An analysis of the song "Root Beer" by Smith Wildwood
hesperado.substack.com
First of all, Smith Wildwood has made no bones about his songwriting mostly involving aesthetics as the priority, with meaning taking a back seat (but still a passenger). Thus, the main thing he was after in writing Root Beer was through the lyrics (and the sound of the instrumentation & melody) to evoke an impressionistic poetry that in elusive ways captures the spirit and essence of "root beer"—in his scheme, autumnal references and more subtly and less tangibly, the names "Robert" and "Amber Sloan", the suburban feel of the allusions (with a woodsy fringe to the suburbia), and the casual suburban whiteness of the overall ambiance—with a passing nod to the city in the destination of the narrator and his friend being a "city park". Even what they’re going to the park for could have some elliptical association with root beer: a casual tennis game with a "yellow ball"; just as later another root-beer-like sport is evoked, soccer. Neither baseball, nor football, nor basketball quite fit that particular soda pop.
An analysis of the song "Root Beer" by Smith Wildwood
An analysis of the song "Root Beer" by Smith…
An analysis of the song "Root Beer" by Smith Wildwood
First of all, Smith Wildwood has made no bones about his songwriting mostly involving aesthetics as the priority, with meaning taking a back seat (but still a passenger). Thus, the main thing he was after in writing Root Beer was through the lyrics (and the sound of the instrumentation & melody) to evoke an impressionistic poetry that in elusive ways captures the spirit and essence of "root beer"—in his scheme, autumnal references and more subtly and less tangibly, the names "Robert" and "Amber Sloan", the suburban feel of the allusions (with a woodsy fringe to the suburbia), and the casual suburban whiteness of the overall ambiance—with a passing nod to the city in the destination of the narrator and his friend being a "city park". Even what they’re going to the park for could have some elliptical association with root beer: a casual tennis game with a "yellow ball"; just as later another root-beer-like sport is evoked, soccer. Neither baseball, nor football, nor basketball quite fit that particular soda pop.