RA: Fred Jones Part 2

Fred Jones Part 2
by Ben Folds

Fred sits alone at his desk in the dark
There's an awkward young shadow that waits in the hall
He's cleared all his things and he's put them in boxes
Things that remind him: 'Life has been good'
Twenty-five years
He's worked at the paper
A man's here to take him downstairs
And I'm sorry, Mr. Jones
It's time
There was no party, there were no songs
'Cause today's just a day like the day that he started
No one is left here that knows his first name
And life barrels on like a runaway train
Where the passengers change
They don't change anything
You get off; someone else can get on
And I'm sorry, Mr. Jones
It's time
Streetlight shines through the shades
Casting lines on the floor, and lines on his face
He reflects on the day
Fred gets his paints out and goes to the basement
Projecting some slides onto a plain white
Canvas and traces it
Fills in the spaces
He turns off the slides, and it doesn't look right
Yeah, and all of these bastards
Have taken his place
He's forgotten but not yet gone
And I'm sorry, Mr. Jones
And I'm sorry, Mr. Jones
And I'm sorry, Mr. Jones
It's time

This song is a portrayal of a moment in the life of Mr. Jones. It is sung to a fairly mellow accompaniment, meant to create a nostalgic mood for the listener. Ben Folds' voice shows little emotion throughout the song, it's just a string of words with few crescendos or diminuendos.

The audience: younger people, those who are preparing to start careers or who have recently begun working for a company. Most of Ben Folds' listeners are under 30.

WATCO not acknowledging someone's accomplishments on their emotional well-being? Not acknowledging someone's accomplishments is detrimental to their emotional well-being because being ignored is super depressing.

The basic argument of this song is that all of us go through life both replacing people and in turn being replaced by someone else. When you spend 25 years working for a company, you end up putting a lot of yourself into your work, and your work is an important part of your identity. When you don't receive any acknowledgment of your effort and dedication when you leave, it hurts you. Everyone has a basic human need for attention, and even retirees need a friend or two.

Most of the argument comes through pathos. " And life barrels on like a runaway train, Where the passengers change, They don't change anything, You get off; someone else can get on" gives a metaphor of how life works that the listener has to apply to his or her own life experiences. The lines " No one is left here that knows his first name" and " He's forgotten but not yet gone" are separated by several minutes of the song, but they give the same message. He's still around, but no one seems to care. These are highly charged lines, emotionally. The audience cannot hear them without feeling something at the same time.

STAR: I believe that this argument is fairly typical of what an artist might say. Many artists who identify with romanticism believe that they feel things very deeply and are qualified to explain emotions to outsiders. Ben Folds follows suit. The argument is accurate, being ignored has hurt most of us at some point in our lives. We don't like it. Psychologists generally agree that all people need to be recognized and need to be valued in order to be happy. The argument is relevant to the audience because many of them are still in the early stages of their own careers and need to know how to cope with the changes that will come to co-workers and to themselves. Since there are so few lines of lyrics in this song, they should all be relevant to the principal purpose of the song. None of the words are excessive or unrelated to the story of Fred Jones, so I think that it is a well-constructed song.