Somebody That I Used To Know

Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know (feat. Kimbre)" exemplifies much of BaileyShea's "From me to you: Dynamic discourse in popular music" in its use of pronouns to express emotion.

The song begins with a man, Gotye, singing about an old love that had recently done him wrong. He uses phrases like "you didn't have to cut me off" to direct emotion towards Kimbre and phrase like "you can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness" to direct emotion towards the listener. The song progresses and Kimbre being singing. Unlike Gotye, she only uses phrases like "I don't want to live that way, reading in to every word you say" to direct emotion back to Gotye and does not speak to the listener. Even later in the song, Gotye and Kimbre sing together, with Gotye singing phrases similar to his previous ones and Kimbre singing various notes in the background.

Both Gotye and Kimbre speak in second person in "Somebody That I Used To Know" because they are singing of past relationships and because they want to add "a degree of intimacy" and place the listener "into the song world as the central subject." The use of second person in a song, and specifically the use of first person in a way that is directed towards an individual or group, is called "direct address" and it provides "a clear sense of intimate expression from one person to another."

In addition to second person, Gotye also briefly employs third person to offer the warning "you can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness." This lyric, and the ones that immediately follow it, might stand as the true message of the song. Surrounding this section, Gotye and Kimbre sing of loves past and of how confusing each singer has found love to be. Here they turn that message around and warn listeners of this sadness that might occur when one falls in love. This type of perspective shift in a song is called "substitution," and it serves to allow a double expression of the song's message - one towards the ex love and one towards the listener.

It is important to note that "Somebody That I Used to Know" uses an interesting tactic to change the narrator's perspective. Both Gotye and Kimbre use the second person, and refer to themselves with "I," but the listener is able to distinguish between the two perspectives by relying solely on the voice of the current singer. This is done usually subconsciously and without the listener having to think about a change of perspectives, but it does showcase the power that perspective can have over the message and tone of a song.