CHAPTER TWELVE
POINT OF VIEW:
SECOND PERSON AS NARRATIVE
When you tell a story, it is usually narrative, either first person or third person. As we've seen, first-person narrative includes the storyteller in the story, using first-person and third-person pronouns. Third-person narrative uses only third-person pronouns: he, she, it, they. There is no I.
The following lyric, “The Fire Inside” by Bob Seger, took me by surprise, because it has all the qualities of a narrative, but it uses second person (you):
There's a hard moon risin' on the streets tonight
There's a reckless feeling in your heart as you head out tonight
Through the concrete canyons to the midtown light
Where the latest neon promises are burning bright
Past the open windows on the darker streets
Where unseen angry voices flash and children cry
Past the phony posers with their worn out lines
The tired new money dressed to the nines
The lowlife dealers with their bad designs
And the dilettantes with their open minds
You're out on the town
Safe in the crowd
Ready to go for the ride
Searching the eyes
Looking for clues
There's no way you can hide
The fire inside
Well you've been to the clubs and the discotheques
Where they deal one another from the bottom of the deck of promises
Where the cautious loners and emotional wrecks
Do an acting stretch as a way to hide the obvious
And the lights go down and they dance real close
And for one brief instant they pretend they're safe and warm
Then the beat gets louder and the mood is gone
The darkness scatters as the lights flash on
They hold one another just a little too long
And they move apart and then move on
On to the street
On to the next
Safe in the knowledge that they tried
Faking the smile, hiding the pain
Never satisfied
The fire inside
Now the hour is late and he thinks you're asleep
And you listen to him dress and you listen to him leave like you knew
he would
You hear his car pull away in the street
Then you move to the door and you lock it
When he's gone for good
Then you walk to the window
And you stare at the moon
Riding high and lonesome through the starlit sky
And it comes to you how it all slips away
Youth and beauty are gone one day
No matter what you dream or feel or say
It ends in dust and disarray
Like wind on the plains
Sand through the glass
Waves rolling in with the tide
Dreams die hard
And we watch them erode
But we cannot be denied
The fire inside
What's going on with Seger's use of second person? Second person is usually direct address — I talking to you. But there's no I. Sometimes you can be used as a substitute for first person. That's the way I sometimes talk to myself: “Come on, Pat, can't you be clear for once?” instead of “I wish I could be clear for once.”
Try reading through the whole first verse in first-person narrative:
There's a hard moon risin' on the streets tonight
There's a reckless feeling in my heart as I head out tonight
Through the concrete canyons to the midtown lights
Where the latest neon promises are burning bright
Past the open windows on the darker streets
Where unseen angry voices flash and children cry
Past the phony posers with their worn out lines
The tired new money dressed to the nines
The lowlife dealers with their bad designs
And the dilettantes with their open minds
I'm out on the town
Safe in the crowd
Ready to go for the ride
Searching the eyes
Looking for clues
There's no way I can hide
The fire inside
Clearly, Seger is not using you as a disguise for I.
Continue the first-person substitution until you finish the whole lyric. Of course, the pronouns have to change in verse three (at least with a Seger lead vocal):
Now the hour is late and she thinks I'm asleep
And I listen to her dress and I listen to her leave like I knew she would
I hear her car pull away in the street
Then I move to the door and I lock it
When she's gone for good
Then I walk to the window
And I stare at the moon
Riding high and lonesome through the starlit sky
And it comes to me how it all slips away
Youth and beauty are gone one day
No matter what I dream or feel or say
It ends in dust and disarray
Like wind on the plains
Sand through the glass
Waves rolling in with the tide
Dreams die hard
And we watch them erode
But we cannot be denied
The fire inside
The result is a clear first-person narrative. But something gets lost: a kind of universal feeling that you seems to add.
Let's try the lyric in third person:
There's a hard moon risin' on the streets tonight
There's a reckless feeling in her heart as she heads out tonight
Through the concrete canyons to the midtown lights
Where the latest neon promises are burning bright
Past the open windows on the darker streets
Where unseen angry voices flash and children cry
Past the phony posers with their worn out lines
The tired new money dressed to the nines
The lowlife dealers with their bad designs
And the dilettantes with their open minds
She's out on the town
Safe in the crowd
Ready to go for the ride
Searching the eyes
Looking for clues
There's no way she can hide
The fire inside
Continue reading the whole lyric in third person. Take your time. Now it's a clear third-person narrative, landing squarely in storytelling mode.
Second-person narrative serves up a tricky combination of third-person narrative (where we watch the character) and direct address (talking right to the character). Part of it works like using you as a substitute for one (e.g., “You get what you pay for” is the same as “One gets what one pays for”).
There's a hard moon risin' on the streets tonight
There's a reckless feeling in one's heart as one heads out tonight
Now stir in the illusion of direct address by using you instead of one:
There's a hard moon risin' on the streets tonight
There's a reckless feeling in your heart as you head out tonight
Think back to our point of view scale. The intimacy of second-person narrative comes from its suggestion of direct address. We expect I to appear from behind the curtain at any moment. It just never happens.
Second-person narrative actively forces us to say, “This character could easily be me.” The universal theme set up in the lovely third verse helps, too. One key to the lyric's success is the move to first-person plural at the end:
And it comes to you how it all slips away
Youth and beauty are gone one day
No matter what you dream or feel or say
It ends in dust and disarray
Like wind on the plains
Sand through the glass
Waves rolling in with the tide
Dreams die hard
And we watch them erode
But we cannot be denied
The fire inside
We forces the listener into the emotion.
One test for second-person narrative: Does it translate easily into third person? Try it with another second-person narrative, Steely Dan's “Kid Charlemagne”:
While the music played
You worked by candlelight
Those San Francisco nights
You were the best in town
Just by chance you crossed the diamond with the pearl
You turned it on the world
That's when you turned the world around
EXERCISE 15
Go ahead and translate it into third person:
While the music played
He worked by candlelight …
Finish it.
And now, translate it into first-person narrative:
While the music played
I worked by candlelight …
Finish it.
Each narrative mode makes you look at the lyric differently. Which do you like better for “Kid Charlemagne”? Yup. I like second-person narrative best here too. But a cautionary note: Don't dash out and turn all your third-person narratives into second person. Beware of the hangman: Don't tell facts to someone who should already know them!
You can also leave the narrative mode, using second person as a substitute for I, as in, “C'mon, can't you be clear for once?” Or as an internal command: “C'mon, be clear for once!” Leonard Cohen's “Dress Rehearsal Rag” is a good example. In it, the character is standing in front of a mirror getting ready to shave:
… Look at your body now, there's nothing much to save
And a bitter voice in the mirror cries “Hey, Prince, you need a shave”
Now, if you can manage to get your trembling fingers to behave
Why don't you try unwrapping a stainless steel razor blade …
… Cover up your face with soap, there, now you're Santa Claus
And you've got an “A” for anyone who will give you his applause …
I suppose we could call it an internal monologue or dialogue. One thing is clear: Narrative it ain't.
Practice with points of view. Get in the habit of checking every lyric you write from each point of view. Sometimes a change will make all the difference. Mostly, you'll get your best results with direct address and with standard first- and third-person narratives. But don't let that keep you from checking out second-person narrative. When it works, it works big time.