Abeni Matthews

Prof John Lynxwiler

SYP3630
29 April 2016
Assignment #6
The song that I will be analyzing for this assignment is Stressed Out by Twenty One
Pilots. This song is off of the bands latest album entitled Blurryface and, like the other songs on
the album, was written by the lead singer Tyler Joseph. The song was released to radio as a single
on November 10, 2015 and the following year it went to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song
is written in the key of A minor and possesses a mid-tempo beat. The style is considered
alternative and the genre is considered rap-rock, although the bands overall genre tends to vary
because their sound is that unique and the sound is something that deviates from other popular
Top 40 hits. The songs lyrics and the meaning are rudimentary, but complex at the same time, as
it is with the bands overall discography.
When I first discovered this song, it was on the app 8tracks and I did not think much of it
at first; I forgot about it a few days later. Around the summer of 2015, I went out and bought the
album Blurryface at Target and devoted some time to listening through the whole album. I had
heard of Twenty One Pilots before; the previous year I saw them perform their song Car Radio
on a late-night talk show and was mystified at their performance because of the energy they
brought to the stage and the lyricism. I knew from this day on that I would have to watch out for
this band because they were something exceptional; like nothing I had ever seen. When I listened
to Stressed Out for the first time in forever around the end of my first semester at UCF in
2015, I was walking to class and played it. When I did, I was absolutely floored at how genuine

and relatable this song was that I stopped right in my tracks to process everything that I just
heard at that time. It is still one of my favorite songs ever and one of the best songs that they
have made. The chorus
Wish we could turn back time
To the good old days
When our mama sang
Us to sleep but now were stressed out (Joseph, 2015, track 2),
sums up the general meaning of the entire song. To me, this song talks about something that
resonates with everybody; that we all are wishing we could go back to the days when amongst
the biggest troubles we had were who stole our crayons. Today, as young adults, we are always
stressing out thanks to school, money, work, finding jobs after graduation, relationships, personal
issues, health, and many other things in life.
Within the lyrics of the song, the speaker (in this case, Tyler Joseph) laments about
adulthood. He is wishing that he had the power to turn back time to the good old days (Joseph,
2015, track 2). Throughout the song, there is a theme of the speaker battling his insecurities and
fears that manifest in the form of a character he calls Blurryface. This is actually the recurring
theme of the album; the rest of the songs connect with each other in a way that it is telling the
story of Josephs long and treacherous battle with Blurryface, and by the end of the final track
Goner, Blurryface is defeated. In the first verse of Stressed Out, the speaker muses about
wishing he could make music the way that he wants to without feeling the pressures of needing
to adapt to trends that are popular within mainstream music, most evident in the line I wish I
didnt have to rhyme every time I sang (Joseph, 2015, track 2). With this, he explores another
theme that is recurrent within the album: musical integrity. He wants to create music that at least

one person will enjoy, but he wants to remain true to himself and does not feel a desire to
conform to mainstream standards. This directly relates to our own integrity and how we as a
society try to make better decisions in life while remaining true to ourselves. Within the second
verse, the speaker again laments about his childhood by reminiscing about a certain smell that he
remembers from his childhood. Based on the lyrics,
I'd make a candle out of it, if I ever found it
Try to sell it, never sell out of it, I'd probably only sell one
It'd be to my brother, cause we have the same nose, same clothes, home grown, the
stone's throw from a creek we used to roam. (Joseph, 2015, track 2)
The speaker associates this yearning smell with only positive feelings, and he talks about how he
would keep this smell in the form of a candle so he can reminisce on his easier years of life. He
wants to share these positive feelings with others, but he realizes that his brother would be the
only one who would recognize this particular smell. This concept relates to the nostalgia that we
feel constantly as we navigate the complex path of adulthood.
The taste public that would most likely find this song appealing consists of Generation Z
members (those either in high school or fresh out of high school) and, most importantly, our
generation: millennials. Young adults, college students, entry-level business professionals, and
twentysomethings make up the majority of this generation. We are still trying to find out who we
are as individuals and tend to feel that we do not have our entire lives together yet. Our
generation is just starting out with adulthood and learning how to do taxes and make our own
doctors appointments, and at the same time, we long for the days of our childhood where we
never had to worry about a thing because our parents would take care of it all. We as a generation
live rather fast-paced lifestyles; dealing with school, maintaining a social life, trying to make a

living, making a name for ourselves, and trying to get enough sleep in the process. The majority
of this generation tends to fall between as low as working middle class to solidly middle class
(Scheffer, 2014). Another detail of note is that most of us may not move away from our family
and live on our own just yet, especially due to financial reasons and feeling like we are not ready
to face adulthood.
This song carries a great amount of significance with the taste public in a number of
ways. It indeed does offer a sort of escapism from our already busy lives and can trigger fond
memories of the things that we used to experience in our younger days. In fact, it is not
uncommon for a member of the taste public to reminisce about high school, because even then
we never had too much to worry about regardless of whether we liked it not. It can spark a
feeling of wanting to maintain ones integrity and staying true to themselves, which is vital if we
want to finally figure out who we are and what our place is in society. Nowadays, society tells us
that having dreams and an imagination is for children and we have to wake up and face the real
world someday, but a majority of us are not willing to give that up yet. We all have our own
insecurities that seem to expand when we get older, and they try to interfere with our daily lives.
Among these common insecurities are feeling like we may not be good enough and constantly
feeling like we have to compete with others and prove that we are better than the others, even
though we are essentially no different from each other because while we may take different
paths, we are all on the same journey of trying to figure out adulthood and our own lives. This
feeling of nostalgia combined with the fears and insecurities of going through adulthood and
finding ourselves is articulately elucidated within the lyrics of this song in a way that anyone can
relate to it. The song, as well as the band in general, provide a voice for our generation and
remind us that we are not alone in our journey and that we can conquer anything.

References
Joseph, T. (2015). Stressesd Out [Recorded by Twenty One Pilots].
On Blurryface [CD]. New York, NY: Fueled By Ramen.
Scheffer, D. R. (2014, December 31). Can you name the U.S. socio-economic levels? Retrieved
April 28, 2016, from http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/31/can-you-nameus-socio-economic-levels/?page=all