Trouble Found My by Hop Along (Fear)

In the song Trouble Found Me by Hop Along, the singer uses allegory, ambiguity, metaphors, and dramatic irony to portray an image of her hero being taken away.

The song begins with the singer saying, "Trouble found me sleeping, so I followed it down stairs." This is an allegory for her curiosity bringing her downstairs to find her mother sitting in the couch. She tells how she remembers, like it was an event that can be remembered vividly because it had changed everything from that point. The singer then says, "The sound of the chopper flying low. We didn't know why it was coming". In this song, the singer connects her mother to a hero, thus becoming a metaphor. A figure in which she had seen as a fighter, or someone that resembles a "war soldier".

So when the lyrics tell of the chopper coming, this can be a metaphor for a doctor, or the "chaplain", telling them bad news. The sound of it flying low represents that this "news" was unexpected and sudden. The "chaplain" proceeds to tell them that, "You came in with your jaw torn, still talking." Meaning that the mother was staying strong, despite the fact that she was fighting for her life. This is the synecdoche of the song; the mother is found ill fighting for her life, like a soldier, and the daughter, the singer, seeing her as a war hero. In this song, the comparison is between a war soldier and the mother.

The singer proceeds to tell that she has come to see her ill mother, who is in the hospital. She questions,"I wonder which one of us looked stranger then." An allegory for saying, who looked more pitiful? The sick and dying mother, or the lost daughter. This leads into the next part of the song where the singer sings, "Once I thought being lost was only a part of being young." This is ambiguity and shows that seeing her hero being taken down, has suddenly made her feel lost and more vulnerable without her hero figure at a young age. She has realized that in life you can be taken away so easily, thus leaving her to feel discomfort. It is also dramatic irony, as the singer is aware of this fact and thus concluding that her troubles are not just something everyone goes through when growing up. This is something that is effecting her at home, something like how "Trouble found me," is saying that her mother getting sick in inevitable.

At the hospital, the mother is a roommate with an elderly man. There, he seems to be delusional, "yelling louder than anyone," and saying "mama" repeatedly. He continues to yell, "Little white mice run across my bed." This is symbolism of mothers. The singer uses an indirect metaphor of a mother to the mice. The white mice is symbolism for purity and perhaps security, and when the man calls out for his mother, he is telling her of the white mice. The white mice also symbolize being watched over, hence the security. This is something the singer notices, and realizes that even if her mother is gone, somehow her mother will still be able to watch over her. It is unclear of whom is speaking when the phrase, "I can't believe someday I'm gonna die." is spoken, thus becoming ambiguity. If it were the mother speaking, the sentence would become irony, because in the beginning of the song, the speaker and mother were aware that death was a possibility.  So the fact becoming unbelievable even when told by doctors, it is irony. This songs theme is that the singer fears losing sight of her hero, or herself, and having to overcome the idea of being on her own someday. This song creates many possibilities of its true meaning, and the literary devices used here is endless alongside the possibilities of the meaning.