Survivor
Destiny's Child
How to study this song
The card for “Survivor” is built from 73 study entries at A1+: 19 English words, 16 adjectives and 38 verb forms. Work through the glossary first: survivor, life and million are the words you will lean on most. This one leans on its verbs: 38 distinct forms against 16 adjectives, so conjugation is where the effort goes. At this level the goal is recognition: hear a word, place it, keep going.
The words of this song, in several languages
Every word below is taken from this song and translated by us. Nothing here is the lyric itself — these are the individual words you need in order to follow it.
Vocabulary
| EN | ES | IT | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| survivor | superviviente | sopravvissuta | survivante | sobrevivente | overlever | Überlebende |
| life | vida | vita | vie | vida | leven | Leben |
| million | millón | milione | million | milhão | miljoen | Million |
This card holds 16 more words. You meet them when you play the song.
Adjectives
What this song teaches you
Level · A1+
- Vocabulary words
- 19
- Adjectives
- 16
- Word combos
- 14
- Expressions
- 11
- Verb forms
- 40
- Quiz questions
- 35
Background
About the song
«Survivor» is an R&B and pop song by the American girl group Destiny's Child. It was written by Beyoncé Knowles, Anthony Dent and Mathew Knowles, and produced by Dent and Beyoncé. Columbia Records released it on 6 March 2001 as the lead single and title track of the group's third studio album, also called «Survivor». It was the first single recorded by the line-up most people remember today: Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams.
The song grew out of a difficult year. In 2000 two original members, LaTavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett, left the group after a dispute with its management. Michelle Williams and Farrah Franklin joined, and only a few months later Franklin was gone too. The press followed every change, and the group was mocked for losing so many singers in so little time. According to Wikipedia, a radio station joked that Destiny's Child looked like the reality television show «Survivor», in which players vote each other off an island one by one; Songfacts says the comparison came from a review. Beyoncé decided to turn the joke into a song of her own.
Wikipedia reports that the producer Anthony Dent had first imagined the instrumental for the rapper Lil' Kim, but that Beyoncé wrote the words, the melody and the vocal arrangement herself, much of it on a plane while the group was touring as the opening act for Christina Aguilera. Mathew Knowles, her father and the group's manager at the time, is credited with the shouted one-word question that answers every line of the chorus. The track was recorded at SugarHill Studios in Houston, Texas, at the end of 2000, and it was the first song completed for the new album.
Musically, «Survivor» is built on a dramatic string figure in a minor key and a heavy, slow beat; Wikipedia gives its key as G-sharp minor and its tempo as 81 beats per minute. The three voices move from soft, controlled verses to a loud chorus that sounds almost like a march, so the whole song feels like a chant of victory sung by a team.
The lyric is a message of resilience. In the verses, the narrator speaks to someone who expected her to collapse after they separated. One by one she lists the things that person predicted — that she would end up weak, poor, sad or unable to grow — and answers each prediction with its opposite: she is now stronger, wealthier, wiser and calmer than before. The chorus is a promise: she will keep going, put in even more effort and never quit.