What is Magic Dandelion About?
This is a song against gun violence. But it’s not a simple song that just says “don’t do it.” When I set out to write a song on such a serious topic, I knew that they lyrics and the song’s story had to be touching and unique. It took me a long time to write the lyrics for this song because I wanted the lyrics to be meaningful.
It ended up being a sensitive song with an extremely rich storyline for a song. There is a love story, heartbreak, shooting, regret, compassion, loneliness, and much more.
This is also one of the more interesting songs with metaphors because the metaphor in the song is so visual and easy to picture. The song’s central metaphor is a magic dandelion which is a metaphor to a machine gun. The dandelion spreads love petals like a machine gun can spread bullets of destruction. It’s a contrast which shows that there is a better way.
The story of the song begins with a shooting event. As the song goes on, we learn that the shooter just wasn’t happy with his life. Many people are unhappy with their lives and do bad things because of that. The song does not excuse shootings in any way, but it tries to understand without generalizing. Every shooting situation is different, but sometimes it’s largely due to the shooter being unhappy. So it’s a song about support, or lack of support and the results of that. It’s also a song about loneliness because if the shooter had meaning in his life through relationships or other sources, he may not have resorted to such actions.
One of the turning points of the song is when the shooter realizes that one of the people he shot was going to be his future love. In a moment of frustration and hopelessness, he asks the heavens to give him another chance. He gets another chance and does not shoot. In a way, this is a song about not giving up and moving forward. After he is given a second chance, he makes the most of it, finds his love, with the song ending by leaving him in a good place.
It’s an inspirational song in that it shows how even in the lowest of lows, all hope is not lost and things can improve. Plus, it’s inspirational in a greater way because it shows that if we all treat each other better from the start, fewer people would be frustrated, more would find love and compassion, and fewer people would resort to bad actions out of anger and frustration. The song gives tope to a possible solution, as naive as it perhaps is, to these kinds of bad events.
Try listening to this song and follow the storyline as it evolves. Some people thought that it’s a sad and negative song. But I think that is only an impression people get at the beginning. As the song goes on, it finds positives in places we typically don’t. That’s why I think this is one of the more optimistic songs instead of a negative one.