投稿類別：英文寫作類篇名： Lyrics Matter: an Analysis of How Lyrical

投稿類別：英文寫作類

篇名： Lyrics Matter: An Analysis of How Lyrical Factors Contribute to the Popularity of Maroon 5’s Hit Songs

作者：宋羽欣。新竹女中。高三一班。

指導老師：涂惠芳老師

Lyrics Matter: An Analysis of How Lyrical Factors Contribute to the Popularity of Maroon 5’s Hit Songs

I. Introduction

1. Motivation

Language is one of the most basic and important methods that enable people to express themselves and communicate with others (Amino, 2018). When it comes to songs, lyrics function in the same way. Lyrics can help songwriters convey emotions and meanings and other messages to the listeners more effectively. Therefore, whether some songs make a big hit or not does not only depend on the music part but also on the lyric part.

Having received several major awards and nominations, including three Grammy Awards, eight awards at the Billboard Music Awards, three American Music Awards, three People’s Choice Awards, and an award at the MTV Video Music Awards, to name just a few, Maroon 5 has become one of the most successful pop-rock bands of this generation (IMDb, 2019). As the lead singer of the band, Adam Levine is also a successful songwriter who has written the majority of Maroon 5’s hit songs and has received BMI’s Songwriter of the Year Award in 2014 (Jewish Business News, 2014). Therefore, I believe that there should be some relations between the lyrics and the popularity of Maroon 5’s hit songs.

2. Research questions

1. What are the characteristics of the lyrics of Maroon 5’s hit songs? 2. What are some lyrical factors that result in the popularity of Maroon 5’s songs?

3. Methodology

The object of study is the 30 songs by Maroon 5 which have peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, which is broadly considered one of the most important standard record charts in the music industry of the United States (Wikipedia, 2020).

To present what the lyrical factors are and how they relate to the popularity of Maroon 5’s songs, related previous research was reviewed and the selected song lyrics were analyzed. In this essay, the lyrics of Maroon 5’s hit songs are analyzed from two major aspects, meaning and form, which are widely used to analyze language materials.

II. Body

1. Meaning

1.1. Theme

It is suggested that emotional appeals have a broader target audience since they rely on a well-established frame of reference in the audience (Henard & Rossetti, 2014). Love is one of the most significant emotions known to human beings (Psychology Today, n.d.). Love is also a very typical topic among Maroon 5’s hit songs (Girnyte, 2019). Based on the general analysis, Chart 1 1 Lyrics Matter: An Analysis of How Lyrical Factors Contribute to the Popularity of Maroon 5’s Hit Songs shows that over 90 percent of Maroon 5’s songs that made it to the Billboard Hot 100 Chart are about “love relationship”, such as Sugar, Girls Like You, This Love, to name just a few.

Chart 1. The percentage of love songs among Maroon’s hit songs

The 30 selected songs are further analyzed with the top seven most common themes in a song’s lyrics, which are loss, desire, aspiration, breakup, pain, inspiration and nostalgia (Henard & Rossetti, 2014). According to Chart 2, the three themes that are most commonly employed in the selected songs are desire (53.33%), breakup (50%) and pain (43.33%).

Chart 2. The theme employed in Maroon 5’s hit songs

Among the songs that employ the topic of desire, the lyrics show a strong sense of longing, eagerness, and passion, and often include words like “need” or “want.” Take the classic lines in Sugar as an example: I don’t wanna be needing your love I just wanna be deep in your love And it’s killing me when you’re away, ooh, baby,

2 Lyrics Matter: An Analysis of How Lyrical Factors Contribute to the Popularity of Maroon 5’s Hit Songs

The second most popular theme among Maroon 5’s hit songs is breakup. It is found that Breakup is the most consistently popular theme among No. 1 songs on Billboard’s Hot 100 (Henard & Rossetti, 2014). Songs about breakup often portray mixed emotions when one faces breakup and separation with beloved ones. Lyrics of Miss you, love you serve as an example: It was really nice to know you I got nothing left to show you got bills to pay, get out my way it’s time to move on

When it comes to breakup in Maroon 5’s hit songs, many of them are related to another popular topic, pain. Among these songs about pain, the lyrics often show the complicated feelings when someone is betrayed, abandoned or deceived. Lyrics of Cold serve as an example: Baby, tell me how did you get so Cold enough to chill my bones? It feels like I don’t know you anymore I don’t understand why you’re so cold to me

1.2. Word choice

1.2.1. Use of rhetorical devices

1.2.1.1. Metaphor

Metaphors are used as a kind of figurative language that makes a comparison by directly relating one thing to another unrelated thing (Literary Terms, n.d.). The use of metaphor can avoid verbose sentences and make the lyrics meaningful at the same time, while it can still create vivid imageries in the lyrics. Thus, it is frequently used in song lyrics.

Maroon 5 use a lot of metaphors in their songs, one of which can be found in Payphone, the hit song that peaked at No.2 in 2015 and had been on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 31 weeks: “And in our time that you wasted/ All of our bridges burned down.” The word “bridge” is used as a metaphorical expression in this song. It is usually interpreted as the metaphor of a romantic relationship (Soraya, 2019). That the bridges burned down refers to the end of their relationship in this song and it helps create the imagery of something falling apart.

1.2.1.2. Symbol

Symbols are words or ideas that may seem simple but can signify concepts that are way more complicated and significant than the words’ literal meanings (Nordquist, 2020). They are similar to metaphors, but symbols are used as stand-ins for ideas that are much more complex and abstract.

Symbols are also often used in Maroon 5’s hit song lyrics. The lyrics from Memories serve as an example: “Now my heart feel like December when somebody say your name/ ’Cause I can’t reach out to call you, but I know I will one day, yeah.” In the Northern Hemisphere, “December”

3 Lyrics Matter: An Analysis of How Lyrical Factors Contribute to the Popularity of Maroon 5’s Hit Songs heralds the arrival of winter, and this frigid season is usually related to sorrow and grief. In this song, December refers to the speaker’s mood when he mourned for his friend who’d passed away.

1.2.2. Use of personal pronouns

The use of first-person pronouns, namely I, me, my, myself, we, us, our, ourselves, is usually considered one of the most powerful ways to deliver messages (SaskMusic, 2009). Furthermore, it can encourage people to imagine themselves having the kind of life experiences portrayed in the lyrics. As for the use of second-person pronouns, namely you, your, yours, yourself, yourselves, it is suggested that they are likely to encourage audiences to relate the narrative with the ones in their own lives (Neuroskeptic, 2020). Furthermore, the use of second-person pronouns can have a similar effect as the first-person pronouns. It can encourage narrative transportation, which means the listeners can place themselves into the narrative (Cheprasov, 2017).

Chart 3 indicates that the most used types of personal pronouns among the selected songs of Maroon 5 are the first- and second-person pronouns. Although the use of first-person pronouns is twice as often as the second-person pronouns, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s less significant to song lyrics than the use of first-person pronouns. There’s an implicit factor that causes the gap ── second-person pronouns are identical for both singular and plural. In other words, compared with first-person pronouns, there are fewer second-person pronoun words for songwriters to choose from when writing song lyrics.

Chart 3. The usage count of personal pronouns among Maroon 5’s hit songs

2. Form

2.1. Structure

2.1.1. Types of song structures

To figure out what the 30 selected Maroon 5’s songs have in common in terms of structure, the selected songs are classified according to the type of song form they follow. In Chart 4, Type A is the typical verse-chorus form (Bell, 2020). Type B and C derive from type A by including pre- chorus or begin with a chorus respectively.

4 Lyrics Matter: An Analysis of How Lyrical Factors Contribute to the Popularity of Maroon 5’s Hit Songs

According to Ralph Murphy (2013), the two best forms for pop songs are: “verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus” and “verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, either pre- or chorus.” Among the 30 selected hit songs, 23 of them follow either of these two types of structure. Thus, it is reasonable to say that applying certain types of structure contributes to the popularity of these songs.

Chart 4. Classification of the structure of Maroon 5’s hit songs

2.1.2. Features of song structures

2.1.2.1. Including pre-chorus

Pre-chorus is a section that can get everyone excited about the coming chorus (Expert, 2019). One of the notable characteristics of the structure of Maroon 5’s song lyrics is that 60% of them include pre-chorus, which is a very common way of joining separate verse and chorus (Everett, 2009).

Interestingly, pre-chorus can be used to build connections while also creating separation between the two most basic and important parts of a song ── verse and chorus, not only melodically and rhythmically as commonly known, but also in meaning.

Take the pre-chorus of Sugar, which peaked at No.2 in 2015 and had been on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 42 weeks, for example (Billboard, 2015). 5 Lyrics Matter: An Analysis of How Lyrical Factors Contribute to the Popularity of Maroon 5’s Hit Songs

The verse part is written in a tone that’s negative and down while the chorus sounds more passionate, and the pre-chorus creates an emotional transition in between. Also, the word “taste” mentioned in the last line of the pre-chorus echoes with the word “sugar” in the first line of the chorus. Thus, the pre-chorus builds a connection between verse and chorus.

Both the verse and chorus part show a sense of passivity and begging, while the pre-chorus seems more aggressive and possessive. In pre-chorus, it is not about “what I need” anymore, but about “what I want.” In this way, the pre-chorus also creates separation between the two parts.

2.1.2.2. Including bridge

Usually, a song consists of a repetition of a combination of “verse /chorus” or “verse/pre- chorus/chorus.” Bridge will be the one that breaks up this repetition and offers different perspectives or information (Estrella, 2018). 90% of the chosen songs (27 out of 30) include the bridge part. The use of bridge is similar to the use of pre-chorus between verse and chorus in Maroon 5’s selected songs. This section differs rhythmically, melodically, and sometimes lyrically from the rest of the song, but it doesn’t grab the limelight from the main part, which is the verse and the chorus. Take the lyrics of Girls Like You as an example:

6 Lyrics Matter: An Analysis of How Lyrical Factors Contribute to the Popularity of Maroon 5’s Hit Songs

The bridge part consists of 6 lines that all start with the word “maybe.” Compared with the chorus, these lines sound soberer and the tone and atmosphere the speaker creates are different from the rest of the song. It is a unique section but it won’t steal the chorus’ thunder.

2.2. Repetition

2.2.1. Definition of repetition

According to the Cambridge Dictionary (n.d.), repetition refers to “something that happens in the same way as something that happened before.” In the following contents, repetitiveness refers to the repetition of “words.” It stems from research done by Nunes, Ordanini, and Valsesia (2014), in which the lyrics of the repeated sequences of lyrics were exploited with the Lempel-Ziv algorithm. On the other hand, rhyme, as commonly known, refers to the repetition of “sounds.” While it is sometimes considered a kind of literary device, it is also a technique that’s usually used by songwriters to compose good lyrics.

2.2.2. Repetitiveness

It is suggested that more repetitive song lyrics sound more fluent and are more widespread and quickly adopted by listeners. Thus, they are more likely to make it onto the Billboard Hot 100 chart and achieve commercial success (Nunes, Ordanini & Valsesia, 2014). Moreover, previous research reveals that the more repetitive the lyrics are, the less time the songs would take to reach No. 1, and the more likely they are to make it to the top 40 (Nunes, Ordanini & Valsesia, 2014). Also, according to the previous analysis, songs that reached the top 10 on Billboard are, on average, more repetitive than the rest in recent years (Morris, 2017).

One of the most common and obvious ways for lyrics to repeat is when it follows a verse- chorus format, and all of Maroon 5’s songs that make it to the Hot 100 chart do so (Ewer, 2011). Furthermore, the average of the repetitiveness of Maroon 5’s song lyrics is 50%, which is the

7 Lyrics Matter: An Analysis of How Lyrical Factors Contribute to the Popularity of Maroon 5’s Hit Songs average among 15,000 songs that charted on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1958 and 2017 (Morris, 2017). Thus, the high repetitiveness of Maroon 5’s hit song lyrics contributes to their popularity.

2.2.3. Rhyme

It is proposed that rhymes can make messages more appealing to readers or listeners. This phenomenon can be referred to as the rhyme-as-reason effect, which states that rhymed lines are more likely to be remembered and repeated (Effectiviology, n.d.). Also, many of the most memorable lyrics in the music history are written in a specific type of rhyme scheme, like AAAA or AABB (Evans, 2014).

It is remarkable that among Maroon 5’s hit songs that made it to the Hot 100, all of the songs include lines that rhyme and most of them follow some types of rhyme scheme. Take the lyrics of Don’t wanna know as an example: Do you think of me /iː/ Of what we used to be? /iː/ Is it better now /aʊ/ That I’m not around? /aʊ/ My friends are actin’ strange /ei/ They don’t bring up your name /ei/ Are you happy now? /aʊ/ Are you happy now? /aʊ/

III. Conclusion

All the factors above, to some extent, contribute to the popularity of Maroon 5’s hit songs. For example, employing popular themes like love and desire in song lyrics can attract a larger number of audience and listeners. Also, implementing rhetorical devices like metaphor or symbol helps the songwriter convey messages through the lines and make the lyrics more meaningful. Using first- and second-person pronouns encourages listeners to relate themselves to the lyrics, thus deepening their impressions of the song. Furthermore, following the verse-chorus structure and including pre-chorus and bridge can make a song sound more fluent and organized. In addition, using rhymes and repeating words or lines in the lyrics make the lyrics easy to be memorized and widely spread. To sum up, the results correspond to the hypothesis that the hit songs should have something in common and those characteristics are related to the success of Maroon 5’s songs that make it on to the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

While the object of study is Maroon 5’s hit songs, the contributing factors can be generally applied to the songs by other pop singers. Even though the singers may be different, their audiences are highly overlapping. Thus, the way how the hit songs are analyzed in this essay can help create a picture of how lyrics matter to the popularity of other songs lyrics. When speaking of lyrics, many may relate to another important part of a song ── music. During the research, I realized how closely the music part and the lyrics are connected, especially the form. For instance, the way we classify the songs by the type of structure they use can be applied to both the lyrics and the music part. Also, without the music part, the lyrics would have to rhyme on different syllables because the

8 Lyrics Matter: An Analysis of How Lyrical Factors Contribute to the Popularity of Maroon 5’s Hit Songs stress might be different. Even though only the lyrics part is discussed in this essay, it doesn’t necessarily mean that a song should be separated into the music part and the text part or that either of which is less significant to a song. It’s just that further findings may be yielded if each part of the song is studied from different aspects and by people from different fields of expertise. After all, a song with lyrics is a perfect combination of literature and music, or less controversially, the letters and the notes. It is absolutely one of the subjects that is worth further research efforts. Therefore, I suggest that future researchers dig into other potential characteristics of song lyrics based on broader objects of study.

IV. References

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