Onomatopoeia is used in songs to reinforce a musical concept or theme that is addressed in the lyrics. During the song, the sound that the word approximates may be repeated or duplicated instrumentally, or the word itself may serve as a stand-in for an instrument that the singer is unable to obtain. These musical-sounding words can also be combined with words that sound similar to form rhyming couplets.
The literary term onomatopoeia refers to words whose sound suggests their meaning. When the word “hiss” is spoken, it makes a sound that is similar to the action. Someone telling a story might say that a snake hissed at him and startled him. Despite the fact that the snake did not actually say the word “hiss,” the storyteller can convey the sound it made when it warned the intruder away.
Onomatopoeia can add musical sounds to spoken words when used in poetry. A song’s lyrics are frequently poetry set to music with deliberate rhythm. In songs, onomatopoeia can be used to reinforce any musical concept addressed by the lyrics.
The Black Eyed Peas sing about moving through life to a specific type of rhythm in “Boom Boom Pow.” It’s described as a futuristic version of “rock and roll” with “bass overload” (line 8). (line 9). The artist situates the reinvention of this new music in a time period closer to “3008” (line 19), describing it as the sound of a “future flow” (line 10). The song’s overall theme is the futuristic beat “Boom Boom Boom,” which also serves as the featured title, and is complemented by the rhythmical sound of a bass drum played in unison with the singer.
In songs, onomatopoeia can also be used to replace a sound that the singer is unable to reproduce but can approximate. The children’s song “Are You Sleeping?” refers to morning bells ringing for Brother John, who is still sleeping. Because it is unlikely that the singer would ring an actual bell at that point in the song, the bells are mimicked at the end of the song when the singer says “Ding Ding Dong” to reproduce the sound of a bell.
The song’s final word, “Dong,” also has a slant rhyme with the word “John,” as both use the open vowel “o” sound from the previous line. Onomatopoeia in songs can be used to finish a rhyming couplet and restate the theme in this way. Similarly, in “Boom Boom Pow,” the artist declares that he is moving to a “supersonic boom” (line 27) and immediately compares it to a “spaceship zoom” through rhyme and repetition (line 28). The use of onomatopoeia in these two lines reinforces the song’s main theme, that this dance beat is the sound of the future, by contrasting it with the equally futuristic sound a spaceship might make while flying through space.