An analysis of moral values in maher zain’s song lyrics 1

AN ANALYSIS OF MORAL VALUES IN

MAHER ZAIN’S SONG LYRICS
¹Faizun Amada Syahputra

²Dewi Murni, S., M.Hum.

³Gatot Subroto, S.S., M.Pd.
English Education Study Program

Teacher Training And Education Faculty

Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji Tanjungpinang

Email: [e-mail], Mobile phone: [phone]

ABSTRACT

Song lyric is a kind of literary work in the form of poem to sing. Almost all lyrics contain values that lead to religious values and morality. Maher Zain’s song lyrics contain moral values that are still not familiar to most layers of society. This research aims to (1) describe moral values in Maher Zain's song lyrics and (2) describe the meaning of moral values in Maher Zain's song lyrics. This research is a qualitative research. The collected data in this research were analyzed by using: (1) Reading song lyrics from Maher Zain’s album Thank You Allah (2) Understanding the contents of Maher Zain’s song lyrics (3) Analyzing kinds of moral values and the meaning of moral values in Maher Zain’s song lyrics. The results showed five types of moral values contained in Maher Zain’s song lyrics. Those are nine values of conscience, three values of responsibility, thirteen values of the obligation, seventeen values of religions, and six values of formality, The total values contained in Maher Zain’s song lyrics were forty-eight values.

Key words: Value, Moral, Song Lyric

INTRODUCTION

Moral is the welfare principles enunciate by the wise people, based on their experience and wisdom. It refers to human behavior in life. They edited, changed, modified or evolved to suit the geography of the region, rulers, and in accordance with development of knowledge in science and technology and with time. Morality is concerned with principles and practices of morals such as: (a) What ought or ought not to be done in a given situation (b) What is right or wrong about the handling of a situation And (c) What is good or bad about the people, policies, and ideals involved (Naagarazan, 2006:2).

People improve and maintain their good morals. It common word to say, but it is very difficult to imply in human daily life. People are taught about morality since they are born. However, the morality is decreasing as the time goes by.

Value is defined as a principle that promotes well-being or prevents harm. That our guidelines for our success and our paradigm about what do acceptably. Personal values are defined as: “Emotional belief in principle regarded as particularly favorable or important for the individual.” Our values associate emotion to our experiences and guide our choice, decision and action. The statement explain those the sense of values related to human belief of what did good or bad in the sense of moral values (Naagarazan, 2006: 2).

Moral value is simply an important kind of instrumental value. Actions and traits of character have moral value only as far as they contributed in a certain way to happiness: enhancing pleasure or reducing pain or both, i.e., to hedonic value. Thus, keeping a promise is not morally good as such; it is morally good as far as it contributes to happiness so some promise-keeping, by producing less happiness than breaking the promise, is not morally good (Audi, 2007:47) .

As Allah Swt (Q.S. Al-Baqarah:286) says “Allah tidak membebani seseorang melainkan sesuai dengan kesanggupannya” (Allah burdens not a person, but according to their ability). The message contains many ideas, such as social, satire, motivation, education, till and romantic. Literature is also one of media to show some of the meaning, one of them is moral value that presented by researcher. By the songs, poems, movie, or the other literary works, the researcher tries to learn and deliver good moral for the people.

The word “meaning” and its corresponding verb “to mean” among the most eminently discussable terms in English language, and semantics have often seemed to spend an immoderate amount of time puzzling out the “meanings of meaning” as a supposedly necessary preliminary to the study of their subject (Leech, 1981: 1).

The word Lyric derived from the Greek “lyre”, lyric poetry was originally designed to be sung. One of the three main groups of poetry, lyric verse the most frequently used modern form, including all poems in which the speaker’s ardent expression of emotional element predominates. The song lyric is specially intent for singing. This is expressed by (Oxford Learner’s Pocket Dictionary, 2008: 264), lyric is expressing direct personal feelings of or for singing, lyric poem words of a song, lyrical expressing strong emotional in an imaginative way.

In 2010, a man named Maher Zain (songwriter) wrote the song lyrics of his first album “Thank you Allah”. In his work, the researcher believes that Maher Zain’ song’s relate to the morality of human life, which until now has been known by many people. It can be found in one of the fragment of Maher Zain’s song lyrics “Insya Allah”. The lyrics are:

Don`t despair and never lose hope

Cause Allah is always by your side

Insya Allah (3x) you`ll find your way

It shows that there is a sense of moral value which reflects the belief. The standards of belief are patient, struggle, and believe in Allah. If we are in a trouble, we have to ask for directions to God earnestly, as Allah the Almighty will give us the way out.

The researcher found several problems of questions asked to associate with in Maher Zain’s song lyrics. These problems included among other, researcher assumed that listeners are difficult to understand the lyrics of Maher Zain, listeners often misinterpret the meaning in the lyrics of Maher Zain. Maher Zain fans do not understand the meaning of the lyrics of Maher Zain, the fans are difficult to translate Maher Zain’s song lyrics. Based on the problem above, researcher was motivated to analyze moral values in Maher Zain’s song lyrics with the title “An Analysis of Moral Values in Maher Zain's Song Lyrics”.

In this research, the researcher intended to focus on the following problem: (1) What are the moral values in Maher Zain’s song lyrics? (2) What are meaning of moral values in Maher Zain’s song lyrics?

RESEARCH METHOD

The researcher used a qualitative research design. The data are obtained in the form of words and sentences in the lyrics, not the numbers. It didn’t use statistics method. According to Mack (2005: 1), qualitative research is a type of scientific research. In general terms, scientific research consists of an investigation that: those are produces findings that are applicable beyond the immediate boundaries of the study. According to Kothari (2004: 3), qualitative research is special important in the behavioral sciences where the aim is to discover the underlying motives of human behavior.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

The findings of this research presented in the form of tables based on the researcher. There are several types of moral values found in this research. The types of moral values are: Responsibility, Conscience, Obligation, Religion, formality (Bertens, 2001: 153-158).

TABLE 4.1

Moral values contained in maher zain’s song lyrics

No	The kinds of moral values	Nominal values
1	Conscience Values	9
2	Responsibility values	3
3	Obligation values	13
4	Religion values	17
5	Formality values	6
The total of values		48

Conscience Value

Value always contains some sort of invitation or appeal. According to Bartens (in Wibawa, 2013), moral value is that only raising the value of the voice of conscience that accused persons when to underestimate or against moral values and praised us when realizing moral values. There are nine moral values of conscience value in Maher Zain’s song lyrics: there is one value found in “So Soon” song, two values found in “Open Your Eyes” song, one value found in “Forgive Me” song, one value found in “the Rest of My Life” song, one value found in “Thank You Allah” song, two values found in “Number One for Me” song, and one value found in “Freedom” song.

Responsibility values

A moral value is only realized in actions that are fully the responsibility of the person concerned. Humans themselves become a source of moral values, Bartens (2001) (in Wibawa, 2013). There are three moral values of responsibility value contained in Maher Zain song lyrics: there are two values found in “Number One for Me” song, and one value found in “Freedom” song.

Obligation Value

Moral values are required for granted unconditionally. These values apply to humans as humans. Expected and even demanded that everyone uphold moral values and practice. Moral obligation does not come from the outside or institutions but is rooted in people’s own humanity, Bertens (in Wibawa, 2103). There are thirteen moral values of obligation value contained in Maher Zain song lyrics: there are two values found in “So Soon” song, one value found in “Open Your Eyes” song, one value found in “Forgive Me”, five values found in “Number One for Me” song, one value found in “For the Rest of My Life” song, one values found in “Freedom” song, and two values found in “Love Will Prevail” song.

Religion Value

Religion also gives many contributions in moral values development. Someone who has religion, should control their act and attitude, because there are prohibition, commands, and punishment in the Holy Qur’an. Many people appeals to God’s Law for the ultimate test of right and wrong. It can be understood that religion is a foundation of moral values. There are seventeen moral values of religion value contained in Maher Zain song lyrics: there is one value found in “So Soon” song, two values found in “Open Your Eyes” song, one value found in “Forgive Me” song, four values found in “For the Rest of My Life” song, one value found in “Freedom”, three values found in “The Chosen One” song, two values found in “Thank You Allah” song, one value found in “Love Will Prevail” song, and two values found in “Insya Allah” song.

Formality Value

There are six moral values of formality value contained in Maher Zain song lyrics: there are three values found in “So Soon” song, one value found in “Forgive Me” song, one value found in “Love Will Prevail” song and two values found in “Insya Allah”.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Moral value is simply an important kind of instrumental value. Actions and traits of character have moral value only insofar as they contribute in a certain way to happiness: enhancing pleasure or reducing pain or both, i.e., to hedonic value. The word “meaning” and its corresponding verb “to mean” are among the most eminently discussable terms in English language, and semantics have often seemed to spend an immoderate amount of time puzzling out the “meanings of meaning” as a supposedly necessary preliminary to the study of their subject. Maher Zain’s song lyrics are supposed to be an additional reference for listeners, fans, even for educators applying morals to anyone and anywhere. Maher Zain’s song lyrics have many benefits to be read, and to be memorized by listeners, fans, and educators they even can use songs to improve the moral state. Each library should have some books that contain the moral value of one of the lyrics of a song that can be made as a reading material for fans. It is hoped that this research is useful, for the sake of digging deeper about the results of moral values contained in Maher Zain’s song lyrics.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The publication of this work was supported by English Education Study Program, Teacher Training And Education Faculty, Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji Tanjungpinang

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