Where Is The Love
Interpretation
By Mitchell
In The U.S. ‘Where Is The Love’?
The song ‘Where Is The Love’ was written by Black Eyed Peas with help
from others such as John Fair. It was then performed by the Black Eyed
Peas as the first single in their hit album Elephunk. Writing the song came
to Will.I.Am’s mind from him hearing about issues in America such as
intolerance, hypocrisy, terrorism, gangs and war.
The first lines of the opening verse, ‘what’s wrong with the world mama
people livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas’ both refer to a child or
adolescent asking their parents why people are acting badly. This is
followed by ‘I think the whole world addicted to the drama, only
attracting the things that’ll bring the trauma’ is the child justifying his
question by stating the bad things. ‘Overseas yeah we try to stop
terrorism’ is an activist in the street complaining to the government that
they’re spending too much time in other countries. Then the lines ‘But we
still got terrorists here livin’ implies that they need to spend more time
and money into making their country safe. The next two lines list, to what
he believes to be ‘terrorists’ but in our view we see them as gangs, mobs
or the mafia. ‘But if you only have love for your own race then you only
leave space to discriminate’ is a citizen complaining for the public to have
love for everyone and everything. The next line ‘and to discriminate only
generates hate’ is starting to explain the result of discrimination. For the
rest of the verse the citizen is explaining the significant contribution to
hate when you discriminate or don’t care for others.
The chorus is very repetitive in stating both the horrible things in the
world and asking for help from the ‘Father’. It starts with ‘people killin’
people dyin’, children hurt and hear them cryin’ is referring to the
government invading other countries and hurting many of the countries
population. The next line ‘can you practice what you preach?’ is the
public asking George W. Bush, the president of the United States, if he
actually wants to stop war and he wants people to share all things then
he should do so himself. The lines ‘Father, Father, Father help us’ and
‘send some guidance from above’ is someone begging god to help the
earth achieve world peace. The chorus is then ended by the question of
the song ‘where is the love’ is repeated 6 times and echoed on each. The
chorus is sung after each verse.
The 2nd verse begins with ‘it just ain’t the same, old ways are changed’.
This represents a grandparent recalling to the grandchild about “the old
days” when he was young and how different it is today. The grandparent
backs this up with ‘new days are strange, is the world insane’. The three
lines in this verse ‘Nations dropping bombs’, ‘chemical gases fillin’ lungs
of little ones’ and ‘with ongoin’ sufferin’ as the youth die young’ are all
examples of the destruction that wars and poverty create. The following
five lines indicate someone telling people to question the amount of love
in the world. The last three lines of the verse are commenting and
questioning on why the United Nations were acting in the Vietnam War.
‘I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder’ refers to someone thinking
that he must help the entire world. Continued by ‘as I’m getting older
y’all, people gets colder’ meaning that as he ages the rest of the world
becomes more power hungry, greedy and selfish. ‘Selfishness got us
following the wrong direction’ shows the significance of people choosing
to have no feeling for others. ‘Wrong information always shown by the
media, negative images is the main criteria’ is talking about the role of
the media: Instead of pointing out the good things, they make the bad
things more important and exaggerate them so they can achieve higher
ratings. The following two lines talk about impressionable behaviour that
encourages children to act in certain ways. ‘Whatever happened to the
values of humanity, whatever happened to the fairness in equality’ gives
reference to the homeless and why some of them aren’t receiving help
nor having their values and rights respected. ‘Instead of spreading of love
we spreading animosity, Lack of understanding, leading lives away from
unity’ shows meaning towards people being intolerant and racist because
aren’t educated about that particular culture. In the final four lines of the
verse, the artist is saying that the world is making him feel depressed.
After the last verse the song concludes by repeating the chorus and
repeating the title of the song six times.
I chose this song because I remember this song from when it was released
and I also remember all the other terrible things that have happened in
the U.S. I though it was not only important to choose this song but to
inform the class about its message.