Last semester at Binghamton I took a course on Postmodernism to fulfill a theory credit for my English Major. Woohoo exciting stuff right. Well, it actually was a pretty interesting course. Let me share with you faithful readers a short definition of this massively broad and extensive topic. After the modernist movement which attempted to explain why things like World War I happen, World War II came and crashed the modernist party. This, of course, led to a violent confusion and assumingly left modernist’s as confused as economists today. So, the ambiguous postmodernist movement was born and artists began forming their work around their respective views on the term. A good way to look at postmodernist art is art that does not attempt to explain anything. Art that is intentionally loose and diverse. Art that succumbs to the theory that there really “Ain’t ro reason things are this way.”

Now let us get to the postmodernist classic, “Ain’t No Reason,” by Brett Dennen which does not attempt to explain anything. This is what makes the song so great. Dennen’s Dylan-like voice and Dylan-quality lyric puts this song in the awesome category and it has received honors and popularity because of these qualities. The song is rather simple, like most Dylan songs, and culminates in a chorus where Dennen admits that he does not know why things are this way. He, though, looks for love to be savior. Does love explain all of this craziness? Dennen seems to think so and I tend to agree but what I believe Dennen is trying to say with this song is that no one can explain any of the world. It is a diverse, crazy spinning globe with crazy people with intense emotions. Therefore, one has to look past what they cannot explain and find the ultimate happiness love to set you free.
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