Exodus in ‘Exodus’: A Multimodal Analysis of Bob Marley’s Lyrics

This paper employs a multimodal analytical approach in analyzing the theme of exodus in Bob Marley’s ‘Exodus’ album where attention is given to four main areas, namely, the album’s cover design, the employment of lexical items, the use of literary devices as well as aesthetics by which Marley conveys the theme of exodus throughout the album. Findings show that the album’s cover design is symbolically employed to project the theme of exodus. The choice of the gold color as the background as well as the inscription of ‘EXODUS’ in red in the heart of the golden background equivocally reveals Africa’s ‘golden’ contributions to the West while the Africans in the West are ‘bleeding’(red), a reason for which they must embark on an exodus. Lexically, Marley employs content emotion-packed lexical items, namely nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, to project the theme of exodus. Besides, Marley relies heavily on literary devices such as allusion, equivocation, metaphor, repetition and rhyme as tools for the projection of the theme of exodus in his ‘Exodus’ album. Finally, by deliberate design, the names of the songs of the album, their arrangement as well as their number all aesthetically tell a conscious but beautiful story in the name of the overall theme of exodus in the album by the same name, making Marley’s ‘Exodus’ album not merely a classical musical piece but a discourse masterpiece equivalent to one from a skilled troubadour.