Stylistic Analysis in Fireflies by Owl City
Fireflies is a song by Owl City released in 2009 and was written by the singer, Adam Young. Young’s lyrics are known to be poetic and quite difficult to understand. This song, especially, is considered to be the most famous song by Owl city. Young described this song as “a little song about bugs and not being able to fall asleep at night”. Those are the reasons why I choose this song to be analysed by using stylistic method. We will see what the distinctness of this song and Adam’s style is in writing this lyric.
The first thing that came to my mind when I tried to analyse this song lyric was the grammar used in this song. The song is opened by ‘you would not believe your eyes / if ten million fireflies / lit up the world as I fell asleep’. That sentence is actually a conditional sentence, and to be more precise, it is conditional type II. Conditional type II is written like this: the if-clause is written in simple past; and the main clause is using would + bare infinitive. That sentence is indeed a conditional type II because both rules are followed: ‘if ten million fireflies lit up the world as I fell asleep’; and ‘you would not believe your eyes’. It is not only the opening sentence of the song that categorized as conditional type II, but almost in the whole song, Adam used conditional type II. However, if we see it closely, Adam only used ‘would’ at verse 1 only. The other ‘would’ are abbreviated: ‘You’d’; ‘I’d’; ‘They’d’. In my thinking, Adam used this to shorten the syllable. Because this is a song, syllable is important to match it with the metre of the song to make the rhyme. We will see later, why Adam only put the ‘would’ in the opening sentence.
As I mentioned, Adam uses conditional type II in almost all the whole song, but not the whole song. We can see at Bridge and some part Verse 3, where he does not use conditional type sentence. With this type of format, we can see that there is a difference between both types. So, this song uses first point of view narration where the “I” is the main character. However, it feels like by using two types of sentence (conditional, and normal), the “I” exists in two worlds: (1) The world where almost all things are possible to happen. This is indicated by the conditional type II, where the condition is very unlikely to be happen, but still possible — imagination world; (2) The real world, which is indicated by the normal type of sentence. That is why it is very important for Adam to introduce the imagination world by emphasizing the conditional type II sentence in the opening sentence.
It is very cool that by only using different types of grammar and switching it back and forth, Adam makes this narration has the sense of strangeness and confusion (in a good way) between the two worlds. This is the main deviation in the lyric of Fireflies that makes this lyric is unique and magical. However, Adam does not stop at making the lyric magical in the level of grammar. We see that Adam put many figures speech like irony and personification throughout the song. The main idea of figures speech is also deviating the normal/literal ways of saying something. Thus, those figures speech can enhance the sense of strangeness that already created by the grammar differences. These are the figures speech:
1. Irony is the use of words to say something that the meaning is direct opposite of the literal meaning indicate something different from the literal meaning. In Fireflies I found some, for example: (1) ‘It’s hard to say that I’d rather stay awake when I’m asleep’; (2) ‘Why do I tire of counting sheep; (3) ‘When I’m far too tired to fall asleep’. These ironies are quite interesting to use in a work that tends to be magical and fantasy because it can be unpredictable but also very strong (because of the opposite feelings and atmosphere). In number (1), staying awake while asleep is something makes no sense because it happens in two different worlds. In number (2), we know sometimes people count sheep so that they can get tired and go to sleep, but here, “I” said that he gets tired because counting sheep. Number (3), people usually go to sleep when they are tired, but here “I” said that he is too tired to fall asleep. Using irony in happy and magical song indeed put some mixed feeling in reading the lyric and understanding the meaning. It also makes some deviation in the level of semantic and pragmatic.
2. Personification is giving object that is not human characteristics of human. Adam used lots of personification especially for the fireflies: (1) ‘If ten million fireflies lit up the world … / they’d fill the open air / and leave teardrops everywhere’; (2) ’Cause I’d get a thousand hugs from ten thousand lightning bugs’; (3) ‘… as they said farewell’. Not just for the fireflies, Adam also used other personification in the song.
However, because the work here is song lyric, we have to know that song lyrics are made to be sung, and to be heard by the audience. So, I will analyse Fireflies on the level of sound too — phonetic. Here, for analysing phonetic in song lyric, I will focus on the rhyme, repetition, and also alliteration.
1. Rhyme is the correspondence of sound between words or the endings of words. In Fireflies the rhyme like this:
- Verse 1 (AAB — CCC): eyes, fireflies; and air, everywhere, stare
- Chorus (AAAA): believe, slowly, asleep, seems. Also, it has the rhyme between words: say and stay
- Verse 2 (AAB — CCC): hugs, bugs; and head, bed, thread
- Bridge (AA — BB): crack, insomniac; and sheep, asleep
- Verse 3 (AAB — CCC): fireflies, goodbyes; and are, bizarre, jar
2. Repetition in Fireflies happens in verse 2 and the bridge: Verse 2: thousand hugs and thousand lighting bugs; Bridge: the backing vocal of ‘please take me away from here’
3. Alliteration is repetition on the consonant sounds in neighbouring words. In Fireflies, we can see it in the Verse 2, the consonant /t/: thousand, ten thousand, they, tried, to teach.
Adam did very beautifully in making the rhyme. The AAB — CCC patterns are exist in all the verses so it differentiates the verse with the chorus and the bridge. Repetition, especially when the backing vocal do the canon of ‘please take me away from here’ makes the backing forth interaction done by someone else with the “I”. The combination of rhyme and alliteration will make the sounds satisfying. It is like playing with the sounds when we hear or sing the song.
To conclude, the style of Adam in writing Fireflies can be said as “magical”. He creatively uses the grammar, figures speech, and sounds to make this song can be enjoyed. What amazes me the most, personally, is the use of two worlds: imagination world and real world that Adam made by only using the different types of grammar.
