This Soliloquy Is About You

After continuing our discussion on Hamlet’s first soliloquy, and after a long day of school, I promptly went home, plugged my headphones into my computer and began singing along to many songs by Olly Murs.  However, after I listened to his song “This Song Is About You,” I had to play it again because it seemed almost as if it were a modern adaptation of Hamlet’s soliloquy.  The song begins with, “This is my confessional/On pen and paper I’m going to write this down/Saying things you never thought,” which essentially covers the main idea of the soliloquy.  Hamlet does not say his true feelings to anyone but himself and speaking of the wrongs that his mother has committed and never believed was wrong.  Olly Murs then goes on to say, “I won’t lie, no I’m not okay.”  At this point both Murs and Hamlet are speaking or singing only to themselves and admitting to only themselves that they are not okay.  They are feeling broken and worn down, yet they cannot express their feelings to the person whom they need to the most, so they hold their tongue and only admit to themselves what their true feelings are.  In the chorus, the line “I hope you know this song is about you” is repeated many times, emphasizing the anger toward the person it is aimed at and the frustration that they do not understand their wrong doings.  This, of course, is much like Hamlet.  He is angry at his mother and makes the entire soliloquy about her wrong doings and shouting obscene generalizations, such as “frailty thy name is woman!” yet he is aiming all of these insults at his mother.  The soliloquy is about Gertrude, yet there is a part of Hamlet that does not want his mother to know about it and a part of him that wants his mother to know the soliloquy is about her.  The bridge of the song links back to the soliloquy, too, since one of the lines is “I hope you feel the same way that I felt that day/That you let me, yeah you left me.”  This part of the song reminds me of the movie version that we watched where everyone left and Hamlet was left in a giant room by himself, where he goes on to state his soliloquy.  He feels lonely, abandoned and full of grief in this scene yet his mother feels only pure happiness for the fact that she is marrying Hamlet’s uncle; he is filled with anger and feels as though Gertrude should be feeling the same way as him rather than moving on to “incestuous sheets.”  Hamlet’s wish is for Gertrude to one day grieve for the great king, his father, as he has been doing by himself.  This song and this soliloquy are both filled with many emotions such as anger, grief, rage, and sadness.  Both Hamlet and Murs are suffering through different situations, however they are dealing with them in much the same way.