Narrative, representation and the popular song - BMus/ BMus PM Year 3. Goldsmiths Music. Keith Negus.

Handout Four Lyrics verses and voices; poetry and performance The sociology of songs lyrics Reflection argument - song lyrics 'reflect' values and activities in society; a study of song lyrics will indicate or reveal changing beliefs and behaviours in society profound? or superficial? what type of evidence would support such a claim? Effect and affect argument - song lyrics affect, influence or change behaviour, values or beliefs. Draws from studies of the effect of the media, psychology and theories of ideology do art forms (songs, novels, films, comics, TV dramas) encode a set of values and ideas? do art forms influence values, behaviour and beliefs? (how in what ways? Evidence?) Contrast argument song lyrics are nothing like the real word fantasy, escape, illusion two sub-arguments a) this is bad, and ideological, because it distracts people from reality b) this is a pleasure of pop, fantasy is integral to art/ culture/ fiction General issues reduction of songs to lyrics the claims for causality, cause effect (how is it measured) simple realism - songs are fictions; singers are performers/ characters there is no separation of art or music and society (music making and forms of music are in society). key article: Why do Songs Have Words? Simon Frith, Contemporary Music Review, 5, 1 (1989) this can be downloaded through the Goldsmiths library or Shibboleth system. See Harker, 1980 for ideological effect. Songs lyrics are used during intersubjective dialogue and debate; forming of social bonds, friendships, intimate relationships; embedded into collective activities, celebrations and rituals; used as a resource in everyday life (DeNora, 2000, see also Booth, 1981 and Palmer, 1988) Song lyrics and poetry Poetry begins in speech, in the skipping rhymes and chants children make up in the playground and the street. It moves from there into the imagination and life of the common people into rhymes, riddles, traditional songs and is then sometimes collected so that it moves from oral tradition, communal memory, into print. Because poetry is rooted in speech, in the common tongue, poets have turned to the energies of traditional song, as well as to nursery and skipping rhymes, to keep in touch with the genius of the language and to prevent their writing from becoming bookish and cloistered (Tom Paulin, The Secret Life of Poems, Faber, 2008, p4). Poetry carries its history within it, and it is oral in origin. Its transmission was oral. Its transmission today is still in part oral, because we become acquainted with poetry through nursery rhymes, which we hear before we can read. And we learn an analysis of these rhymes, a beating of rhythm, a fitting of word to pitch, a sense of structure, long before we can read (James Fenton An Introduction to English Poetry, Penguin, 2003, p22). The incantatory, musical qualities of beat, drum and dance are part of the close relation between poetry and song. Indeed the term that is still key to both lyric points to this connection (Wainwright, 2011, p4). -

Should lyrics be analysed independently from their performed and recorded contexts? Is it valid and valuable to treat song lyrics as poetry, and use techniques of analysis employed in literary criticism? No (Friths argument in Performing Rites) a song cannot be treated independently from performances of the song - lyrics are words in performance. Lyrics are far more than semantic statements; analysis should consider the rhetoric of performance and quality of the voice. Lyrics are heard as particular voices and performances (even when recalled in the mind). If lyrics are taken out of their performed context they lose their musical qualities; song lyrics can then seem banal. Yes (Astor, Booth, Griffiths, Zollo) performance can be considered in conjunction with the written word; many songwriters have spent a lot of time and effort creating lyrics, entailing specific selections of words (chosen for meaning, sound, rhythm, associations etc); many listeners pore over, discuss and write out the lyrics of songs; for listeners, lyrics have an existence that is independent of the songs music; many lyrics are far from banal; a song can be treated independently from the performances of the song. Lyrics can be treated as song verse to distinguish them from poetry that is not song (Booth, 1981, p6). Many debates about verse are common to debates about poetry and song lyrics. Issues common to song lyrics and poetry sound (or materiality) vs. semantics (or meaning)

Its probably a fact that everyone of us could recite a string of nursery rhymes before we knew the meaning of the words which form them (Iona and Peter Opie The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes,1997, 42). Wainwright writes of the perpetual paradox of poetry, of the attraction of two poles, one towards the desire to say something that is meaningful and memorable, and the other towards a desire to say nothing, but to rejoice in the peculiar nature of words themselves, their associations, their sounds, their visual shapes, or perhaps to invent new words (2011, p203). the paradoxes and tensions are explored overtly in nonsense verse and sound poems accent/ stress to give emphasis or urgency rhyme or free verse - see Lyric and anti-lyric Griffiths makes a distinction between poetry and prose to explore varied ways of representing lyrics on a page. alliteration (repetition of consonants Lennon Mean Mister Mustard); assonance (repetition of vowel sounds) Dylan you have many contacts among the lumberjacks to get you facts when someone attacks your imagination. use of metaphor - all the worlds a stage (my love is a butterfly), simile (love is like a butterfly), allegory (is Maxwells Silver Hammer about Charles Manson?), onomatopoeia (buzzzzz bang! Crash! Ouch! listen to the song by John Prine) Some ways lyrics may be combined with music - to explore melody using melodic contours to develop the emotional potential of a well-worn everyday phrase (I Love You) - words can become expressive sounds and merge with melody. Melodies may use pitch to convey meaning - ascending and descending; wide or narrow range (between lowest and highest note of melody); the melodic contour may suggest various meanings through its shape - whether a shout and fall (or tumbling strain), arch, terrace, or melodies that are oscillatory or centric see Philip Tagg Melody and Accompaniment http://www.tagg.org/articles/xpdfs/melodaccUS.pdf. 2

- to explore rhythm words absorbed into pulse; words as rhythm; singing on the beat, behind or in front (syncopation); sound of word and intonation connected to rhythm; word may be chosen for its sonic or sensual qualities (more than semantics). - to emphasize the narrative/ story words usually articulated with greater clarity, and voice may tend towards speech; often within a narrow pitch range; songwriter may use words that are not so singable. - to explore non-narrative or surreal narratives, to convey a sense of unease words combined to make the familiar seem strange, or strange seem familiar (John Lennons I am the Walrus, Strawberry Fields Forever). The voice as social body Simon Frith highlights how voices are heard as (and can be used to convey) the sound of emotions/ experience desire, pain, anger, fear, sadness, contempt, joy the sound of social attributes - male/female; old, young; race, ethnicity, class, nation The quality of the voice In a very influential essay Roland Barthes argued that singing voices have two aspects; pheno-song - phenomena ... in the service of communication technique geno-song - the body in the voice as it sings ... the materiality of the body ... the grain of the voice the character or personality embodied in the singing voice. How do we identify, describe or compare the qualities of the grain? Here are some terms from Theo van Leeuwen: tense/ lax raspy or rough / smooth or silky nasal breathy vibrato or trembling / plain or unwavering The singing voice Intimate - softly intoned, crooned, confessional (private feelings being expressed); tends towards lower pitch. Declamatory - assertive, screamed, shouted (public); tends towards higher pitch. Antiphony (call and response) - social dialogue, participatory, collective, conversational. - authority of lead voice (male dominance over female chorus/ backing; preacher and congregation) - inner dialogue, internal voice, solipsistic. Dramatic dialogue between characters story songs (Leader of the Pack), musicals, opera. Unison one voice (consensus, agreement, unanimous) shared values in a rock band (2 voices The Beatles or Clash), the chorus in dramatic tales, musicals, opera; the chant in social singing (sporting events, celebrations, religious ritual); the childrens chorus in festive songs. 3

Phrasing - the location of the lyric in the verbal space of the song (Griffiths) Production Can production shape the narrative or representation of an issue? The use of phonographic narrative strategies (Serge Lacasse) studio effects such as echo and reverb (Doyle, 2005) or the use of various blatant and subtle studio techniques (see Negus, 2010). additional references cited, mentioned during this or a recent lecture, or with relevant material
Astor, P (2010) The Poetry of Rock: Songs Lyrics Are Not Poems But The Words Still Matter, Popular Music, Vol 29 No 1. Barthes, R (various dates) The Grain of the Voice in Image, Music, Text and On Record, edited by S. Frith & A. Goodwin) Booth, M (1981) The Experience of Songs, Yale University Press. Brackett, D (1995) Interpreting popular music, Cambridge University. Clarke, E (2005) Ways of Listening, Oxford. DeNora, T (2000) Music in Everyday Life, Cambridge University. Doyle, P (2004) From My Blue Heaven to Race With the Devil: echo, reverb and (dis)ordered space in early popular music recording, Popular Music, Vol 23 No 1, pp31-50. Doyle, P (2005) Echo & Reverb, Fabricating Space in Popular Music Recording, Wesleyan. Frith, S (1987, 89) Why do Songs Have Words in Music for Pleasure, Polity and in A. White (Ed) Lost in Music, Sage. Goodwin, A (1988) Sample and Hold; Pop music in the digital age of reproduction, Critical Quarterly, Vol. 30 No 3 (also in On Record). Griffiths, Dai (2003) From Lyric to Anti-lyric: Analyzing the Words in Pop Song in Allan Moore (ed) Analyzing Popular Music, Cambridge University Press. Harker, D (1980) One for the Money: Politics and Popular Song. Hutchinson. Harker, D (1985), Fakesong. The Manufacture of British 'Folksong', 1700 to the Present Day. Open University. Lacasse, S (nd) Phonographic Narratives in Eminems Stan should be able to find this on the internet (email me if you have difficulty and would like a copy). Mellers, W (1976) Twilight of the Gods, The Beatles in Retrospect, Faber and Faber: London. Mellers, W (1984) A Darker Shade of Pale, A Backdrop to Bob Dylan, Oxford University Press. Middleton, R (1990) Studying Popular Music, Open University Middleton, R (2000) Reading Pop, Oxford University Negus, K (2008) Bob Dylan, Equinox Chapter 4 Lyrics Negus, K (2010) Bob Dylans Phonographic Imagination, Popular Music, Vol 29 No 2, 213-228. Palmer, R (1988) The Sound of History, Songs and Social Comment, Oxford University. Potter, J (2006) Vocal Authority: Singing Style and Ideology, Cambridge. Ringer, A (2001) Melody pp363-373 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vol 16, Ed Stanley Sadie. MacMillan. Theberge, P (2001) Plugged in; Technology and Popular Music in Cambridge Companion to Rock and Pop, edited by S. Frith et al. Also see his book Any Sound You Can Imagine, Wesleyan. Van Der Merwe, P (1989) The Origins of the Popular Style, Oxford University Press. Van Leeuwen, T (1999) Speech, Music, Sound MacMillan. Wainwright, J (2011) Poetry, The Basics, Routledge. Whiteley, S (1997) Sexing The Groove, Popular Music and Gender. Routledge Zollo, P (2003) Songwriters on Songwriting, Da Capo. Cover versions Coyle, M (2002) Hijacked Hits and Antic Authenticity: Cover Songs, Race, and Post-war Marketing in R. Beebe et al Rock Over the Edge Duke. Griffiths, D (2002) Cover versions and the sound of identity in motion in D. Hesmondhalgh & K. Negus (eds) Popular Music Studies Arnold Weinstein, D (1998) A History of Rocks Past Through Covers in A. Herman et al Mapping the Beat, Blackwell.