Figurative Language in Four Song Lyrics From The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Colie and Infinite Sadness Album
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DOI: 10.24843/JH.2018.v22.i01.p25 ISSN: 2302-920X
Jurnal Humanis, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya Unud
Vol 22.1 Pebruari 2018: 161-165
Figurative Language in Four Song Lyrics From The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Colie and Infinite Sadness Album
Putu Krishna Arya Putra
English Department, Faculty of Arts, Udayana University
Abstract
The topic discussed in this paper is Figurative Language in four song lyrics from The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness viewed from context of situation. Figurative languages may bring difficulties in understanding the kind of figurative languages contained in the song lyrics, but this study tried to find the actual meanings and the various kind of the figurative languages from the data source and that was the reason for choosing the topic “Figurative Language in Four Song Lyrics from The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness”. The analysis is focused on two main problems: what types of figurative languages are found in four song lyrics from The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness album and what are the meaning of figurative languages found in four song lyrics from The Smashing Pumpkin’ Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness album. The main theory proposed by Knickerbocker and Reninger (1963) and supported by the theory from Leech (1974) were related to this research and useful to get the other information about the data. The conclusion of this paper showed that there were six kind of figurative languages found, there were: metaphor, hyperbole, simile, paradox, synecdoche and personification. Mostly from the four song lyrics above, Corgan used figurative language of metaphor and simile as his writing style to deliver his message to the listener. There were three kind of the theory of meaning found in this four song lyrics, there are: collocative meaning, connotative meaning and affective meaning.
Keywords: The Smashing Pumpkins, Figurative Language, Meaning
Abstrak
Penelitian ini berjudul Figurative Language in Four Song Lyrics from The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness Album. Bahasa figuratif dapat membawa kesulitan dalam memahami jenis bahasa kiasan yang terdapat dalam lirik lagu, namun penelitian ini mencoba menemukan makna sebenarnya dan berbagai jenis bahasa kiasan dari sumber data dan itulah alasan untuk memilih topik "Figuratif Language in Four Song Lyrics dari The Smashing Pumpkins 'Mellon Collie dan The Infinite Sadness ". Analisis difokuskan pada dua masalah utama: jenis bahasa kiasan apa yang ditemukan dalam empat lirik lagu dari album The Smashing Pumpkins 'Mellon Collie dan Infinite Sadness dan apa arti bahasa kiasan yang ditemukan dalam empat lirik lagu dari The Smashing Pumpkin' Mellon Album kesedihan Collie dan Infinite. Teori utama yang diajukan oleh Knickerbocker dan Reninger (1963) dan didukung oleh teori dari Leech (1974) terkait dengan penelitian ini dan berguna untuk mendapatkan informasi lain tentang data tersebut. Kesimpulan dari makalah ini menunjukkan bahwa ada enam jenis bahasa kiasan yang ditemukan, ada: metafora, hiperbola, simile, paradoks, synecdoche
dan personifikasi. Sebagian besar dari empat lirik lagu di atas, Corgan menggunakan bahasa kiasan metafora dan simile sebagai gaya penulisannya untuk menyampaikan pesannya kepada pendengarnya. Ada tiga jenis makna yang ditemukan dalam empat lirik lagu ini, ada: makna kolektif, makna konotatif dan makna afektif.
Kata kunci: Smashing Pumpkins, Bahasa Figuratif, Arti
Figurative language is significant aspect needed to make the literature, use of a word that contrasts from the original word meaning, a phrase with a unique meaning not based on the actual meaning of the words like idioms, metaphor, simile, euphemism, synecdoche and metonymy. The theories proposed by Knickerbocker and Reninger (1963:367) described that figurative language is called simply metaphor or metaphorical language or meaning literally to transfer. They also describe that the word metaphor comes from Greek word metapherein; it means to carry the actual meaning beyond its literal meaning, meta means beyond, pherein means to bring.
The most important way used by the writers to make the literal works is the figurative language. Therefore, they are hard to be understood because of their unique and unpredictable meaning. Figurative languages may bring difficulties in understanding the idea which the words contain, but this thesis tries to find the actual meanings of the data source and that is the reason for choosing the topic “Figurative Language in four song lyrics from The Smashing Pumpkin’ Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness album”. In this research, analyzing figurative language from the music is interesting because the technique for collecting the data source is from the song lyrics that some people really love to listen. We can collect the data source by listening to the music,
reading the lyrics carefully to understand it and add our imagination of it
Based on the study above, there are some problems that can be formulated as follows:
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1. What types of figurative languages are found in four song lyrics from The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness album?
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2. What are the meanings of figurative languages found in four song lyrics from The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness album?
Based on the problems above, the aims of this study could be formulated as follows:
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1. To identify the types of figurative languages found in four song lyrics from The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness album.
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2. To describe the meanings of figurative languages found in four song lyrics from The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness album.
In analyzing research, there are significant aspects of method in the process of searching, finding, analyzing
data, and collecting data. There are three sections in this research method, method and technique of analyzing data, namely data source, and the method and technique of collecting data.
Data source contains important information about the characteristic of the database. The data in this study were taken from the song lyrics are “Beautiful”, “To Forgive”, “1979” and “By Starlight” by The Smashing Pumpkins. Those four song lyrics were taken from the album “Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness” (1995). They contain many various kinds of figurative language and deeper meaning and that is the reason why those three song lyrics were chosen.
The documentation method was used to collect the data. Some resources were found in the internet. There were several steps which was done in collecting the data. Firstly, downloading the song lyrics from the internet and printing it out. After that , reading it continuously until we understood what the meaning and the kind of figurative languages contained in the song lyrics.
After the data were collected, the analysis of the data could be continued and be done. The data were analyzed using the qualitative method based on the theories applied in this research; the main theory was proposed by Knickerbocker & Reninger (1963) and was supported by Leech’s theory which is related to this research and useful to get the information about the data. There were several steps in analyzing the data. First, writing down
again the lyrics in the note taking. Second, trying to identify and classifying what kind of figurative languages those song lyrics contained and then finally, the data were analyzed based on the theory above.
Beautiful, you're beautiful
As beautiful as the sun
Wonderful, you're wonderful
As wonderful as they come
And I can't help but feel attached
To the feelings I can't even match
With my face pressed up to the glass
Wanting you
Beautiful, you're beautiful
As beautiful as the sky
Wonderful, it's wonderful
To know that you're just like I
And I'm sure you know me well
As I'm sure you don't
But you just can't tell
Who'll you love and who you won't
No, who'll you love and who you won't And I love you, as you love me
So let the clouds roll by your face
We'll let the world spin on to another place
We'll climb the tallest tree above it all
To look down on you and me and them And I'm sure you know me well As I'm sure you don't
But you just can't tell
Who you'll love and who you won't
No, who'll you love and who you won't No no, who'll you love and who you won't
No no
Don't let your life wrap up around you Don't forget to call, whenever
I'll be here just waiting for you
I'll be under your stars forever
Neither here nor there just right beside
you
I'll be under the stairs forever Neither here nor there just right beside you
Beautiful, you’re beautiful, as beautiful as the sun
This line contains a simile, because it presents the word as in it, to state comparison of two dissimilar things. The song writers wantrf to describe the woman with an imaginary point of view just like the sun, as beautiful as the sun
With my face pressed up to glass, wanting you
Line 5 presents a kind of figurative languages, which is hyperbole, because it is a kind of overstatement, which means that the person really wanted that girl.
Don’t let your life wrap around you The line 18 is categorized as metaphor because the sentence don’t let your life wrap around you, the word wrap has a hidden message, that she is just too busy with her own life, on her own world. This sentence contained a connotative meaning because it has different meaning from the dictionary and it has a hidden message behind it.
Based on the analysis in the previous chapter, there are several points that can be concluded as conclusion. The conclusion is as follow:
The kinds of figurative language can be found in four songs from The Smashing Pumpkins, such as metaphor, hyperbole, simile, paradox, synecdoche and personification. Mostly from the four songs above, the songwriter used figurative language of metaphor and
simile as his writing style to deliver his message to the listener.
The theories of meaning used to analyze the figurative language in four song lyrics are the collocative meaning, connotative meaning and affective meaning. The song writer used figurative language in his writing style to make the songs more beautiful and interesting for the listener. The first song, Beautiful explains about a woman who was very attractive and had the same attitude as Billy Corgan’s, but he was confused about his feeling towards the attractive woman. The second song, to Forgive is about Corgan’s childhood, when he felt depressed at that time because his dad threated him unwell. The third song, 1979 lyrically explains about the adventure from Corgan’s teenage life, he talked about drugs and his fear facing the future because when he turned into adult, he might lose his freedom and the last song describes about Billy Corgan wedding with Chris Fabian.
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