If you are a human person who has been somewhere near a radio in the last two months, chances are you've heard Lukas Graham's hit single, "7 Years."
Before I really begin, it only seems fair to offer a disclaimer to you: I hate this song. I am searching for ways to justify my hatred. Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's get to it.
The scope of the story told within this song is vast, beginning in the past when the song's speaker was seven and extending into an imagined future where the speaker wonders what he will be like at 60 years old.
This song's lyrics form a first person narrative that begins with, you guessed it, when the song's speaker was seven years old. At seven years old, the speaker recounts how his mother tells him to "make [himself] some friends or [he'll] be lonely." This seems to be kind of a cold and terse thing to say to a 7-year-old, but whatever. Maybe his mom was just experimenting with some much-needed tough love. Who am I to judge? I'm merely a fly on the wall at this point, observing the family dynamic of people whom I have no personal connection to or intimate knowledge of.
The next age that the speaker reminisces about is age 11. Ah, good ol' age 11, when the song's speaker was "smoking herb and drinking burning liquor." This isn't the horrifying part of the song, by the way. In fact, this line is actually pretty important to the song because it tells a lot about the subject of the song while managing to keep things concise and direct.
The fact that the speaker and his friends were smoking and drinking by age 11 implies that either the speaker is growing up too fast or wants to grow up too fast. This line could also imply that, by age 11, the speaker has already experienced enough in his life to have to cope with certain aspects of life through substance abuse.
Okay, now here's when things get pretty wild. We're still at age 11, by the way, and here are two lines of "7 Years" quoted exactly:
"Once I was 11 years old, my daddy told me, 'go get yourself a wife or you'll be lonely.'"
Alright. So there it is. The father wants his 11-year-old son to get married immediately. (Yes, I realize that this lyric probably wasn't intended to mean that the son should get married at 11. Yes, I realize that these lines are probably supposed to paint a picture of a concerned father figure who wants his son to have the best and most full life possible. The lines most likely mean that the father wants the son to get married eventually, and they don't necessarily mean that the father wants his son to be a married preteen with a little, tiny preteen spouse. Will I give this song the benefit of the doubt, then? Absolutely not.)
So, where was I? Ah yes, the father in this song wants the son to get married at 11. That's messed up, and that is definitely 100 percent what Lukas Graham meant in his song. If you recall, the speaker in this song began smoking and drinking at age 11. What else happened to this boy at 11? His father began trying to marry him off, that's what.
What happens when a prepubescent fifth- or sixth-grade boy is expected to get married before his twelfth birthday? Obviously, he turns to self-medication in the form of drugs and alcohol. Of course. This interpretation of Lukas Graham's "7 Years" is bleak and raw and 100 percent correct, I promise.
Alright, I feel as if I have thoroughly made my point here. If you have any further questions/comments, e-mail, fax, or beep me. Thank you for you time.
