Lyrical Analysis of Classified - All About U

The song I finally chose for my project was All About U by Classified and Chad Hatcher. Stuck for ideas, I attempted to research into videos of the same type - acoustic/rap, but to no avail. To help me in the construction of my Movie, and to get some planning done sooner than later, I decided to analyse the lyrics of the song in an attempt to put images to the words of the song.


A theme throughout the song is that the lyrics by Chad Hatcher are more profound speaking of not getting yourself down, and trying to cheer up, whereas the lyrics by Luke Boyd (Classified) are more about getting through a bad time, and how he himself felt this way - it's rapped as more of a sympathetic view in contrast to Chad's advice based lyrics. An interesting point is that they both wrote their lyrics respectively and this shows in their separate ways of putting across the theme of getting through a bad time in life, or getting through life happily.


Chad Hatcher: Life’s not what you take, it’s not about the promises you make. It’s not about the friends you might of made or love that is gone. Life is what you give, it’s not about the stupid things you did. Its not about the way things could have been, it’s about moving on. It’s all about you. So every morning when you wake before the first step that you take, Just think it’s all what you make it, and you’ll make it through.

Verse Analysis - This is the basic introduction, it talks about not dwelling on things you've done, or promised to do, its cool because it talks about life not being what you take, but instead being what you give, basing its words heavily off of contrast. It's also a good point and sticks in your head because of the way its put across through rhyme as well as good lyrics, which makes it a powerful selection of words. This flows onto the chorus - It's all about you. It could be like an old movie style montage with images to portray the meaning behind the song, or perhaps something more literal to compare to the lyrics, such as "Every morning when you wake" being composed of a person waking up, and then "before the first step that you take" be composed of putting feet on the floor, not making a step away from the bed. It's like affirmation of something before you go into it - to build confidence, and this shows the warm hearted approach given by Chad's part of the song.


Classified: This life will leave you stressed out, left out, with your neck out, ain’t nothing changed. Real life, so we deal right, but it feels like its something strange. We wondering, the dumbest things, and let every thing get under our skin. Trouble again, trying to impress somebody else is fucked in the head. So do you. You’ll never make every one happy, it just won’t happen. But the end of the day when all say is said, you better be ready to go back at ‘em. I learn slow, my verse show’s my growth my wisdom. If your positive or you negative, It don’t make a difference not when you living. ‘Cause some of the most successful people on this planet, will kill them selves or somebody else. Life they really couldn't manage. Then we got bums, alcoholics on the streets. With no stress, no where to rest, no where to dress, no where to sleep. And they say: fuck my morals, I'm drinking away my sorrow, I’m living life and I’m happy, I ain’t thinking about tomorrow.


Verse Analysis: This verse begins with a rather bleak and pessimistic outlook on life - "life will leave you stressed out, left out, with your neck out". This is a major proponent of the idea that life is hard, and often not worth it, because if you actually try at life, you'll be left out, and stressed. The saying "with your neck out" refers to taking a risk for something, with the neck referring to the gamble - your neck being a weak and vital spot, thus illustrating the seriousness. The verse continues its sad trail of words by saying that trying to impress someone is pointless and "you'll never make everyone happy, it just wont happen". Which infers that Luke Boyd once tried this himself and failed, as this verse contains a lot of implication that it is based on personal experience. This is exemplified in the phrase "My verse shows my growth, my wisdom", which directly implies that all of this is about his personal experiences. The line "you'd better be ready to go back at 'em" is one of the first cheerful parts of the verse, perhaps keeping more realistic than optimistic, and trying to make the song come across as more serious and influential than just a rant about how bad his life was. He cuts of the verse with a talk about drinking away your sorrows, and how many people just settle for this sort of ending. At this point it is unclear whether he himself had tried to drink away his sorrows, but due to the personal nature of the verse, its highly likely.



Chad Hatcher: It’s all about you. So every morning when you wake before the first step that you take, just think it’s all what you make it, and you’ll make it through. It’s all about you. So every morning when you wake before the first step that you take, just think it’s all what you make it, and you’ll make it through. Life is what it brings, it’s not about cars and fancy things. (Cars and fancy things) Or hair salons and diamond rings girls. Don’t you lose no sleep. Life is all about, the things you’ll never figure out. It’s all about the people you love, and memories you keep.

Verse Analysis: This is technically the first non-chorus part of the song which Chad has involvement with. After the chorus, he drops into a rhyme based verse, with many words using "ings" in them. "ing" is the suffix to a verb, a doing word, this pushes home the idea that life is what you make it, and if you don't do anything, your life will go nowhere. This part of the song appeals to both genders, stating its not about "Cars or fancy things" whilst simultaneously talking of it not being about "Hair salons and diamond rings" for the girls. This also pushes home that whilst life may not be about "friends you might have made" or even "love that is gone", you should still keep your memories, and love people in the present and future. This is almost a complete contrast, based upon life not being about friends and love you've had, but still attempting to find love and love people now, and remembering everything you've done anyway. The way it could be interpreted is that all of the things you've done, though you shouldn't dwell on them, should help you learn from mistakes and keep living your life.


Classified: This here is life, so tell me who chooses what’s wrong and right? Is it what we see on TV, get a job raise a family? That’s how I was raised, how I was brought up, get a wife a son and a daughter. That’s how I was taught to be proper, never thought anyone can get caught up. But slowly I grew up, and the fairy tail quickly vanished. Realized that life’s a bitch, and shit you gotta be able to stand it. And you gotta be able to handle it, the stress and the pressure you channel it. And you learn to cope at the end of your rope, anyway that you can with liquor or dope. Or work hard raise your kids, strip clubs what ever it is. Smoke weed, shoot hoops. What ever you find your happiness through. It’s your life. Just make sure you know what you want when you go to get it. Keep doing this shit for you. Not your crew, or the dude you tryin' to impress kid. Life is simple, life is hard, and yeah life is fun. So enjoy the things around you. Before your life is done.

Verse Analysis: Another advice based verse from life experience of Luke Boyd. He raises many questions about life, such as what is right and wrong, and whether the idealism of a job and a big family are actually a life well spent. He also states that he found out that life isn't as perfect as was made out earlier, using the phrase "realized that life's a bitch". He pushes the thought that you should find a way to cope with it, no matter how illicit or illegal it is, based on the "Strip clubs, whatever it is. Smoke weed, shoot hoops". The verse ends with quick, short, snappy lines. These are very profound and are like facts of life, such as "life is simple", "live is hard" and "life is fun". Amusingly, he even adds rhyme to the end of it saying "So enjoy the things around you, before your life is done". This is staying true to the rap style which bases heavily upon quick phrases in succession which rhyme or have some form of similarity.

Chad Hatcher It’s all about you. So every morning when you wake before the first step that you take, just think it’s all what you make it, and you’ll make it through. It’s all about you. So every morning when you wake before the first step that you take, just think it’s all what you make it, and you’ll make it through.

Ending Verse Analysis: This finishes up the song nicely, in many rap based songs, they end on the chorus verse, with the rapper continuing to talk (instead of rap) for a few seconds, usually to give credit, or a heartfelt statement. This is not the case, due to the perhaps 'clashing' genres of the Rapper and the Acoustic Guitarist, with instead, a guitar outro almost identical to the main riff being played.

Poster - Final Version

Feedback from my first actual draft of my poster was clear - they thought that it was a good attempt at emulating the success of my mockup, but the quality of the pictures were not as good. As well as this, I was told that it should be slightly darker to match the shady styling of the artists, it was obvious I had brightened the guitar holder, as the picture was slightly grey as a side effect, and was also seemingly too bright for the situation he was meant to be in.

One piece of feedback I found particularly useful was -
"The way the person on the right was cut out was rushed"

Using this feedback I took the original photograph and using photoshop, properly edited and cropped it in a way that was non intrusive to the form of the person and his guitar. In doing this, I made a higher quality picture than the other one where I had to blur out my cutting errors and had only been able to use a large erasing tool which deleted parts of the guitar. Clicking the picture allows you to see in better detail exactly how much of an improvement is there.

This is what I came up with after the feedback, and because I have corrected all the problems which were found in my first draft, I have decided that this is my final draft of my product before christmas. Though I may complete some research over christmas, this is as far as my production goes till after the holiday period.

Poster - First Draft

This is the self made version of my poster. I replaced the actual artists behind the song I chose with me and my friend Slaine, and hid our faces accordingly. Using the advice given to me by the various people whom I handed a questionnaire to. Many mentioned the need for more smaller characters, or to increase the size of the existing characters in the foreground. Though nobody complained about the background, and the image was royalty free so I didnt have to replace it.

Poster Improvements

After making a questionnaire and handing it out, I got some surprising results from it. Nobody directly hated the poster, but I got a lot of feedback on small flaws, such as the sizing of the characters involved in the foreground. I will use these improvements and then create a final version with my own characters in, once I have consulted with the people who filled in the questionnaires.

Here are some of the actual comments, with names ommited for privacy reasons:

"I like it, but theres alot of spare space, can't you make the guys bigger?"

"It's a cool poster, I can see how its rap mixed with acoustic, but why is there like, a quarter of the page with nothing but sky on?"

"The poster isn't so bad, its just that the writing or something should be bigger to fill the page more, you might as well have just shrunk the size of the poster."

"Not bad, but you should make the guys and the font bigger, because they don't look important enough - you should probably do that with the record company logo too."

"The font should be bigger, and don't mix the F from Classified with the H from Chad, it looks stupid and childish, and doesnt really fit the genre too well."

"You should use more than just black for your font on the final version, because it's a bit too simple, you need to use a range of colours, probably some shine effects too so it looks 'bling' and suits the rap style."

Poster Mock Up

Here is a Mock-Up for my poster, I believe it is very conventional whilst still retaining some sense of uniqueness. Obviously it won't look like this in the end due to the fact I can't use the licensed images of Classified and Chad Hatcher, however, I can do something to the effect by using pictures which I take myself, then crop these and make them look more professional and like Classified, due to the fact he usually wears his hood up. For Chad, he is a guitarist, so someone with a hood up and with a guitar in their hands will suffice. The overall image is what counts, not tiny flaws in the image, as people shouldnt have to hold a magnifying glass to the poster and look for flaws, they should appreciate the poster as a whole.

Poster Plans

Based on various ideas which I have gotten from looking at existing posters, and trouble with filming, I have decided to start work on a poster for my project. It will have the title "All About U" in smaller print than "Classified" and "Chad Hatcher", with Classified being larger as Luke Boyd is the main artist in the song, with Chad Hatcher featuring alongside him. As the song is entitled All About U, I feel that the best thing to go along with it would be a city or a town, with people walking around, being busy, perhaps with a blur to add more emphasis to the 2 people (resembling the artists) at the forefront of the poster. I aim to have a mockup ready by tomorrow at the latest, as I have tonight free and am busy tomorrow, therefore leaving myself with little time to work on it otherwise, due to my plans to film over the weekend, and also do some more planning for my CD Cover during the later week.

Film/Story Plans

I aim to borrow a camera from school tomorrow, and then grab my friend Sam and make him sort out some definitive plans for when we are going to film the video. As well as this, I am going to borrow my friends guitar after school tomorrow in advance if he'll let me, because I don't want to have to come to access it and then find out that I can't get to it because hes not available.

The bad experiences of yesterday are testament to the fact I need to be better prepared during this project. My research is still going on to this day, and I believe that it will help me to better understand the video I am aiming to make.

Instead of filming, I have decided to put work into my poster before my Film, as this is easier and takes less preparation time, making it an ideal choice while I think about and work on ideas for my film