Figurative Language Used in Hollywood’s Bleeding Album by Post Malone
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https://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/linguistika/
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24843/ling.2022.v29.i01.p02
LINGUISTIKA, MARET 2022
p-ISSN: 0854-9613 e-ISSN: 2656-6419
Vol. 29 No.1
Figurative Language Used in Hollywood’s Bleeding Album by Post Malone
1I Kadek Adi Panaji, 2Desak Putu Eka Pratiwi, 3I Wayan Juniartha 1Faculty of Foreign Languages, 2,3Mahasaraswati Denpasar University, Bali, Indonesia e-mail: 1[email protected], 2[email protected], 3[email protected]
Abstract--This research aims at finding out the types of figurative language and to analyze the meaning of the figurative language conveyed in Post Malone’s songs in the album entitled Hollywood’s Bleeding. The method used in collecting data is the descriptive qualitative method. The data were analyzed based on the theory types of figurative language from Knickerbocker and Reninger (1963), Knickerbocker and Reninger. Theory proposed by Leech (1981) was applied to find out the meaning. The result shows that there are eight types of figurative language used in Post Malone’s songs.They are simile (4 items or 13.8%), personification (2 items or 6.9%), metaphor (3 items or 10.3%), hyperbole (8 items or 27.6%), synecdoche (2 items or 6.9%), metonymy (2 items or 6.9%), irony (2 items or 6.9%) and paradox (6 items or 20.7%). There were 29 sentences identified using those eight types of figurative languages states above. The dominant types of figurative language is hyperbole because the songwriter is put more exageration to the lyrics to make them sounds beautiful.
Keywords: Figurative language; Hollywood’s Bleeding; Post Malone
Abstrak--Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui jenis-jenis bahasa kiasan dan menganalisis makna bahasa kiasan yang disampaikan dalam lagu-lagu Post Malone dalam album Hollywood’s Bleeding. Metode yang digunakan dalam pengumpulan data adalah metode deskriptif kualitatif. Pengumpulan data menggunakan langkah-langkah sebagai berikut: Menemukan lagu dan lirik lagu, mendengarkan lagu, membaca lirik dengan seksama sambil mendengarkan lagu, mencatat untuk mengklasifikasikan data berdasarkan jenis bahasa kiasan dan yang terakhir adalah mengidentifikasi jenis dengan makna masing-masing bahasa kiasan berdasarkan teori. Data dianalisis berdasarkan teori jenis bahasa kiasan dari Knickerbocker dan Reninger (1963), Knickerbocker dan Reninger. Teori yang dikemukakan oleh Leech (1981) diterapkan untuk mengetahui maknanya. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa ada delapan jenis bahasa kiasan yang digunakan dalam lagu Post Malone yaitu simile (4 item atau 13,8%), personifikasi (2 item atau 6,9%), metafora (3 item atau 10,3%), hiperbola (8 item atau 27,6). %), synecdoche (2 item atau 6,9%), metonymy (2 item atau 6,9%), ironi (2 item atau 6,9%) dan paradoks (6 item atau 20,7%). Terdapat 29 kalimat yang teridentifikasi menggunakan delapan jenis bahasa kiasan tersebut di atas. Jenis bahasa kiasan yang dominan adalah hiperbola karena penulis lagu lebih melebih-lebihkan lirik agar terdengar indah.
Kata kunci: Bahasa kiasan; Hollywood’s Bleeding; Post Malone
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Figurative language is a common language that usually used in literary works or in daily conversation. Figurative language is kind of language that the speaker says less than what he means. Hatch (1995) states that, traditionally, figurative language categories into simile, metaphor, allusion, personification, and so forth. In daily conversation sometime people use a figurative language that has meaning away from the literal meaning to express felling or idea. People often insert other meanings in their sentences and it becomes the art of language itself. Figurative language is very important in the art of language itself to make the language sounds beautiful and interesting because if there is no figurative language, the language will be very flat and boring. Figurative language is commonly applied in literary works and one of the literary works is song.
Song is a composition of a singer's voice combined with an instrument. Song can be a communication tool to convey the composer's message, thoughts and feelings to the listeners. There are various ways a composer can use to insert a message that he wants to convey to listeners indirectly. One of the way is to use figurative language in the lyrics of the song. Many songs contain figurative language to insert an explicit meaning and make the song sound more beautiful. Today many song composers and musicians convey hidden messages in their songs trough figurative language.
Some other researcher also use figurative language as the topic of the research but they did not use deep expaination in the findings, therefore this reasearch will use deep analysis of figurative language found in Post Malone’s song in the album entitled Hollywood’s Bleeding in order to make the readers easier to understand the meaning of the figurative language. The objectives of this research are to find out the types and the meaning of figurative language in Post Malone album entitled Hollywood’s Bleeding. The use of figurative language in a song is very interesting to analyze.
Many people find it difficult to interpret the meaning of a song composer in the lyrics of the song, therefore this research aims to help analyze the intent of the composer for the song especially the song lyrics of Post Malone.
The data was taken from website genius.com. In collecting data, the researcher used observation methods by conducting some steps: Finding the songs and the song’s lyrics, listening to the songs, reading the lyrics carefully while listening to the songs, taking note to classify the data based on the types of figurative language and the last is identifying the types with each meaning of figurative language. Types of figurative languages were analyzed by theory proposed by Knickerbocker and Reninger (1963) and the meaning of figurative language were analyzed by the theory of meaning by Leech (1981). The formal and informal method would be used to describe the result of discussion in this paper. The formal method is a method that presents the result of types of figurative language analysis by using table that showing the percentage of the data that found in the song lyrics and the informal method is a method that presents the result of analysis by using description. The analysis presented descriptively based on the main theories which relates to the problems.
There are 8 types of figurative language found in the song lyrics, They are simile (4 items or 13.8%), personification (2 items or 6.9%), metaphor (3 items or 10.3%), hyperbole (8 items or 27.6%), synecdoche (2 items or 6.9%), metonymy (2 items or 6.9%), irony (2 items or 6.9%) and paradox (6 items or 20.7%).
This section is explained about types of figurative language used in Post Malone’s selected song lyrics in the album entitled Hollywood’s
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Bleeding followed by the song titles, lines and some pieces of the lyrics. After analyzing types of figurative languages used in ten Post Malone’s selected song lyrics in the album entitled Hollywood’s Bleeding, the discussion continues about the meanings of figurative languages especially connotative meaning used in the song lyrics. There are 29 data of figurative language found in the songs. However, only two representative data of each type will be presented in the discussion which can be seen as follows.
Simile is a figure of speech that draws a resemblance with the help of words that have the meaning “like” or “as” (Knickerbocker and Reninger) (1963:367).
Data 1
ABS like Abercrombie Fitch (damn,ooh) (Saint-Tropez-line 8)
This verse is categorized into simile because it compares two different things by using word like. They are the word “ABS” and “Abercrombie Fitch”. They are two different objects, the “ABS” represents the singer’s abdominal muscle and “Abercrombie Fitch” is an American clothing. The thing that makes Abercrombie Fitch clothing special is because they only use young man with sixpack ABS to be their models that pose shirtless in town to show their sixpack ABS as a commercial. So the writer wants to describe himself through this sentence if he is a man who has a perfect ABS just like Abercrombie Fitch model’s ABS that can attract people attention to see how perfect the body is. This comparison means how perfect his life is by comparing his ABS to Abercrombie Fitch’s model because sixpack ABS is usually become a benchmark of a perfect body and the lyric shows that he is very happy and proud with his new life.
Data 2
Ooh, this shit bliss, I'm so rich (fuck that shit, ooh) I money ball like Bradley Pitt (Bradley Pitt, ayy)
(Saint-Tropez-line 15)
The sentence “I money ball like Bradley Pitt” is classified into a simile. It is called simile because there are comparision between two different objects by using word ‘like’. The words that compared here are “I money ball” and “Bradley Pitt”, both of them have different meaning. Here, in this lyric the word “I money ball” is an activity of collecting money done by the songwriter and the word “Bradley Pitt” is a name of an American actor and film producer well known as Brad Pitt. Bradley Pitt is very popular in film industry, and he is one of the top 20 richest actor on Wealthy Gorilla 2020. In this lyric, the song writer wants to compare how he colleting money is same like Bradley Pitt which is by working hard to get rich.
According to Knickerbocker and Reninger (1963: 367) states that Metaphor is a figure of speech comparing two things, namely those considered to be implicit comparisons (without using ‘like’ or ‘as’). Metaphors are often called implied similes. In simile comparisons are clear. This is contrary to metaphors that compare things implicitly.
Data 3
She say I'm a dog, but it takes one to know one Been goin' hard, been by myself, I don't need no love
(On The Road-line 60)
The writer uses comparison in the sentence above. There is a comparison between the songwriter and a dog. Literally, the songwriter is a normal human being. In its extended meaning, if something was compared with a dog it represents something bad, anger, and pet. Here the songwriter wants to tell that let others judge you no matter what because only you know yourself. In the lyric above the the songwriter’s girl says that he has a bad character by comparing himself with a dog. Here the songwriter tells that he does not need anyone that fake to him like what is being
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said in the lyric “Been goin' hard, been by myself, I don't need no love”.
Data 4
Yeah, Hollywood is bleeding, but we call it home (Hollywood’s Bleeding-line 14)
The sentence “Yeah, Hollywood is bleeding, but we call it home” is classified into metaphor because there are two comparison words to express something. This is different with simile because there is no connective words “like” and “as” applied in this sentence. In this lyric, the songwriter compares the words “Hollywood” with “home”. The word “Hollywood” refers to the songwriter town which is Los Angeles and hollywood is the music industry where the songwriter has a career meanwhile the word “home” means a place where a person or a family lives in one building and the safest place to live in . in this case the lyric “Yeah, Hollywood is bleeding, but we call it home” means the songwriter wants to tell that they consider the place their “home” even though it is “bleeding”, a term which reads like a metaphor for its deplorable interpersonal and spiritual state. Indeed the overall idea the chorus is seemingly pointing to is the relationship between the singer and this individual never reaching its full potential due to them being located in a toxic environment.
According to Knickerbocker and Reninger (1963: 367), personification is to equate human nature to objects, animals, or abstract ideas. Personification shows a comparison of two different objects.
Data 5
Hollywood's bleeding, vampires feedin' (Hollywood's bleeding-line 1)
Personification is used to describe particular activity which commonly done by human. However, in personification it is done by non-human, such as Hollywood which is a
nonliving things. In the sentence above the writer use a phrase “Hollywood’s bleeding” which categorized as personification since Hollywood is non-human but do an activity which is human capability. Hollywood literaly can not bleeding like a human. The songwriter wants to tell that Hollywood is not okay because usually the context bleeding refers to something bad has happened or rather refers to something creepy. Personification is used to give particular effect, to give emphasis on particular idea and to make an expression more interesting.
Data 6
Get more bottles, these bottles are lonely (Wow-Line 15)
The lyric above is categorized into personification because it giving a human characteristic to a non living object. In lyric “get more bottles, these bottles are lonely” the non living object has been given a human characteristic is the bottle and the human characteristic is lonely. In the lyric says that the bottle feels lonely but as we know the bottle does not has a feeling like a human being because conceptually bottle is a thing made by glass or plastic to fill by a liquid. Here the songwriter gives a human characteristic to the bottle to make the lyric sound unique and beautiful.
According to Knickerbocker and Reninger (1963:367), Hyperbole is a figure of speech that uses exaggerated expressions used for special effects.
Data 7
Tryna chase a feelin', but we'll never feel it (Hollywood’s Bleeding-Line 5)
The lyric above considered as hyperbole because it give an exaggeration effect in the lyric. The songwriter explains about trying to chase a feeling which is imposible to chase a feeling because feeling is an abstract idea. It refers to someone that trying to chase a feeling but that is very imposible to be happend because in this case,
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the word “chase” is refer to run and taking, as we know, feeling is an abstract idea that is imposible to take it in our hand because we only have it in our mind and it is not an object. The exact meaning of the lyric is the songwriter that really working hard to get his goal but he knows that he could not make it.
Data 8
I always get my heart broke like I needed the practice
(A Thousand bad times-Line-27)
The lyric above considered as hyperbole because it give an exaggeration effect in the lyric. The songwriter explains that he always get his heart broke. In this case the songwriter use hyperbole by saying his heart is broke to give an exaggeration effect in the lyric then it will make the lyric sounds beautiful and memorable. The sentence “heart broke” is categorized into hyperbole because when the songwriter says his heart is broke it doesn’t mean his heart is actualy broken.heart broke here means he is not in a good feeling because someone is hurt his feeling.
Synecdoche is a figure of speech that showing the use of a part for the whole (Knickerbocker and Reninger 1963: 367).
Data 9
I sold 15 million copies of a break-up note (Die for me-Line 61)
The sentence above can be categorized as synecdoche because in the lyric “I sold 15 million copies of a break-up note” the break-up note means all his lyrics in his entire songs during his career as a singer. He uses a synecdoche in his song entitled Die for me by using part of break-up note to represents the whole copies of his songs. The sentence break-up note here represent to most of his songs because most of his songs are tell about his sad love story.
Data 10
I light a candle, some Palo Santo For all these demons, wish I could just go on (Holliwood’s Bleedings-Line 31)
This verse is categorized into synecdoche because the sentence “all these demons” is a figure of speech that showing the use of a part for the whole. The word “demons” represent the people that join or manage the hollywood industry than the word demons is a part that showing the whole people in the hollywood industry. In the song there is a lyric says “wish I could just go on” in this sentence the songwriter wants to tell that he feels unable to be in his current environment and he hopes to escape this darkness but it is not an easy thing to do. The songwriter use the word “demons” to represent the people in the hollywood industry because they have bad attitude that only care about money and fame even they have to drop their friends down just like the demons.
Metonymy is a figure of speech for describing one thing by using the term for another thing closely associated with it (Knickerbocker and Reninger 1963:367).
Data 11
Seasons change and our love went cold (Circle-Line 13)
The lyric above considered as metonymy because it describing one thing by using the term for another thing closely associated with it. The thing that describes using the term for another thing closely associated with it is the word “season” that describes year because season is change every year and the songwriter uses the term season instead of year is to makes the lyric sound beautiful and memorable because it has a unique sentence. Here the songwriter explains how their love goes year by year which is the time is running out but they find no certainly about their love.
Data 12
It's guaranteed he fold, and bite the hand that feed him
(Enemies-Line 40)
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The sentence above is categorized into metonymy because it describing one thing by using the term for another thing closely associated with it. The thing that described using the term for another thing closely associated with it is the word “hand”. Hand here means someone or a person that help him in the past. In the song there is a lyric says “It's guaranteed he fold, and bite the hand that feed him” this sentence is consist of connotative meaning that means his friend are fake ande they don’t remember their true friend that help them in the past but when their friend got success they come closer.
Irony is a statement whose real meaning is completely opposed to its professed or surface meaning (Knickerbocker and Reninger 1963:367).
Data 13
It seem like dying young is an honor (Hollywood’s Bleedings-Line 21)
The verse above is categorized into irony because it real meaning is completely opposed to its professed or surface meaning. The lyric says “It seem like dying young is an honor” in the literal way the meaning of the sentence is dying young is an honor but the real meaning is dying young isn’t an honor. If someone dying young, as time goes by the people will forget him. No one would die in a young age. In Hollywood, every artist who dies at a young age will get the attention from the public as if getting an honor.
Data 14
I'm gonna need some thicker armor (armor) To spend another night with you (and on, and on, and on)
(A thousand bad times-Line 20)
This verse is considered as irony because its real meaning is completely opposed to its professed or surface meaning. In the lyric above says “I'm gonna need some thicker armor to spend another night with you” where the real meaning of the sentence is. the songwriter needs a complete
and strong defense to spend a night sleeping with his lover, but here he explains he only needs a thin armor to spend the night with his lover. in this case the songwriter makes only a few hints of using irony which describes something with the opposite meaning. In this song the songwriter explains how crazy his girlfriend is. he just wanted the money the songwriter had. the love she gave was just a lie but the songwriter had gone through many difficult times in his life which made him strong even though now his girlfriend made his life very hard he was still able to survive against his lover.
Paradox is a statement of which surface, on obvious meaning seems to be illogical, even absurd, but making good sense upon closer examination (Knickerbocker and Renniger, 1963; 367).
Data 15
Everyone's gone, but no one's leavin' (Hollywood’s Bleedings-Line 3)
This statement is categorized into paradox because it seems to not make any sense. The paradox appears when two things should not be able to exist together. The sentences “Everyone's gone” and “no one's leavin'” is showing paradox. The sentence “Everyone's gone” conceptually means everyone there was leaving the place and there is no one in that place anymore and the sentence “no one's leavin'” conceptually means all the people are stay in a that place because there are no one’s leaving. From the lyric above we can see that the lyric does not make any sense because if everyone gone that it should be everyone leaving the place but here the songwriter says if everyone’s gone but no one leaving. This sentence mentions that the songwriter always feel that everyone in hollywood industry are trying to escape and leave the industry but the fact is they are can not go anywhere.
Data 16
Used to have friends now I got enemies (ooh)
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(Enemies-Line 1)
The verse above is contain of figuative language because it use figure of speech. The lyric above is categorezed into paradox since the lyric “used to have friends now I got enemies” seems to not make any sense. The paradox appears when two things should not be able to exist together. The sentence “used to have friends” and “now I got enemies” is showing paradox. The sentence “used to have friends” conceptually means the songwriter used to have many friends who stay with him and the sentence “now I got enemies” conceptually means now he has more enemies who hate him than friend. This statement is seems to not make any sense because he said that he used to have friends then he should be happy with all of his friend but here the songwriter said now he got enemies which means all of his friend now become his enemies.
Based on the result of the analysis,
there are eight types of figurative
language used in ten Post Malone’ s song lyrics in the album entitled Hollywood’ s Bleeding. They are simile, hyperbole, personification, metaphor, synecdoche, metonymy, irony and paradox. It shows that figurative language plays an important role in literary works, especially song. Using figurative language is an effective way of communicating an idea that is not easily understood because of its abstract nature
or complexity. By using figurative language, it can make the song lyrics sounds beautiful, memorable and more unique. The purposes of using figurative language in Post Malone’ s song lyrics is makes the song lyric more effective,persuasive and impactful for the listener to listen or read it. The songs can build our imagination and build up our feeling through the use of figurative language in the lyrics.
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