READING THE MEANING OF LOVE IN WORLD INTERFAITH HARMONY WEEK’S ANTHEM: SEMIOTICS OF POETRY ANALYSIS

One of the objectives in composing a song is to deliver a message from its composer. The message and meaning in song lyrics can be found through reciprocal relationships in each structure. This research analyzed the lyrics of The Gift of Love song by Sami Yusuf. The theme of this song is peace and it is an anthem of an agenda that belongsto the United Nations (UN), namely World Interfaith Harmony Week (WIHW). This research aims to find the meaning of ‘love’ in the lyrics of The Gift of Love song. This research used Michael Riffaterre’s theory that is Semiotic of Poetry. The researcher usedclose reading techniques to collect the data. To get the meaning of ‘love’ in the lyrics of the song, the researcher followed several steps which are; heuristic and hermeneutic reading; indirection; finding matrix, models, and variants; and finding the hypogram. The results of the analysis showthat the meaning of ‘love’ in the lyrics of the song reveals a message about the love to God and the love to other human beings. In this research, the researcher found that the hypogramsin the lyrics of The Gift of Love song with verses in the Holy Qur'an and the Bible are Al-Baqarah: 195, Ash-Shura: 40, Al-Anbiya: 107, Luke 21: 1- 4, Colossians 3:13, and Matthew 5: 39