MEANINGS OF SONGS

Objectives

DESCRIPTION:
Understanding the social function and language features of songs to learn the words, feelings and rhymes in songs, according to the contexts. The Objective: students are able to understand the words, feelings and rhymes to help them understanding the meanings of songs.

LESSON

Key Points

Music and songs are everywhere. We listen to our favourite songs, and we sometimes sing them. We can learn about life through music and songs. To be able to learn something from songs, we have to know the meanings of the words that are written explicitly in the lyrics and the meanings of the songs that are not explicitly written in the lyrics about the moral teaching that we can apply in our daily life.
To be able to understand the meanings of songs, learn some points here:
1. We have to know the meanings of the words in the lyrics.
Learning the meanings of the words in the lyrics while singing the song is fun. If we find difficult words, we can check the words in the dictionary. We can make notes and memorize the new or difficult words and memorize them.
2. We have to read the complete lyrics.
Knowing the meanings of the words in the lyrics is not enough to know the meanings of the songs. Thus, we have to read the complete lyrics to know what the song is about.
3. We have to know the purpose of a song.
The purpose of a song is about the reason(s) why the singer sings the song and the moral teaching we can learn from the song. Some songs teach us to be more confident. Some songs teach us to have a hope and not to give up live our life. To help us understand the purpose of a song, there are some points we have to know:
• Who sings the song?
It is not about the name of the singer, but more on the position of the singer in the song. Is a mother, a father, a friend, a student, a son, a daughter, or anyone else?
• Who is the song for?
Is the song for a mother, a father, a friend, a son, a daughter, or anyone else?
4. We have to know the tone of the songs.
The tone here refers to the general feeling or attitude expressed in a song.
The tones can be positive: happy, hopeful, confident, optimistic, loving, care, etc. And, the tones can be negative: angry, disappointed, desperate, pessimistic, ignorant, etc.
5. We can meditate on the song and discover what we can learn from it.
For example: we can learn from a song that we have to be optimistic in our life although we face many troubles.
Read the lyrics below and learn what the meaning of the song is.
Mother, How Are You Today?
Mother, how are you today?
Here is a note from your daughter.
With me everything is OK.
Mother, how are you today?
Mother, don’t worry, I’m fine.
Promise to see you this summer.
This time there will be no delay.
Mother, how are you today?
Sung by Maywood,taken from When English Rings the Bell
After reading the lyrics above, and looking up difficult or new words in the dictionary, we can think about the purpose, tone and the teaching in the song.
1. The purpose:
The singer is a daughter. We can see it from the first verse, second line:”Here is a note from your daughter”.
The listener is a mother. We can see it from the title and the first sentences of each verse: “Mother, how are you today?”
“Mother, don’t worry, I’m fine.
2. The tone:
The singer (daughter) asks her mother’s condition. She promises to her mother that she will visit her mother. It shows us that the daughter loves and cares about her mother.
3. The moral teaching we learn from the song.
The song teaches us to love and care about our mother. Our mother will be happy if we love and care about her.