Writing Assignment 2

Eckman 1
Justin Eckman
Professor Brogan Sullivan
English 101
24 October 2020
The Special Boy, The Normal Man:
A Rhetorical Analysis Of Helplessness Blues By Fleet Foxes
I’ve always struggled to sleep at night. This is in large part due to anxiety and it’s
something that I’ve dealt with since I was a teenager. To help deal with it, I’ve found that music
has been a great way to take my mind to a place where I can’t be hurt. I remember one summer
night about 2 years ago. My friend Malcom had just told me earlier in the day about a song he
had just listened to called Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes. He loved it, so, I decided that it
would be something that I would listen to that night. I was in awe after the first time I heard it. I
couldn’t believe that someone had so successfully conveyed the same thoughts about life that I
was starting to realize. I played that song on loop until I fell asleep. I didn’t even bother to listen
to the whole album until later in the week. Helplessness blues changed everything about how I
viewed myself in our great big blue world. I no longer felt alone in my struggle to find a role in
life. Helplessness Blues is an amazing triumph in building trust and emotion to convince the
listener that it’s ok to not be special.
In the song Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes, Robin Pecknold presents the idea that we
should accept the fact that we are not half as special as we think we are and that it’s ok for it to
be that way. In the first verse, Pecknold tells a tale about being raised up believing he was unique
and that one day he realized that was not true. This realization made him want to become apart of
something greater as a whole even if he didn’t know exactly what that is yet. The second verse is
Eckman 2
about wanting to be told what to do. Pecknold wants this, but he doesn’t want to bow down to
the people making the decision for him. In his third verse, he’s learned from his experience
trying to find his way. The true nature of this world reveals itself to him and it’s difficult for him
to believe. Lastly, Pecknold dreams about a reality where he gets the world he wants, but he
questions if he can be the person he wants to be.
The main songwriter for Fleet Foxes is Robin Pecknold. Pecknold was born in Seattle in
1986. The idea for Pecknold to write Helplessness Blues came after interviewing Graham Nash
from the group Crosby, Stills Nash and Young. He wanted to write a protest song like they used
to do in the days of old. Mr. Pecknold also stated in an interview with the UK newspaper
Independent in 2011 that Helplessness Blues was about growing up being a white male in
America. He realized that he was among the most privileged groups of people in the world and
that he wasn’t doing enough with the things he has been given. Since he himself says that this
song came from the heart, the audience he is trying to reach with this song are people like
himself, white males who grew up in America to a privilege that most people in the world don’t
have.
Rhetorically, this song builds trust very convincingly. This is due in large part due to the
fact that Pecknold made himself the main character of the song. The first verse of this song is
where he really establishes that he is at the center of this song. Pecknold talks about how he was
raised up and how he changed his mind about being unique after he thought about it. To a
listener like me, that made me believe that the words he was about to say for the rest of the song
were true and that I could trust that he was being honest with me. It is so easy much easier to
trust someone in a song when the song is so blatantly about themself. The main message of the
song just becomes that much clearer and easier to relate too. Yeah, I too was raised up believing
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I was special and yeah, I too realized that was a lie. By making this song about himself, Pecknold
opened up a pathway of honesty that would have never opened if the song was about someone or
something else.
Helplessness Blues also does a great job appealing to your emotions during the course of
the song. The section that stands out to me the most is the outro portion of the song. The very last
line “Someday I’ll be like the man on the screen” hit’s the hardest. It leaves so much open to
interpretation that it’s impossible to not feel something after listening to the entire song. Is the
man on the screen me? Is it somebody else? Someone I know? For me, it is the idea you don’t
need to be special to be happy. It’s ok to not be the man you want to be yet. The man you see on
the screen. This is what I found to be so emotionally powerful. The open-ended nature of the last
line creates a chance for the listener to reach their own conclusion about what Pecknold means. It
may not have been what Pecknold wanted but it was a much more personal and emotional end to
the song.
This was a significant, life changing song for me. I was really struggling with what to do
with myself. It provided me a great deal of clarity about the difficult choices I was going to have
to make in life. Choices like if I should go back to school or if I should have kids one day. I
learned that it would be ok to let go of the person that I thought I was. I wasn’t as special as my
parents told me but that doesn’t mean that I can’t be happy. Pecknold gave me a confidence that
is hard to find, the kind that you hold onto until the end of your days. An emotional grip so heavy
that you never forgot about it. Robin Pecknold wrote a song that forever changed my life. It will
be a song that I share with generations to come. I can sleep at night a little easier now because of
it.
Eckman 4
Works Cited
“Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues.” Genius, 16 Apr. 2011, genius.com/Fleet-foxes-helplessness-

blues-lyrics.
Gill, Andy. Fleet Foxes: Homegrown Harmonies, Going Back to Nature and the Blues. 23 Oct.
2011, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/fleet-foxes-homegrown-
harmonies-going-back-to-nature-and-the-blues-2258464.html.
ShieldSquare Captcha, www.songfacts.com/facts/fleet-foxes/helplessness-blues.

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Eckman 1

Professor Brogan Sullivan

The Special Boy, The Normal Man:

A Rhetorical Analysis Of Helplessness Blues By Fleet Foxes

listener that it’s ok to not be special.

questions if he can be the person he wants to be.

“Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues.” Genius, 16 Apr. 2011, genius.com/Fleet-foxes-helplessness-

ShieldSquare Captcha, www.songfacts.com/facts/fleet-foxes/helplessness-blues.

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