John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men is a novel that can be closely related to a song from The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. This song is called “Waiting” and is extremely powerful. By analyzing the two writings, many ideas and themes can be linked together. The song and novel present many different perspectives on life and relationships that a person may encounter. In the song there are lines that can be directed similarly to Of Mice and Men. The two are extremely similar in the relationship aspect; they both show sorrow, change, and the mind of a confused man. The song “Waiting” by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus begins with heartbreak and the feelings that come with it. Grief from past life events is an idea that plays out everywhere. “Feeling sorrow. . . Bring back the days we had before tomorrow/relapse, then collapse in on yourself again. (Winter) These lines from this song say that when you experience sorrow, it brings back all the good times. Once these moments are remembered, the pain caused by grief returns. This feeling, this pain is shown in John Steinbeck's novel. When Lennie kills the mice and then gets yelled at by George, he feels grief for the loss of the mouse he just killed by mistake. He starts thinking about the mouse before he killed it and how gentle it was. After a while he ends up killing again and it all begins. Lennie looked at him sadly. [George] “They [the mouse] were so little,” he apologized. “I was petting them and pretty soon they were biting my fingers and I was pinching their heads a little bit and then they were dead – because they were so small.” (Steinbeck 9) When he kills again, it's like the last phrase mentioned in the lyrics of "Waiting". He returns to himself and the murders of all the mice he finds. The song and the short story show grief with different intensities and the effect of feeling. Change. Everyone wants some type of change somewhere in their life. The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus has four lines in this song that describe change and its power over a person. Waiting for this life to change seems to take me forever/and I can't hold on. This light is breaking into the day/This life is going to change, it seems like it's taking me forever/And I can't hold on.