A Stylistic Appraisal of Ciara Wilson's “Paint It, Black”

A STYLISTIC APPRAISAL OF CIARA WILSON’S “PAINT IT, BLACK” IN THE LIGHT OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC

______By Kaan, Aondover Theophilus Department of Languages and Linguistics, Federal University Dutsinma, Katsina State 07069021900 [email protected]

Dr. Chris K. Ukande Department of Languages and Linguistics, Federal University Dutsinma, Katsina State 08029867342 [email protected]

Abstract Music is a form of poetry in its own right. However, many scholars have neglected the linguistic study of music. As a form of poetry, the language of music can also be analysed stylistically using linguistic tools. Unfortunately, few studies have been carried out on music and as such, fewer linguistic studies have been carried out on the songs of Ciara Wilson. This paper sets out to identify the unique stylistic features of Ciara’s song, “Paint it, Black”, as a contemporary music. Using the Stylometry analysis as its theoretical framework, the paper employs the quantitative method of analysis and the data is sourced from online lyrics of the song. The style is analysed based on such frames as Graphology, Lexis, Lexico-semantics, among others. The findings of the study reveal that Ciara’s “Paint it, Blackis characterised by deviant linguistic usages of the contemporary era; dominant use of the first person pronoun that echo realism as contemporary as well as the theme of racism and inequality with all its contemporariness among others. All these features are made visible through the aggregation of linguistic tools such as punctuations, lexical repetitions, lexico-semantic dominance of the colour “black” to drive home the theme among others.

Keywords: Stylistic appraisal, Contemporary music, racism, realism

Introduction crossover appeal” (Encyclopaedia Every individual has a style of Britannica). Many linguists and literary language use. “Style reflects the unique scholars do not find it enthusiastic personality and thoughts of the writer,” researching into music. This may be an (Pushpinder & Jindal, 2007). “Style is the intentional avoidance or it may be due to the manner, in which something is presented, fact that many forget that music is also a and this approach concentrates on the form of poetry. Nevertheless, few researches peculiarities of diction and imagery have been carried out on music; especially employed, something relating them to on contemporary music. This is a major literary and social theory,” (Kundan, 2011). factor that informed the choice of the paper. Stylistics sprang up in the second Ciara’s “Paint it, Black” is a half of the twentieth century in Anglo- contemporary music based on the year of American criticism through the work of production. The song uses colour and this is Saussure on the language of Literature. an intentional occurrence in it. Black, which When Roman Jakobson (1960) wrote“ is a hyponym of colour, gives a hint of Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics” relativity in the subject matter it revolves which was published in Sebeok, T. around. The paper x-rays the style of the (Ed.),Language and Style, discourse on style song and the interpretation of colour in was developed within the framework of it.The question is: Is it possible for a song or rhetoric. But since then, the study of style literary genre to be interpreted as has taken different dimensions. Stylistics is contemporary or not? Stylistics is one way the application of linguistic frames in the we can know this. study of Literature and Discourse. Stylistics involves bringing about linguistic evidence Statement of the Problem to support conclusions arrived at in literary Prominence has been given to work. It tries to give a scientific backing to literary stylistics more than linguistic the choice of linguistic expression. It is a stylistics. This study is a contribution to bridge between Linguistics and Literature. literature on linguistic stylistics. Obviously, This is because in stylistics, a literary theory a stylistic analysis of music is rarely carried of grammar must be used in analysing a out. This is more or less a problem that the literary work and all the interpretations and paper seeks to address and to draw the analyses must revolve around that linguistic attention of scholars to the fact that music is theory. an advanced form of oral poetry which There are basically two approaches addresses different issues, thoughts and to stylistics: the quantitative stylistics and interpretations and is open for all forms of the qualitative stylistics. This work makes analysis and criticism. This paper therefore, use of the quantitative analysis which deals uses both linguistic and literary tools in with classifying features which are counted stylistically analysing the lyrics of Ciara’s based on their frequency of occurrence. The “Paint it, Black” and in examining the qualitative or determinate stylistics is not unique style employed by the artist to prove interested in the frequency of occurrence. that Urban contemporary music is a “Paint it, Black” is a contemporary music. “musical genre from the 1970s to present date which is defined by recordings, rhythm and blues or soul artists with broad

Review of Related Scholarship emotions from the music. Though a stylistic Albert Oikelome (2009) in his study study, the approach of the study differs from titled “Highlife Jazz: A Stylistic Analysis of the present one in methodology and song the Music of Fela Anikulapo Kuti,” looks at selection. the stylistic elements in Fela’s highlife songs Ferdows Agha-Golzadeh & Amir such as: “Lagos Baby” and “Ako pe” The Ghorban (2016) in their work titled “We research findings indicate that stylistic Don’t Need No Education: Analysis of Pink elements in Fela’s highlife songs include: Floyd’s Song Lyrics”, study the stylistic short simple, repetitive melody, harmonic devices in the verses of Pink Floyd’s song pattern, dominant chord, subdominant, lyrics, “Another Brick in the Wall” both its syncopation rhythm which were all present parts 1 and 2; and the interlude between in the work and inline with western tonal them, “The Happiest Days of Our Lives”. system and harmonic form. He also observes They convey the main theme of the lyrics by the use of native language and Pidgin studying the phonetics/phonology, lexico- English as in “Ako pe” and identifies the grammar, and semantics, and also look into use of foreign element as a style used by how all these stylistic features interact to Fela Kuti with a fusion of western idioms make the lyrics mean what they do. Their like Jazz, blues, soul, funk and Afro-Latin study concludes with the finding that the music which he believes occur as a result of verses make use of a variety of stylistic Fela’s exposure to Europe in his earlier techniques to communicate the main theme years. The approach of that study is however of the lyrics, which is centred on the sense different from the present study. of isolation and abandonment, and to fit into Christopher Endrinal (2008) the musical rhythm and feeling connected to investigates form and style in the music of it. The methodological concern and song U2. Although his research focuses on music selection differ from the current study. and not linguistics, he observes that the A group of authors by the pen name, styles used include the use of an active bass. The Rolling Stones, published an article He examines elements such as harmony, titled “Paint it, Black”, in which they melody, lyrics, instrumentation, timbre, investigate some connotative meanings the recording and production techniques, song “Paint it, Black” could possibly be rhythm and meter to be present in the music interpreted to mean. First of all, they note of U2.The research finds out that U2 has that the song is written from the point of used these elements to give his music a view of a depressed person who wants formal design. everything to turn black so as to match his Daniel Johnson (1979) in a study mood. The study shows three connotative titled “A Stylistic Analysis of the Early and meanings of the song and also calls to mind Late Songs of Modest Petrovich that the words and title were first used in a Mussorgsky (1939-1881)” tries to examine song which was first released in 1966 in a the style used in the early, middle and late U.S music album titled “Aftermath” by period songs of Mussorgsky and Mick Jagger before Ciara released hers. This differentiate the styles that define his various study can better be situated within the periods of songs. The result shows that the context of a Semantic study and so contrasts later songs had a dramatic recitative style with the current study and Mussorgsky invented new ways of Alexander Eiter (2017) in his study achieving effects and wringing new on “‘Haters Gonna Hate’: A Corpus

Linguistic Analysis of the Use of Non- Ogwuche, 2016). Stylometry uses stylistic Standard English in Pop Songs,” analysis to investigate stylistic patterns, investigates nonstandard features of English authorship or idiolect of a text. It examines using some words in Ciara’s Song “Haters word length, sentence length connectives, gonna Hate” and other words from other collocations which have been used songs that contain successful Pop songs unconsciously. from 2012-2015. The study finds out that, Stylometry tries to depict the the use of negative concord, “g-droppings”, importance of the style of a particular writer the use of the auxiliary “ain’t” are some of or "author by reference to known the non-standard forms that occur in the pop quantitative criteria, which are usually called songs. discriminators" (George Yule, 1944).These From all the studies reviewed so far, include: word and sentence length, some of which have explored the various vocabulary studies which has to do with the stylistic devices of different other songs, choice and frequency of words and measures none, to the knowledge of the researchers of vocabulary richness, fragments of words has a similar theoretical consideration as the and words commencing with an initial song under study. None has attempted to vowel, collocation of words, position of categorise any music into any literary period words within a sentence and syntactic especially the contemporary era which many analysis. However, some other stylometric have said is difficult to define because it is features used by stylostatisticians include still a current era we are living in. This is the frequency of distribution of some why this research is carried out to fill the grammatical structures. Burrow (2002) existing gap and make its contribution to examines three aspects of grammatical knowledge in the area of stylistic study of structures that could call for stylometric songs. analysis and they include: (i) Tagged Text: Distribution of word Theoretical Framework classes (part of speech) The Stylometry theory has been Distribution of verb forms (tense aspect) adopted in carrying out this research. As a Distribution of nominal forms (gerunds) theory, it has to do with the measure of Frequency of parallelism style. John Burrows (2002) describes Stylometrics as “a development of literary (ii) Parsed Text: Distribution of stylistics, which has at its core the direction of branching assumption that all authors have distinctive Frequency of clause types writing habits.” These writing habits can be Distribution of genitive forms exhibited in features such as core vocabulary Distribution of phrase structures use, sentence complexity and phraseology, Frequency of types of sentences and these features can be categorised and Frequency of passive or active voices counted. An important assumption is that Ratio of main to subordinate clauses these features are unconscious habits, which are well ingrained. It was created in the "mid (iii) Interpreted Text: Frequency of 19th century when the English logician negation Augustus De Morgan suggested that the Frequency of deixis word length could be an indicator of Frequency of hedges and markers of authorship" (Sade Omokore & John uncertainty

Frequency of semantic parallelism quantitative approach to stylistics which Degree of alternative word use (66). stylometry is known for, the study also Stylometry uses statistical tools for adopts the qualitative stylistic analysis analysis, including simple percentages, method developed by Davy and Crystal mean statistics, frequency distributions, bar- (1969), where levels of stylistic analysis graphs, standard deviation of sentence such as phonological level, graphological length, chi-square, Baye's rule, and few level, semantic level, syntactic level, others to show the probability of authorship. pragma-discourse level and context apply. Some computational analysis, gram analysis, The qualitative method here is however only text categorisation and cluster statistical used to complement the quantitative analysis can also be used (Omokore and approach for a more robust analysis of data. Ogwuche, 2016).This study adopts the bar chart, pie chart and simple percentages for Data Presentation and Analysis statistical anaysis Graphological Feature The song is divided into five stanzas Methodology with equal numbers of line; that is four lines The primary source of data is from each. The stanzas are named as: chorus, the audio and lyrics of Ciara’s song, “Paint verse 1, guitar solo, bridge, outro. In some it, Black.” The smart phone is used to cases, some of these are repeated more than download the song and the lyrics, thus once. Number of lines in the song = 24; enabling the researchers to listen to the Chorus = 4 lines; Verse1= 4 lines; Guitar songs and also get a written translation of solo= 4 lines; Bridge= 4 lines; Outro= 4 the songs. While making use of the lines.

A Bar Chart Illustrating the Graphological Setup of the Stanzas in “Paint it, Black”

5 4

2 1

0 chorus verse 1 bridge outro guitar solo

This is used to depict equality that is song, that is: on the title, line 2, 5, 6, 8, 11, supposed to exist among the various human 12, 18, 21, 22 and three on line 24. The races in the world. In other words, whether punctuation marks are basically commas and black or white, everyone is equal and should apostrophes within a word. be treated as such. This is a message the Number of punctuations = 13 artist is advocating, which is stylistically Number of apostrophes = 3 driven by the stanza division in the song. Number of commas = 10 Punctuations are used in the song. Thirteen (13) punctuations appear in the

Bar Chart Illustrating the Use of Punctuations in “Paint it, Black”

0 comma apostrophe The dominant use of comma shows the nature of the contemporary society Lexical Repetition where everything is a continuous process. At “Black” is repeated thirteen times in the end of the music, there is no full stop. the song, that is: in lines 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, This shows that even after the end of slavery 17, 18, 21, 22 (twice) and 24. “Painted” is and the declaration that every human is born also repeated severally in the song: line 1, 5, equal; the society still follows the same 10, and six times in the last stanza with four pattern where the “Blacks” are not simultaneous occurrence of it in the last line appreciated or seen as significant. The use of of the stanza (line 24).The word “see” is apostrophe to join words and make them also repeated nine times in the song. appear as single words depicts that both the The artist repeats the words “black” whites and the blacks are joined together, and “painted” to show that she wants every and together, they give the word a new and human heart to have a similar understanding fresh meaning. with that of the blacks, so that the blacks The title of the song “Paint it, Black” will be appreciated. She also uses the word has a deliberate use of comma that separates “see” to call the attention of people to see black from the other words. This shows how the chronic racism going on around. The the blacks, through racism, have been word “see” could also at a deeper level, segregated and discriminated against. mean “appreciate”. “See” can be

ANSU Journal of Language and Literary A Stylistic Appraisal of Clara Wilson’s “Paint it Black” in the Light of Studies (AJLLS) Vol.2 No.1 Contemporary Music - Kaan, Aondover Theophilus & Dr. Chris K. Ukande synonymous with “look”; so instead of Number of words related to colour =18 looking down on the blacks, people should Black =13 (in line1, 2, 5, 9, 10, 12, 17, 18, learn to appreciate them instead. 21, 22 (twice) and 24). Other colours =5 (in line 1, 2, 10, 13 Lexico-Sematic Features (twice) and 17). Some words are used connotatively Black= 13÷18×360= 260 in the song. For instance, words related to Others= 5÷18×360= 100 colour come in line 1 (twice), 2 (twice), 5, 9, A circle is 360 degrees, out of which 260 10 (twice), 12, 13 (twice), 17 (twice), 18 represent words related to colour black, with (twice), 21, 22 (twice) and 24. 100 representing other colours.

PieChart Illustrating the Use of Colours in “Paint it, Black”

Black others

language used depicts the contemporariness The data show that the central idea in of the song. the song revolves around the blacks, hence Furthermore, the song makes use of the theme. The word “black” is symbolic in pronouns, especially the first person the song. It is not just a colour but stands for pronouns, to bring out the “realism” in it. an oppressed group of people in the This is in line with a feature of contemporary world. contemporary poems where they are supposed to be as realistic as possible. The Discussion of findings dominant use of first person pronouns gives From the song, we see linguistic a realistic persona, thereby making the story deviations of different kinds, all peculiar to believable as is with contemporary fiction. the contemporary American slang. This also In addition, the song addresses real shows flexibility in the use of language rules social issues facing the contemporary world. in the contemporary world. There are It centres on the harsh reality issues of different types of deviations in the inequality/racism which are contemporary contemporary world which are deliberate, life concerns. Besides, the song has social but those used in the song show similarity relevance, hence, it is reality based like with Americanisms. Thus, the style of other works of contemporary music. From

ANSU Journal of Language and Literary A Stylistic Appraisal of Clara Wilson’s “Paint it Black” in the Light of Studies (AJLLS) Vol.2 No.1 Contemporary Music - Kaan, Aondover Theophilus & Dr. Chris K. Ukande the data interpreted via stylistic tools, the style in the music of U2.”Diss. Florida findings of the research have proved that the State University. Accessed 15 January, true interpretation of “Paint it, Black” is a 2018. song about racism .and as such a contemporary song. Ferdows, A. G. & Amir, G. (2016). “We don’t need no education. A stylistic Conclusion analysis of Pink Floyd’s ‘Another brick This study espouses the language in the wall.’”Idil, Vol.5, No. 19, (pp. 1 - use, unique linguistic features and meaning 6). of Ciara’s song and proves that it is a contemporary song, not just by the year of Johnson, D. (1979).“A stylistic analysis of release, but by the contemporariness of the the early songs of Modest Petrovtch issues raised there in. She uses style to pass Mussorgsky (1939-1881).” Diss. across her intended message, with the hope Texas Tech University. that it will be useful to the listeners and also reflect the contemporary period in which the Oikelome, A. (2009). “Highlife Jazz: A song is released. It is inferred that contrary Stylistic Analysis of the Music of Fela to popular opinion where “Paint it, Black” is Anikulapo Kuti.”Journal of Pan- interpreted as a song mourning the death of African Studies Vol.3, No.4, (pp.37-54). a lover, stylistic evidences drawn from this study prove that it is mourning racism in the Omokore, S. & Ogwuche, J. (2016). contemporary world. “National issues beyond 21st century: A stylometric comparison of Lenrie References Peter's ‘The panic of growing older’ Bhardwaj, K. (2011). New trends of and Alfred Tennyson's ‘Crossing the contemporary literature. Sonali bar’. A paper presented at the 13th Publishers. international conference of the Literary Society of Nigeria. Burrows, J. (2002). “Delta: A measure of stylistic difference and a guide to likely Pushpinder, S. & Jindal, D. V. (2007). An authorship.” Literary and introduction to linguistics: Language, Linguistic Computing, Vol.17, No. grammar and semantics. PHI 3,(pp. 267- 287). Publishers.

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Endrinal, C. & Scott, J.(2008). “Form and Yule, G. (1944). The statistical study of literary vocabulary. Cambridge UP.