Kanye West’s Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a whirlwind of emotion-charged lyrics and intense instrumental lines. The opening song “Dark Fantasy” features Nicky Minaj setting the stage for the rest of the album, describing how the world as most people experience it is “wack and corny”, that the average person tells them self a “watered down” version of reality because what is actually happening is something darker and “too mean” to stomach. This unorthodox segment at the very beginning of the album serves its purpose of drawing the listener into the story West is trying to tell, the story of the world as he sees it. The next song on the album, “Gorgeous” establishes West’s ambitious and cutthroat nature, punctuated with blunt and shocking lyrics. In the chorus West says that if he “wants it” then he “needs it”, and that people who fail him are “bogus” and that he, “will never ever let [them] live this down”. But under this seemingly self-centered façade, West shows that he has a generous and selfless side to him. He muses on the racial discrimination he saw in Chicago, declaring that “Jerome get[s] more time than Brandon” and the lack of opportunity for young adults in the inner city, “This the real world, homie, school finished \ They done stole your dreams, you dunno' who did it”. West’s arrogant and glamorous lyrical overtones contrast sharply with his observations of the world and the unfairness he perceives, in terms of content, but the magic of West is that he is able to mesh these different personas into a character that is easy to relate to because he comes off as a person with a lot of success, albeit a lot of faults as well, but at the core it is clear that West is just trying to make sense of the world and live life to the best of his ability. The song, “All of the Lights” marks the halfway point in the album and is probably best known for its positive emotional crescendo before the more bitter second half of the album. West wants to “turn up the lights” and allow the listener to see the world’s intensity and variety through a variety of metaphors. He says he wants to “turn up the lights” so he can “see everything” when he “goes all the way” with his special female friend. West wants “everything to be Vegas” highlighting his desire for the glamorous life on one hand, but also describes some less glamourous lights, namely the “Cop lights, flash lights, spot lights
Strobe lights, street lights”. West is highlighting the thin line that separates success from failure, that from a distance the glamor and excitement of Vegas is entrancing, but when you look close everything crumbles to the mundane. Perhaps this is why Kanye feels the need to “turn up the lights” to the world, in essence to amplify his experience, because he feels that even spectacular things are just collections of the mundane. Perhaps one of the most exciting moments in a new relationship is “going all the way” for the first time with that person and Kayne is highlighting the intensity of this moment with the metaphor of turning up the lights. But even more than highlighting this moment, he is trying to get more out of it, he wants to “see everything” he wants no element of the experience left unfulfilled. This mentality speaks to young adults that find themselves stuck in their daily grind and feel that everything that was once exciting and new has gradually become uninteresting. People want to feel hopeful that they too can turn up the lights and see the good that they have and the variety of the world laid out before them.