JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature)

Vol. 6 No. 2, 2021

ISSN (print): 2502-7816; ISSN (online): 2503-524X
Available online at https://ejournal.unib.ac.id/index.php/joall/index
doi: https://doi.org/10.33369/joall.v6i2.14204

ALAN WALKER’S “LILY” SONG LYRICS TO DEPICT

SATANIC TRICKS: A GENERIC STRUCTURE
ANALYSIS AS RHETORIC
1Idha Nurhamidah ; 2Sugeng Purwanto ; 3Diyah Fitri Wulandari

1,3Universitas Islam Sultan Agung; 2Universitas Stikubank

Corresponding email: [email protected]

Abstract
The current study investigated a song lyric entitled “Lily” in terms of its
generic structure to come up with the rhetorical strategies—how satanic
tricks influence people through human greed. Lily belongs to a lyric
considered a narrative poem. It is theorized that a narrative poem is a
poem or possibly a lyric which consists of orientation, complication and
resolution. In other words, a lyric is structured as such to produce
rhetorical strategies (goals) which were analyzed employing Aristotle’s
ethos, logos and pathos. Meanwhile, in the complication analysis of Lily,
not only did the study employ psychological theory but was also
supported by social contexts to describe how satanic tricks were made
use through human greed engineering in achieving the goal of negative
thoughts generating. The findings indicate that human minds are in fact
guided by both angels and satans. Angels guide any individual (Lily) to
stay in track of the positive values while Satan whispers tricks to divert
from the positive path toward the negative values by means of human
greed. To confirm the findings, a survey was administered to 90
purposefully-selected teenagers in Semarang Municipality only to find
that “Lily“ song lyrics failed to give any answer to the question whether
or not she (Lily) can be saved despite her frequent calls for help.

Keywords: generic structure, narrative lyrics, psychoanalysis, rhetorical strategies,

social contexts

INTRODUCTION
Among various media of communication, songs have been considered
effective to express moral messages (Radebe et al., 2020; Singh et al., 2017).
Not only are they supported by esthetics (beauty of rhythmic sounds) but also
made possible to make reffrein, namely repeated parts of the songs by means
of which the moral messages can be emphasized to touch the listeners’
psyches. In addition, the harmonious, rhythmic pitches enable a particular
song to affect the listeners of interest (Sierro et al., 2020).

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Both singing a song and listening to a song may bring about spiritual
comforts (Brunson, 2020). Many are extremely in love with their favourite
singers so that they may hysterically respond to the performance of the artists.
They may also sing the songs in question by themselves while imagining that
their voices resemble those of the original singers. However, in academic
settings, a song lyric has become common choices for analyses. A number of
students have written their final academic projects by taking up song lyrics as
the objects of their researches with various purposes from simply
investigating the lyrics structure to construing the messages to develop their
moral integrity.
In particular, the study would like to address three issues—the generic
structure of the lyrics (Bowers, 2020)(Telaumbanua, 2020)(Supadmi et al.,
2020), the rhetorical strategies to express the moral messages (Agustya et al.,
2020), and the practical and theoretical implication to better support the stance
that literary works prove effective as a means of transferring educational
values to children for their character building (Sinaga, 2020)(Hewitt,
2020)(Marheni et al., 2020)(Wijaya & Zein, 2020).
Research on song-lyrics as medium of learning a foreign language has
been undertaken. It is argued that songs have proved effective as learning
media to improve pronunciation, to enrich vocabulary (Rohmatin, 2020), to
implement HOTS (High Order Thinking Skills) and to improve attitudes.
Similarly, research on rhetorical strategies revealed that Tun Dr.
Mahathir Bin Mohamad and Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak’s
leadership rhetoric proved effective (Fatmawati et al., 2020), and so does
Donald Trump’s populist foreign policy rhetoric. An ideology and a rhetoric,
even, replace science and reason (Milchman et al., 2020).
Regarding research novelty, the current study employed a combined
approach to the analysis of a literary work— (1) the song-lyrics’ rhetorical
strategies to achieve the communicative purposes, including both practical
and theoretical implications and (2) teenagers’ assessment with respect to the
lyrics’ messages. As outlined above, songs in the previous studies were only
used as media to convey moral messages, not as materials for literary studies.
It was also argued that rhetorical strategies were used in speech events. In
other words, research on literary rhetoric has not been much dealt with in the
previous studies. This triggered the researchers to conduct a study on
strategies for literary rhetoric by employing a combined approach.
To achieve the above research objectives, several theories relevant to
the current study need to be highlighted to generate a firmed analytical
framework. For example, texts for both fiction and non-fiction are written in
special genres (a linguistic term referred to as a step-by step scaffolding
toward one unified whole sum of a text. The structuring process of a text is
not done at random. Rather, it has to follow certain principles of paragraph

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developmental patterns, depending on the genre adopted. Outlined below is

a process of developing a generic structure of a text.
Theoretically speaking, generic structure of text consists of sentences
and beyond to form particular discourse represented in a text. A text can fall
within three categories, namely narrative, descriptive, and argumentative.
Included in the category of narrative are recounts, spoofs, anecdotes, and
news items, aimed at giving information. Meanwhile, descriptive texts
include reports, procedures, and explanation aimed at describing things.
Furthermore, categorized in argumentative discourse are expository texts,
analytical expositions, hortatory expositions, and argumentative texts
(Mabuan, 2017).
Narrative discourse, for example, has a generic structure consisting of
(1) orientation, (2) complication, (3) climax, (4) resolution, (5) reorientation (6)
messages (explicitly or implicitly stated) (Herdi, 2020)(Koilara et al., 2020). In
addition, to the generic structure, particular linguistic features are bound to
any particular text, namely (1) demonstrative time signals such as long time
ago, one day, one evening and the like, (2) the use of archaic or register words,
(3) the use of particular verb processes, and (4) presentation of chronological
events.
It is important to note, however, not only can narrative discourse be
found in prose but also in poetry. Some poems are written in narrative and
known as narrative poem. It is also possible that narrative poetry is expressed
in song lyrics to express both explicit and implicit messages. Like narrative
prose, narrative poems have also generic structure consisting of: (1) surface
structure, and (2) deep structure.
The surface structure of poetry is realized through typography, diction,
image, figurative language, concrete words, engineered in theme, rhyme, and
meter based on which to identify the orientation, complication, and resolution
(if any). Meanwhile, the deep structure of poetry is realized through theme,
sense, pitch, and message in support of the surface structure. These two types
of structures synergize to form a narrative poem.
Regarding the message of a literary work can be investigated through
a study of literature psychology, sociology of literature, anthropology of
literature, stylistics, semiotics and many more. However, the current study
focuses on a literary study related to psychology theory—Abraham Maslow’s
Psychology of Human Needs Theory supported by socio-political analysis to
describe the psychological complication in Lily song-lyrics.
In addition, rhetorical strategies also need to be highlighted as the
way(s) to convey messages, of which the role is inevitably important in
communication process (Suprapto & Kurniawan, 2020). Even in some cases,
the “way(s)” is considered more important, in the success of information
transferring, than the contents. Analogically speaking, packaging of a

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particular product plays a more significant role in the success of marketing

than the product itself. In other words, a product with relative values but with
interesting packaging tends to be more marketable than that with special
values but without interesting packaging. This also applies to communication
processes. A message should be well-presented or conveyed to achieve the
communicative purposes.
The mastery of communication, in modern science, is referred to as
rhetorical strategies (Fatmawati et al., 2020). Aristotle proposed three
elements to achieve communicative purposes, namely ethos, logos, and pathos
(Grant, 2019). To elaborate, Ethos in communication strategies is identical to
the credibility of informants. In other words, those who convey information
must be credible, such as practitioners, users’ testimony, experts, and or
participants indicating or guarantying information accuracy. Meanwhile,
logos (logical) refers to how information is organized so as to be logically
acceptable. Finally, pathos (emotion), in this case, refers to energy to convey
information.

METHODS
Research Object and Subjects
The current study picked up a song lyric entitled ‘Lily’ as the object of
investigation (Pratiwi, 2020), hereinafter referred to as Lily Song Lyrics. The
song was sung by Alan Walker, an English Norwegian DJ. In short, the lyric
of Lily is about a girl, despite her sacred happy life, wanted to sneak out.
Warned not to do that, she kept on doing only to find herself trapped in a
difficult situation hypnotized by satanic tricks toward nowhere due to her
(human) greed to ask for more. Meanwhile 90 teenagers participated in the
online survey as the research subjects. They were purposefully selected for
ease of research instrument distribution. Five students (the first semester)
from five English colleges (Universitas Islam Sultan Agung, Universitas
Katholic Soegiyapranata, Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Semarang, Unversitas
Stikubank, and Universitas Dian Nuswantoro) were sent the link to Google
Survey Form. The link was supposed to be distributed to their friends via
WAG (WhatsUp Groups). Up to the due date specified, 90 forms returned (via
email) to the researchers.

Instruments
A Likert-scale survey to assess their opinions toward Lily Song Lyrics was
administered online (Google Form) to WAG from five colleges in Semarang
with the assistance of one student from each college. The instrument (scaled
from 1-5, strong disagreement – strong agreement) was used to reveal the
opinions of the research subjects, regarding the interpretation of Lily Song
Lyrics.

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Data Analysis Procedures

In a broad sense, Lily Song Lyrics was analyzed in terms of (1) the generic
structure, and (2) the rhetorical strategies. Included in the analysis of the
generic structure were issues of orientation, complication and resolution—
following the tradition of narrative poetic analysis (Iwamoto, 2007). Surface
structure and deep structure of Lily Song Lyrics were also discussed as
supporting details (Toivanen et al., 2013). Meanwhile, the rhetorical strategies
of the lyrics were analyzed employing Aristotle’s ethos, logos and pathos to
find out how the lyrics were rhetorically produced (Stucki & Sager, 2018).
Results of the Google Form Survey were automatically calculated in
percentage (categorical) from which opinions (See Table 1) were interpreted
to come up with confirmed evidences about ‘satanic tricks’—using human’s
basic instinctive greed ‘Want More’ in Satanic Whispers as supported by the
final Surah of the Quran (Annas). In other words, the final description of the
findings has gone a long process of aggregation of all responses made by
respondents. All are represented in the discussion.

FINDINGS
Generic Structure
The first part of the generic structure of a narrative is termed as orientation.
Described in this part (orientation) are elements of CPT (Character, Place, and
Time), which consists of character and characterization. Characters (either
animate or personified things) are figures involved in carrying out the plot. In
other words, figures can be human, animal, plants, even household utensils,
and the like. Meanwhile, Place and Time may foreground the environments,
either explicitly or implicitly described. Discourse markers, such as ‘once
upon time’, ‘long time ago’, or any other fabled circumstance are referred to
as a narrative genre.

Orientation
Below is the first stanza (chunk) of Lily song-lyrics identified as the
orientation of the whole song –lyrics:
(1) Lily was a little girl
Afraid of the big wide world
She grew up
Within her castle walls

A stanza or paragraph in narrative prose is a point of departure.

Described in the above stanza are the character and characterization identified
as someone called Lily, shown in the first line “Lily is a little girl.” Lily is
limited to being characterized as a little girl grown up in a palace (castle) as
stated in Lines 3 and 4 “She grew up //within her castle wall”. As a result,

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she is afraid of the outside world—stated in Line 2. Thus, Lily is a princess

who, in psychological terms, has fulfilled the basic layer of human needs, such
as: (1) physical needs, covering the needs for food, drink, fresh air, sex, etc. (2)
needs for safety, and (3) needs for love and cares. Therefore, it can be said that
she is a little girl who lives a luxurious life, and has never seen the outside
world—unlike other normal children out there.
As well described in the first Stanza is the background environment,
namely “Within her castle walls”. This results in Lily’s mental
disadvantages—being afraid of the outside world. In other words, she lacks
physical and mental experiences. Apart from the fact that the jungle is out
there meaning that outside the castle, there are both the expected and the
unexpected things. The world may present beauty and sorrows. Lily fears
whatever outside the castle. She has been framed to live in a royal
environment. The next stanza is as follows:

(2) Now and then she tried to run

And then on the night with the setting sun
She went in the woods away
So afraid
All alone

Despite fears of the external world, Lily, as a little girl, has the basic instinct
of demanding something new as experienced by other normal teenagers. This
can be seen in the first line of the second stanza “Now and then she tried to
run.” The word “tried” semantically indicates several attempts to escape. It is
of course not easy to do so due to the strict rules of the castle.
However, on one twilight, Lily managed to escape without any notice
of Guards or other people around. She rushed away to the forests as stated in
Line 3, “She went in the woods away.” All alone, naturally she was very
afraid as stated in Lines 4 and 5 “So afraid //All alone.”

Complication
This part is the essence of a narrative as the story goes on. Lily’s minds are
perplexed. A lot of things—both positive and negative in nature—come in
and out. The positive things are referred to as angelic whispers while the
negative things are referred to as satanic tricks. Each of them tries very hard
to influence Lily’s mind related to her decision to escape from the castle. Here
goes the third stanza (chunk):

(1) They warned her

"Don't go there, there're creatures who are hiding in the dark"
Then something came creeping

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It told her
"Don't you worry just"

The pronoun “They” is not easy to identify to which it refers to until the
second line of the chunk is read out (sung). The second line goes as “Don’t go
there, there’re creatures who are hiding in the dark.” From this line, it is clear
that “They” refers to angelic whispers. Such whispers are possibly those
which were spoken to or told to her by her guards, her parents, or her friends.
Those are good advices for her to be a nice girl. Meanwhile, by the words
“Creatures, who are hiding in the dark,” Those “Creatures” are most probably
referred to people. Some people are unpredictable, so whoever “They” is, Lily
is forbidden outside because she would be put at great risk. Not to mention
she has no experience with being outside.
However, there is one thing that told Lily not to worry (about those
creatures) as stated in the fifth line “Don’t you worry just”. This one thing is
referred to as a satanic whisper, that was very strong and managed to drive
Lily out of her castle (though everything is available), wandering around the
woods for uncertainty, even to cause her to be afraid and feel all alone. The
satanic whisper further told her to follow. Here, her basic human instinct is
tested. What is actually the basic human instinct? It is “greed”. Human-beings
are never satisfied with what they have got, especially with respect to wealth
and pleasure. Here goes the next stanza.

(2) Follow everywhere I go

Top over the mountains or valleys low
Give you everything you've been dreaming of
Just let me in
Ooh

The satanic whisper forces Lily to follow anywhere it goes as stated in Line 1
of the chunk, “Follow everywhere I go,” such as to “Top over the mountains
or valleys low”, describing the beauty of nature at the same time promising
her to enjoy everything it offers with pleasure. It has been obviously known
that she has never been out of the castle. This condition is further made use
of by Satan, whispering in promises which are possibly abusive. Satanic
tricks are characterized as (1) pleasure at first, disappointment at the end, (2)
bad social and personal impacts disguised beautifully in good prospects as
seen in the following chunk of satanic promises:

(3) Everything you want in gold

I'll be your magic story
You've been told

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Just let me in
Ooh
The word “gold” in Line 1 of the chunk, “Everything you want in gold”
symbolizes values that may not be available in the castle. Satanic promises are
made that everything is to be at hand with ease. This is represented in the
word “magic” as in “I’ll be your magic story” with only one requirement, that
is to let Satan enter Lily’s mindset to fulfill her greed, which is actually
unlimited up to a point when she dies, and faces the consequences of
following satanic tricks. However, there is still angelic nature in Lily’s “self”
as represented in the following chunk of the song-lyrics. She starts realizing
what happens to her. Here goes the next chunk:

(4) She knew she was hypnotized

And walking on cold thin ice
Then it broke
And she awoke again

The line “She knew she was hypnotized” indicates that Lily has come to
conscience as she walked through a difficult path symbolized by “And
walking on cold thin ice”. Fortunately, she managed to get up upon falling
down. Better still, she started to cry for help as shown in the next chunk.

(5) Then she ran

Faster than
Start screaming
"Is there someone out there?"

The above chunk clearly describes. Lily ran faster and faster, heading for
nowhere. She started screaming, calling “Is there someone out there?”

(6) Please help me

Come get me
Behind her

She kept crying for help. As she was all alone, no body responded to her
cries for help. She was half-conquered by Satan, whispering behind her as
seen in “Behind her”

(7) She could hear it say

Follow everywhere I go
Top over the mountains
Or valley low
Give you everything

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You've been dreaming of

Just let me in
Ooh

Lily has not managed to escape from satanic influences. There is a great battle
of choice between following the satanic tricks and returning to the angelic
advices. Satan keeps whispering to give more negative impacts on her as seen
in the following chunk:

Everything you want in gold

I'll be your magic story
You've been told
Just let me in
Ooh

Resolution
The resolution of the narrative song-lyrics is not given. The listeners are
supposed to create their own story to continue Lily’s story—there is a kind of
help to take her back to the castle to be a nice girl bound to the royal rules, or
she would let Satan enter her mind to become one of thousands of satanic
followers. In short, the lyrics of Alan Walkers “Lily” show the backstory of a
girl who wanted freedom, but she did not realize that she asked for a bit too
much. This is in in with the basic human instinct—GREED. This further
confirmed research findings in Singh, et al. (Singh et al., 2017).
Unfortunately, Lily got a fate that she did not even expect. Satanic
tricks wildly and fiercely influenced her to follow satanic wishes with all false
promises beautifully packaged to look good. At a glance, the moral message
can be stated that that no matter what an individual does, he or she should
always stay alert. No one knows when anything could happen.
The above findings revealed that Lily Song Lyrics were written
adopting the tradition of literary presentation of poetic narrative as the
surface structure (Hopkins, 2020). There are nine stanzas, each of which
consists of varying number of lines. Stanza 1 (four lines) represents the
orientation, introducing the character (Lily) and settings (the past, the castle).
This stanza is immediately followed by Stanza 2 (four lines) representing the
character’s behavior toward the complication.
The complication is represented in seven stanzas. Stanza 3 represents
the presence of both angelic advice and satanic tricks. The angelic advice
consists of warnings for Lily not to go anywhere. She should have stayed in
castle. Meanwhile, the satanic tricks start approaching Lily’s mindset based
on human’s greed. Invitation to join satanic adventure is presented in Stanza
4 with a number of beautifully-covered evil promises, further stressed on

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Stanza 5. Lily’s consciousness to return to normal is presented in Stanza 6,

running in bewilderment in Stanza 7, and crying for help in Stanza 8.
However, Satan would not stop interfering Lily’s mindset by using basic
human instinct—greed. To end, Line 9 repeats the satanic promises.
Meanwhile, the deep structure of the song-lyrics is situated in the song
writer’s mind-map concerning the theory of writing poetic narrative. The
song writer employed logical sequences in presenting the narrative with
artistic rhetorical strategies to drive the audience in a position to show
empathy to Lily as the victim of satanic whisper. So skillfully is the song lyrics
presented that the audience is let to finish the story—whether Lily would join
the satanic way of life or return to the Angelic advices. This applies to songs
by Pride’s This Bed’s Not Big Enough and Bimbo’s Belalang in which no
resolutions were given (Nurhamidah et al., 2020; Nurhamidah & Purwanto,
2020).

Rhetorical Strategies
Aristotle’s Ethos, Logos, and pathos were all reflected in Lily song lyrics. Alan
Walker clearly represents himself as a resource individual (Ethos) who
masterminds the whole story poetically depicted in song lyrics. He is a reliable
and accountable as a singer who can dramatically sing the song (Lily) with his
child’s voice in nature. Thus, the audience is brought to a situation that the
events took place in children’s world. As a respectable singer, he managed to
sing the song lively and easily understood by layman as a cheerful singer, so
convincingly presenting the narrative story song. In other words, people
believe that the singer is trustworthy in terms of the song being sung.
The Logos is seen as a logical sequence of events in the narrative song
lyrics—orientation, complication, but without resolution. The audience is
given two choices whether Lily returns to the castle or goes away following
the satanic tricks. Given the first choice, Lily adopts the Angelic guidance to
return to where she belongs. In this case, she will return to her normal life a
nice girl maintained in Royalism—within the castle’s rules of conducts—up
to a point of her being a Royal Princess probably ready to be wedded by a
Royal Princess from a different castle. They may live as a King and Queen.
Conversely, if the second choice is taken, things will be quite otherwise.
Under Satanic influences—which are normally based on human greed—Lily
will go nowhere. She may fall in the hands of criminals in the street, forcing
her to sell herself to any man for money. The second choice presents a more
various types of consequences following the satanic tricks.
As previously discussed, the song is sung cheerfully, representing
children’s world (Xiong & Xie, 2020). This is the Pathos—depicting the way
messages are presented. On listening to the song, the audience will soon
realize that it is a children’s song without any touches of romance. Yet, the

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message or moral values may be directed for the general target of human
nature.
What is the general target of human nature? By God’s logic, people are
born with two choices, whether they adopt satanic or angelic whispers (Göbel,
2018). Just for example, a woman—in case she adopts Satanic tricks—may
represent a bad wife, forgetting that she is a wife to her husband, and a mother
to her child(ren). In a socio-cultural context, she is an economist in bed, a lady
in the kitchen and a whore outside the house (May God protect women from
such). On the other hands, a woman may also lead herself following Angelic
whispers. Even if she is a career woman (to help her husband’s financial
stance), she is still a good wife to her husband and a good mother to her
child(ren). In a social cultural context, she is a lady outside the house, a whore
in bed with her husband, and an economist in the kitchen (Praised be upon
those who do so).
According to the survey administered to selected teenagers, a castle life
is viewed differently among them as shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Teenagers’ Responses toward the Life of Lily

No Statement 1(%) 2(%) 3(%) 4(%) 5(%) ∑
1 Lily’s life is well-fulfilled 21.2 42.4 21.2 15.2 100
2 Lily lacks parental love 9.1 27.3 27.3 33.3 3 100
3 Lily’s life is limited to normal 23.5 32.4 29.4 14.7 100
castle guards
4 Lily’s life is an ideal life 32.4 50 11.8 2.9 2.9 100
5 Lily song lyrics fails to give a 5.9 23.5 38.2 23.5 8.8 100
resolution
Note: 1=fully disagree, 2=disagree, 3=neutral, 4=agree, 5=fully agree

At a glance, teenagers, at least in Semarang Municipality, show that they

have been inspired by modern life. Most of them fully disagreed to the castle
life (63.6% with 21.2% neutral). They want freedom, not restricted to the royal
rules and conducts. Meanwhile, they are in between that such a life is
negatively viewed—lacking parental love (36.3% vs. 36.4% with 27.3%
neutral). Agreements 44.1% vs. disagreement 23.5 with 32.4% are assigned
that Lily as a little girl is fully guarded in castle life—something thought of as
a terrible life. Strong disagreement (82.4%) is depicted in a view that Lily’s
life is ideal—meaning that they cannot “yet” decide the true values of an ideal
life. Yet, from the song lyric, they are driven into two extremities. 29.4%
expressed disagreement, meaning that they managed to find out the
resolution for themselves; 38.2% expressing doubts, and 32.3% expressing
strong agreement, meaning that they are convinced of the unavailability of
the resolution. Thus, it can be concluded that teenagers want both freedom

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and guidance as practical consequences—also confirmed in a research

finding (van Reijmersdal & van Dam, 2020)

DISCUSSION
God creates everything in a binary system—positive and negative. It is a
matter of choice, which one to follow (Alvarez & Brehm, 2020). Those who
choose the positive and minimize the negative, by all religions on earth, are
promised to be awarded “heaven” upon their deaths—served by beautiful
angels with all facilities one cannot find even in a five-star hotel in the world.
Conversely, those who choose the negative and minimize the positive, by all
religions on earth, are threatened that they would be thrown away to “hell”
without mercy. The heat of hell is thousand times as much as that of fire on
earth. Lily Song Lyrics illustrated that satanic tricks (whispers) had a stronger
force to influence a little and inexperienced girl to escape from a settled life of
the castle. By ‘settled life’ it is hard to determine or define what is exactly
‘settled’. It is relatively ambiguous. A settled life as viewed by a certain
individual may be considered a ‘catastrophic’ life by some other individuals.
The survey reveal that most respondents stand against the definition of
‘settled life’ as interpreted in the study.
The tendency of people to do one thing or another is theoretically
influenced or determined by at least two factors—genetic and non-genetic
(Rushton et al., 2008). However, very few researches have been conducted
regarding which factor is more dominant upon the other. A wealthy family is
not guaranteed to be happy only to find that the children are spoilt, naughty,
and even involved in crimes; worst still, spouses are cheating on each other.
Another rich family turns otherwise. The spouses are wed-locked up to the
death of one after another. Their children are well educated to end with good
professions to raise their own families—respecting each other with one son or
daughter continuing his or her parents’ business empire. In other words, such
a family passes successfully human needs as theorized by a psychologist,
Abraham Maslow, and socio-politically acceptable within a nation.
Meanwhile, poor families are of similar patterns—some end positively and
some others end negatively. Thus, everything is relative. Eyes and ears are
cheating as they may represent otherwise.
With respect to socio-political viewpoints, Lily Song Lyrics represents
a very high socio-political point of departure, Lily as the main character is
depicted as a nice little girl living in a castle full of fulfilment of basic human
needs with luxury. However, she is lonely—representing a slot for both
Satanic and Angelic whispers. The Satanic tricks, based on the nature of
human greed, force her to go out for life adventures despite the fact that the
Angelic whispers maintain her in the correct tract of staying in castle. In the
castle, at a later stage, she will be provided with adventures, correctly

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 Alan Walker’s “Lily” Song Lyrics to Depict Satanic Tricks: A Generic Structure…

designed for her to be a Lady. It seems; however, Lily takes the wrong way,
guided by the satanic tricks to escape from the castle. She goes to the forest
only to find nothing but internal confusion. She cries for help but no responses
were yet apparently available. The respondents tend to agree The lyrics writer
did not provide any clue—also theorized in narrative story (Abbott, 2020).
Nowadays, as supported by the survey findings, teenagers do not want
to be told what to do—also theoretically confirmed (Brown, 2020). They want
to be free to find out any information from the Internet. This is not bad at all
but remembering that digital information is so vast and unlimited, they may
pick up unsuitable information for their character development. Therefore,
they still need guidance—not dictating but simply facilitating. Lily can be
taken as an example of an individual with seemingly respectable position but
fails to comply with the rules of conducts in a castle life. She is, for sure,
guarded in such a way to behave distinctively as a Royal member—with full
of Angelic preaches of what to do and not to do. However, she is forced
smoothly and tenderly by satanic tricks to get out of castle for new
adventures, which actually turn out to be false or remain as Satanic promises.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

Lily song-lyrics have been investigated in terms of the generic structure and
rhetorical strategies. It has also been viewed with respect to personality
psychology and socio-political standpoints. The generic structure of the lyrics
is that it is physically presented in nine stanzas with varying number of lines
in each stanza. The nine stanzas further were split into orientation (Stanzas 1
and 2) and complication (Stanza 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9). No resolution is
available in the song-lyrics. The audience is free to continue toward the
narrative end. Therefore, it can be concluded that the surface structure—as
can be seen—is guided by the song writer’s deep structure in accordance with
theory of song-lyrics writing (format, theme, and rhyme). Psychologically
speaking, the little girl, Lily has only reached level 1 of Abraham Maslow’s
Psychology of Human Needs Theory in accordance with fully-developed
socio-political environment of castle life—confirmed by the survey.
Teenagers are therefore suggested to carefully select information from
any medium for their personal development. Seniors should be still available
as facilitators if necessary. Meanwhile, more researches are still required to
investigate moral-contained literary works, tapping all possible positive
teachings in support of the young generation’s personal development.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Words of thanks and gratitude shall go to Research and Community Service
Division of Universitas Islam Sultan Agung for the research fund without
which, the study may not have been undertaken. Special thanks shall also go

258 Journal of Applied Linguistics and Literature, Vol 6(2), 2021

Idha Nurhamidah, Sugeng Purwanto, Diyah Fitri Wulandari

to the research subjects—90 Semarang teenagers who were willing to

participate in the survey.

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