans because Hawaii is directly to our south while almost every alaskan dreams to be chilling on one of those beaches away from the bitter cold that they feel in Alaska.