This challenge is about reverse engineering a finished work and unpacking the thoughts, theories and techniques behind the work, as well as using a prototyping method or a combination of methods to show the details of how I find it creative and interesting. I’ve come across numerous artefacts that I admire for their design, engineering, or the emotions they evoke in me — spanning physical products to digital creations, as well as films and music. I have several favorites among them.
One, however, stands out: BRKN, a song composed and performed by Madison Ryan Ward, which is the fourth song off her 2019 EP titled ‘Beyond Me’. I chose it for the beauty of its narrative flow in the lyrics and how it connects to the theme of the song. I used the storyboarding prototyping technique to break down the structure of the song.
BRKN by Madison Ryan Ward on Youtube: (https://youtu.be/aNrKi5hSD0o?si=StDGmFNfDJkOsGx1)
The song begins with a melodic… scratch that! The wording of the song’s title “BRKN” in itself is the first piece of using multiple elements to tell the story of a broken person. The omission of the clearly essential vowels, ‘O’ and ‘E’ depicts a word that has now been made imperfect, broken. That’s just the first part.
Now back to the song. It begins with a melodic solo keyboard performance by Cory Henry and sets the tone for the story of the song. Madison then enters with the first verse singing out her part in a dialogue with her lover. There is an essential part of the story painted in the first verse. It shows that her partner/lover is present at this point, hence the dialogue.
“I don’t wanna argue
I don’t wanna fight
I just wanna know where you went
When you left me that night”
By the time the song gets to the bridge, her grief is heightening as she battles the feeling of loneliness. It flows perfectly into the chorus where she fights the grief but she fails and she takes refuge in pleasant memories. The chorus ends with the soft words: “You left me…. BROKEN”, giving audible reference to the fact that she’s tired, as stated at the beginning of the bridge: “You left me tired and lonely”.
The second verse begins with the lines: “Looking in the mirror, picture you instead”. In this verse, the partner/lover has now ‘LEFT’ her and all she has is a memory of them. This progression is apt and accurately takes the listener on her journey from having her lover present to only having a memory of them. Although there is familiarity in the progression of the verse, a soft kick with some reverb is introduced to give it some variance. These kicks continue into the second instance of the bridge and the second instance of the chorus as well.
In the second instance of the chorus, she sings it twice but both times, with one clear distinction – she omits the word “BROKEN” at the end. And in fact at the end, she sings the word “You left me” three times, a departure from previous instances where she sang it once. I ask myself why. Then I realized that it is a play on the whole story of the song. By leaving the listener hanging and yearning to hear the word “BROKEN” again, she draws you into her experience of feeling left alone, longing for a feeling she only felt once and would have loved to feel again. That is why the most important word “BROKEN” is used only once in the song signifying that the most important thing to her was ONCE here, but left and never returned. And because of that, she is now…
References:
Madison Ryan Ward. (2019, July 19). BRKN [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/aNrKi5hSD0o?si=StDGmFNfDJkOsGx1