Analysis of Kenny by Still Woozy Essay Sample

In his song “Kenny”, Sven Gamsky (Still Woozy) uses repetition, anaphora, and an “all or nothing” mindset to showcase his argument that he will be fine after losing someone he was fully devoted to, to his audience, himself. Ordinarily, while listening to this song for the first time, it may seem as if Gamsky argues with the person that he lost, but if you closely analyze the tone portrayed in the song, you recognize that he is really just trying to convince himself to get over someone. Countless listeners relate to him in desperately trying to get rid of such strong feelings, hence the song’s popularity.

All throughout the song, Gamsky uses repetition to try and convince himself that he will be fine without this person. He repeats the line “I’ll pull myself together this time” to refer back to a time when he was unable to do that. This convinces himself that this time is different, and he can overcome the challenge of being alone. He also repeats “I’ll be fine on my own” so many times that he may truly begin to believe it. This can help the reader really get inside his head, and consequently understand what he is repeating to himself to change his mindset. 

Gamsky proceeds his repetition with various examples of anaphora. When he says the phrase “I'll try to be someone who could hold up, hold up alone, I'll try to be someone who could hold up, hold up on their own,” it shows a desperate attempt to get out of a mindset that he seems to have been stuck in for quite some time. The lack of word differentiation in these lines emphasizes his lack of honesty about how he truly feels, in view of that fact that the more someone tends to have passion and interest in something, the more they tend to talk about it with elevated diction. The simplistic element of using simple diction along with the anaphora may begin to convince himself that what he is saying is true, because he has drilled those phrases into his head so soundly. 

An “all or nothing” mindset is shown throughout the entire song through frequent use of pathos-based diction. Gamsky uses and repeats words and phrases such as “always” and “all I had” to really convince himself that he did everything in his power to change the one-sided situation that is depicted in the song. By using a word such as “all”, the artist persuades himself that he has nothing left to do in this relationship, so it is better to just get over it. With this “all or nothing” mindset so strongly embedded in this song, the writer shows a lack of hope of this love ever rekindling again, and puts himself in a position where he has no possibility of doing anything more to fix things. 

By using many different rhetorical devices such as repetition, anaphora, and strong diction in his song “Kenny”, Gamsky argues with himself about the fact that he will recover after a tragic heartbreak. He convinces himself that all hope is gone, so he should just try and figure out how to gain his sense of security in being alone, and tries to change his mindset that was developed from past experiences. These arguments were quite effective, because as someone who relates to this song heavily, I have used this song to get myself out of a negative mindset as well. Moreover, the song “Kenny” by Still Woozy is an ideal song to listen to when you need to raise your level of self worth after losing someone close to you.