“Break Me Down and Build Me Up”

“Break me down and build me up” – a similar meaning to the phrase “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”…

This powerful message, “break me down and build me up”, appears in the lyrics of the recent new hits by Imagine Dragons, “Whatever it takes” and “Believer”. But here I would like to focus my song appreciation on the latest hit — “Whatever it takes” as it’s my current motivating song.

Here are the lyrics:

Falling too fast to prepare for this
Tripping in the world could be dangerous
Everybody circling, it’s vulturous
Negative, nepotist

Everybody waiting for the fall of man
Everybody praying for the end of times
Everybody hoping they could be the one
I was born to run, I was born for this

Always had a fear of being typical
Looking at my body feeling miserable
Always hanging on to the visual
I wanna be invisible

Looking at my years like a martyrdom
Everybody needs to be a part of ‘em
Never be enough, I’m the prodigal son
I was born to run, I was born for this

Whip, whip
Run me like a racehorse
Pull me like a ripcord
Break me down and build me up
I wanna be the slip, slip
Word upon your lip, lip
Letter that you rip, rip
Break me down and build me up

Whatever it takes
Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins
I do whatever it takes
Cause I love how it feels when I break the chains
Whatever it takes
You take me to the top, I’m ready for
Whatever it takes
Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins
I do what it takes

Hypocritical, egotistical
Don’t wanna be the parenthetical, hypothetical
Working onto something that I’m proud of, out of the box
An epoxy to the world and the vision we’ve lost
I’m an apostrophe
I’m just a symbol to remind you that there’s more to see
I’m just a product of the system, a catastrophe
And yet a masterpiece, and yet I’m half-diseased
And when I am deceased
At least I go down to the grave and die happily
Leave the body of my soul to be a part of me
I do what it takes

Lyrics: Whatever It Takes – Imagine Dragons

THREE reasons why I love this song:

1. The wide range of vocabularies and metaphors

English is not my mother tongue but the use of English from this song is undoubtedly sophisticated. Similar to Ed Sheeran’s hit (“What do I know?”) of putting “exponential growth” into his lyrics, the lyricist put an uncommon word, “adrenaline”, in the chorus of the song, I guess everyone will agree with me that the sentence – “adrenaline in my veins”, comes naturally and fits perfectly there.

More than that, many metaphors used and some words that we won’t commonly use when we’re talking with others like “vulturous” (to describe the behavior like the vulture), “prodigal son” (to describe a person who lives a lavishing lifestyle), “parenthetical” and “apostrophe” (to describe a person as the characteristics of a common symbol)

2. An unconventional and the most motivating bridge ever

I would say, seldom have I heard of a bridge like this, with rich content and wide use of vocabularies (mentioned above). The bridge starts with the words, “Hypocritical, egotistical…”, It brings out the emotion from the singer that he admitted his flaw of being so arrogant, but in contrast, he does not want to be “parenthetical and hypothetical”, this is a paradox, a personal controversy that a person will always have.

Then in the next sentence, the lyricist tells the audience that as long as you are thinking out of the box, being like “an epoxy” to hold the divided world together, being like “the vision” that guides the others’ visions… basically, something that you are proud of, it does not matter it’s something small and insignificant like an “apostrophe” as long as it makes a drastic change (the more you can see).

Everyone is just a product of the system, sometimes a “catastrophe” to others, but you are always the “masterpiece” to yourself. For this, you do whatever you take to live your own life and be yourself without making yourself regret it. Wooow…! (*deep breath!*)

3. “Break me down and build me up”

This is the core message of the entire song. “Run me like a racehorse, pull me like a ripcord”, the lyricist uses the metaphors to tell – no matter how painful it was, it will make me even stronger. Like racehorses, they run faster with the whip; Like the ripcords, they are tightened up but it makes the other safe. Regardless of the highs or the lows, always remind yourself to be stronger than ever before after failure, don’t do the shortcut but do WHATEVER IT TAKES to get through!

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I would say this song is highly recommended to not only those who need motivation but also to those who would like to advance their English level because of the use of words and language.

This is just my personal opinion and I am looking forward to reading more analysis and interpretation of this song since this is a new hit and I can’t really find much analysis of this song.

Not many songs can catch my attention to interpreting song analysis or searching for the analysis of the lyrics, but when it does, what I read or learned from the lyrics always surprised me.

Music is a kind of therapy. Words and stories immerse into the melody. They are called Lyrics. Sometimes you find the reason why you exist in the world from the lyrics, sometimes you find the reason why you couldn’t let go of things or a past relationship, you get hints from lyrics and it’s like your only soulmate in the silent darkness.

Cheers to all the lyricists who bring a song to life and be the greatest mentor to many lives!

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