For my visualization, I made of Wordle using Adele lyrics. This Wordle is comprised of the lyrics of her five most recent chart-topping songs: “Someone Like You,” “Rollin’ in the Deep,” “Turning Tables,” “Rumor Has It,” and “Set Fire to the Rain.” It is well known that Adele sings about her struggles in love and the good and bad times in her relationships. I wanted this visualization to show how many of her songs are connected.
This image highlights the major themes linking her songs. The three biggest words in the image are, in order from left to right, “Never,” “gonna,” “love.” It is almost like the Wordle is uncovering the secret message in her lyrics—Adele is doomed to live life loveless and just keep creating songs about it.
If we isolate each one of the words though, we find different meanings. The word “never” is the biggest and most prevalent. That sets tone for the overall image: negative and depressed. It shows that Adele almost always sings about incidents she thinks or knows will never happen or have never happened. When contrasted with the other prominent words, it highlights that this negativity is based on her love life.
The word “gonna” is the next biggest. Because “gonna” ambiguously refers to the future, it is possible that the word could be used in either a negative or a positive context. It does suggest, however, that most of what Adele sings about is events that have not occurred yet.
The third most prominent word, “love,” suggests one thing: this woman like to write love songs. Most are about heartache, heartbreak, and despair, while a few others are about optimism. Regardless, it can be concluded that almost every one of Adele’s songs is about love.
Some other words that stand out are “time,” “wish,” “heart,” “deep,” “turning,” and “sometimes.” All of these words sound like they are coming from a hopeless romantic. To anyone familiar with Adele, the overall theme of these words would immediately give away the origins of the texts in this Wordle.
To someone unfamiliar with Adele, this visualization is a wonderful way to sum up the basic message of every single one of her songs: Never gonna love.
A lot of people claim to connect with Adele’s lyrics. It would give her words even more meaning if there were a visualization tool to see which words that she used were most stronglt felt or agreed with by her fans. Each person connecting with the word could be represented by a glowing dot. The dots will then surround the words, thereby illuminateing the words that are most popular, or rather, more universally felt. This would not only show how Adele’s word choice allows her to connect with her audience, but also how the audience connects with each other. The genral ideas about love and loss can be presented in a universal depiction.