Inferential And Evaluative
Essay About Song Lyrics
There are a lot of songs out there. If I may infer, there are about 97.000.000 million
songs that have been published in our world, right now. All the way from classical up until
modern music. To everyone’s surprise, my English teacher, Mr. Fauzul Aufa an Australian
and Padang hybrid handpicked these 3 songs, “bad guy” by Billie Eilish, “How do you sleep?”
By Sam Smith, and finally, “Dancing with a Stranger” by Sam Smith to ensure the hardness of
this task.
From listening and evaluating all of the song’s lyrics, I concluded that “How do you
sleep?” and “Dancing with a Stranger” both have a lot of similarities. Both of them are created
by Sam Smith and they also have the same idea of ‘broken relationship’. In the song “How do
you sleep? Smith's main gripe is not so much that he concluded that his partner is unfaithful.
Rather from the text “All that fear and all that pressure” it centers in his belief that his partner
is intentionally lying and behaving as nothing is going on in the least. Soon, Smith caught the
beef himself as he found out that his partner deceived him when he read his partner’s phone
from the lyrics “Look what I have done dialing up the numbers on you”.
As for dancing with a stranger, “I’m dancing with the stranger” that line is sung by both the
female singer and Smith himself. Derived from that, we can conclude the second song
quickly. Smith and his partner both broke up and have gotten themselves, a new partner
because they are “Tormented” by the feeling of living alone. The fore more mentioned is
concluded in a flash by the text “So I don't want to be alone tonight, alone tonight, alone
tonight”.
On the other hand, “bad guy” by Billie Eilish is something else, it is indeed “bad guy” not “Bad
Guy” don't mistake your eyes because Eilish haphazardly chose all her song titles to be
written using lowercase letters.“bad guy” is undoubtedly a shift in the personality of Billie
Eilish’s music. It addresses more sexual themes than listeners might be used to from her,
and heads in a darker moral direction with lines such as “might seduce your dad type”. The
question that always comes in mind is “Is the darker the song the more meaning it has?”.
Eilish is able to perform the mystical creepy theme line on this song that it gave chilly vibes.
In my opinion, the “bad guy” is meant to be a happy song from the lyrics. “Creeping around
like no one knows” as the fore more mentioned, creeping around is usually an activity pulled
off by a child. Eilish wants to be both “Adult and mature” and ”Childish and happy”.
All kinds of text contain literary devices thus it applies to lyrics as well. In this example,
“bad guy’ contains the alliteration, from the lyrics ending with “guy and type”. Hyperbole is
also used in “I don’t want my heart to break”. Metonymy is used as “Dancing with a stranger”
stranger here means dancing with his and her new partner.
To conclude, what relation does all this have with me? All this song has a connection
between relationship and suspicion. All this could be guidelines for a healthy relationship in
the near future. Suspicion should be done correctly not rashly as false suspicion may lead to
breaking up or other problems rather, suspicion should be researched properly until it is
needed to take action