FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE IN BLUNT’S SONGS
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FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE IN BLUNT’S SONGS
Putu Ayu Dessy Indriana Lestari
Non Regular Program - English Department, Faculty of Letters Udayana University
Abstrak
Makalah ini berjudul Bahasa Kiasan pada lima lirik lagu yang diciptakan oleh James Blunt. Lagu pertama berjudul “Goodbye My Lover” dirilis pada bulan Desember 2005 dalam album pertama mereka Back to Bedlam. Yang kedua adalah “High” yang dirilis pada tahun 2006 dari album Back to Bedlam. Yang ketiga adalah "No Bravery" yang dirilis pada tahun 2007 dari album Back to Bedlam. Lagu ketiga berjudul “So Happy” dari album All the Lost Soul dan lagu terakhir adalah "Tears and Rain" dari album Back to Bedlam. Penelitian yang berkaitan dengan bahasa kiasan ini dalam lirik lagu karya James Blunt bertujuan untuk mengetahui jenis-jenis bahasa kiasan yang digunakan dalam dan menganalisa makna bahasa kiasan yang terkandung dalam lirik lagu tersebut. Data secara langsung diperoleh dari lima lagu karya James Blunt sebagai sumber data dan dianggap sebagai data primer. Teori utama yang dipergunakan adalah dari buku yang ditulis oleh Knickerbocker dan Reninger (1963) yang berjudul Interpreting Literature. Kemudian teori lainnya diusulkan oleh Leech (1974), Larson (1984), serta Morner dan Rausch (1991). Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa ada tujuh jenis bahasa kiasan yang ditemukan dalam empat lagu yaitu personifikasi, hiperbola, simile, ironi, metonimia, metafora mati dan metafora. Di antara jenis kiasan yang disajikan dalam penelitian ini, hiperbola dan personifikasi yang paling sering muncul dalam empat dari lirik lagu karya James Blunt.
Song is a kind of art that expresses many aspects of life. It can provides us more than pleasure of imagination. Song is merely like poetry since composing lyrics is uneasy.
Song is a relatively short musical composition. It contains vocal parts that are performed by human voice and generally feature words, called lyrics. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are typically of a poetic. A lot of song lyrics reflect the reality, fact of social life,and experience of the writers. The focus of this study is to analyze figurative
language that is used in song lyrics of one of singer, James Blunt, because it attracts our attention. When one of song lyric found behind the cassette’s cover was read, there are those words that are difficult for me to understand.
James Blunt, is an English singer-songwriter and musician, and former army officer. This album, Back to Bedlam (2004) and All The Lost Soul(2007), including: Goodbye My Lover
The problems that are going to be analyzed are:
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A. What types of figurative expressions are used in Blunt’s songs?
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B. What is the meaning of those figurative expression?
The aims of this study are as follows:
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A. To identify the types of figurative language found in Blunt’s songs.
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B. To analyse the meaning of figurative language used in Blunt’s songs.
The research method in this study is classified into three parts, there are: data source, method and technique of collecting data, and also method and technique of analyzing data.
The theory that is used in analyzing the song are mainly taken from the Interpreting Literature by Knickerbocker and Reninger (1963). Then the other theories proposed by Leech (1974), Larson (1984), as well as Morner and Rausch (1991).
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A. Took your soul out into the night
The sentence above shows hyperbolic expression. The sentence seems to be exaggerated because it is impossible we can take our soul out into the night.
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B. You touched my heart you touch my soul
This sentence is hyperbole because this sentence has unique characteristics and of course exaggeration. It is impossible to touch someone’s heart and soul. The sentence You touched my heart you touch my soul means the author was feeling sentimental.
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C. My heart was blind by you
The sentence above is called hyperbole because it is impossible for someone to blind someone’s heart.
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D. You can’t break my spirit – it’s my dreams you take
This sentence shows hyperbolic expression because it is impossible to take someone’s dream.
“So Happy” – All the Lost Soul Album
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A. From my childhood to the sea
The sea here means world, the wide life, the true life and reality. From the sentence From my childhood to the sea the author means he is just growing up and ready to face his life.
“High” – Back to Bedlam Album
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A. Arms outstreched into the sky
It shows hyperbole because the arm is not so long to be outstreched in the sky. Sky is too high. The author makes exaggerated expression.
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B. No bravery in your eyes anymore
In this sentence it is also found hyperbolic expression is also found in this sentence. Bravery is the feeling in someone’s heart but here the author expressed as if it was the eyes of someone.
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C. Tracer lighting up the sky
It is catagorized as hyperbole because it expresses trace lighting up the sky. It seems to be exaggerated.
“Tears and Rain” – Back to Bedlam
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A. How I wish I could surrender my soul
In The sentence above, we also find a hyperbolic expression. This sentence seems to be exaggerated because it is impossible for someone to surrender his soul.
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B. Shed the clothes that become my skin
The sentence above is called hyperbole because someone cannot shed a cloth to be a skin for the body, the writer used this sentence to exaggerate the song.
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C. See the liar that burns within my needing
In the sentence above we also found hyperbolic expression. We can not see a liar burning in our needing. The author means they cannot forget what his love did to him, he seems to hold a grudge.
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D. How I wish I could walk through the doors of my mind
This sentence shows hyperbolic expression because someone can not walk in someone’s mind. The author means he just tried to remember once again and then want to forget all about his pain. And keep it just for himself.
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E. Hold memory close at hand
In the sentence above, we also find a hyprbolic expression because the sentence seems to be exaggerated. It is impossible for us to hold memory in our hand. Memory is our ability to remember things and it is an abstract idea.
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F. How I wish I could save my soul
The sentence above also shows hyperbolic expression. It is impossble to save the soul. The author means then he wants to keep himself steady and calm in every situation that can he remind his past.
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G. I’m so cold from fear
In the sentence above we also found hyperbolic expression because in the song the writer used these words to exaggerate the that his feeling.
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4.2 Metaphor in The Song
“Good Bye My Lover”
A. And love is blind and that I knew when
The sentence shows metaphor because metaphor is an implied comparison on the basis of similarity between its literal meaning and the thing or situation to which it is applied but with the omission of like or as.
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A. Cause I saw the end before we’d begun
The sentence in line 3 above is called irony because its real meaning is completely opposed to its professed or surface meaning.
“So Happy” – All the Lost Soul Album
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A. I see sunshine in the moonlight
The sentence above is called irony because its real meaning is completely opposed to its professed or surface meaning. The sentence I see sunshine in the moolight runs counter to the true meaning.
“Tears and Rain” – Back to Bedlam Album
A. I guess it's time I run far, far away; find comfort in pain
This sentence shows the use of irony because we cannot feel comport in pain. It is the opposite of the real meaning.
A. Will you be my shoulder when I’m grey and older?
This sentence shows metonymy because metonymy is a figure of speech which is describing one thing using the term of another thing closely associated with it.
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A. Blood and water carry me
Blood in the lyric means desire. Water in the lyric means feelings. The use of personification in this sentence is one of the special ways used by the song writer to make his work more beutiful.
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B. I saw the moonlight smiling down on me
The author here uses the word simile to describe happiness. The use of personification in this sentence is one of the special ways used by the song writer in order to make his work more beutiful.
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C. Moonlight dancer dance with me
This sentence illustrated how human feelings. It is obvious that the sentence above can’t be taken literally but as a figure of speech. This is one of the ways the song writer takes to convey his imagination.
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D. Moonlight dancer lying next to me
Moonlight here means happiness. The author here means that he is stirring. In this case, he is very happy. He has fun until all day long and tired.
“No Bravery” – Back to Bedlam Album
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A. A nation blind to their digrace
Blind is a situation in which someone can’t see. Commonly, it happens to human or animal. A nation is not human but here the author expresses as if a nation were human then can blind to digrace.
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A. The smell of death is in the air
When a dead metaphor is used, the address does think about the primary sense of the words, but only about idiomatic. Smell is
expressed as the equivalent point of air, then it is catagorized as dead metaphor.
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A. I feel like burning in the heat
The use of simile appears in this sentence. We can recognize that the sentence shows the use of simile by the word like. A simile always has the word like or as.
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B. Hides my true shape, like Dorian Gray
From the sentence above, it is quiet clear for us to see the use of simile because simile is a state comparison of two dissimilar things introduced by the words “like” or “as”.
This study has analyzed and discussed about the figurative language in five songs lyrics by James blunt entitled Goodbye My lover, High, No Bravery, So Happy and Tears and Rain. Based on the analysis, there are several conclusions that can be drawn.
In the first song entitled “Goodbye My Lover”, we found three kinds of figurative language such as metaphor, hyperbole and irony. In the second song entitled “High”, In these song lyrics we found two kinds of figurative language such as hyperbole and metonymy. The third song entitled “No Bravery” the figurative language such as hyperbole, personification and dead metaphor. In the next song entitled “So Happy” the figurative language such as personification, hyperbole, simile and irony describe about spending the day doing strange and unreal (fairytale) things. In the last song entitled “Tears and rain” the writer uses some figures of speech; they are personification, hyperbole, metaphor and irony.
Five song lyrics by James Blunt are intended to make somebody enjoy the songs imaginatively rather than literally. Among the kinds of figures of speech presented in this study, personification and hyperbole are the most frequent to appear in the three of the song lyrics of James Blunt. Connotative meaning was
found in this study. Therefore, people need to learn something about figurative language in order to be able to interpret the intention of the language used in song lyric accurately.
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