I.A Richards

I.A Richards who along with T.S Eliot consider as the pioneer of new criticism gave an idea of close reading of text and also verbal analysis of text. He also gave the theory of practical criticism. Here also I tried to analyze one song’s lyrics from the movie “Always kabhi kabhi” and the lyricist is Amitabh Bhattacharya and sung by Benny Dayal, Roshan Abbas, and Apeksha Dandekar.

Antenna Lyrics

Antenna.. (Antenna.. Antenna.. Antenna….)
Frequency.. (Frequency.. Frequency.. Frequency……)
Not catching.. (Not catching.. Not catching.. Not catching…..)
Not matching.. (Not matching.. Not matching.. Not matching…..)
Frequency.. (Frequency.. Frequency.. Frequency……)
Antenna.. (Antenna.. Antenna.. Antenna….)
Frequency.. (Frequency.. Frequency.. Frequency……)
Sapne hamare hai toh
Chasma tumhara kyun lagaye
Sapna hamara hai toh
Rasta bhi hoga na humara
Chalane kaho toh chale
Rukne ko bolo ruk jaye..
Aapke remote pe hume
Nahi chalna gawara..
Baatein karna humari kabhi
Tum jo kaho woh dohrayen
Yahin dil mein chupade
Always dard humara
Chahe jo bhi kahen
Kabhi tum problem samajh na paaye
Kabhi bhule se bhi
Signal pakad na paye kyun humara
Antenna..nahi karta match..Antenna
Antenna..nahi karta catch..Antenna
Antenna..nahi karta match..Antenna
Antenna..nahi karta catch..Antenna..
You don’t know the frquency
Why can’t you just let me be
You don’t know the frquency
Why can’t you just let me be
Galti humari kya
Jo haan mein haan
Tumhari na milaye..
Badta hi jata hai
Kyun voice ka level tumhara
Dono hi taraf se jo baatein ho
Toh samajh mein aaye..
One way sunenge kyun
Yeh lecture FM tumhara
Mein bhi kharche uthao
Zara kum jo hamari toh chalega..
Mile badle mein uske
Jo hume zyada time tumhara..
Chahe jis frequency pe set
Karke bhi samjhaye..
Kabhi bhule se bhi
Signal pakad na paye kyun humara..
Antenna..nahi karta match..Antenna
Antenna..nahi karta catch..Antenna
Antenna..nahi karta match..Antenna
Antenna..nahi karta catch..Antenna..
Hum hai jahan
Iss life ki galiyon
Se nikal ke hi
Wahan pahunche ho tum
Toh phir kaho
Har baat jo hum bole
Usse ignore kyun
Karte ho tum..
Kabhi samjho humari
Zara apni bhi hume samjhado
Hai jo beech mein apne
Woh mit jaye farak humara
Chahe jo bhi kahen
Kabhi tum problem samajh na paaye
Kabhi bhule se bhi
Signal pakad na paye kyun humara
Antenna..nahi karta match..Antenna
Antenna..nahi karta catch..Antenna
Antenna..nahi karta match..Antenna
Antenna..nahi karta catch..Antenna..
You don’t know the frquency
Why can’t you just let me be
You don’t know the frquency
Why can’t you just let me be
Antenna..nahi karta match..antenna
You don’t know the frquency
Why can’t you just let me be
Antenna..nahi karta catch..antenna
You don’t know the frquency
Why can’t you just let me be
Antenna..

These are the lyrics of the song ‘Antenna’ from the movie “Always,kabhi kabhi”. I didn’t seen the movie so I can’t tell perfectly that in which situation this song takes place but by watching video of this song and by lyrics I got the right idea of this song. It is may be because the topic of the song is quite understandable without checking any connection. But there is many examples which shows that to understand any literary work one should have historical sense, say for example there is “Shiva tandav stotra” as a song in the movie “Bahubali” and the lyrics are as below…

 "Jata kataha sambhramabrama nillimpa nirjari,
Vilola veechi vallari viraja mana moordhani,
Dhaga dhaga daga jjwala lalata patta paavake,
Kishora Chandra shekare rathi prathi kshanam  mama"

Now this language is Sanskrit and to understand it first we need translation or the knowledge of the language and suppose we know the language but don’t know about Lord Shiva then we find problem in understanding this lines and if we translate it in English it is something like as below…


"The Spiritual river is moving through his entangled, knotted hair
Strands of hair are like huge waves

His Forehead is shining brilliantly like fire

The crescent of moon on his head i an adornment

It gives me immense pleasure and my love for him grows every second"

After getting translation also we can’t find for whom it is written if we don’t know that from whose head the river is moving and who has moon on his head. So the historical sense is need to understand the core meaning.

The song lyrics which I present here has a common issue of generation gap between parents and children and some lines can also be told to society. Because pf the generation gap and the different thinking of parents and children there is always a conflict between both of them and in many cases children has to follow parents because of their authority on their children. Here in this song children wants to describe their problems and thinking to their parents.

It starts with words like antenna and frequency which don’t give any idea of the song. We have to go further in lyrics and it the children told to their parents about their dreams and they deny to walk on the path which they decide for them and next says that in whatever way we want to told you about our thought you never got an idea and the lyrics comes like ‘antenna nahin karta match antenna’ which wants to say that Our thoughts doesn’t match or you don’t understand our thoughts.

Then children deny to obey their parents and they told to have conversation from both the side and ask for their time not money and again they said that their parents don’t understand them. After that they ask that you are also at same stage on your age then why you don’t understand us and again they ask to talk and try to understand each other.

Very nice song with very nice idea but as per I.A Richards there is two types of sense in metaphor one is scientific sense second is emotive sense and if we look at this lyrics some may have questions like…

1) Humans don’t have frequency and antenna so there is cannot be question of catching signals.

2) Humans can not control by remote.

According to I.A Richards these types of metaphors can use in literary work and we have to look at its emotive sense and not the scientific one. Here metaphors are used like ‘antenna’, ‘signal’, ‘remote’, ‘one way’, ‘FM’, ‘frequency’ and this all have emotive meanings like thoughts, understanding, nature of having authority. 

There is also mixing of two languages Hindi and English and also the words from electronics like TV, FM, or satellite so it may create difficulty in understanding because of language. It shows that to understand literary work one has to have the knowledge of language, emotive sense, historical sense, social sense, political sense also because writer writes satires also. After looking this things we can say that the without all the sense they can’t able to understand the core meaning of the literary work.

Thank you.