I. A. RICHARDS: VERBAL ANALYSIS

I. A. RICHARDS:

VERBAL ANALYSIS

Welcome readers,

                            This blog post is designed on the grounds of a task assigned by Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad Sir on techniques developed by I A Richards to analyze a poem/song/ film song lyric/hymns/ devotional songs or any poetic expression of any language in terms of verbal expressions. Click here to understand the views on the ‘Figurative Language’ of I A Richards. 

Ivor Armstrong Richards 

                                     Ivor Armstrong Richards is one of those great critics of the modern age who have exercised considerable influence on both sides of the Atlantic.  T. S. Eliot and I. A. Richards are considered the stalwarts of New Criticism. Even if both the pioneers, they differ from each other in certain important respects.

                               A study of his ‘The Practical Criticism’ and ‘A Study of Literary Judgment’, reveals that I A Richards seems to be a staunch advocate of a close textual and verbal study and analysis of a work of art. His approach seems to be more pragmatic and empirical.

The Importance of Words

Richards’ concerns are mainly focused on textual and verbal analysis. A close study of his works “Practical Criticism” and “The Meaning of the Meaning”.  According to him, words carry four types of meaning  -

• SENSE

• FEELINGS

• TONE 

• INTENTION

                              Richards’ concerns are mainly focused on textual and verbal analysis. A close study of his works “Practical Criticism” and “The Meaning of the Meaning”.

                             Well, as a task, I have tried to do the verbal study of a selected (lyric) song from a third studio album called ‘Speak Now’.

MEAN

You, with your words like knives

And swords and weapons that you use against me

You, have knocked me off my feet again,

Got me feeling like a nothing

You, with your voice like nails

On a chalk board, calling me out when I'm wounded

You, picking on the weaker man

You can take me down

With just one single blow

But you don't know what you don't know

Someday I'll be living in a big old city

And all you're ever gonna be is mean

Someday I'll be big enough so you can't hit me

And all you're ever gonna be is mean

Why you gotta be so mean?

You, with your switching sides

And your wildfire lies and your humiliation

You have pointed out my flaws again

As if I don't already see them

I walk with my head down,

Try to block you out 'cause I never impress you

I just want to feel okay again

I bet you got pushed around

Somebody made you cold but the cycle ends right now

'Cause you can't lead me down that road

And you don't know what you don't know

Someday I'll be living in a big old city

And all you're ever gonna be is mean

Someday I'll be big enough so you can't hit me

And all you're ever gonna be is mean

Why you gotta be so mean?

And I can see you years from now in a bar

Talking over a football game

With that same big loud opinion

But nobody's listening, washed up and ranting

About the same old bitter things

Drunk and grumbling on about how I can't sing

But all you are is mean

All you are is mean and a liar and pathetic

And alone in life and mean, and mean, and mean, and mean

But someday I'll be living in a big old city

And all you're ever gonna be is mean

Yeah someday I'll be big enough

So you can't hit me

And all you're ever gonna be is mean

Why you gotta be so (mean)

Someday I'll be living in a big old city

(Why you gotta be so mean)

And all you're ever gonna be is mean

(Why you gotta be so mean)

Someday I'll be big enough so you can't hit me

(Why you gotta be so mean)

And all you're ever gonna be is mean

Why you gotta be so mean?

ANALYSIS OF THE LYRIC-

It can be surely said that this song seems to be about people who have been very mean to the Lyricist because of the persona ‘I’. We get to know for the first time in the sixth line of the song-

“calling me out when I'm wounded”

The song seems to be open up with an alarming remark and the simple word ‘you’ becomes a harsh ‘YOU’ which gives the feeling of strangeness and guilt. The opening seeks to harm the ‘mean people’.

The very first line suggests a simile where the words are compared with ‘knives’. Normally, the word “Word” provides a sense of pleasing expression but here it becomes an expression for the domineering people.

Richards suggests four types of misunderstanding in a poem among which the second one is-

“Prosaic reading”

The prosaic reading of the second and third lines suggests the feeling of someone has used the swords and weapons against the persona and the very image of blood comes to our mind but the image of blood and wounds is soon replaced by the phrase “knocked me off my feet” a sense of overwhelming so harshly and emotionally gets cleared.

Further, the metaphor for emotional bullying is “swords and weapons” which gets its established meaning in the song in the next line. The mean person’s voice is compared with “nails On a chalk board” which delivers the shivering discomfort of the unpleasant noise. 

The words are so powerful that it seems to destroy the mental happiness of someone.

The lyrics than takes turn and asks why you are so mean? This seems to be a highly personal addressal of lyricist when the words speak-

“Someday I'll be living in a big old city

And all you're ever gonna be is mean

Someday I'll be big enough so you can't hit me

And all you're ever gonna be is mean

Why you gotta be so mean?”

The fourth stanza takes the stance of future ambition with a question! Here the words- a big old city creates a kind of confusion, the image seems as blur as it was initially cleared. The vagueness of the three words urges to ask the internet if it may give the name of the city or? Like the digital instrument with internet provides a clue of London which can be called a grand old city and so the question arises that will this place which the lyricist is talking about be London or some really big city? So it can be said that the idea of which the song is centered around seems itself a possibility which replaces surety.  On the other hand, the lyricist is sure that success will soon be following him/her.

The second verse again addresses the mean person and calls the views, perspectives by words “switching sides”.

 The lyricist’s outlet of all the suppressed emotions seem to burst out all of a sudden with the lines-

“Somebody made you cold but the cycle ends right now

'Cause you can't lead me down that road”

The word ‘cold’ creates a kind of tension in the song which neither seems to associate the word with the season nor with the emotion but it seems to display the stubbornness of a person. Or it can be a harsh criticism of someone’s determined thought or opinion or a radical judgment? And furthermore, the word cold is connected with the cycle so readers might feel a kind of dichotomous nature of the word-

Cold- winter- season – cycle

Or

Stubbornness- rigidity- opinion building- cycle

The next stanza seems to be a highly personal rejection or denial of the mean person's personality. With reference to a football game and drinking and gambling and all trivial sort of things. Hence, the lyric, in a way, seems to be celebrating Individual skill. Despite of being knocked down with harsh criticism of that mean person, this lyric seems to justify critical opinions. 

Title:  Mean
Produced by: Nathan Chapman and Taylor Swift

Lyricist: Taylor Swift

Singer: Taylor Swift

Here is the video of "Mean" by Taylor Swift-

Some facts about the song and why it was created- 

The song alludes at least in part to Swift’s off key performance of Fleetwood Mac’s ” Rhiannon” with Stevie Nicks at the 2010 Grammy Awards. A number of pundits laid into her saying she was badly off-key and couldn’t sing, but the specific review that got her blood boiling came from Bob Lefsetz, who wrote in his Lefsetz Letter: “did Taylor Swift kill her career overnight? I’ll argue she did. In one fell swoop, Taylor Swift consigned herself to the dustbin of teen phenoms… Taylor’s too young and dumb to understand the mistake she made.”

Faced with such stinging words, you can understand why towards the end of this song, Taylor sings: “And I can see you year from now in a bar talking over a football game/With that same big loud opinion, but no one’s listening/Washed up and ranting about the same old bitter things/Drunk and talking all about how I… can’t… sing.”

The music video broadens the song’s message to make it relate to school kids who are bullied or mistreated for being different. We see a boy reading a fashion magazine among the football players in the locker room, and a girl wearing blue instead of pink.

Taylor admits that she has a thin skin and can’t just brush off criticism. She wrote on her website: “No matter how old you are, no matter what your job is, no matter what your place is in life. There’s always going to be someone who’s just mean to you. Dealing with that is all you can control about that situation, how you handle it. ‘Mean’ is about how I handle it, and sort of my mind set about this whole situation.”

Taylor discussed dealing with criticism of her voice in an interview with Parade Magazine: “Some days I’m fine and I can just brush it off and go about my day, but some days it absolutely levels me. All I can do is continue to try to work hard every single day and feel everything. I think it’s important to feel things because I then write songs about that. The whole idea of being criticized and the fact that that entered my life made for a song that I’m very proud of on the record called ‘Mean.'”