Lexical And Contextual Meaning Analysis in Billie Eilish’s Song Lyric “What Was I Made For?”

Abstract

This research explores the lexical and contextual meanings which allude to the overall messages of Billie Eilish’s song What Was I Made For? Operating Lyon’s (1995) propositions of lexical and contextual meaning, this research scrutinizes any words composed within the lyric and opts for the particular words that are considered to have both lexical and contextual meaning. The result reveals that there are 10 words singled out among 163 words to analyze. They are float, fall down, made for, drive, ideal, alive, not real, paid for, boyfriend, and something. Those words serve as the counterpart of song’s messages that are basically the artistic likeness of the title of the song. Working with various definitions of lexical meanings in 10 data, contextual meanings are principally derived from allied lexical meaning and are elaborated completely by pairing to contextual backgrounds of the song and singer. Eventually, the analysis shows that the song stages a quest for the meaning of life through the journey of self-discovery.