Song Analysis: Dido's "Grafton Street"

While listening to Dido's "Grafton Street" for the hundredth time on my way to school this week, I got the, uh, brilliant idea to try my hand at a song analysis, reflection, interpretation, and review. A true songwriter, Dido's lips are closed when it comes to her songs - she's stated that she doesn't want to rob her listeners of the opportunity to interpret her songs. Also, I've mentioned her songs before, but I don't feel like I've done them justice. So she is the perfect person to interpret.

Dido's Safe Trip Home is one of my favourite albums of all time. I have never heard a collection of songs so poignant, moving, and well-crafted. The first thing that might strike you about it is the cover - which depicts, in freefall over the earth, an astronaut: a white speck among the boundless black. I feel like this image was perfect for the album (though the person in the image is allegedly suing her for it). In this song, many of Dido's songs draw details from everyday mundane life, and her lyrics often find her forgoing an ambitious life for the comfort and joy of home and hearth ("I might have been a poet / who walked upon the moon / a scientist who would tell the world / I discovered something new / [...] / but among your books / among your clothes / among the noise and thoughts / I've let it go.") The other theme that runs through her album is death of a loved one - specifically, her father's death. The cover is ambiguous. It suggests that the astronaut is leaving the planet and departing into the emptiness of space... yet, simultaneously, it also suggests that the astronaut is approaching the blue, glowing Earth, and that he is on his Safe Trip Home.

Anyway, that's enough about the cover. Let's get into the song! (note that I am really bad at recognizing instruments, so you'll have to bear with me if I make a mistake :( )

Here's a video of her song:


The song opens a soft, chime-like melody, which is quickly joined by the drums. The timpani repeating a subtle, low-pitched motif (B - D - B - D - E, though sometimes the notes switch up) which gives the song a tribal ambiance. Over the beat and this motif, Dido's voice glides and we hear a Celtic-influenced melody in the natural E minor scale. The song title, "Grafton Street", is in fact one of the main shopping streets of Dublin (Dido's father was Irish). The absence of a leading tone in the scale means that the melody does not generally have an obvious direction to resolve in. This helps to establish a subdued, elegaic mood.

The first two stanzas of the song have the same syntactical structure, as well as the same melody (with slight variations):

No more trips to Grafton Street,
No more going there,
To see you lying still while we all come and go.

No more watching sunsets, it seems
Like summer’s holding on.
And no more standing quietly at your window.

The third line evokes the image of a person (who we can infer, quite confidently, is her father) not being able to move from a bed. The speaker is reminiscing about the things she used to do with her father - having trips to Grafton Street, seeing the sunset together, watching him from his window. The rhyme between go and window is subtle but effective.

No more driving down your road
Wondering when you’ll be home.
And no more peace when they all leave and leave us two alone.

The initial downward arc of the melody changes in the 3rd stanza. Instead, the melody rises upwards. This change is accompanied by crescendoing strings in the background; both evoke a sense of swelling emotion. In the lyrics, Dido continues her use of the anaphora, starting her lines with "No more...". This suggests an insistent, grieving pattern of thought; it also underscores the swelling in the music. The image created by the last two lines feels haunting and real: the image of other people ("they") leaving Dido and her father alone so that they can share a heartfelt, father-to-daughter moment.

And time we always lose... is finally found here with you.
My love, I know we’re losing, but I will stand here by you.

These two lines form the chorus. The first line, I think, shows us that the speaker feels that any time spent with her father is infinitely worthwhile. The next line, "My love, I know we're losing, but I will stand here by you" has got to be one of the strongest declarations of loyalty and love that I've ever heard sung in music. These powerful lyrics and joined by vocal harmony, more powerful strings, and - softly, in the background - the meandering, wandering melody of a recorder.

No more calling friends from the car
saying “I don’t know when
I’ll be there but I’ll do my best to come.”

No more letting you warm my hands,
No more trying to take it in.
And no more saying goodbye for the last time again,
And no more saying goodbye for the last time again.

The verse's melody returns, accompanied by an insistent rhythmic figure in the double bass. The strings also feature in this section, creating smooth, swelling harmonies. In the lyrics, the use of the anaphora continues as the speaker reminisces about forgoing meetings with friends so that she could take care of her dad (the first three lines). She also tells us that she is unable to say goodbye again for the last time to her father - as he has already passed away. Yet, "goodbye for the last time again" is the only line in the song that she sings twice consecutively. The juxtaposition of this repetition with her inability to repeat this line to her father this intensifies the feeling of pain and loss in the song.

And time we always lose... is finally found here with you.
My love, I know we’re losing, but I will stand here by you.

The chorus returns, along with the vocal harmonies and the recorder. After this, an instrumental interlude follows, made up of an agitated, rhythmic woodwind melody. After several bars, the recorder joins the woodwinds, its high melody soars over the other instruments. The interlude reaches a cadence on the dominant (a minor chord, since we are in the natural minor scale).

No more trips to Grafton Street,
No more going there,
No more sitting up all night, waiting for any word.

Nothing’s left that’s safe here now,
Nothing will bring you home
Nothing can bring us the peace we had in Grafton Street.

The first line and the verse melody returns, punctuated by loud plucked notes on the strings. The absence of the drums evokes a feeling of sparseness. On the third line the drums return as she tells us about "sitting up all night, waiting for any word", which means perhaps she was not able to sleep at nighttime because she was waiting for the hospital's call.

On the last verse the anaphora changes. The beginnings of the phrases morph from "No more..." to the more absolute "Nothing...". "Nothing's left that's safe here now / Nothing can bring you home", the speaker says. The speaker now feels afraid and alone in the world; she knows that she is now powerless in providing her father comfort and love. The speaker concludes the vocal portion of the song with one last reminiscence of the trips she spent with her father on Grafton Street.

A long instrumental passage follows. At first, only strings and the drums can be heard, playing harmonies that reach lower and lower pitches. Then the recorder once again repeats its wandering melody, as the strings swell in response to it. Eventually, the drum fades. The strings and the recorder play together for a while; then the the strings die out one by one, leaving the recorder to play its final, haunting E.

One cannot help but think that had her father heard this wonderful and heartfelt tribute to him, he would've had the utmost pride in his daughter. This is without doubt one of the most poignant, poetic, and personal songs I have ever heard and I will carry its wisdom and sentiment with me when I grow up and inevitably experience some losses of my own.