Let Her Go

Love is a theme in many songs, it always has been. The song "Let Her Go" by Passenger, takes an interesting outlook on love, the song talks of only realizing how good love is when you lose it. The song from their amazing album, All the Little Lights, address' the regrets that can often come with the end of a relationship.

The amazing story told through this song touches on losing a love that he once had and only realizing how much this love meant to him once it was gone. This leads him to sing about regret and leaves you with the thought of appreciating the people in your life while you still have them. 

A poetic device that Passenger uses repeatedly is personification. He talks of love as it's a living thing, that can move and breath. One line says, "Cause love comes slow and it goes so fast," by using personification he is able to make the love he is talking about more relateable and gives the song a new depth. 

Throughout the song metaphors are put in place, as well as other versions of comparisons. A lasting comparison that he makes is to the contrast of lightness and darkness, "But you only need the light when it's burning low" as well as, "Only miss the sun when it starts to snow." These straight cut, extreme opposite contrasts help to get his point across of the seriousness of his situation and helps listeners to be able to understand the emotions that are being sung, and sympathize with them. 

All these feed into the imagery of the song, without the personification and the many comparisons, metaphors, and contrasts, the musician's point would have never truly gotten across. There is imagery present when talking about the previously mentioned candle burning out, like a love that is just not the same and is coming to an end. Or when he wrote, "Staring at the ceiling in the dark. Same old empty feeling in your heart," this takes everyday actions and uses relateable emotions to gain sympathy and empathy from the listeners themselves. 

Overall "Let Her Go," can most definitely be argued to be a piece of beautiful poetry, about the affects of a loss of a relationship. He is writing these wonderful lyrics to tell people to cherish what they have, and who they have in their life now because who know who will be there down the road.