WHY IS THIS
SONG
STUCK IN
MY HEAD!?!?!?!
Black, black, black and blue
Beat me 'til I'm numb
Tell the devil I said, "Hey"
when you get back to where you're from
Mad woman, bad woman
That's just what you are
Yeah, you smile in my face then rip the brakes
out my car
Alliteration
(a-LIT-uh-RAY-shuhn)
A poetic device where the first consonant
sounds or any vowel sounds in words or
syllables are repeated.The repetition can be
located at the beginning of successive words
or inside the words. Poets often use
alliteration to audibly represent the action
that is taking place. (Compare with
Assonance and rhyme.)
Circle examples of Alliteration
Black, black, black and blue
Beat me 'til I'm numb
Tell the devil I said, "Hey"
when you get back to where you're from
Mad woman, bad woman
That's just what you are
Yeah, you smile in my face then rip the
brakes out my car
Assonance
The repetition of similar vowel
sounds in Poetry. (Compare
with Alliteration, Dissonance,
and rhyme.)
Circle examples of Assonance
Black, black, black and blue
Beat me 'til I'm numb
Tell the devil I said, "Hey"
when you get back to where you're from
Mad woman, bad woman
That's just what you are
Yeah, you smile in my face then rip the
brakes out my car
Rhyme
Rhymes are classified into different types
according to where they fall in a line or stanza or
according to the degree of similarity they exhibit
in their spellings and sounds.
 Some major types of rhyme are "masculine"
rhyme, "feminine" rhyme, and "triple" rhyme.
 In a masculine rhyme, the rhyming sound falls
in a single accented syllable, as with "heat" and
"eat."
 Feminine rhyme is a rhyme of two syllables,
one stressed and one unstressed, as with
"merry" and "tarry."
Circle examples of Rhyme
Black, black, black and blue
Beat me 'til I'm numb
Tell the devil I said, "Hey"
when you get back to where you're from
Mad woman, bad woman
That's just what you are
Yeah, you smile in my face then rip the
brakes out my car
Objectification
To treat a living person as a
thing that you can see and
touch and that is not alive or to
treat as an object.
Circle examples of Objectification
Black, black, black and blue
Beat me 'til I'm numb
Tell the devil I said, "Hey"
when you get back to where you're from
Mad woman, bad woman
That's just what you are
Yeah, you smile in my face then rip the
brakes out my car
Personification
Also known as Prosopopoeia
A figure of speech that gives human
qualities to abstract ideas, animals, and
inanimate objects. (Compare with
Anthropomorphism.)
*This term is here because I thought you
should know how it is different from
objectification and Anthropomorphism
Circle examples of Personification
Black, black, black and blue
Beat me 'til I'm numb
Tell the devil I said, "Hey"
when you get back to where you're from
Mad woman, bad woman
That's just what you are
Yeah, you smile in my face then rip the
brakes out my car
Anthropomorphism*
The presentation of animals or
objects in human shape or with
human characteristics.The term is
derived from the Greek word for
"human form.“
*This term is here because I thought you
should know how it is different from
objectification and personification
Homework

Find your own irritating song and use what you
know about rhetorical (writing) strategies to figure
out how it became stuck in your head.

Post your explanation of the strategies the song
uses to get stuck in your head along with the
song’s artist, title and lines you analyzed

Submit assignment according the
instructor directions given in class

See my example on the next slide
Stuck In My Head Example
Bruno Mars’ song Grenade gets stuck in my head because he
uses alliteration, which repeats consonant sounds and makes it
easy for my brain to follow along with his lyrics even when I
don’t want to follow. He also uses clever word play by asserting
that the woman knows the devil, which I find funny even though
I don’t like the song.
Here are the lyrics I learned by heart from this song I don’t like:
Black, black, black and blue
Beat me 'til I'm numb
Tell the devil I said, "Hey"
when you get back to where you're from
Mad woman, bad woman
That's just what you are
Yeah, you smile in my face then rip the brakes out my car