Need an argumentative essay on Kansas Band Song Dust in the Wind. Needs to be 5 pages. Please no plagiarism.Download file to see previous pages... Pettinger), bore some semblance to the Dust in the Wi

Need an argumentative essay on Kansas Band Song Dust in the Wind. Needs to be 5 pages. Please no plagiarism.

Pettinger), bore some semblance to the Dust in the Wind in terms of message. Definitely, this was written long before Kerry Livgren, Kansas' guitarist and songwriter, penned the words for the song in 1977 (Wikipedia). However, this just proves that the subjects of man's purpose in life and the inevitability of death are not new at all. This is much understandable in Dickinson's time. In her formative years, she was enrolled at the Amherst Academy. In 1845, a religious revival took place in the campus, which heavily influenced Dickinson and her friends. From then onwards, most of her poems and even letters to friends bore religious or spiritual themes. Although her poems do not explicitly mention the existence of a Supreme Being or God, she always managed to describe man's mortality as a proof of his insignificance compared to what he gains after his death. In the poem, "I Reason the Earth is Short", she wrote the lines: "The best Vitality cannot excel Decay" and "I reason that in Heaven, Somehow, it will be even" (Habegger).

Whether Kerry Livgren read this poem and was influenced by it or not, his song Dust in the Wind is also a product of his own religious conviction. In 1979, two years after the song was written and recorded, Livgren was delved in the Urantia Book, which states revelations allegedly written by supernatural beings. One year after, he became a born-again Christian and this made an impact on his songwriting in terms of content. Although Dust in the Wind was written two years before Livgren's religious pendulum swing from Urantia to Christianity, it was representing his state of mind by then. Even while he was enjoying the life of a rock band in the psychedelic and Woodstock era of the early and mid-seventies, he was already introspectively evaluating his life and religious points of view. It was only in 1980 that he actually displayed his religious beliefs through the album Seeds of Change. Before that, he did not mention this outright but the lyrics did refer to man's minuteness in the greater scheme of things. In Dust in the Wind, he composed the lines: "I close my eyes only for a moment and the moment's gone" and "All we are is dust in the wind".

One would easily understand when Emily Dickinson coined the lines:

I reason, Earth is short -

And Anguish -- absolute -

And many hurt,

But, what of that (TH Johnson)

At that time, when she wrote this poem, she had seen many deaths in her family and circle of friends. In fact, because she was a very reclusive person, a demise of any of the few people close to her, naturally, has an overwhelming effect. However, the poem is not an expression of anguish or grief. Rather, it is a representation of how she sees the issue of life and death. She believed that death's unavoidability reduces the significance of life. This only reflects the fatalist influences of the Puritan origins of her family and the orthodox Calvinist beliefs she acquired in her school years (RB Sewall).

On the other hand, the lyrics of Dust in the Wind entirely pertains the same message. However, being a virtually a poem with a melody, presents it in more direct approach. This is probably meant to suit the modern music-lover, considering that it did capture the ears of many when it was first released commercially.