Blue is an ode to her daughter. Beyoncé, along with Jordan Cruz, employs the senses to depict the outer body experience of childrearing and the exchange of unconditional love associated with it. Not metaphorically but tangibly the effect of feeling or holding, seeing and hearing their offspring induces in the authors an uncommon sense of self as evidenced by their repeating the lines: “I feel alive” and “I’m so alive” in respect to their lives before parenthood. They also feel serenity as captivated in the peaceful yet rhythmic melody of the piece.
“Walls” with their ability to cave in and “words” that are void as their meanings become subjective and convoluted work as euphemisms of being in peril and requiring rescue. Children here are deemed to offer adults but especially those they care for a refuge from this chaos.
In the abstract, the lyrics of this song expand the traditionally portrayed maternal fantasy of children as immortal or unfazed by time. This nihilist realization that fragments the notion of youths as guardians and saviors with the perception of all living things as too ephemeral which might discourage anyone considering their odds of producing life.
Sources:
- BeyonceVEVO. “Beyoncé – Blue Ft. Blue Ivy.” YouTube. YouTube, 24 Nov. 2014. Web. 12 Oct. 2015. https://youtu.be/gSsMhQv6KZ8
- Knowles, Beyonce, and Jordan Cruz. “”Blue” (feat. Blue Ivy).” BEYONCE KNOWLES LYRICS. A-Z Lyrics, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015. http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beyonceknowles/blue.html
I think this post is interesting. I am particularly compelled by “Blue” and the idea of the maternal and the mother child relation.
I think you do a good job of highlighting a desire here, but I don’t know if this example shows the child as a site of a desire in the way Rose was talking about. Most explicitly because “Blue” isn’t a song or a video directed at children. And relatedly, the song is about a real relationship between the singer and her child. I’m not saying children aren’t standing for other things to, but I think the relationship is too particular for the child to be just a blanket site. Perhaps if there might have been more room to talk about how the child is functioning as a site of desire in the video; you might have looked at how the video features so many other children (indeed we see other children more often than the bit of carefully edited screen time we see of Blue).