Music Notes

Human (song) by OneRepublic

My 19th is Human, a track off the 2016 OneRepublic album, Oh My My. This is one of the songs I wrote a story to for "Musicology Anthology"  last year. I've heard it show up in unexpected places, but that was years ago, so it's basically a deep cut. It is not to be confused with 1R's 2021 album, which is also called Human. (This is one of the reasons why I underline album titles, which are technically supposed to be italicized alongside song titles. Many songs share a title with their respective album or even a different one.)

Sound:
Human is built around wavy, piano-based synth, almost a dance track. It features a steady high falsetto from lead singer Ryan Tedder; it is briefly electronically modified right before the outro, but most of it is his own skill. I've seen him doing high notes live, and he can handle them. Perhaps most impressive is how much he enjoys doing it.

One can sense the honest weariness in Ryan's voice in this song, as he was approaching a breaking point of exhaustion while this album was coming together. He is one of the most enthusiastic, hardest working people I know of, and by 2016 this pace caught up with him.

Theme:
Ryan tells us that when he finished writing Human, he worried it would be seen as sacrilegious. The band brought the song to the father of one of their members, who happened to be a preacher. He listened to it and approved.

The words show us a narrator who has fallen away in his spirituality and is returning to God with questions about why life is so difficult. God comes back with His own question: "how does it feel to be human?" And says He would like to experience our fragile human happiness for "just one day." This is a rather peculiar twist, since according to Christianity God came down to Earth in human form. But it makes for an interesting philosophical inquiry.

Ryan Tedder doesn't speak much about his personal faith, but he grew up in a large Christian home, and the basic, wholesome worldview has influenced a lot of his songwriting. In other words, he writes with soul. This song is a more obvious expression of spiritual thought than 1R's usual.

Significance:
I have always enjoyed the unique, quirky lyrics of Human, and find it going through my head every so often. I did my best to honor it in the 2024 Musicology Anthology. The story I wrote won second place at "Philosophical Musings" 

Human  (ASR) How does it feel to be human? Do some of the best plans you make get ruined? #2320763 by Amethyst Agape Angel

Words: 421.