Theme analysis song #5: "I hope you dance" by Lee Ann Womack

In the song I hope you dance by Lee Ann Womack she uses idioms, metaphors, figurative language and also allegories in order to provide the message of keeping your head up and continuing on through your struggles and other hard times that one may come into contact with throughout their lifetime. In the very first verse of the song the speaker opens up with an idiom which is “you get your fill to eat but keep that hunger” which is kind of opposites because she hopes that this person is full yet still wants them to be hungry. The idiom allows for the speaker to express how she feels about the person that the song is intended for and how even when they are “full” they still have the availability to grow and further themselves. There was a plethora of very powerful metaphors within the song. “I hope you never fear the mountains in the distance” is used by the speaker in order to convey that struggles and other hardships that one might face in the future are like mountains in the distance. The “mountains” or struggles are inevitable but they should not be feared or worried about until they present themselves.  Another example of a metaphor in the song is “I hope you never lose your sense of wonder, you get your fill to eat but still keep that hunger” which is a comparison between the sense of wonder that the subject has to food and hunger. When you look at the two lines together they create a meaning that portrays a message of still having a sense of wonder even when you get the answer to something you look for more meanings and answers to other things in life that keeps the ability for the subject to be happy and stay full of energy and excitement. “Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens” is an allegory. The speaker does not literally mean that when a door closes they wish another would open. The phrase is meant to mean that when an opportunity does not work out she hopes that another opportunity will present itself. There were a few lines of the song that I believe are very poetic and important when considering my theme but I could not pinpoint what the poetic element that went along with them would be. For the sake of the analyzation I will just label them as figurative language. The first example that I came across was “I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean”. I believed this line to be one that impacted a lot of the song. It means that even when you “stand besides the ocean” you feel small in regards to your ego. Womack uses this to express the importance of being humble and not having an inflated ego throughout your life. Another line that I found to be influential to the song is “when you come close to selling out, reconsider” which means that whenever you feel close to quitting you don’t stop and continue to try. The whole message of the song, like pretty much every song I have picked, is that although there are things in life that could hold you back you shouldn’t fear them. You should keep yourself open to opportunity and seize every one that you can.