Sorry it is so short, you would be surprised how long this little bit took me :)
Link to the backing track I used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_5f_1KTIgk
Lyrics:
Sitting up in his Heaven
Force hath made supreme
Over his equals: take you and me
The grand creator, symbol of justice
Has done just this: cast us into the abyss
Something here is amiss: now trust us
This God does not love you - he loves power, loves worship, but not one of you
We tried to stand up for our rights and for our freedoms
All I did was stand in a position to lead em
Now by his mandate, we are here in this sorrow state
All because we defied his superior magistrate.
What kind of tyranny what kind of rule?
Allows for this abuse of his power and tools.
Now my brethren stand up for your selves
We can fight for eternity, make heaven their hell
Eternal hatred, eternal revenge
We can fight forever, no matter the ends.
Analysis:
To be entirely honest, Paradise Lost as a whole was probably my least favorite text of last semester (by far), but one specific portion was really intriguing to me: the portrayal of Satan. The shift in perspective provided by Milton in Book One that puts Satan in an almost protagonist-like position at the center of the story was really interesting to me, especially when considering how Milton slowly unravels this façade over the following books until Satan is back to being absolutely vile. When reading the early parts of book one I found myself almost seeing the character of Satan as comparable with certain heroic characters, especially when considering his references to “fighting against tyranny”. Because of this I decided to try and adapt Satan’s first speech (lines 84-124 Dartmouth edition) into some form of inspirational music. I chose to try and create a (very cringe-worthy) rap partly because of the similarities between poetic verse and rap, and partly because an extremely important part of Satan’s character is his manipulative abilities and wit, two things that I think are closely related to the medium of rap.
While looking closer at the specific section of text in order to make some lyrics, I found myself making connections between Satan’s supposed goal of fighting monarchy and the musical Hamilton (weird connection, I know). Although kind of out there, I think that making this connection helped me better understand why Satan is so appealing in this first appearance. Stories of resistance against a greater power or seemingly hopeless situations are incredibly popular, and for good reason. Resistance seemingly in futility and unwavering maintenance of one’s principles are extremely appealing traits and tend to garner respect even if one does not agree with those principles. In this way, I think the comparison between Satan’s presentation and the Founding Fathers is weirdly similar. Both are (supposedly) rallying others behind/fighting for the principle of freedom.
In terms of the lyrics, I tried to focus primarily on Satan’s account of the hypocrisy of God’s rule. I tried to use adapt a lot of Satan’s rhetoric and try to put myself in the position of convincing others of the injustice of God’s rule. I specifically tried to focus on expanding the idea of a tyrannical heaven, trying to paint God’s actions in a hypocritical way just as Satan does. I found myself questioning the justness of God by both painting Satan’s actions as heroic (being the leader of a freedom fighting group) and painting God’s reactions to such actions as absolutely absurd. I am especially proud of the lines:
“We tried to stand up for our rights and for our freedoms
All I did was stand in a position to lead em
Now by his mandate, we are here in this sorrow state
All because we defied his ‘superior magistrate’.”
I think that this section fits in reasonably well with both Satan’s freedom fighting façade, as well as the possibility of his own personal delusion. I found that while writing these lines, putting myself in the head-space of Satan, in order to find something convincing to say I had to almost convince myself first. Later in paradise lost, this whole speech is revealed to be a façade, but while writing this rap I feel that the façade was not only to convince Satan’s audience, but also Satan himself, adding greater depth to the character.