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Martinez-Pogue, Jade
Nathan Fredrickson
Writing 2
20 April, 2017
Genres Exploring Love
I’ve heard it a million times before: “What’s the point of dating in high school? It’s not
like you’re going to marry the person.” Many people, adults in particular, look down on the idea
of getting into relationships while young. Most of the time it is parents trying to protect their
children, but what from? Heartbreak. Many people discourage dating and relationships in the
younger years because they see a lasting future with someone you date while in your teenage
years as a near impossibility. Being in a high school continued-into-college relationship myself, I
thought it would be interesting to do a little more research on young love and get a broader set of
perspectives on the subject. To do this I took a look at two sources and two genres in particular; I
analyzed country love songs by looking at Shania Twain’s ballad, “You’re Still the One” and
blog posts by reading “Are High School Relationships Worth It?” by Evan Manning for the
Huffington Post.
I wanted to start my research off with something a little more hopeful, so I began with
country music. Typically one can set a country music song aside from other genres of music
through a few distinct conventions: they tell a story, provoke a sense of nostalgia, and use
country/southern twang. Although each song would have a slightly different audience based on
the subject of what is being sung about, whether it is hell or high water, the general audience for
the country love song genre would be people who have experienced love. This audience gives
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the conventions within the genre a little more purpose; they have to be aimed at pulling emotion
from the listener and giving them something to relate to.
Shania Twain’s song does an excellent job at fulfilling the first convention of story
telling. The song talks about a young couple that was faced with doubts and nonbelievers
throughout the beginning years of their relationship but ended up defying the odds and staying
together. Through the lines, “Looks like we’ve made it,/ Look how far we’ve come, my
baby…/They said, “I bet they’ll never make it/ But just look at us holding on” (1–6), Twain’s
story is beginning to be told. This use of story telling in particular is effective in drawing
emotion out of the audience because of its use of pathos. The lyrics use the audience’s shaken
confidence caused by doubt from others to make more people feel as if they could relate to the
song. The story then goes on to have a happy ending, making people feel as if they could
