AN ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL
VALUES AND FIGURATIVE LANGUAGES OF BOB MARLEY’S SONGS
RIDHA RINALDI
NIM. 3201116035
Abstract: Songs have the same
form with poetry including the social value and figurative language. This study
is intended to find figurative languages of Bob Marley’s songs, disclose the
meaning of each figurative language that used in the songs and reveal the
social value that appear in the lyric of Bob Marley’s songs. The purpose of
this study is to broaden the researcher knowledge about literature. Besides,
the readers also can use this study as guidance for the next research. The use
of some theories in this research is hoped to enrich the analysis in the social
value and figurative languages field. The result of this study can be used as
information for the readers in understanding the literature especially about
the social value and figurative language.
Key words: Social Value,
Figurative Language, Songs
Introduction
Literature is
significant in our life. It helps us grow, both personally and intellectually.
It develops our imagination, increases our understanding and deepens our power
of sympathy. Literature is written and oral spoken compositions that tell
stories, dramatize situations, express emotions and analyze and advocate ideas
(Roberts, 2003:1). Human being needs literature for pleasure; to express their
feeling and their attitude of life. In line with Roberts, Wellek and Warren
(1990 in Chusnul 2009:11) says that literature as the social institution
contention and social norms uses language as the field to express social
problem. Poetry as one of the literary works is easier to be appreciated than
to be defined. In fact, sometimes people find it difficult, after people have
finished reading poetry, to express thought about it and to answer the pointed
question about it. People need to read actively and thoughtfully to develop
well-considered answer to comprehend the meaning of the poetry. In order to
understand a poem, people need to find the social value. According to Soekanto
in his Sociology Dictionary, social values are the principle values of
relation between people with the community based on good or bad thing and
appropriatenesswith our thought. It means that, social values do not exist in
experience but it exists in people’s mind. The difficulties to find out the social
value of poetry generally appear on the facts that poets used figurative
languages throughout their works.
As a form of poem,
song contains components that are presented in poetry, including figurative
languages. Keraf (2009:113) says, “Figurative language is the way to reveal
thought through specific language which shows inner feeling of the writer”. It
means that figurative language hold an important part to form a poem and it is
one of the most basic and useful ways to approach a poem. It is not only used
to give particular emphasize to an idea or sentiment but it is also used to
strengthen and embellish its styles of speech of a composition. For
example, in Bob Marley’s song entitled “wake up and live” there found a
figurative language: life is one big road with lots of signs. Here,
the composer equates life as a big road. Through the used of metaphor in this
sentence, he stimulates the hearer to think that life is not a straight road
but it is a complicated road. When we ride through the road, we will meet bends
or signs. The signs can be understood as stories that make life more lively.
Song is metrical
composition or other set of words adapted for singing or intended to be sung.
It contains a (short) poem in rhyme stanzas, because of the fact that song
always contains lyrics. Lyric is expressing the writer’s feeling of or
composed for singing (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1995: 703). It
means that lyric of a song is written based on the writer’s feeling or
experience. Understanding the social values behind song is as hard as
understanding poem because of the figurative languages. To comprehend well, the
readers must identify words or phrases that constitute figurative language and
find their meaning. Therefore, since studying poem is worthwhile and interesting
to do, the same is true with studying songs.
Bob Marley’s songs
selected as the object in this study because his songs contain many kinds
of figurative languages and phrases just like poems. They also constructed of
beautiful and powerful diction in their lyrics. Besides, Bob Marley’s songs
contain many interesting things dealing with the social value. The purpose of
this study is divided into two parts. First, through this research, the
researcher can broaden her knowledge about literature and can make this study
as an experience to be a good teacher. Second, the reader can uses this study
as guidance to make analyze the next research which is related to this
research.
The research design
that used in this research is descriptive qualitative. Semi (1993:23 in
Andinawati, 2010:33), explains that descriptive qualitative research is the
research which focuses on deep analyzing toward interaction of each concept
empirically in which the data is explained in the form of words or sentences
not number. It means that the data is not treated with statistical procedure
and there is no variable like those found in the quantitative research. There
are ten songs that analyzed in this study. Those songs are taken randomly among
thirteen albums of bob Marley. The researcher is the main instrument of this
research but she used two other instruments to get the complete data and help
the researcher in collecting the data. The instruments are documentation and
corpuses.
In collecting the
data, the researcher uses library research because the data are obtained from
written materials which are closely related to the topic. To collect the
accurate data, the researcher takes some steps, as follows:
1. Searching and
collecting all lyrics of bob Marley’s songs by download from internet
2. Reading and
comprehending the lyrics of all Bob Marley’s songs
3. Selecting ten songs
which the researcher thinks contain many figurative languages and social value
4. Identifying the lyrics
of Bob Marley’s selected songs line by line to find the figurative languages
5. Identifying the lyrics
that express the social value of each song
After finishing the
data collection, the researcher does the process to analyze the data to
increase the understanding about the topic. The following steps are the process
to analyze the data:
1. Presenting all of the
lyrics of Bob Marley’s selected songs which contain figurative languages
2. Analyzing the data
based on the characteristic of figurative languages which mentioned in the
chapter that explain about figurative languages
3. Classifying the kinds
of figurative languages used in each line that contain figurative languages
4. The researcher uses
the corpuses to write the lyric transcript and analyzes the data
5. Giving detailed
explanation about those figurative languages which are directly followed by
their meanings
6. Drawing the social
value of each song based on the meaning of figurative languages that have been
discover and based on the lyrics that express the social value
Discussion
Based on the theories
about social value and figurative languages, the researcher found that each
analyzed song in Bob Marley’s songs contains many kinds of figurative languages
and social value.
The first song
“Babylon System” contains four kinds of figurative language, that are;
repetition, symbolism, sarcasm, metonymy and hyperbole. This song tells about
African people or the black race that have been oppressed for so long by the
Babylon system which makes them suffer. Through this song he wants people to
realize their condition and fight to take their freedom. The social value of
this song is sense of revolt to get their independent.
The second song is
“Buffalo Soldier” which tells about the Rastafarians who are forced by the
American government to fight for American self-importance. As Rastafarian they
are forbidden to use violence in life but because of the colonialism, they
become buffalo soldier. This song reflects Bob Marley’s sense of empathy for
the buffalo soldier, his people. He inquires how a Rastafarian with the
dreadlock becomes a buffalo soldier. In this song, the researcher finds several
kinds of figurative languages, that are; epithet, personification, parallelism,
pleonasm, symbolism, metaphor and repetition.
“Cry To Me” as the
third song that is analyzed by the researcher contains five kinds of figurative
language, those are; hyperbole, personification, repetition, understatement and
metaphor. The social value that is found in this song is sense of faith to God.
Here, this song is about a girlfriend who is making affair behind her partner
and make him feels heartache. But, God never let people down and feel
heartache. God heals the wound and make the boy does not feel the pain anymore.
In the fourth song
“Get Up, Stand Up”, Bob Marley urges people to rise and stand and fight for
their right. While it is known that the Rasta religion advocated
non-violence, it also advocated equality and repatriation to Africa. This song represents
the Rasta protest against the Christian religion propagated by the white
political colonizers of Jamaica. As a Rasta, Marley sought to fight against the
persecution of blacks under the guise of religion. So it is clear that this
song reflects the sense of religion. There are several figurative languages
that found in this song, those are; repetition, symbolism, hyperbole,
assonance, eponym and metaphor.
The fifth song
entitled “I Know A Place” contains some figurative languages such as hyperbole,
repetition, parallelism and symbolism. This song reflects the sense of optimism
that after people feel sorrow because they leaved by other people like their
friends, they can live peacefully in a place without conflict as long as they
have dream and hopes.
“Redemption Song” as
the sixth song consists of four figurative languages, that are; symbolism,
synecdoche, epithet and repetition. This song tells about the slave condition
that are treated badly. Here, he invites listeners to see that they deserved to
get better life as free people. So this is clear that this song raises the
sense of spirit to get their selves freedom not only free from physical slavery
but also mental slavery.
The seventh song
entitled “Three Little Birds” contains the sense of spirit which can be seen
through the lyrics. This song gives spirit to the listener to enjoy the
life that they have because no matter what happens, everything is going to be
alright. Some figurative languages that appear in this song are hyperbole,
understatement, personification and symbolism.
“Time Will Tell” is a
song that carries the sense of faith that Jah would never let people suffer and
oppressed by baldheads forever. Through this song Bob Marley is trying to
tell the listener that the life of Westerners is not like heaven, like they
think and that sooner or later everything will come crashing down, and
eventually will become hell. Figurative languages that found in this song are
symbolism, personification, repetition and antithesis.
The ninth song
entitled “Waiting In Vain” contains some figurative languages such as
repetition, personification, symbolism, simile and metaphor. These figurative
languages brought the researcher to the conclusion that this song raises the
sense of patience. The song writer has to wait in vain for the girl’s love.
Although he knows that the girl always treats him badly and does not feel the
same like he feels but he still wait because he loves the girl.
The last song “War”
contains the sense of struggle. In this song, Bob Marley explains that wars in
this world are caused by the discrimination of race. He reveals that the
Africans will keep fight until there is equal treatment among people. They will
struggle to get their independent and reach the equal human rights. The figurative
languages that are found in this song are; personification, antithesis,
hyperbole, symbolism, parallelism and repetition.
A song as one of
literary works is interesting to listen. The listener not only gets solace for
this but also will be brought into large, close and fresh relation to life.
Actually, what has been composed in this works is the reflection of human
being’s life which experienced or felt by the song writer. Bob Marley’s songs
contain of social, cultural, religion and love problems. Some of his lyrics are
heard and understood easily but some are difficult to be digested. That is why,
the researcher needs to learn his background life. After hearing and
understanding all of his selected songs, the researcher summarizes that his
songs give the listener lessons about how to be better human beings in terms of
relation with other people.
Conclusion and Suggestion
Having done with the
analysis of each datum in the previous chapter, its result will be concluded as
follows:
a. Figurative Languages
Used
The songs written by Bob Marley which
treated as the data of this study used figurative languages in order to have
deep meaning and make the songs more effective and more suggestive. Besides, he
made the songs more beautiful and interesting to listen. From ten songs which
analyzed in this study, the researcher found fourteen kinds of figurative
languages that are; repetition, symbolism, hyperbole, personification,
metaphor, parallelism, epithet, antithesis, synecdoche, sarcasm, assonance, eponym,
understatement and simile. The figurative languages that generally appear in
Bob Marley’s songs are symbolism, repetition and personification.
b. The Meaning of
Figurative Languages Used
Each figurative language used has
meaning that can be interpreted by using contextual clues. Some figurative
languages have contextually explicit meanings especially metaphor and simile
while some other not. In analyzing the lyric that contains figurative language,
sometimes the researcher gets difficulties because the lyrics of reggae music
are typically English-based but they have a distinct Jamaican dialect. For
example, the word “I” that actually means “Me”. Besides, Bob Marley’s grammar
is different with the common rules. The meaning of each figurative language in
the songs revealed by the researcher enables her to understand Bob Marley’s
messages intended to be enlightenment for the listeners. Those messages
of the songs expected to be inspiration for the listener to gain a better life.
c. The Social Value Found
In The Songs
After analyzing Bob Marley’s songs that
were selected as object in this study, the researcher concluded that those
songs have social value. Most of Bob Marley’s songs in this study rise up the
theme which associated with various topics including relationships, love, religion and peace.
There are also some songs with lyrics that attempt to elevate the political
awareness of the audience through criticizing materialism, or through informing
listeners about controversial problems like “Buffalo Soldier”. Some common
socio-political topics which are also used in these songs would be Black
Nationalism, anti-colonialism, anti-racism and anti-capitalism. Most lyrics of
analyzed songs also reflect the traditions and beliefs of Rastafarianism, which
is a religion practiced by most famous reggae musicians of the world
It is important to
analyze the advantages of figurative language on songs for students in
particular and for readers in general. By showing the song lyric in which
figurative languages become the medium, students not only understand about
various figurative languages and learn to interpret them but they also learn to
understand about life. There are still many Bob Marley’s songs that have not
been analyzed in this study, thus, the next researcher can take those songs
into their analysis. There are also many more famous singers’ songs that can be
taken as the subject of their research. Besides, the next researcher may use
the same data in this study but it must be investigated from different approach
from this research.
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