Reading Response Analysis ("Moments" by Emerson Drive)

Recently in my English Composition class, we began learning about reading as a process. While discussing this topic, it was pointed out that when a person reads a text they bring their own life experience with them and it influences the way that the content is perceived by that person. It was also stated that, whenever a person reads, they go through three response stages in what is labeled as their reading response analysis. These three stages are: perceptions, affective response, and associative response. The perceptions are the reader’s initial impressions in response to the text; the affective response is the raw emotion that the text produces in the reader; and the associative response is where the reader determines what is behind their initial impressions to the text and why the text brought about the perceptions that it prompted. In this paper, I am going to illustrate a reading response analysis as it pertains to a text by elaborating on my personal responses regarding a particular text through the utilization of the three stages that I have just presented.
The text that I have chosen is the song “Moments” (Tate, Tate, & Berg, 2006) as it was recorded by the country music group Emerson Drive. My perception of this song is that it starts out very sad and depressing but, by then end, it has taken on a much brighter outlook. My affective response is that the lyrics touch my heart in a way very few songs ever have and that it makes me smile and brings a tear to my eye at the same time. My associative response is that my struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts throughout my lifetime have led me to where I can relate very closely to the emotion being alluded to in the narrative of the song.
Almost seven years ago, “Moments” came across my radio’s airwaves for the very first time and it proceeded to touch my heart. I will admit that I have listened to hundreds of thousands of songs performed by many different artists and in many different genres