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Words and Music

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Words and Music
 Words and Music

Edited by

Victor Kennedy and Michelle Gadpaille

 Words and Music
Edited by Victor Kennedy and Michelle Gadpaille

This book first published 2013

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2013 by Victor Kennedy and Michelle Gadpaille and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-4916-2, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4916-6

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ................................................................................. viii

Introduction ............................................................................................... ix
Victor Kennedy and Michelle Gadpaille

Part I: Opera and Musicals

Chapter One ................................................................................................ 2

What Do Words Express That Music Cannot?
Simon Robinson

Chapter Two ............................................................................................... 9

Germont’s Aria from La Traviata:
Between the Original and the Slovene Translation
Tomaž Onič

Chapter Three ........................................................................................... 21

Melancholic Opera: Representation of Immigrants
in Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West and Manon Lescaut
Katarzyna Nowak

Chapter Four ............................................................................................. 29

“Brush up your Shakespeare”: The Bard on Broadway
F. Zeynep Bilge

Part II: Popular Music

Chapter Five ............................................................................................. 42

Sadness, Superstition and Sexuality in Blues Poetry
Kristina Kočan Šalamon

Chapter Six ............................................................................................... 50

Getting the Message Across: Attitudinal Analysis
of the Popular Songs “Like Toy Soldiers” and “Toy Soldiers”
Agata Križan
vi Table of Contents

Chapter Seven........................................................................................... 65
Thank U Terror: Musical and Lyrical Neuralgias by Alanis Morissette
Diogo Martins

Chapter Eight ............................................................................................ 78

The Complexity of Lyrics in Indie Music:
The Example of Mumford & Sons
Katja Plemenitaš

Chapter Nine............................................................................................. 85
The Influence of English on Slovene Rap Lyrics
Nada Šabec

Chapter Ten .............................................................................................. 99

2pac or 6Pack: Slovene Gangsta Rap From a Sociolinguistic Perspective
Barbara Majcenovič Kline

Chapter Eleven ....................................................................................... 115

“National Advisory: Explicit Lyrics”:
Considering Censorship of Anti-Vietnam War Era Songs
Erin R. McCoy

Chapter Twelve ...................................................................................... 127

Michael Muhammad Knight’s Taqwacores:
Fiction Versus Reality in a Subculture’s Popular Music
Saša Vekić

Chapter Thirteen ..................................................................................... 143

Very Like a Whale: The Paradox of Postmodern Pop
Victor Kennedy

Part III: Soundtracks

Chapter Fourteen .................................................................................... 154

Computer Game Soundtracks and Lyrics as Part of Gameplay
Borut Jurišić

Chapter Fifteen ....................................................................................... 162

Music in Neil Gaiman’s Coraline
Maja Schreiner
 Words and Music vii

Part IV: Using Words and Music to Teach English

as a Second Language

Chapter Sixteen ...................................................................................... 170

Pop Lyrics for Grammar Teaching in a Primary Classroom
Tadej Braček

Chapter Seventeen .................................................................................. 175

Scottish and Slovene Songs in the Intercultural Classroom
Kirsten Hempkin

Index ....................................................................................................... 185

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editors would like to thank the contributors for their insights into
different aspects of the relationship between words and music. The
chapters in this book grew from a conference entitled Words and Music
held at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Maribor in December 2011.
There are many different perspectives represented here, with contributions
from musicians, linguists, literary scholars and language teachers.
Words and Music was as much a festival as a conference, featuring
performances by students of the Faculty of Education at the University of
Maribor, organized by Cveto Kobal and Zarko Ignjatovič. There was also
vocal and instrumental accompaniment in all three of the keynote talks, as
well as some of the panel discussions, a dance performance at one
intermission (thanks to Amy Kennedy and Matic Ačko) and as a grand
finale, a night at the opera.
The editors would like to acknowledge the support of the research
project Medkulturne literarnovedne študije (International Literary Studies,
ARRS No. P6-0265) in the preparation of this manuscript.
We would also like to thank the Dean of the Faculty, Prof. dr. Marko
Jesenšek, and the Faculty Secretary, Mladen Kraljič, for their help and
support without which the conference could not have taken place. Thanks
also to Marko Benčak for help formatting the manuscript, and last but
certainly not least, we are especially grateful for the unflagging
organizational efforts of Tjaša Mohar.

We would like to dedicate this volume to the memory of our colleague

and friend Darja Hribar.
 INTRODUCTION

VICTOR KENNEDY AND MICHELLE GADPAILLE

Most people appreciate music, whether or not they can sing or play an
instrument, and the kind of music most enjoy is the kind that has words
attached, especially familiar ones. When words meet music, a special
transaction occurs between rhythmic, harmonic and verbal signification.
The chapters in this book explore the word-music affinity from varied
viewpoints. What is the nature of this relationship between words and
music? Since many contributors here come from the field of language
research, the emphasis inevitably falls more on the words than on the
music. All the studies here nevertheless testify to a layering of both
aesthetic experience and meaning for the reader/listener when the given
genre marries music to words. Music is never merely the aesthetic excess
to lyrics, nor is the libretto an appendix to melody. Some authors, such as
Simon Robinson, explore the relationship between words and music in
classical music and opera. Robinson, a conductor and university professor
of music, asks the question “What Do Words Express That Music
Cannot?” and concludes that words best express ideas, while music best
expresses emotion.
For many music lovers, nothing says emotion like opera. From comedy
to tragedy, opera scales the heights and plumbs the depths of human
emotion with harrowing plots and lovers’ deaths set to soaring overtures
and arias. Moreover, opera marks the moment when music and dance
come together with words, the libretto. For many of us, however, opera is
sung in a foreign language. What gets lost in such translation? Tomaž
Onič gives us an answer in “Germont’s Aria from La Traviata: Between
the Original and the Slovene Translation.” With so much variation in the
verbal signification, the commonly held meaning of opera must then be
highly reliant on the music itself. Great thinkers from Carl Jung and
Roland Barthes to Northrop Frye have argued that all of the arts are built
upon the foundation of ancient myths. The pattern is so pervasive that, not
limiting ourselves to ancient myths, we continue to explain the world we
live in by creating new mythologies. Katarzyna Nowak explores this
concept in “Melancholic Opera: Representations of Immigrants in
Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West and Manon Lescaut.” Nowak calls
x Introduction

opera’s reliance on both verbal drama and music an “age-old dilemma”

and cites both Salieri and Strauss in the discussion of the primacy of music
over words. Historically, according to Nowak, the libretti of opera have
come off badly in the argument, with the musical element dominating. Her
chapter aims to restore some balance with this exploration of trans-
continental assumptions in Puccini’s opera.
Not everyone loves opera but everybody likes a good tune, according
to Monty Python’s Mr. Mousebender, with a dash of spectacle added for
good measure. The twentieth-century genre of the musical united earlier
popular forms, such as vaudeville and variety shows, to create a unique
stage genre that ultimately made the transition to the screen. F. Zeynep
Bilge explores the relationship between popular and high culture,
Broadway and the Globe Theatre, and America and England, in “‘Brush
up your Shakespeare’: the Bard on Broadway.” Here verbal signification,
especially word play, situates the musical in the social and political world
of the mid-20th century. Her analysis shows that, in this musical at least,
“semantic surplus” (Nowak) is not the inevitable product of a meeting
between words and music.
Several scholars explore the relationship between music and song
lyrics in popular genres including blues and rock. Kristina Kočan Šalamon
provides an analysis of some of the major themes of blues music in
“Sadness, Superstition and Sexuality in Blues Poetry.” Her analysis also
traces blues from its origins in slave field-songs, through its flourishing as
a space of difference (as Henry Louis Gates Jr. calls it), to its integration
into African-American poetry. Agata Križan offers a detailed linguistic
appraisal of song lyrics from the hit chart in “Getting the Message Across:
Attitudinal Analysis of the Popular Songs ‘Like Toy Soldiers’ and ‘Toy
Soldiers’.” Diogo André Barbosa Martins gives a psychological analysis
of one of the best known figures in popular music today in “Thank U
Terror: Musical and Lyrical Neuralgias by Alanis Morissette.” Martins
tackles the composite genre of the music video, attempting to decode
gesture and facial expression alongside lyrics and music. In the process, he
reveals Morissette’s extension of the role of singer-songwriter in a
complex, post-modern world. Katja Plemenitaš addresses the genre of
Indie Rock, with “The Complexity of Lyrics in Indie Rock: The Example
of Mumford & Sons.” Like Bilge on the subject of musicals, Plemenitaš
uses cultural and literary knowledge to deepen the listener’s appreciation
of intertextuality. In the sometimes shallow realms of rock lyrics, it could
come as a surprise when Mumford & Sons “sample” King Lear or
nineteenth-century hymnals.
 Words and Music xi

A discussion of the relationship between words and music would not

be complete without a consideration of rap music. Nada Šabec provides a
sociolinguistic analysis of cultural influence extended by American rap
music over its Slovenian counterpart in “The Influence of English on
Slovene Rap Lyrics.” This scholarly study indicates both the pervasive
English invasion of a global music phenomenon and the sturdy cultural
and linguistic basilect that continues to express Slovene values in this new
form. On the same topic, Barbara Majcenovič Kline takes us deep inside
the lyrics of individual rappers in “2pac or 6Pack: Slovene Gangsta Rap
from a Sociolinguistic Perspective.” Both authors reveal the potential of
rap for social critique in difficult economic times.
Historically, songs have often been a vehicle for critique and protest.
Erin McCoy explores the politics of music in “‘National Advisory:
Explicit Lyrics’: Considering Censorship of Anti-Vietnam War Era
Songs.” Today our memory of the Vietnam War era is almost entirely one
of protest; it is easy to forget how slowly the anti-war consensus was
forged and how steadily those in power refused to acknowledge it.
McCoy’s account of television censorship and of courageous resistance on
the part of certain American singers and TV personalities recalls a moment
when the scales were tipping in the fight for greater freedom of anti-war
expression. The lyrics of Pete Seeger’s “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy”
aptly and ironically evoke the obfuscation that surrounded official versions
of military events at the time.
In a more contemporary frame, Saša Vekić explores a similarly fraught
issue: the place of Muslim youth in the uneasy America of post 9/11.
Religion, culture and music meet in “Michael Muhammad Knight’s
Taqwacores: Fiction Versus Reality in a Subculture’s Popular Music.”
Vekić convinces us that punk can be a liberating force for those seeking
multi-hyphenated identities (such as Islamo-feminist or bisexual-Pathan-
anti-WTO) and that its subversiveness can be a positive force. Certainly,
Knight’s novel will resonate with most youth subcultures. Victor
Kennedy’s contribution, “Very Like a Whale: The Paradox of Postmodern
Pop,” takes a theoretical approach to the phenomenon of borrowing,
sampling and re-recording in the music industry. Kennedy asks us to
consider these ubiquitous acts as a feature of the postmodern condition,
where they can be creative tribute rather than copyright infringement.
On the topic of the use of music in other genres, Borut Jurišič presents
an analysis of “Computer Game Soundtracks and Lyrics as Part of
Gameplay.” The melodies, lyrics and odd sound effects of computer
games function as background for most users; Jurišič rescues such sound
from the edges of our perception and foregrounds its role for the game
xii Introduction

player. Maja Schreiner analyzes the use of music in a children’s novel and
its film adaptation, in “Music in Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.” Gaiman is
better known for his fusion of words with image, as in the Sandman
graphic novels, but Schreiner’s close reading of the minimalist lyrics of
the mouse songs shows the author’s ability to embody psychic quest in the
meter and rhythm of seemingly simplistic nursery rhymes.
Two of the chapters here are written by language teachers and present
a lively discussion of the benefits of using music and songs to help teach
English as a foreign language. Tadej Braček writes about “Pop Lyrics for
Grammar Teaching in a Primary Classroom.” Making use of the internet’s
easy access to music videos, Braček establishes the pedagogical potential
of popular ballads and even rap lyrics. It appears that music can engage
even bored students in the intricacies of forming conditional sentences,
while introducing basic concepts of literary analysis that can later be
applied to standard poetry. At a more advanced level of language learning,
there arises the need to understand the culture behind the language;
Kirsten Hempkin talks about using “Scottish and Slovene Songs in the
Intercultural Classroom.” This innovative, cross-cultural approach works
through rather than against stereotype to construct a basis for students to
explore personal, national and ethical identities in the contemporary EU
setting. Both contributions harness the motivational value of music to
redirect attention to words; neither syntax nor stereotype is an easy
classroom subject, but music brings each closer to students.
The common thread running through the chapters of this book is that
combining music with words enhances the effectiveness of the message.
The ancient Greek and Roman orators knew that a compelling argument
appeals to the heart as well as the head, and nothing appeals to the heart
like music. Combine words with music and you can have a love song, the
anthem for a revolution, and all points in between.
But what of the relationship between words and music? What is the
difference between a poem and a song lyric? Song lyrics use the same
elements as poems, including imagery, symbolism, metaphor, sound
effects like rhyme and rhythm, character, setting and plot. Many great
poems, like those by Robert Burns and William Blake, have been set to
music, while some song lyrics can stand on their own when read on the
printed page. How does music add the effect of emotion? Northrop Frye’s
comparative analysis of different art forms gives us a clue:

Some arts move in time, like music; others are presented in space, like
painting. In both cases the organizing principle is recurrence, which is
called rhythm when it is temporal, and pattern when it is spatial. Thus we
speak of the rhythm of music and the pattern of painting; but later, to show
 Words and Music xiii

off our sophistication, we may begin to speak of the rhythm of painting and
the pattern of music. In other words, all arts may be conceived both
temporally and spatially… Literature seems to be an intermediate between
music and painting: its words form rhythms which approach a musical
sequence of sounds at one of its boundaries, and form patterns which
approach the hieroglyphic or pictorial image at the other (Frye 1963, 14).

The recurrence Frye describes in music, painting, and literature also

applies to a combination of the forms, each reinforcing the other. Our look
at the relationship between words and music provides insights that can be
applied to other combinations as well. It is said that video killed the radio
star and that movies and television have replaced reading; multimedia has
changed from an educational fad to an elementary practice in the past
several decades; and many conference presenters would be lost without
their PowerPoints. The appeal to several senses at the same time is as
seductive and persuasive in the 21st century as it was to the audience at the
first ever opera performance in the 17th century.

References
Frye, Northrop. 1963. Fables of Identity: Studies in Poetic Mythology.
New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.
 PART I

OPERA AND MUSICALS

 CHAPTER ONE

WHAT DO WORDS EXPRESS

THAT MUSIC CANNOT?

SIMON ROBINSON

When I was asked to present a keynote talk at the Words and Music
Conference on this topic, it seemed like an excellent idea. However, when
I contemplated exploring similar ground in the form of an essay, I began to
regret my folly. In deciding where to start to address the central relation of
words to music, one cannot do better than to quote the words of Daniel
Levitin, who runs the Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition and
Expertise at McGill University and holds the James McGill Chair in
Psychology, while also being a neuroscientist and a former session
musician and record producer. He says, “Music may be the activity that
prepared our pre-human ancestors for speech communication and for the
very cognitive, representational flexibility necessary to become humans.”
In demonstrating the prowess of musical expression as opposed to
mere words, it should suffice to play some music and allow the listeners to
demonstrate this “representational flexibility” by responding
appropriately. Some historical background, however, is necessary in order
to explore the evolving interaction of voice with other sounds. Let us
begin with the Latin word “viderunt” (they have seen; they have
observed/understood) as it was used by the French composer Pérotin. This
medieval composer was given a great new acoustical toy to play with at
some point during the early 13th century: Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Pérotin proceeded to extend words in his music, most famously in the
piece “Viderunt Omnes,” by making them last for hundreds of sung
seconds, thus giving them a new life and interpretation. Throughout most
of this piece, in what is known as an organum, there is a steady pulse
created by the dancing sound-patterns of the upper voices. This
polyphonic sound, applied here to words from Psalm 98, seems to embody
the psalmist’s point about the confraternity of worship that results when
the congregation makes “a joyful noise unto the Lord.” Moreover, the
 What Do Words Express That Music Cannot? 3

word viderunt emphasizes the concomitance of hearing and understanding.

In this analgam of word and music, the single word “viderunt” is
pronounced and sung in many different ways, each syllable drawn out and
sung both in unison and by voices in harmony, a musical meditation.

Viderunt omnes fines terræ All the ends of the earth have seen
salutare Dei nostri. the salvation of our God.
Jubilate Deo, omnis terra. Rejoice in God, all the earth.
Notum fecit Dominus salutare suum; The Lord hath made known his
ante conspectum gentium salvation;
revelavit justitiam suam. In the sight of the Gentiles
He has revealed his justice.

A similar harmony is evident in a much later work, Jean Cocteau’s

Oedipus Rex, composed 700 years later, in Paris in 1927. Cocteau wrote
the text for Stravinsky’s “opera-oratorio” in French, basing it on King
Oedipus by Sophocles. It was then translated into Latin by the Abbé Jean
Daniélou. Stravinsky wanted Latin because of its monumental quality and
because the distancing effect of the dead, ecclesiastical language would
allow the audience to concentrate on the tragedy of the story (the hero
unwittingly kills his own father and then unknowingly marries his
mother), while excluding soap-opera titillation. To the same end, the
chorus and actors are masked. To mediate between the drama and the
audience, Cocteau introduced “Le Speaker,” who appears in modern dress
and explains the events, as they unfold, in ordinary language. Even an
audience that understands neither French nor Latin can reach an
understanding of the composer’s construct of character through the music
alone.
However, Stravinsky later wrote in his Chroniqes de ma vie (1935):

I consider that music, by its very nature, is essentially powerless to express

anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological
mood, a phenomenon of nature… Expression has never been an inherent
property of music.

In his Dialogues and a Diary (1963), Stravinsky gives us a clear

insight into his compositional state of mind when he was creating
Symphony of Psalms to celebrate the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 50th
anniversary in 1930:

The Allegro in Psalm 150 was inspired by a vision of Elijah’s chariot

climbing the Heavens; never before had I written anything quite so literal
as the triplets for horns and piano to suggest the horses and chariots.
4 Chapter One

When I first came to Maribor about 33 years ago and started working
as a conductor at the opera, one of the first operas I assisted with was
Gounod’s Faust. My new situation allowed me to compare how the
libretto sounded in the original French version performed by the Chœur et
orchestre du théâtre national de l’opéra de Paris, and a Slovene version
performed by the Orchestra and Chorus of the Slovene National Theatre,
Maribor. The juxtaposition is revealing in Valentin’s heart-felt cavatina
when he pours out his sorrow at having to go off to fight and leave his
sister, Marguerite, undefended.
Despite obvious differences in sound quality and tempi, the inherent
beauty of the music does not seem to be lost in either language. Following
this theory, then, an English listener should be most satisfied with opera
when it is sung in English. Certainly, the emotional power is
communicated in that language, also. However, a good performance in a
foreign language is more pleasing than a bad performance in one’s own.
Thus, it appears that the sound we hear can mean something to us all,
can communicate universally. Do we have, perhaps, a common
denominator of reactions to the sounds we hear? Let’s try it. I learned to
read a poem in Japanese which my good friend Hideyuki Suzuki taught
me: it took him about three rehearsals before he could stop the tears of
laughter rolling down his face at my pronunciation and I actually earned a
“Not bad.”

Ono no Komachi
Yumeji ni wa Though I go to you
ashi mo yasumezu ceaselessly along dream paths,
kajoedomo the sum of those trysts
utsutsu ni hitome is less than a single glimpse
mitsigoto wa arazu granted in the waking world.

Can a non-Japanese speaker tell from listening to the Japanese version

what the poem was about? Or, from the written text, what it sounded like?
It does appear that intonation can communicate, if not meaning, then at
least feeling—although this is less certain across languages. When one
tries reading the English translation out loud and focuses not so much on
the meaning as on the intonation, one appreciates the translator’s skill in
replicating this conduit of feeling through lexis and sound effects.
To a musician, the sound of music has powerful effects. These are the
words used by the composer Hector Berlioz to describe his reaction upon
hearing Gluck’s opera Armide:

I closed my eyes, and whilst listening to the divine gavotte with its
caressing melody and its softly murmuring monotonous harmony, and to
 What Do Words Express That Music Cannot? 5

the chorus, “Jamais dans ces beaux lieux,” so exquisitely graceful in its
expression of happiness, I seemed to be surrounded on all sides by
enfolding arms, adorable intertwining feet, floating hair, shining eyes and
intoxicating smiles. The flower of pleasure, gently stirred by the melodious
breeze, expanded, and a concert of sounds, colours and perfumes poured
forth from its ravishing corolla.

This certainly records a specific instance when sound evoked a

complex set of sensory and emotional associations. The question arises,
how far does this effect go? Can music have a programme? Can it, like a
picture, tell a story? It was because of one particularly moving piece of
music that I became a conductor. As a young boy I played violin and later
trumpet in the Merseyside Youth Orchestra in my hometown, Liverpool.
The guy who used to bang hell out of the timpani behind my head was a
slightly older wunderkind by the name of Simon Rattle. Sir Simon Rattle
is, as I am sure you all know, presently the conductor of the Berlin
Philharmonic. Well, at rehearsals one Sunday morning at the Philharmonic
Hall in Liverpool in 1970 (I was about 13… he 16) he was rehearsing us
all in Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. This is music with a so-called
programme (they’ve all done it at one time or another, Haydn’s Farewell
Symphony, Beethoven’s Pastoral etc.), and Simon Rattle wanted to hear
what it sounded like from the back of the Hall. Before he could finish the
question “Who would like to conduct this so that…?” I had launched
myself from my seat (doing serious and expensive damage to my
instrument in the process) and trotted down to the podium. The rotter had
closed the score, so I conducted the movement from memory. I was deeply
moved by the experience, off my food for days, and told by my parents
that I didn’t have a nasty enough character to be a conductor!
To help define just what “program music” is, we can examine the
difference between program music and “absolute” music. Program music
attempts to convey an extra-musical narrative, often with the help of
program notes, for example Felix Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture
(Fingal’s Cave), which is meant to elicit images of a rugged, sea-battered
landscape in the remote Western Scottish isles, or Arthur Honegger’s
Pacific 231, which is a musical description of a steam train. Absolute
music, or abstract music, on the other hand is not intended to represent
anything but itself, and usually entitled with a number (such as Robinson’s
5th).
In Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, the “March to the Scaffold” (how
appropriate!) the artist, whose life is represented by the whole symphony,
dreams that he has killed the woman he loves and that, condemned to
death, he is led to the scaffold, where he attends his own execution.
6 Chapter One

Listening to the music without a program, the listener can imagine

anything he or she wants; not knowing the story, it would be quite a
coincidence if anyone were to imagine the scene described above. The
drum roll might be a clue, but could imply many things besides a march to
the scaffold.
Now I’d like to go into areas that I can only describe as dire straits or
uncharted territory, the influence of poetic construction in music. Can we
hear it? For this I have chosen a piece by Maurice Ravel (we’re still in
France) and the second movement of his Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello
which is based on the Malaysian poetic form and called Pantoum. Here’s
an example of the form of Pantoum stanzas:

Awe struck with this splendor

The sun sets on the Ocean
This makes my heart surrender
It causes me deep emotion.

The sun sets on the Ocean

As it shimmers on the waves
It causes me deep emotion
As it covers a thousand graves.

As it shimmers on the waves

It glows like a golden pearl
As it covers a thousand graves
Amidst the waves that swirl.

It glows like a golden pearl,

This makes my heart surrender
Amidst the waves that swirl
Awe struck with splendour.

It would take a very attentive listener, probably with the poem in front
of him or her, to make the connection. A trained musician looking at the
score and comparing it to the poem could, but very few could hear it on a
first listen. Someone hearing the poem read for the first time, without it
printed out in front of him/her, might not notice it either. As Victor
Kennedy notes, there are structures in poetry that can be seen on the page,
but not heard when the poem is read aloud, just as there are hidden
structures in music (Kennedy 2013).
As early as 1912, Arnold Schönberg had introduced a new partnership
between words and music in his Pierrot Lunaire, using spoken pitches or
sprechgesang. In 1933 the Nazis dismissed him from his post as professor
of composition at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin. From 1934 until his
 What Do Words Express That Music Cannot? 7

death in 1951 he lived in Los Angeles. In 1942 he chose to set Lord

Byron’s “Ode to Napoleon” as a distanced condemnation of the events
perpetrated by Hitler in Europe. In 1814 Byron had commented on his
reasons for writing this ode: “I knew it was the moral duty of intelligentsia
to take a stand against tyranny.” Schönberg consciously sets the two
objects, music and words, at opposite poles of conception, allowing the
content or meaning of what is heard to become a very personal experience
for each listener.
The American insurance salesman (and composer) Charles Ives
captured his impressions of a specific place and time in 1906 with a
stunning “sound picture,” Central Park in the Dark. This is certainly one
of the most personal and astute musical representations I have ever heard.
Even an amateur concertgoer may be able listen to this piece and guess at
the location and the time of day. To an uninitiated listener, the slow tempo
and minor key could signify night. Ives’s program notes to the original
score, however, are much more detailed:

This piece purports to be a picture-in-sounds of the sounds of nature and of

happenings that men would hear some thirty or so years ago (before the
combustion engine and radio monopolized the earth and air), when sitting
on a bench in Central Park on a hot summer night.

The strings represent the night sounds and silent darkness—interrupted by

sounds from the Casino over the pond—of street singers coming up from
the Circle singing, in spots, the tunes of those days—of some ‘night owls’
from Healy’s whistling the latest of the Freshman March—the “occasional
elevated,” a street parade, or a “break-down” in the distance—of newsboys
crying “uxtries” —of pianolas having a ragtime war in the apartment house
“over the garden wall,” a street car and a street band join in the chorus—a
fire engine, a cab horse runs away, lands “over the fence and out,” the
wayfarers shout—again the darkness is heard—an echo over the pond—
and we walk home.

This example shows that, while a composer might have had a certain scene
in mind when he wrote the piece, a listener cannot recreate the same scene
in her imagination, even though the emotional scenery may have been
borne upon the music.
To conclude, as a tool for activation of specific thoughts, music is not
as good as language. As a tool for arousing feelings and emotions, music
is better than language. The combination of the two is the best courtship
display of all. Let me try to illustrate this in my final sound bite, Sam
Brown’s Gilbert and Sullivanesque “Tea.”
8 Chapter One

Oh how I love my tea

Tea in the afternoon
I can’t do without it
And I think I’ll have
Another cup very soon

Very evocative for a thirsty (English) audience!

Discography
Berlioz, Hector. Symphonie fantastique op. 14. Hamburg: Deutsche
Grammaphon, 1997.
Brown, Sam. “Tea.” Stop! London: A&M, 1988.
Gounod, Charles. Faust. Paris: EMI, 1986.
—. Faust. Ljubljana: TRS/SAZAS, 1983.
Ives, Charles. Central Park in the Dark. Hamburg: Polydor/Deutsche
Grammaphon 1972-1986.
Perotin. “Viderunt Omnes.” Hamburg: Polydor 1976.
Ravel, Maurice. Trio pour piano, violon et violoncello. Erato, 1974.
Schönberg, Arnold. Ode to Napoleon, op. 41. Hamburg: Deutsche
Grammaphon, 1986.
Stravinsky, Igor. Oedipus Rex. London: EMI, 1993.
—. Symphony of Psalms (Psalm 150). Hamburg: Deutsche Grammaphon,
1999.

References
Berlioz, Hector. 1990. The Memoirs of Hector Berlioz: Member of the
French Institute, Including His Travels in Italy, Germany, Russia and
England 1803-1865. Translated by David Cairns. London: Cardinal
(original text published 1838).
Ives, Charles. 1978. Central Park in the Dark. Edited by John Kirkpatrick.
Hillsdale, New York: Mobart Music Publications (originally published
1906).
Kennedy, Victor. 2013. Strange Brew: Metaphors of Magic and Science in
Rock Music. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Stravinsky, Igor. 1935. Chroniques de ma vie. Paris: Denoël et Steele.
—. 1963. Dialogues and a Diary. Michigan: Doubleday.
 CHAPTER TWO

GERMONT’S ARIA FROM LA TRAVIATA:

BETWEEN THE ORIGINAL
AND THE SLOVENE TRANSLATION

TOMAŽ ONIČ

The traditional purpose of translating opera librettos into Slovene from

the mid-20th century was their vocal use; the translated text was learned
by the singer instead of the original libretto and sung in the opera
performance. With the trend to staging operas in their original language, as
well as with the development of stage technology and the possibility of
projecting surtitles on a screen above the stage, a new type of translation
emerged. The former type to a large extent resembles literary translation
and could, in fact, be viewed as such. Nevertheless, surtitle translation
cannot completely avoid following some literary guidelines, or at least it
should not. Apart from these two functions of libretto translation,
primarily intended for public use in opera performances, there is a third
type, which merely serves as translation into the communication language
(in this case English) to ensure a close understanding of individual phrases
or words and is mainly useful in analytical research of librettos and their
translations.
Each of these functions requires particular translation norms and needs
to follow certain translation techniques. Translating into a communication
language, where the main purpose is to understand what exactly a line in
an aria says, follows the principle of translating the content accurately.
The primary technique applied is word-for-word or phrase-by-phrase
translation. Stylistic features of the text are retained only to the extent of
helping to convey nonverbal characteristics of the text. Aesthetic
characteristics take a back seat to precise rendition of content. The
practical need for this type of translation (which is by no means limited
only to libretto translation) arose with the development of translation as a
research discipline, where research papers include texts in more than one
10 Chapter Two

language, while the research is conducted either in one of these languages

or in a different one.
Similarly, translation for surtitles is primarily concerned with capturing
the content of utterances, however, in somewhat less detail. The audience
must understand the gist of what is being said (or sung) on stage but not
necessarily every word; therefore, sensible paraphrasing with the purpose
of economizing in terms of length is welcome. Apart from the technical
limitations of the projected screen size, the translation should also be short
enough not to become the centre of the audience’s attention, nor to
dominate their opera experience.
In opera libretto translation intended for vocal use, the translator faces
restrictions that go far beyond merely transferring the content of a certain
part of the libretto into the target language. Such libretto translations have
much in common with poetry translation, since rhythm, line length
(number of syllables) and rhyme need to be observed consistently. In this
respect, libretto or song lyric translation is even stricter than translation of
poetry; in the latter, the translator can afford to use a slightly changed
rhythm or line arrangement, but this becomes impossible in cases where
words depend on musical phrases. The challenge is particularly acute in
the case of those parts of the libretto that form relatively closed units, like
arias and duets, because words and music in these parts are particularly
interconnected and compact. These considerations are evident in a parallel
analysis of a Slovene translation of Germont’s aria “Di Provenza il mar, il
suol chi dal cor ti cancellò?” which was intended for vocal use and the
original Italian lyrics from the same part of the libretto.
The author of the libretto for La Traviata was Francesco Maria Piave,
Verdi’s good friend and one of his most prolific librettists. It was during
the period of their collaboration that Verdi started to have a considerable
say in the structures of the librettos he was setting to music, even though
his full involvement in co-writing librettos culminated in his artistic
partnership with Arrigo Boito (Koter 1996, 8), who wrote the librettos for
Verdi’s last two operas, Falstaff and Otello. Piave provided ten librettos
for Verdi, including for some of his best-known compositions like
Rigoletto, Ernani, Macbeth, I Due Foscari, or Forza del Destino. He also
wrote for other composers, but most of his fame stems from his
cooperation with Verdi.
Germont’s aria, one of the most famous of Verdi’s baritone arias, is
from the second act of La Traviata. Germont comes to Alfredo’s country
house to persuade him to return home. To heighten the dramatic effect,
Verdi has Germont arrive just moments after Alfredo has read Violetta’s
letter telling him she has decided to return to Paris and thus to her former
 Germont’s Aria from La Traviata 11

life. Following this emotionally intense moment, Germont’s aria brings a

soothing calm to Alfredo as well as to the listener, functioning as a
dramatic moment of retardation before the onset of the towering rage in
which Alfredo rushes out the door, swearing vengeance.
The aria has two strophes that are musically almost identical. In the
first, Germont reminds Alfredo of his native Provence, mentioning its soil
and sun, then wonders what strange destiny tore him away from his
family. Germont urges him to think of those past happy days, suggesting
that, should he return home, all could once more be as it was. In the
second, Germont focuses on his own grief and sadness because of his
“prodigal son” and his immense joy if he were found again. Budden (1992,
148) suggests that what strengthens the nostalgic feeling of the lyrics are
“small ‘conjugations’ of [Germont’s] opening phrase... combined with the
woodwind ritornello” that remind the listener of Verdi’s predecessors
Donizetti and Bellini, thus reviving a musical style of twenty years earlier.
The English version of the aria’s lyrics below is a nearly word-for-
word translation, closely following the original Italian lyrics to provide a
detailed understanding. This will be needed for the upcoming contrastive
analysis of the aria’s stylistic and linguistic features that have an impact on
its macrostructural image. The analysis will show that, even though a
considerable number of stylistic elements have been discarded, replaced or
compensated for, the Slovene version is a pleasantly fluent and in all
respects successful translation. For the purpose of textual analysis, the
original lyrics were taken from the full musical score of La Traviata
(1990, 158-205).

1 Di Provenza il mar, il suol Of Provence the sea and the soil

2 chi dal cor ti cancellò? who from your heart has erased?
3 Al natio fulgente sol From the native shining sun
4 qual destino ti furò? what destiny has stolen you?
5 Oh, rammenta pur nel duol Oh, think even in pain
6 ch’ivi gioia a te brillò; that there joy was shining over
you;
7 E che pace colà sol And that peace only there
8 su te splendere ancor può. on you again could glow.
9 Dio mi guidò! God has guided me (here).

10 Ah! il tuo vecchio genitor Ah, of your old parent

11 tu non sai quanto soffrì! you know not the suffering
12 Te lontano, di squallor You being far away, with grief
13 il suo tetto si coprì. he was overcome (his head was
covered).
14 Ma se alfin ti trovo ancor, But if I should find you again
12 Chapter Two

15 se in me speme non fallì, and if I was not mistaken in my

hopes,
16 Se la voce dell’onor if the voice of honour
17 in te appien non ammutì In you is not silenced
18 Dio m’esaudì! Then God has heard me.

Considering the parallel musical composition of the two parts, it is no

surprise that both stanzas follow the same metric structure: both are
composed of eight trochaic tetrameter lines capped by a shorter, iambic
dimeter line. Moreover, the similarity of form is strengthened by the
rhyme scheme: in both stanzas a pair of interlocking rhymes connects the
eight lines, while the last line rhymes with the penultimate one
(ababababb). All rhymes are masculine; this means the stress falls on the
last syllable, which at the same time is the only one to rhyme. This leads to
the observation that all the lines end in an imperfect trochee with the light
syllable missing, which makes all the lines (except the last, which is
iambic) catalectic. Even though the Italian language generally leans
towards unstressed final syllables, strong endings are an appropriate
choice in this aria. Ending a phrase with a stressed syllable and proceeding
to the subsequent one that also opens with a stress creates a strong
juxtaposition of two adjacent beats, which necessarily creates an obstacle
in the otherwise smooth flow of the phrase and adds appropriately to the
emotional gravity of the scene.
A glance at the musical score reveals that there are more than nine
musical phrases in each part of the aria, because some lines of the lyrics
are repeated. The first and the second couplets repeat, in both cases in
reverse order, resulting in an anadiplotic or embracing structure (Di
Provenza il mar, il suol / chi dal cor ti cancellò / chi dal cor ti cancellò /
di Provenza il mar, il suol, etc.). Lines 5 and 6 are sung only once, but
lines 7 and 8 are again repeated, this time in regular order. The concluding
iambic line, however, appears twice more, thus closing the musical stanza.
Counting all primary lines and recurrences, their total number amounts to
17 per stanza. It must be noted, however, that the structure in the second
stanza is slightly varied: the recurring line of the lyrics, te lontano, di
squallor (line 12), when repeated, is modified into di squallore, di
squallor, and a coloratura is added in the conclusion.
If the libretto is translated for vocal use, this structure of 17 lines
should remain unchanged because of its dependence on the music, as well
as to support Verdi and Piave’s characterization of Germont, whose
regular forms of singing suggest a strong and firm character, in contrast to
Violetta and Alfredo (Casini 1982, 155). The Slovene translator Niko
Štritof followed the structure closely, but his translation is rather loose in
 Germont’s Aria from La Traviata 13

terms of content; in fact, it is really an adaptation. Save for the concluding

coloratura, only two lines of the 34 repeat exactly; near recurrences are
rare. Instead, a new line is provided for each musical phrase. The lyrics of
the aria that were published in a collection of famous aria translations
(Samec 1977, 130) are provided below. In the first column is the Italian
original, including all repetitions in order as they appear in the opera score.
Parallel to the original, in the central column, is the Slovene translation.
The right-hand column is a close, word-for-word translation of the
Slovene text into English, to enable a detailed comparison of the Italian
and Slovene versions. The bold font marks words or phrases from the
original that are retained in translation in terms of content. The English
version has no bold highlights, since it serves only as an aid for closer
understanding. Underlining suggests repetition of phrases within the
Italian original and in one case within the Slovene translation. Shifts will
receive further analysis in the next section of this chapter.
1 Di Provenza il mar, il Mar pozabil si na dom, Have you forgotten your
suol home,
2 chi dal cor ti cancellò? kraj mladostnih, srečnih the place of youthful,
dni, happy days,
3 Chi dal cor ti cancellò tam, kjer morje se blesti where the sea glitters
4 di Provenza il mar, il in zeleni gaj šumi? and the green grove
suol? rustles?
5 Al natio fulgente sol Sestra čaka tam na te, Your sister waits for you
there
6 qual destino ti furò? muči težko jo gorje, she suffers heavily,
7 Qual destino ti furò joče majka za teboj your mother cries for you
8 al natio fulgente sol? in nesrečni oče tvoj. and (so does) your
unfortunate father.
9 Oh, rammenta pur nel Kdo pretrgal je vezi, Who has broken the ties
duol
10 ch’ivi gioia a te brillò; da nas nič več ne poznaš? that you no longer know
us?
11 E che pace colà sol Mar smo tebi tujci mi, Are we all strangers to
you
12 su te splendere ancor da besede nam ne daš? that you offer us no word?
può.
13 E che pace colà sol Čuj me, ljubi sinko moj; Hear me, my beloved son,
14 su te splendere ancor zapuščen je domek tvoj! your home is deserted!
può.
15 Dio mi guidò! Čuj njegov glas, Hear its voice,
16 Dio mi guidò! čuj doma glas, hear your home’s voice.
17 Dio mi guidò! pojdi z menoj! come with me.
18 Ah! il tuo vecchio Ah, odkar si šel od nas, Ah, since you left us
genitor
19 tu non sai quanto sama žalost je doma, nothing but grief is at
soffrì! home,
14 Chapter Two

20 tu non sai quanto razoran je moj obraz furrowed is my face

soffrì!
21 Ah! il tuo vecchio in razguban od gorja. and wrinkled with sorrow.
genitor
22 Te lontano, di Noč in dan trpi srce, Day and night my heart
squallor suffers,
23 il suo tetto si coprì. brez solza so že oči ... my eyes are tearless...
24 il suo tetto si coprì. Ah, pretežko je gorje, Ah, too heavy is this grief
25 di squallore, di kakor skala me teži. It presses down like a
squallor rock.
26 Ma se alfin ti trovo A če prideš k nam nazaj, But if you come back to
ancor, us,
27 se in me speme non sama radost bo doma, there will be only joy at
fallì, home,
28 Se la voce dell'onor in naš dom bo kakor raj and our home will be like
paradise
29 in te appien non in sijal bo do neba. and it will glow to the
ammutì sky.
30 Ma se alfin ti trovo in naš dom bo kakor raj ''
ancor,
31 se in me speme non in sijal bo do neba. ''
fallì,
32 Dio m’esaudì! Dobrotni bog, Kind God,
33 Dio m’esaudì! ah, daj nazaj ah, give back
34 Dio m’esaudì! nam prejšnji raj! to us our former paradise!
35 Dio m’esaudì! Ma se Dobrotni bog! Dragi Kind God! My dear son,
alfin ti trovo ancor, ti sinko moj, če prideš k if you come back to us, at
trovo ancor. Dio nam nazaj, doma bo home there will be joy
m’esaudì! Dio m’esaudì! radost in bo raj! and paradise!

A brief glance at both versions shows that most of the text has been
altered to some extent in the process of translation. We notice both
semantic and stylistic shifts. Most semantic shifts can technically be
considered as mutations; all three subcategories are present in this
translation: additions, deletions and radical changes of meaning. In the
first two lines, the original libretto mentions the sea and the soil of
Provence (Di Provenza il mar, il suol), which in the translation is replaced
by a more general concept of home (Mar pozabil si na dom). Provence is
never mentioned, this being an example of deletion, while lines 3-4, which
in the original are merely a repetition of the first two, mention the
glittering sea and the rustling green grove which replaces the soil. An
addition appears in line 2 of the translation where Alfredo’s home is called
a place of youthful, happy days (kraj mladostnih, srečnih dni), which is not
directly mentioned in the original.
In the remaining part of the first stanza (lines 5-17), the translation is
relatively close to the overall spirit of the original aria; however, all
individual lines show changes of meaning and/or additions. While lines 5-
 Germont’s Aria from La Traviata 15

6 of the original (repeated in 7-8) rhetorically ask about the fate that stole
Alfredo from the native shining sun (Al natio fulgente sol / qual destino ti
furò?), the translation introduces other family members, sister, mother and
father, and reports on their grief over his departure (lines 5-8). While after
this in the original libretto Germont switches to more positive rhetoric and
diction, reminding his suffering son that those days were filled with joy
(ch’ivi gioia a te brillò) and that he need not renounce the peace he once
enjoyed (E che pace colà sol / su te splendere ancor può), the translation
maintains the reproachful tone in which Germont hints that the ties
between them have been broken (Kdo pretrgal je vezi, / da nas nič več ne
poznaš?) and that Alfredo no longer speaks to the family, as if they were
strangers to him (Mar smo tebi tujci mi, / da besede nam ne daš? lines 9-
12). He continues by directly addressing his son, asking him to return to
his deserted home (lines 13-14 and 15-17). Meanwhile, the original
libretto in lines 13-14 repeats the previous two lines mentioning peace and
concludes the stanza with Germont’s exclamation God has guided me here
(Dio mi guidò!). Thus, as well as with two more repetitions of this line,
Germont expands his indirectly expressed personal plea for Alfredo’s
return to Provence to a request of divine dimensions, exhibiting the
features of prayer.
Semantically, the translation of the second stanza is to a certain extent
closer to the original than the first one. The first two couplets of the
translation (18-19 and 20-21) seem to appear in reverse order compared to
the original, where the father begins the stanza by stressing his own
suffering (il tuo vecchio genitor / tu non sai quanto soffrì, lines 18-19).
After the repetition of these lines, he states the reason for this suffering,
which is Alfredo’s departure and his being far away from home (te
lontano, line 22). Germont in the translation first speaks about Alfredo
having left home (Ah, odkar si šel od nas) and then about the grief this
caused. It should be noted that in the original, this is the first time Germont
speaks of his own grief, since in the first stanza all his pleading is related
to reviving the pleasant image of the domestic countryside and homey
peace in Alfredo’s mind. The translation, on the other hand, starts with the
image of Alfredo being away from home (ah, odkar si šel od nas, line 18)
and then proceeds to the consequences: sadness at home (sama žalost je
doma) and his personal grief (razoran je moj obraz / in razguban od
gorja). These had both been introduced to some extent in the previous
stanza. Therefore, speaking of sadness at home in the translation, even
though it is not mentioned in the original, seems internally coherent
because of the previous introduction of other family members. In the
original, however, Germont refers to his own sadness twice: once directly
16 Chapter Two

(line 19) and once with a metaphor (line 23). In place of the recurring lines
in the original, the translator contributes an addition of 4 lines (22-25), in
which his description of grief is much more thorough than in the original.
Germont elaborates on the consequences of this deed: his face is wrinkled
with sadness, his heart suffers day and night and the trouble is too heavy
for him, since it lies upon him like a rock.
In the remaining part of the stanza, a structural parallel can be
observed. The conditional sentence from the original used by Germont
addressing Alfredo is preserved in translation, but its form is slightly
altered. In both cases, the content of the conditional phrase is essentially
the same: if you return home, you will make your family very happy. In
the original, there are three subordinate parts (lines 26, 27, 28+29) and two
recurrences (30-31), climaxing in one main clause (32): if I find you again;
if I was not mistaken in my hopes; if the voice of honour in you is not
silenced, then God has heard my prayers. Two more recurrences of the
main clause Dio m’esaudì! conclude the stanza (lines 33-34). In the
translation, however, the structure is reversed. There is one subordinate
part setting the condition if you come back to us (če prideš k nam nazaj,
line 26) and three main clauses specifying three detailed consequences
concerning the family’s happiness at home: there will be only joy at home,
and our home will be like paradise, and it will glow to the sky (sama
radost bo doma / in naš dom bo kakor raj / in sijal bo do neba, lines 27-
29). In terms of translation shift, this is specification, since all three
thoughts are included in one from the original (God has heard my
prayers). The concluding lines in the translation (32-34) contain
Germont’s apostrophe addressing God with a direct plea repeating the
request he has just addressed to Alfredo, partly even in the same words, in
the form of a conditional sentence.
Following the translation pattern of the whole aria in Slovene, the
concluding coloratura is also translated relatively freely (line 35). While
the Italian original merely re-uses lines 32 and 26 from the second stanza
in the coloratura as closure to the aria (Ma se alfin ti trovo ancor, Dio
m’esaudì! Dio m’esaudì!), the Slovene translation provides a new
paraphrase of previously used lines. After the address Dragi sinko moj,
line 26 is re-used (če prideš k nam nazaj) and then evolves in a new
combination of lines 27 and 28: doma bo radost in bo raj!
The translation largely retains the proportion of figurative language,
even though not in exactly the same places as in the original. The two
rhetorical questions with which the original opens (lines 1-2 and 5-6) are
replaced by one longer question in translation (lines 1-4), then two more
are introduced later in lines 9-10 and 11-12. Some metaphors are left out:
 Germont’s Aria from La Traviata 17

for example, to erase [Provence] from the heart (chi dal cor ti cancellò) is
translated with to forget home (Mar pozabil si na dom). However, some
new similes are introduced, such as grief pressing down like a boulder
(gorje ... kakor skala me teži), and home will be like paradise (in naš dom
bo kakor raj).
There is an important connection between words and music in the
switch from major to minor key in line 9 in the first stanza and
immediately back to major in the following line. The minor key is tightly
connected to the line content and proves very appropriate in this particular
spot. A minor key sounds milder and sadder than a major key, which suits
line 9 when Germont mentions duol (meaning pain). In all lines but line 9,
the diction is positive and encouraging; only in this one is an unpleasant
emotion evoked through the librettist’s choice of vocabulary, which by the
following line reverts to positive diction as well as to a major key. In the
translation this is not so clearly distinguishable. In lines 5-8 the sister’s
suffering and the mother and father’s crying are mentioned; moreover,
after the switch back to a major key, many lexical choices with negative
connotations remain. In the second stanza of the original this contrast is
less distinct, since line 26, which is the position of the major-to-minor
switch, is not the only line projecting negative emotion, as in the first
stanza. On the contrary, many words in the opening major key part of the
stanza (lines 18 to 25) have negative connotations, such as old parent,
suffering, you being far away, grief (vecchio genitor, soffrì, te lontano,
squallore), which keep the tone of the whole first part of the second stanza
rather pessimistic. Line 26, which is in a minor key, is the first one where
the mood changes, owing to Germont’s speaking of the son being found
again (ma se alfin ti trovo ancor). The mood then remains positive
throughout the stanza in terms of vocabulary, with words or phrases like
finding you again, my hopes, voice of honour, and God has heard me (se
alfin ti trovo ancor, me speme, la voce dell’onor, Dio m’esaudì). In
contrast to the situation in the first stanza, where the Slovene translation
does not follow the original very closely in this respect, analysis of the
second stanza shows a different result: the tone of the translated lyrics as
seen through lexical choices seems to have been recreated, and the
atmosphere of the original is closely preserved. After line 26, the
vocabulary retains a positive tone, even though mostly through
semantically unfaithful translation. The Slovene Germont speaks of his joy
if Alfredo were to come back and compares their home to paradise
glowing in the sky, which in Slovene hints at a possible reference to
heaven, particularly since he also pleads to God to restore the paradise
18 Chapter Two

they once had. The phrases used in Slovene are radost bo doma, naš dom
bo kakor raj, sijal bo do neba, dobrotni bog.
The rhyme pattern in the translation is not identical to that in the
original, however: locally—corresponding to musical phrases—it does
follow the same logic of intensifying the semantic and formal subdivisions
of the two stanzas. In the original, the previously established rhyme
pattern of non-repeated lines in the first stanza (ababababb), when
extended to the full length of 17 lines, turns out to be largely regular. Not
only does it contain merely two rhyming sounds (suol and cancelló), it
also forms a combination of standard patterns: two quatrains of embracing
rhymes, three interlocking couplets and three rhyming lines retaining the
last sounds from the interlocking couplets (see the scheme below). The
pattern is identical in both stanzas; only the two rhyming sounds change.

Original lyrics abba abba ab ab ab bbb (the same in both stanzas)

Translation abbb ccdd ef ef dd ggd ghgh cece ih ih ih jii

In the translation, on the other hand, the rhyme pattern as a whole

proves not to be regular to the same extent (see rhyming scheme).
However, on the micro level(s) we still notice the same patterns or
fragments thereof, but employing a greater number of different sounds.
The internal repetitions of these sounds seem random, for example, teboj–
tvoj, moj–tvoj, menoj (marked as d on the rhyming scheme above), or te–
gorje, srce–gorje (marked as c), but each of the smaller units of the pattern
is logically concluded, as can be seen from the scheme.
Germont’s inclusion of his own feelings in persuading his son is worth
closer analysis. In the Italian original, he starts his appeal only by recalling
Alfredo’s youthful affection for home and countryside. He speaks of his
own grief only in the second stanza, and even then he starts in an
impersonal way, by using 3rd person narration, as in of your old parent /
you know not the suffering... with grief he was overcome (il tuo vecchio
genitor / tu non sai quanto soffrì... il suo tetto si coprì, lines 18, 19, 23),
only later switching to 1st person: if I should find you again / and if I was
not mistaken... God has heard me (Ma se alfin ti trovo ancor / se in me
speme non fallì... Dio m’esaudì!, lines 26, 27, 32). In the Slovene
translation, the development of Germont’s perspective follows the same
steps but proceeds at a faster pace. He mentions his sorrow as early as in
line 8 of the first stanza: your unfortunate father [cries for you] (joče
majka... in nesrečni oče tvoj), but it is in the 3rd person, as in the original.
Then, through 1st person plural referring to the family (lines 9-12), he
reaches a more personal tone, using 1st person singular in lines 13 and 17:
Hear me, my beloved son... come with me (Čuj me, ljubi sinko moj... pojdi
 Germont’s Aria from La Traviata 19

z menoj). The personal tone also remains in the second stanza when
Germont speaks again in 1st person about his grief.
A semantic and stylistic comparison between the Italian and Slovene
versions of the aria’s lyrics shows that, if the aria is observed as a closed
unit, the translation contains multiple shifts on the level of individual lines.
Stylistic elements, when not preserved, are mostly compensated by similar
elements in the same or different lines, while semantic shifts are usually
manifested as additions, radical changes of meaning, or in some cases
even deletions. Despite these shifts, the translated aria is still in line with
the plot of the opera, since the added information all fits into the larger
picture: Alfredo’s sister, the mention of whom is an addition in terms of
content, does exist and has already been spoken about in a previous scene
when Germont visits Violetta. The translation also introduces Alfredo’s
mother, who is not mentioned in the original, yet these additions in the
translation do not contradict the overall plot of the opera. Similarly,
Germont’s extensive descriptions of his own grief, which are another
addition, function as an element intensifying his personal distress and
repudiate no part of the operatic structure.
In terms of these stylistic aspects, the translation functions well in the
target language. The figurative layer of the libretto is adequately preserved
and the lexical choices appropriately to recreate the original mood of the
aria in Slovene. Metrically and rhythmically, the translation follows the
musical score, which is a requirement for a translation intended for vocal
use. Apart from the rhythmical point of view, various aspects of sound
merge in an agreeable acoustic text contributing to the singability of the
translated lyrics; one of these aspects is end rhyme, which was retained
even though the rhyme scheme in the translation differs from the original.
Comparison shows that in opera libretto translation, style is the most
important aspect to be considered by the translator. The translation of
Germont’s aria into Slovene illustrates that the stylistic layer of the text
holds considerably more weight than the semantic one and is ultimately
the deciding factor in whether the libretto translation can be considered as
“functioning” in the target language or not. The success of a translation
lies in the aesthetic aspect of the final product, rather than in the accuracy
of the transferred content. Thus, although Štritof’s translation is quite old
and dispenses with semantic faithfulness in several parts of the aria, its
quality can still be discerned.
20 Chapter Two

References
Budden, Julian. 1992. The Operas of Verdi, Volume 2: From Il Trovatore
to La Forza del Destino. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Casini, Claudio. 1982. Giuseppe Verdi. Murska Sobota: Pomurska
založba.
Koter, Darja. 1996. Giuseppe Verdi—operni velikan. Maribor: Zavod
Republike Slovenije za šolstvo in šport.
Samec, Smiljan, ed. 1977. Operni spevi: besedila najlepših opernih arij.
Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga.
Verdi, Giuseppe. 1990. La Traviata in Full Score, Second Edition,
originally published in 1915 in Milan by G. Ricordi. Mineola, NY:
Dover Publications.
—. 1977a. La Traviata, CD recording. Bayerische Staatsorchester, Dir.
Carlos Kleiber. Berlin: Deutsche Grammophon.
—. 1977b. La Traviata, accompanying booklet to CD recording.
Bayerische Staatsorchester, Dir. Carlos Kleiber. Berlin: Deutsche
Grammophon.
 CHAPTER THREE

MELANCHOLIC OPERA:
REPRESENTATION OF IMMIGRANTS
IN PUCCINI’S LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST
AND MANON LESCAUT

KATARZYNA NOWAK

I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera,

Ah this indeed is music—this suits me.

A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me,

The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.

I hear the train’d soprano (what work with hers is this?)

The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies,
It wrenches such ardors from me I did not know I possess’d them,
It sails me, I dab with bare feet, they are lick’d by the indolent waves,
I am cut by bitter and angry hail, I lose my breath,
Steep’d amid honey’d morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of death,

At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles,

And that we call Being.
(Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself” sec. 26)

While singing America in “Song of Myself,” Walt Whitman situates

opera within the range of American experiences and suggests at the same
time that opera is an expression of death. I use both of these assumptions
as points of departure for my reflections on the representation of
immigrants in operatic texts. The first link that Whitman establishes makes
a connection between the experience of America and operatic art: indeed,
the beginnings of opera as a genre coincided with European settlement in
America. The year 1607 saw two important events: the founding of
Jamestown in America and, in Europe, the premiere of what is often
22 Chapter Three

considered the first opera, Monteverdi’s Orpheus. 1 Their fates are

entwined not only temporally but, more importantly, ideologically: opera
may be seen as an inherently ambiguous expression of European angst
over the emergence of the New World. Opera may be Europe’s projection
of its ideas about itself and the new continent on the supposedly blank
screen of an American cultural wilderness.
The first opera, one among many on the same theme to follow, helped
establish the connection between Orpheus, the mythic hero in search of his
lost love object in the underworld, and the redemptive power of music.
The Orphic myth narrates the story of salvation and loss, song being
instrumental to both. As F.W. Sternfeld puts it in The Birth of Opera
“[Orpheus] is the superhuman figure who ‘discovers’, who penetrates the
realm of the dead, who ‘harrows Hell’. He miraculously returns from that
‘undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns’” (1993, 9).
Travel, understood metaphorically, is thus interconnected with music and
its power of salvation; the two elements, journeying and singing, have the
same purpose: they are to help overcome death. Stepping down to the
netherworld becomes itself a metaphor for emigration, and that seems the
central idea expressed in the genre of opera.
Opera is in fact fraught with contradictions, reflected in the very name
of the genre (or one variation thereof, i.e. dramma per musica). The age-
old dilemma, prima la musica e poi le parole, (posed by Salieri and later
used by Strauss as a motto for his Capriccio), the argument about the
primacy of music over words or vice versa, relies on the juxtaposition of
these two elements of drama, which results, in turn, in marginalizing either
one element or the other, and in our perceiving it as a semantic surplus.
Since opera is often discussed with a zeal that borders on the religious,2
theorizing about libretti, especially when carried out by non-musicologists,
has been deemed a highly suspicious activity. Arthur Groos crisply sums
up such sentiments: “Libretto-bashing has a distinguished tradition in the
blood sport of opera” (Groos 1988, 2).

1
There exist analyses such as Slavoj Žižek’s in which opera’s decline is seen as
coincidental with the rise of psychoanalysis, but it seems more promising to
concentrate on the beginnings of opera, not its postulated—and not so obvious—
death.
2
Edward T. Cone explains the allure of opera in the following manner: “It is not
simply the combination of elements that gives opera its peculiar fascination; it is
the fusion produced by the mutual analogy of words and music—a union further
enriched and clarified by the visual action… . [I]t would seem to follow that opera,
with the added third dimension of the stage, must offer the most intensely
satisfying experience of all” (Cone 1989, 21).
 Melancholic Opera 23

Examples of such an approach to the act of reading libretti are

numerous. In the past century, for instance, W. H. Auden, an opera
aficionado, voiced the following sentiment: “No good opera plot can be
sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible” (Auden
1961). If we follow this line of reasoning, it appears quite senseless to
critique opera libretti. The attitudes, however, are changing: as Groos
points out, “libretti pose questions of intertextuality, transpositions of
genre, and reception history.” He also reminds us that libretti are now
analyzed from a variety of theoretical perspectives, “ranging from the
formalistic to the feminist.” Those modern tools allow us to see libretti as
“not ‘beneath contempt as literature,’ but very much within the purview of
contemporary humanistic scholarship” (Groos 1988, 10).
The helplessness with which critics approach libretti is understandable:
the demands of musical phrasing, combined with the necessity of
composing words that are intended by definition to push the action
forward, make the art of writing libretti almost impossible. The tenuous
state of equilibrium between words and music is especially pronounced in
the case of La Fanciulla del West: Even the title—half Italian, half
English—testifies to the hybrid nature of the work. The opera,
commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where it had its
world premiere in 1910, was supposed to be an expression of “American-
ness” (Dizikes 1993, 340). However, the opera’s hybrid heritage sterilizes
the expression. In one notorious example, we find its California miners
shouting “Whisky per tutti” (12). While justly ridiculed, such glaring
incongruity underscores the helplessness we sometimes face when trying
to grasp the American character.
Jean Baudrillard proposes an understanding of the American
phenomenon when he states, “America is neither dream nor reality. It is a
hyperreality…. Americans…are themselves simulation in its most
developed state, but they have no language in which to describe it, since
they themselves are the model” (Baudrillard 1988, 28-9). In other words, it
is impossible to describe America in the American idiom, and any attempt
to fix its character in European terms is just as futile, for “they” have no
language and “we” cannot describe them.
Yet, even while expressing a particularly European vision of the
American West, La Fanciulla was at the same time conforming to a
particularly American vision of Europe—or, more precisely, of Italian
opera. As Dizikes puts it, “Despite all the publicity and the money being
spent on [La Fanciulla], and whatever its musical strengths, the opera
would have to satisfy audiences’ expectations and assumptions about just
24 Chapter Three

what, after all, the phrase ‘American opera’ meant” (1993, 341).3 Insofar
as satisfying European notions about America is impossible, the same
stands true for American opera.
This was not, however, the first time Puccini undertook an American
theme: in 1893 his Manon Lescaut premiered in Teatro Regio in Turin.
The story, based on Abbé Prévost’s novel, revolves around the eponymous
heroine, a beautiful young woman, lovable yet fickle. For her promiscuity
she is punished with exile, “a cruel, pitiless fate,” which in her estimation
equals death (Puccini 2004, 68). To be sure, just like so many of Puccini’s
heroines, Manon dies at the end. The last act, Act IV, opens with the
following stage directions: “In America. A vast desert plain near New
Orleans. The horizon is in the distance” (82). Manon’s lover searches for
water in vain, and although he survives, the land proves merciless, arid
and barren.
In a sense, both Manon Lescaut and La Fanciulla reflect a tide of
cross-continental expectations. From Columbus on, says Malcolm
Bradbury, “‘America’ was to become a constant testing-place for the
myths Europeans already had of it” (Bradbury 1995, 18). These clashing
expectations surface repeatedly, especially during La Fanciulla’s more
ardent attempts to re-appropriate the American myth, and they account for
much of its structural and tonal moodiness. Despite having a third act that
revolves entirely around a lynching, the opera still manages to disperse a
pervasive atmosphere of death—and fear of death—with a towering
illustration of the redemptive power of love. It remains a pyrrhic victory,
though, showing just how insecure and unsound their success is. Like the
Orphic myth, La Fanciulla illustrates a triumph over death but a failure to
sustain the victory.
A similar assumption can be made about Manon: its representation of
American geography has little to do with reality, yet its strength relies not
on the fact that it is a faithful representation of place, but on its being a
reflection of certain fears and anxieties. In Manon, America is not the land
of opportunity and promise, but the land of death.
Wayne Koestenbaum claims that “Every opera revives Orpheus, the art
form’s genesis” (Koestenbaum 1993). In Manon, as in the Orphic myth,
the lovers experience the afterlife together, but only one of them will
emerge. Manon’s lover, DesGrieux, follows her to a land where they can
only expect to die, but despite his efforts, like Orpheus, he must ultimately

3
Those expectations remained to a large degree unfulfilled. Puccini did not
compose any remarkable aria for Minnie, an omission that resulted in the
audiences’ sense of disappointment: as Dizikes puts it, “those who live by the aria
die by it” (1993, 343).
 Melancholic Opera 25

lose her. The Girl of the Golden West can also be seen as a variation on the
theme of Orpheus and Eurydice. In the story, Dick and Minnie, the central
characters, are forced to flee California, which amounts to leaving an
earthly paradise. In the closing scene of the opera, the miners bid farewell
to Minnie, saying, “You will never return again, no never!” (Puccini 2003,
70). The movement is no longer toward the west, but back eastwards:
hence, it might be seen as registering disillusionment with the idea of
unstoppable expansion. Living in paradise proves impossible, but descent
from it is as testing.
Escape from earthly paradise means escape from death. Ordinarily
such an escape would be impossible, yet the libretto, with its blatant
disregard for the plausible, proffers just such an escape for its two lovers.
La Fanciulla is preoccupied with death and deals with that preoccupation
by belittling the importance of death. “[W]hat is death?” asks one of the
characters, “A kick in the dark and good night!” (Puccini 2003, 15). The
impossibility of such definition, or perhaps the reluctance to define the
meaning of death, is significant, as it matches the description of the
physical location as undetermined.
The libretto of La Fanciulla does not specify the nature of this
indeterminate terrain. Belasco’s play, which provided material for the
libretto, is more useful here: it places the protagonists upon leaving
California, “at the edge of the merciless desert.” This description
resembles the setting in Manon: “There’s nothing! Just barren land and not
a trace of water. Oh heartless Heaven!” (Puccini 2003, 81). Even though
the two operas portray two very different places, the representation of
America in both operas is consistent.
They follow the course of action prescribed by Baudrillard: “We
should always appeal to the deserts against the excess of signification, of
intention and pretention in culture. They are our mythic operator”
(Baudrillard 1988, 63-4). Deserts are the remedy for the excess of
signification; whenever meanings pile up and multiply incessantly, there is
always the emptiness of the desert. It seems, however, that the instruction
is directed toward Americans, despite the misleading “we.” Baudrillard
diagnoses the national idiosyncrasy, interestingly enough, drawing a
distinction between Italian and American variations: “The Italian miracle:
that of stage and scene. The American miracle: that of the obscene. The
profusion of sense, as against the deserts of meaninglessness” (Baudrillard
1988, 8), and he specifies what he means by obscenity here: it is “total
availability” (9). By drawing this distinction between Italian and American
miracles, he points to the precise fact that is of interest to us when we
discuss the libretti of Manon and La Fanciulla; that is, the fact that the
26 Chapter Three

representation of American immigrants in operas that are by definition

“American” is conveyed in Italian. Again, then, the question of hybridity
arises: the protagonists of La Fanciulla must be imagined as conversing in
English, whereas those in Manon—in French, yet what we, the audience,
hear is another language, Italian.
On the level of language, the characters are prototypical immigrants,
seduced by the ideology of total availability: what prompts them is the
hope of escaping death, the promise of absolute freedom. Freedom in the
American dimension is an obvious goal, a founding myth, and even in
Manon, the opera that shows America as the desolate wilderness, at the
end, when the protagonist acknowledges that everything is “over,” she still
frantically asserts, “I don’t want to die!” (Puccini 2003, 82). Intoxication
with freedom, and oblivion resulting from it: the perspective is appealing.
The myth of freedom as available to all, and desirable by all, is a
preliminary premise of emigration. Julia Kristeva poses a question
pertaining to this initial presumption: “To be deprived of parents—is that
where freedom starts? Certainly foreigners become intoxicated with that
independence, and undoubtedly their very exile is at first no more than a
challenge to parental overbearance” (Kristeva 1991, 21).
The link between freedom and operatic music is suggested in Manon
Lescaut. When Manon abandons her rich old lover for DesGrieux, with
whom she was previously involved, she exults, “Ah! Ah! Liberi! /Liberi
come l’aria! Ah! Ah! Liberated! / Free as the air!” (Puccini 2004, 66). She
is boundless as the air she breathes, but if we think of the musical meaning
of the term “air,” then her freedom will be intimately connected to the
music.
Kristeva suggests that emigration may produce a sense of guilt
precisely because it means escaping parental authority, yet the sense of
failing in filial responsibilities generated by emigration also reflects on the
very relationship between operatic music and libretto. Catherine Clement
comments on this correlation in the following words: “Opera music makes
its empire and steals the glory, dispossesses half the authors, permanently
strips them of their work—without which opera’s song would have no
place. And the libretti are orphans” (Clement 1988, 18). Clement remarks
here on the curious status of operatic works which are ascribed to one
“parent” only, that is, the composer, whereas the librettist’s role is
diminished to such an extent that we hardly ever know who composed the
“other” half of the work. Hence, we talk of Giacomo Puccini’s operas, not
Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini’s (the librettists of La Fanciulla) or
Ruggero Leoncavallo, Domenico Oliva, Marco Praga, Giuseppe Giacosa,
Luigi Illica, and Giulio Ricordi’s (the librettists of Manon Lescaut), and,
 Melancholic Opera 27

to an extent, this is understandable, as it reflects the approach to libretti as

below the standards of serious literature and merely illustrating the power
of music. The operatic orphans, libretti, are deprived of legitimate status,
yet this is where freedom rests.

References
Auden, Wystan Hugh. 1961. Time December 29. Accessed November 15,
2009.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,827206,00.html.
Baudrillard, Jean. 1988. America. London, New York: Verso.
Belasco, David. 1911. The Girl of the Golden West. Accessed January 21,
2008. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16551/16551-h/16551-h.htm.
Bradbury, Malcolm. 1995. Dangerous Pilgrimages: Transatlantic
Mythologies and the Novel. London, New York: Viking.
Clement, Catherine. 1988. Opera, or the Undoing of Women. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Cone, Edward T. 1989. Music: A View from Delft. In Selected Essays,
edited by Robert P. Morgan. Chicago and London: The University of
Chicago Press.
Dizikes, John. 1993. Opera in America: A Cultural History. New Haven:
YUP.
Dolar, Mladen, and Slavoj Žižek. 2002. Opera’s Second Death. New
York: Routledge.
Groos, Arthur. 1988. Introduction to Reading Opera, edited by Arthur
Groos and Roger Parker, 1-11. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Groos, Arthur, and Roger Parker, eds. 1988. Reading Opera. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Grover-Friedlander, Michal. 2005. Vocal Apparitions: The Attraction of
Cinema to Opera. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Koestenbaum, Wayne. 1993. The Queen’s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality,
and the Mystery of Desire. New York, London, Toronto: Poseidon.
—. 1997. “Artistic statements.” Accessed November 15, 2009. http://
www.banffcentre.ca/theatre/history/opera/production_1997/artistic_sta
tements.asp.
Kristeva, Julia. 1991. Strangers to Ourselves. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Puccini, Giacomo. 2003. La Fanciulla del West. Libretto by Guelfo
Civinini and Carlo Zangarini. Opera Classics Library Series, edited by
Burton D. Fisher. Miami: Opera Journeys Publishing.
28 Chapter Three

—. Manon Lescaut. 2004. Libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo, Domenico

Oliva, Marco Praga, Giuseppe Giacosa, Luigi Illica, and Giulio
Ricordi. Opera Classics Library Series, edited by Burton D. Fisher.
Miami: Opera Journeys Publishing.
Sternfeld, Frederick William. 1993. The Birth of Opera. Oxford, New
York: OUP.
Whitman, Walt. 1885. “Song of Myself.” http://www.princeton.edu/~
batke/logr/log_026.html.
 CHAPTER FOUR

“BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE”:

THE BARD ON BROADWAY

F. ZEYNEP BILGE

According to Gérard Genette, transtextuality is a term that refers to “all

that sets the text in a relationship, whether obvious or concealed, with
other texts” (Genette 1997, 1). When the notion of adaptation is taken into
consideration, however, this transtextual relationship is definitely made
obvious. In works such as Kiss Me, Kate there is an “extended intertextual
engagement with the adapted work” (Hutcheon 2006, 8). As far as
Genette’s terminology is concerned, Shakespeare’s The Taming of the
Shrew functions as the hypotext of Cole Porter’s musical; in other words, it
serves as the “text which can be definitely located as the major source of
signification for” Kiss Me, Kate (Allen 2000, 108). This is indicative of
the fact that it is impossible to discuss the musical without a reference to
Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew because the two texts are
interwoven.
Katharina, the “shrew” in Shakespeare’s play, is transformed into the
actress Lilli Vanessi, and the stubborn Petruchio into the director/
producer/actor Fred Graham in Kiss Me, Kate. The Taming of the Shrew
depicts the battle between the sexes while portraying the female as the
“shrew” simply because she refuses to admit the submissive and silent role
that is attributed to her by the male characters around her. The play treats
matrimony as the ultimate domain of this fight, where the husband,
according to patriarchal norms, is defined as the master of the house. The
musical, however, adapts the sixteenth-century storyline into a modern but
still patriarchal universe, in which the male is portrayed not only as the
star but also as the director and producer of the show. From this point of
view, the major domain where male and female attempt to dominate one
another is not matrimony but theatre. Fred and Lilli, being an ex-married
couple, seem to show the audience one of the potential ends for Katharina
and Petruchio’s married life. In other words, Fred and Lilli’s failed
30 Chapter Four

marriage is an alternative off-stage end if Katharina’s submission in the

very last scene of the original play is seen as a fake submission. Because
of the resemblance between these two couples, the musical can be
regarded as a kind of time travel that presents Katharina and Petruchio’s
(pre-)marital life on stage and their alternative post-marital life off-stage.
Moreover, Porter’s musical is a journey between sixteenth-century Padua
and twentieth-century Baltimore, reality and fiction, and old English and
modern gangster idiom. As Swain suggests, “the juxtaposition of the two
plays, so different in setting and style, provide a number of sources for the
irony in the lyrics of Kiss Me, Kate” (Swain 2002, 142).
The Taming of the Shrew focuses on the notion of marriage and the
positioning of women in patriarchal society. After the Induction—which
makes the play into a play within a play—the audience learns that
Baptista, a nobleman in Padua, refuses to let his younger daughter Bianca
marry one of her eager suitors before his elder daughter Katharina gets
married. One of Bianca’s suitors, Hortensio, meets his old friend
Petruchio, who has recently arrived in Padua, and Hortensio encourages
Petruchio to woo Katharina and marry her. Petruchio uses reverse
psychology while courting Katharina, who does not seem eager to come to
terms with this stranger wooing her. Nevertheless, agreeing to marry
Petruchio after a short but weird wooing process, Katharina leaves her
father’s house and the “taming” process begins. Petruchio does not let
Katharina eat or drink anything because no food or drink is good enough;
he does not let her have new clothes simply because they are not
fashionable enough for her. Realizing her husband’s tactics, Katharina
joins in the game and agrees with whatever he says (even agreeing to call
the moon the sun). Meanwhile, in Padua, Bianca elopes with Lucentio—an
action totally contradictory to her silent and obedient image that is highly
emphasized in the beginning of the play, particularly while bringing
Katharina’s “shrewishness” to the fore. During the last scene of the play,
where three newly-wed couples, Katharina & Petruchio, Bianca &
Lucentio, the widow & Hortensio, are gathered at a banquet, Katharina
turns out to be the most obedient wife and counsels the other women to
love and obey their husbands.
A backstage musical written during the Golden Age of Broadway
(1940s—1960s), Kiss Me, Kate depicts a group of players who are
performing a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew in Baltimore. In
the backstage musical, as the term itself indicates, the general frame of the
story is set in a theatrical context and focuses on the production of the
play. The musical manages to present the realities of producing a theatrical
production while providing the audience with details of life backstage—a
 “Brush up your Shakespeare”: The Bard on Broadway 31

world that is kept totally secret and hence is something of a mystery. At

the beginning of the musical, the audience meets Fred Graham—the
producer, director and the star (Petruchio) of the show and his ex-wife
Lilli Vanessi (playing Katharina), who is a movie star and is engaged to a
rich man named Harrison. Lilli is reputed to be a very difficult person to
work with—a reputation which immediately links her with Katharina the
“shrew.” Things become more complicated when it turns out that Fred is
interested in Lois Lane (playing Bianca in the play within the play), who is
in a relationship with Bill (playing the role of Lucentio in the play within
the play). When Lilli finds out the flowers that come from Fred were
originally intended for Lois, their off-stage quarrels turn them into the
“real” Katharina and Petruchio on stage. Moreover, when Bill’s gambling
problem introduces two mob enforcers to the world of drama and music,
the whole story turns into a kind of comedy of errors. Because Bill has
signed an IOU using Fred’s name, the gangsters are after Fred.
Meanwhile, Lilli, who is angry with Fred because of the flower incident,
threatens to leave the show. When Fred tells the gangsters that if Lilli
leaves the show, he will never be able to pay his debt, the two mob
enforcers put on theatrical costumes and act as if they are a part of the
show simply to be closer to Lilli and prevent her from leaving the show.
But soon they find out that their boss is dead, which means that they no
longer need to get the money from Fred. Nevertheless, their presence in
the world of theatre changes direction when they find themselves on the
stage singing “Brush up your Shakespeare.” As the musical ends, Lilli
echoes Katharina’s submission at the end of the original play, while
reconciling with her ex-husband Fred.
Like many other backstage musicals, in Kiss Me, Kate the original play
and the musical are so intermingled that the players performing in
Shakespeare’s play are sometimes referred to with the names of the
characters they are enacting. Hence, the line between the two texts—as
well as fiction and reality—seems to be totally lost. The musical can be
read as a modernized version of the original play, by mirroring Katharina
and Petruchio’s relationship through Lilli and Fred. Moreover, as far as the
original 1940s Broadway audience of the musical is concerned, the names
Lilli and Fred emphasize the lack of any boundary between fiction and
reality. As Elizabeth Schafer points out,

The fact that Katherina and Petruchio were played by the most famous
theatrical married couple in the US at the time meant that the production
was also read as Lynn Fontanne skirmishing with Alfred Lunt, a double
vision which helped to inspire the 1948 musical based on Fontanne’s and
Lunt’s production, and their backstage quarrels, Kiss Me, Kate […] The
32 Chapter Four

protagonists of Kiss Me, Kate Lilli and Fred are even named for Fontanne,
who was christened Lillie Lousie Fontanne […] and Alfred Lunt. (Schafer
2002, 32)

The resemblance in the names would obviously make it easier for the
contemporary audience to contextualize the musical. One of the most
famous married couples on Broadway, Fontanne (1887-1983) and Lunt
(1892-1977) starred in The Taming of the Shrew in 1935. During these
productions, their off-stage quarrels (which sometimes continue on stage
with Shakespeare’s words and hence add a sense of reality to the almost-
four-hundred-year-old play) were as much talked about as their
performances on the stage. Clearly Fontanne and Lunt, not only with their
artistic significance but also with their off-stage quarrels, inspired Porter’s
musical Kiss Me, Kate. This glimpse of a reality with which 1940s
Broadway audiences were familiar creates an undeniable bond between
Shakespeare’s text and the musical.
These references to the real life Kiss Me, Kate as a rewriting of The
Taming of the Shrew reflect how Shakespeare was perceived by
contemporary American society. Hence, one of the highlights of the play,
the song entitled “Brush up your Shakespeare” is significant in displaying
how the Bard and the high culture he epitomizes are received by the two
gangsters, representatives of low culture. However, before analyzing the
song in detail, it would be appropriate to discuss the Anglo-American
relationship on both the political and cultural levels, since this relationship
determines the way Shakespeare is, or was, perceived by many Americans.
Kiss Me, Kate was first performed in 1948, a period that highlights a
transition of power in terms of world politics. The end of World War II
was important in creating new world powers and hence in drastically
changing Britain’s financial and political situation. Even before the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entrance into the war,
World War II was the beginning of a new era in Anglo-American
relations. It is undeniable that as far as Britain was concerned, “the need to
win American sympathy and material aid seemed essential to national
survival, especially after the fall of France in June 1940” (Hopkins &
Young 2005, 499). Although Britain did not fall like France, the intense
German bombing during the second half of 1940 damaged the country
severely. In 1941, America decided to give Britain (as well as the rest of
the Allied Forces) direct material support through the Lend-Lease
program, which was signed on 11 March 1941. World War II had
calamitous effects on Britain’s economy, which threatened the empire’s
power worldwide. America’s financial situation, however, improved day
by day. By the end of the Second World War, “Britain had become the
 “Brush up your Shakespeare”: The Bard on Broadway 33

world’s greatest debtor, the US was its greatest creditor” (Hopkins &
Young 2005, 500). Since power on a political level is directly related to
power on the financial level, it is crucial that by the end of the 1940s
Britain became indebted to one of its former colonies. In this respect, this
Broadway musical and its reflections on Englishness (via Shakespeare) are
important in showing how a creditor receives its debtor in terms of culture.
It is clear that the importance attached to Shakespeare in American
cultural history changed over time. In the nineteenth century, it was
observed that the Bard of Avon was an “integral part of American culture”
(Levine 1984, 36):

From the first documented American performance of a Shakespearean play

in 1750 to the closing of the theatres in 1778 because of the American
Revolution, Shakespeare emerged as the most popular playwright in the
colonies. Fourteen or fifteen of his plays were presented at least one
hundred and eighty—and one scholar has estimated perhaps as many as
five hundred—times. (Levine 1984, 37)

This interest in Shakespeare is usually considered to be a result of the

fact that American society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
acknowledged the common past, language and culture it shared with
Britain. While it still regarded itself as part of the old tradition that Britain
had imposed upon the English-speaking world, America’s attitude towards
that common past and culture gradually changed by the twentieth century
because the transition of power had already started. As Lawrence Levine
argues,

[I]f Shakespeare had been an integral part of mainstream culture in the

nineteenth century, in the twentieth he had become part of “polite”
culture—an essential ingredient in a complex we call, significantly,
“legitimate” theater. He had become the possession of the educated
portions of society who disseminated his plays for the enlightenment of the
average folk who were to swallow him not for their entertainment but for
their education, as a respite from—not as a normal part of—their usual
cultural diet. (Levine 1984, 47)

Kiss Me, Kate’s “Brush up your Shakespeare” is based upon the

perception that by the mid-twentieth century, Shakespeare had become an
indicator of polite and sophisticated culture. The fact that the song appears
in a musical, rather than a classical theatre adaptation, shows that the
Broadway musical is an attempt to make Shakespeare, considered a
symbol of politeness and cultivation, accessible to mainstream American
culture, where the Broadway musical can be seen as one of the ultimate
34 Chapter Four

signifiers of Americanism. In this respect, it provides a platform where

“high culture titles and the vulgar implications work together” (Teague
2006, 140).
The title “Brush up your Shakespeare” indicates the need to refresh
one’s memory on the Bard of Avon. The humorous lyrics of the song
suggest that the gangsters’ knowledge of Shakespeare definitely needs to
be improved. Sung by two mob enforcers, the song clearly portrays the
clash between high and low cultures by “allow[ing] the American street to
make contact with and dominate the British Embassy” (Lawson-Peebles
1996, 90). The gangsters are significant in emphasizing the difference
between the world of theatre/musical and the outside world. Being a
backstage drama, Kiss Me, Kate shows not only what happens in the
backstage of the play, but also stands as a bridge between the domains of
fiction and reality. From this perspective, the presence of the mob clarifies
the difference between these two worlds. Totally ignorant of the fictitious
world presented in the play within the play, the gangsters introduce the
“real” world onto the stage, and while doing so become a part of the
Shakespearean world as well. As soon as they appear on the stage in The
Taming of the Shrew and find themselves face to face with the audience,
they become theatrical fools.
As modern versions of Elizabethan fools, these gangsters are quite
different from the rest of the characters appearing in the musical. From
this point of view they readily fit the definition of the fool: “By definition,
fools are different: they diverge from what is common, whether it be
common sense, common judgment, or even common morality. They are
outsiders, embodiments of ‘the Other’” (Evans 1996, 47). The
representatives of the real world are presented as the Other as soon as they
enter the domain of fiction and drama. Moreover, since they are gangsters,
they clearly diverge from both common judgment and common morality.
Because they are a part of the underworld, which has its own set of rules
and conventions, their Otherness is highlighted.
Reminiscent of the stage representation of the Elizabethan fool, the
gangsters’ relation to the rest of the characters depends on a series of tricks
and misunderstandings. After losing a huge amount of money, Bill
Calhoun, who plays Lucentio in the play within the play, signs an IOU in
Fred’s name and hence becomes the key figure who introduces the
gangsters into the world of theatre. From this perspective, it is possible to
suggest that a major concern of the musical lies with identities and masks.
Since this is a backstage musical and most of the characters in the musical
also play characters in The Taming of the Shrew, all of these characters
have double identities with respect to the definition of the backstage
 “Brush up your Shakespeare”: The Bard on Broadway 35

musical. Moreover, the puzzling relationship between the sexes is another

sign of the problem of identities and masks, which is emphasized in the
pairings of Fred and Lilli, Lilli and Harrison, Fred and Lois, and Lois and
Bill. The love triangles and the never ending wooing amongst these
individuals make it difficult to clarify which relationship is genuinely
based upon love and which is governed by self-interest. Last but not least,
Bill’s forging of Fred’s signature adds another dimension to the problem
of identity. In this respect, the general frame of the musical is reminiscent
of Shakespeare’s comedies, such as Twelfth Night, which focus on
mistaken identities. Moreover, mistaken identities can easily be seen as an
indicator of lack of communication. Hence, the two mobsters’ presence
both backstage and on the stage is a sign of this lack.
Similarly, their song “Brush up your Shakespeare” shows how ignorant
they are about Shakespeare and hence indicates the lack of communication
between the sixteenth-century British poet and the twentieth-century
American gangsters. The song is full of mistakes about Shakespeare’s
plays and characters. This shows that, although Shakespeare can easily be
accessed by anybody, he is not understood at all:

Just declaim a few lines from Othella

And they’ll think you're a hell of a fella
If your blonde won't respond when you flatter ’er
Tell her what Tony told Cleopatterer

Turning Othello into Othella and then coupling the name with the word
“fella,” referring to Antony and Cleopatra as Tony and Cleopatterer, the
gang enforcers rewrite Shakespeare’s works and adapt them into their
vulgar and unsophisticated world through rhyming but colloquial
language. In a way, their familiarity with Shakespeare highlights the
polarization of high and low cultures rather than bringing them closer.
Misunderstanding Shakespeare and his works can be seen in light of
Levine’s comments about Shakespeare’s popularity in nineteenth-century
America:

The consensus seems to be that Shakespeare was popular for all the wrong
reasons: because of the afterpieces and divertissements that surrounded his
plays; because the people wanted to see great actors who in turn insisted on
performing Shakespeare to demonstrate their abilities; because his plays
were presented in altered, simplified versions; because of his bombast,
crudities, and sexual allusions rather than his poetry or sophistication;
because of almost anything but his dramatic genius. (Levine 1984, 49)
36 Chapter Four

Levine’s argument is what these gangsters exemplify through the

bawdy double meanings they are producing throughout the song. From
this point of view, it is clear that they show how Shakespeare is
(mis)understood by uneducated people (they also admit that they have
educated themselves in various prison libraries, once again emphasizing
the polarity between the worlds in twentieth-century cultural life). In their
hands, Shakespeare and most of his characters are turned into comical
figures to be laughed at. Moreover, not only the fictitious characters
appearing in Shakespeare’s plays, but also British diplomats get their share
as well:

With the wife of the British ambessida

Try a crack out of Troilus and Cressida
If she says she won’t buy it or tike it
Make her tike it, what’s more As You Like It

Clearly, both the ambassadors as representatives of political power and

the British presence in America are mocked. It is also worth mentioning
that the target in wooing is not the ambassador but his wife, turning
Englishness into an object to tempt and amaze. By feminizing the country
and the culture as a whole, the major concern of The Taming of the Shrew
and Kiss Me, Kate, wooing and taming the female, is emphasized once
again. Moreover, the play that is alluded to in connection to the British
“ambessida” is Troilus and Cressida, which takes place during the Trojan
War and unites the two concepts of war and wooing. Through the
reference to one of the most widely acknowledged aspects of British
diplomacy/politics, the two gangsters feminize British power in politics
and try to dominate it by a metaphorical temptation. With the words,
crack, buy and tike, they reconstruct the artificial courtesy in diplomatic
relations and emphasize the distance between their way and the British
diplomats’ way. Once again, the fools accomplish their mission by
ridiculing the prestigious, by highlighting the fact that the prestigious is
respected for the wrong reasons.
Moreover, it is possible to suggest that these gangsters succeed the
Elizabethan fool in this adaptation with their vaudevillian appearance on
the stage. From this point of view, “the two hoods join the gallery of
Shakespeare’s corrupt yet perceptive comic characters” (Lawson-Peebles
1996, 106). The musical aspect of the song also matches the image of the
gangsters as fools. The general mood of the song is light and merry with
its Bowery waltz tempo, which, according to Joseph Swain, is employed
in order to “conjure up images of middle class gentility and sentiment”
(Swain 2002, 147). Hence, it would be possible to suggest that through
 “Brush up your Shakespeare”: The Bard on Broadway 37

this light and merry song the gangsters, who at first seem to be out of
context, manage directly to create a bridge between sixteenth-century
English poetry on the stage and the modern American audience.
When the general framework of the song is taken into consideration, it
is apparent that it is in tune with the major focus of both the musical and
the play within the musical, The Taming of the Shrew. Relationships and
communication between the sexes seem central to both works as well as to
the song “Brush up your Shakespeare,” since the refrain goes like this:

Brush up your Shakespeare

Start quoting him now
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow.

As far as these gangsters are concerned, Shakespeare and the high

culture he represents are the keys to attracting women. They make this
view clear at the beginning of the song by saying “The girls today in
society go for classical poetry / So to win their hearts one must quote with
ease / Aeschylus and Euripides.” However, the way they tend to use
Shakespeare is limited to showing off rather than appreciating the Bard as
a part of high culture. Hence, Shakespeare becomes a weapon to be used
against the female one is wooing: “If her virtue, at first, she defends—
well/Just remind her that ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’,” suggesting that
“Shakespeare can become a sexual weapon because he is universally
perceived as a cultural weapon” (Buhler 2007, 153).
It is significant that language and the power of words are used as
weapons both in the musical and the original play as far as gender
relations are concerned. The title of the original play, The Taming of the
Shrew, defines the woman who uses her tongue with respect to her own
free will as a shrew and depicts the male attack on the female, again using
language primarily, as an act of taming. In fact, Kate’s shrewishness is in
accordance with the assumption that “a woman’s clamorous tongue often
was linked with Satan and the Fall of Adam” (Aspinall 2002, 10), and
hence, as Catherine Bates suggests, “in this play, Kate embodies the
shrewish female who was enshrined in jest-books, ballads, sermons, folk
tales, and a well-populated misogynistic tradition” (Bates 2002, 116-117).
The patriarchal perception of the female labels Katharina as a “shrew”
when she attempts to act according to her own will and use her voice in
making her demands audible. When the two sisters, Katharina and Bianca,
are taken into consideration, it is observed that Katharina is clearly
portrayed as the animal-like shrew, whereas Bianca’s manipulative nature
38 Chapter Four

is hidden between the lines.1 In Act II Scene I, Katharina bluntly tells how
disturbing she finds her sister’s silence and seeming obedience: “Her
silence flouts me, and I’ll be revenged” (line 29). By the end of the play,
Katharina seems to have learned her lesson in emphasizing her thoughts in
a socially acceptable way. As Northrop Frye suggests, “when we first see
Katharina she is bullying Bianca, and when we take leave of her she is still
bullying Bianca, but has learned how to do it with social approval on her
side” (Frye 1965, 80). In other words, it is only when Katharina learns to
play the submissive wife that she is no longer regarded as a threat to the
patriarchal order. The change in Katharina’s behaviour is a direct result of
her encounter with Petruchio, another character who uses language quite
liberally, especially in his relationship with the opposite sex. The double
standard society employs against Katharina and Petruchio is emphasized
when the same pattern of behaviour is defined as “shrewishness” in
Katharina’s case and as the “right of the male/husband” in Petruchio’s
case. Throughout the play, because of her allegedly rebellious nature,
Katharina is associated not just with animals but also with madness. This
is understandable, since everything and everyone standing outside the
restraints of social order would be considered satanic, bestial and insane,
different forms of the Other. From this point of view, the kind of
behaviour shared by Katharina and Petruchio is presented as a kind of
madness which, however, helps the reader/audience observe the double
standard more easily: “While Kate’s madness is presented as emotional,
subjective, and involved, Petruchio’s, by contrast, is ironic, objective, and
detached” (Bates 2002, 117).
In Kiss Me, Kate we can see a similar difference between Fred and
Lilli with respect to the sincerity of their actions. Reminiscent of
Petruchio’s inconsistent behaviour while “taming” his wife, Fred presents
the duality in his desires with respect to his hidden agenda (namely, his
interest in Lois). Wooing his ex-wife and Lois at the same time, Fred is a
hypocritical, egotistical male. This is why Lilli’s aggressive behaviour on
and off stage can be justified. In this respect, Lilly, who does not hide
from the audience the fact that she is still in love with Fred, behaves in an
aggressive way, with apparent cause.
To sum up, Porter’s wise decision to use Shakespeare and Renaissance
Europe as the background in depicting two parallel but yet very different
worlds presents the audience a multi-layered portrayal of the world of the

1
Throughout the play, Katharina is associated with various animals, particularly
with horses, suggesting that her “shrewishness” is bestial and needs to be tamed so
that she can be accepted in a society that is constructed in accordance with
patriarchal norms and conventions.
 “Brush up your Shakespeare”: The Bard on Broadway 39

actors. Creating an echoing couple, the musical not only presents an

alternative rewriting of The Taming of the Shrew, but also shows the clash
between high and low cultures through forced rhymes and humorous
lyrics. From this point of view, Kiss Me, Kate focuses on the relationship
between the sexes, which makes a reference between the lines to the
relationship between two different cultures that were obviously affected by
the changing dynamics in politics and the economy during the twentieth
century.

References
Allen, Graham. 2000. Intertextuality. London and New York: Routledge.
Aspinall, Dana E. 2002. “The Play and the Critics.” In The Taming of the
Shrew: Critical Essays, edited by Dana E. Aspinall, 3-38. New York
and London: Routledge.
Bates, Catherine. 2002. “Love and Courtship.” In The Cambridge
Companion to Shakespearean Comedy, edited by Alexander Leggatt,
102-122. Cambridge: CUP.
Buhler, Stephen M. 2007. “Musical Shakespeares: Attending to Ophelia,
Juliet, and Desdemona.” In The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare
and Popular Culture, edited by Robert Shaughnessy, 150-174.
Cambridge: CUP.
Dash, Irene G. 2010. Shakespeare and the American Musical.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Evans, Robert C. 1996. “Forgotten Fools: Alexander Barclay’s Ship of
Fools.” In Fools and Folly, edited by Clifford Davidson, 47-72.
Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications.
Frye, Northrop. 1965. A Natural Perspective: The Development of
Shakespearean Comedy and Romance. New York & London:
Columbia University Press.
Genette, Gérard. 1997. Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree.
Translated by Channa Newman and Claude Doubinsky. New York &
London: University of Nebraska Press.
Hopkins, Michael F., and John W. Young. 2005. “The Anglo-American
‘Special Relationship’.” In A Companion to Contemporary Britain:
1939-2000, edited by Paul Addison and Harriet Jones, 499-516.
Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Hutcheon, Linda. 2006. A Theory of Adaptation. New York and London:
Routledge.
40 Chapter Four

Lawson-Peebles, Robert. 1996. “Brush Up Your Shakespeare: The Case of

Kiss Me, Kate.” In Approaches to the American Musical, edited by
Robert Lawson-Peebles, 89-108. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
Levine, Lawrence W. 1984. “William Shakespeare and the American
People: A Study in Cultural Transformation.” The American Historical
Review 89: 34-66.
Schafer, Elizabeth. 2002. Introduction to The Taming of the Shrew, edited
by Elizabeth Schafer, 1-76. Cambridge: CUP.
Shakespeare, William. 1981. The Taming of the Shrew, edited by Brian
Morris. London and New York: Methuen.
Swain, Joseph Peter. 2002. The Broadway Musical: A Critical and
Musical Survey. Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press.
Teague, Frances. 2006. Shakespeare and the American Popular Stage.
Cambridge: CUP.
 PART II

POPULAR MUSIC
 CHAPTER FIVE

SADNESS, SUPERSTITION AND SEXUALITY

IN BLUES POETRY

KRISTINA KOČAN ŠALAMON

This chapter explores African American poetry that involves the

musical genre of the blues. Blues became an inspiration for many African
American poets, who adapted this music genre for their poetry, using its
theme, structure and the black vernacular. In most cases, African
American poetry departs from traditional literary norms by ignoring GE
grammatical rules, using unusual typography on many occasions,
including African American cultural heritage in their poetry, and
interweaving musical elements of jazz, blues and soul into literary genres.
Henry Louis Gates Jr. explains: “For it is in these spaces of difference that
black literature has dwelled” (Gates 2001, 2431). The focus of this paper,
however, is on the blues genre in African American poetry and on the
contention that there is something called blues poetry, and not only jazz
poetry, which often involves improvisational language mirroring jazz
improvisation. Music and black speech are without doubt major parts of
African American culture and literature.
What exactly is the blues? Houston A. Baker Jr. claims that “The task
of adequately describing the blues is equivalent to the labor of describing a
world class athlete’s awesome gymnastics” (Baker 2001, 2231). The word
blues comes from “the blue devils” and refers first of all to a mood of
dejection. Blues, however, also refers to a musical form, a song lyric and a
technique. Critics argue about everything regarding the blues: is it a sad or
a happy genre? Is it a personal or a collective expression? Is it dance music
or devil music? However, Steven C. Tracy gently reminds us that blues
can be all of these things. The blues developed among African slave
workers in America and was first sung during work in the fields. Tracy
points out that for African Americans “the blues are ‘a way of life,’
differentiated from the generic emotion because of the peculiar
circumstances of African American existence in the United States” (Tracy
2001, 59). The slaves often encoded their songs by expressing themselves
 Sadness, Superstition and Sexuality in Blues Poetry 43

metaphorically, with the intention of preventing their white masters from

understanding, or even of concealing their attitude about their lives.
Originally, the blues was all about African American folklore, as Tracy
explains: “The folklore is generated by a group with a particular ethos
related to time, place, and socioeconomic conditions as well, and because
it comes into being in this type of ‘exclusive’ environment, it reflects all
aspects of this environment: speech, sayings, tales, songs, religion,
superstitions, signs, symbols…” (Tracy 2001, 13). African American
slaves included their folklore in blues songs.
The blues as a musical genre emerged around 1900. The first blues
recording, “Crazy Blues,” was by Mamie Smith from 1920. Following its
publication, the blues became popularized, and it was then that the classic
blues, more appropriately called “vaudeville blues” emerged. The form of
blues is very simple: usually it is AAB structure, where “each line or
thought is stated, repeated, and then answered…” (Palmer 1981, 42).
According to some studies, this “call-and-response” technique, or the
leader-chorus response, comes from Africa. Another crucial aspect of the
blues is the African American oral tradition, which is apparent in all blues
lyrics. One such example is the classic tune by Robert Johnson, “Ramblin’
on my Mind”: “I got ramblin’, I got ramblin’ on my mind/I got ramblin’, I
got ramblin’ on my mind/Hate to leave you my baby, but you treats me so
unkind.” In his song, Johnson embodies all four aspects of the blues: the
mood, the musical form—12 bar blues, the lyrics and the guitar technique.
In these three lines one can immediately notice the AAB structure or the
call-and-response technique. There is also the use of the black vernacular
with all the typical grammatical variants, such as the incorrect subject-verb
relationship, with a verb (treats) in the third person singular for second
person singular subjects. The singer uses the rules of Black Vernacular
speech to emphasize the importance of his culture and heritage, a language
that partly has its roots in the American South: “Certain elements of this
vernacular, including phonology and syntax, resemble those of southern
White speech” (Oubré 1997). Furthermore, Johnson adds another feature
of African American Vernacular to his song, the omission of the final
letter “g” in words that end with the suffix -ing, and the omission of the
subject in the third line. The theme in blues is always about painful
experience and feelings of sadness, sometimes mixed with religious and
spiritual uplift or subtle sexual elements and even humour. Johnson paints
a sad mood as he hates to leave his beloved, but she treats him as the devil.
Baker provides an illustrative example from the singer and songwriter
Skip James: “Now this trouble I’m having, I brought it all on myself… /
You know the woman that I love, I stoled her from my best friend, / but
44 Chapter Five

you know that fool done got lucky and stole her back again” (Baker 2001,
2231). In Baker’s example, the reader can recognize the humorous twist in
the lyrics, which is often present in this genre. The blues is therefore not
only a very emotional genre but also a complex one. Baker explains that
blues is a combination of “work songs, group seculars, field hollers, sacred
harmonies, proverbial wisdom, folk philosophy, political commentary,
ribald humour, elegiac lament, and much more” (Baker 2001, 2232). The
blues gained immediate wide appeal, since it expressed endurance and
even the will to overcome trouble. Subsequently, it became popular among
African Americans, as they could relate easily to the themes of blues
lyrics. Many poets adapted blues in their poetry; African American poets
use black vernacular in blues adaptations in the lexical and grammatical,
even in the syntactical sense. In his article “Coexistent Systems in African-
American English,” William Labov states that the structures of Black
vernacular speech, “together form a system that is distinct from but
coexists with the GE elements of the grammar” (Labov 1998, 33).
I will discuss several poems by African American poets that are all
related to the blues; generally however, it can be misleading to think that
all poems with “blues” in the title must show an association with this
genre. One of the first African American poets to be inspired by the blues
is Langston Hughes (1902—1967). His first poetry collection, published in
1926, has the title The Weary Blues after the blues song “Weary Blues”
composed by the pianist Artie Matthews. The title poem conveys the blues
idiom that Hughes echoed and portrays a black (“Negro”) pianist playing
in a bar in Harlem (“Lenox Avenue”): “I heard a Negro play/Down on
Lenox Avenue the other night.” The poet does not simply use a classic
blues structure but includes the call-and-response quality that is so crucial
to the blues in a much freer way, which might already indicate the later
“jazziness” of his poetry: “He played that sad raggy tune like a musical
fool/Sweet Blues! /Coming from a black man’s soul/O Blues!” According
to Liggins Hill, “this is the greatness of Hughes’s experimentation with the
blues idiom” (Liggins Hill 1998, 888). Hughes wonderfully captures the
swaying and the motion of the musician by indenting some of the lines,
which helps to create a certain rhythm: “He did a lazy sway... /To the tune
o’ those Weary Blues/With his ebony hands on each ivory key/He made
that poor piano moan with melody/O Blues!” One could even argue that
the effervescent “O Blues!” serves as a blue note, commonly used in blues
music. Other poems by Hughes that share blues features are “The Dream
Keeper” and “Shakespeare in Harlem.” Later in his career, Hughes was
increasingly influenced by jazz and is now considered the first major jazz
poet.
 Sadness, Superstition and Sexuality in Blues Poetry 45

Another member of the Harlem Renaissance, Sterling Brown (1901—

1989), was also successful in combining blues and poetry: “Sterling
Brown attempted to revise the blues and spirituals into a creative
expression of great aesthetic appeal” (Liggins Hill 1998, 993). Unlike
Hughes’s “The Weary Blues,” his poem “Southern Road” (the title poem
of his first poetry collection that appeared in 1932) stresses the classic
blues form that conveys the fierce distress of slaves. Sascha Feinstein
adds, “Brown’s choice of blues form evokes the relentless hardship of
slaves and shackled chain gang members” (Feinstein 1991, 50): “My ole
man died—hunh—/Cussin’ me/Ole lady rocks, bebby/Huh misery.”
Moreover, Brown chose the blues form to express the suffering of the
exploited African Americans, a much darker theme than Hughes’s:
“Doubleshackled—hunh—/Guard behin’/Ball an’ chain, bebby/On my
min’.” Tracy attributes this difference in tone between the two writers to
the fact that Hughes was a poet of Harlem, a poet of the city, and was
therefore not so burdened by the cruel past of his ancestors.
Numerous contemporary African American poets have been influenced
by the rural or city blues traditions. The poet Sherley Anne Williams
(1944—1999) used blues almost as a poetic genre. All her poetry is
infused with a blues motif: “Sometimes the blues mood is ritualistic and
intrinsic, as in... Williams’s ‘Any Woman’s Blues’” (Liggins Hill 1998,
1358): “Every woman is a victim of the feel blues, too.” Like Sterling
Brown, this poet also uses the AAB form, which, next to the blues theme,
forms the most important feature of the blues: “Soft lamp is shinin/and me
alone in the night/Can’t take no one beside me/need mo’n jest some man
to set me right.” Several other contemporary African American poets used
the AAB blues structure and theme, as in the example of Nikki Giovanni’s
“Master Charge Blues”: “it’s Wednesday night baby/and I’m all
alone/Wednesday night baby/and I’m all alone/sitting with myself/waiting
for the telephone.” In Williams’s poem, there is a rhyme structure (aaa,
bbb, ccc, ddd), but in the second and third stanza there is only an
approximate rhyme, where words are almost but not exactly alike in their
vowel sounds: “Left many a person and places/I lived my life alone/I need
to get myself together/Yes, I need to make myself to home.” In Giovanni’s
poem this is based on spoken language (alone, alone, home; sun, sun,
gone). The poem also uses vernacular structures (the word “naw,” My life
ain’t done yet... My song ain’t through.). Furthermore, this example shows
the author’s conscious decision to use a non-standard subject-verb
relationship: “These is old blues/and I sing ‘em like any woman do.” The
poet uses the non-standard subject-verb relationship by putting a verb in
the third person singular with the plural nouns (“These is old blues”
46 Chapter Five

instead of “These are old blues” or “This is old blues”). Labov even
established that, “There is no third singular /s/ in AAVE and no subject-
verb agreement, except for the copula” (Labov 1998). Thus, the poet
simply follows the rules of the black vernacular.
Naomi Long Madgett’s (1923 - ) “Monday Morning Blues” is another
example of blues in poetry. The structure in this poem is also AAB with a
strong rhyme structure (aaa bbb ccc ddd): “All night my bed was rocky, all
night nobody by my side/My bed was cold and rocky, all night no good
man by my side/The radiator sputtered, the furnace gave a groan and
died.” Some syntactic structures such as word order or additions to
sentences help us recognize the blues structure in what may sound archaic
and awkward to a contemporary reader (“Wish I could find me something
as lucky as a black cat’s bones”). This example brings us to another
interesting phenomenon of the blues aesthetic, which Madgett uses in this
poem, and that is connected with African culture/heritage. Many blues
lyrics refer to voodoo, superstition and even the devil. Madgett refers in
this poem to “black cat’s bones,” which in some African traditions are
supposed to bring luck. This poet presents blues as being inherent in
everyday life in an uplifting spirit, where the persona overcomes feelings
of helplessness. Similarly to Williams’s poem, Madgett also uses an
interesting feature that is typical of blues musicians and is technically
called “worrying” the line, where the author alters the repeated line in
meter or sound (“You may not see me smiling, still you’ll never hear me
cry/Seldom see me smiling, never gonna hear me cry”).
A similar case involves the poet Sonia Sanchez (1934 - ), who often
emphasizes black speech and black idiom and uses music, such as blues
and jazz rhythms, in her poetry. She tries to escape white literary values by
rejecting ‘regular’ literary forms. As Amiri Baraka affirmed about her
work, “With her poetry and other literature, she seeks to reverse those
influences so that American blacks can become ‘black’ again” (Liggins
Hill 1998, 1491). Sanchez’s poem “Blues” uses the blues theme differently
from the previous two examples, though. The poet here alters the original
blues form; Sanchez uses none of the typical blues structures: “like when
he took me to his/home away from home place/and i died the long sought
after/death he’d planned for me.” What matters most in this poem is the
theme: “In some instances, the influence is ornamental and thematic, as in
Sanchez’s ‘Blues’” (Liggins Hill 1998, 1358). Sanchez decided to include
 Sadness, Superstition and Sexuality in Blues Poetry 47

the not-so-subtle sexual connotation (“he put in the bacon/and it

overflowed the pot”) and an allusion to Bessie Smith (“Yeah, Bessie”)1.
Etheridge Knight’s “A Poem for Myself (or Blues for a Mississippi
Black Boy)” shows the reader how experimental a poet can become with
the blues genre in poetry: “…contemporary black poets have experimented
with the blues motif and form, as in Knight’s ‘A Poem for Myself...’”
(Liggins Hill 1998, 1359). As in the Sanchez example, there is no
particular blues form, but the theme also diverges from the theme of pain
or sexuality, because the poet is calling for African American people to
return to their southern roots: “Going back to Mississippi/This time to stay
for good.” The poet uses interesting syntactical structures, by leaving out
the auxiliary verb: “I been to Detroit & Chicago”; “Born black in
Mississippi/Walked barefooted thru the mud.” The poet also leaves out the
subject at some points (“Been to New York city too”). In “A Poem for
Myself,” there is the omission of the verb to be, “the frequent copula
deletion… presumably result[ing] from a noun-verb contraction that
became progressively more contracted” (Oubré 1997). Labov explains the
use of “non-recent perfective ‘been’” as in Knight’s poem thus: “This use
of been always precedes a preterit form of the verb, which in itself may be
considered to carry the past tense information {a condition referred to was
true in the past}” (Labov 1998, 25).
Tom Dent (1932—1998) uses the Black Vernacular in a similar
manner. In the case of Sonia Sanchez, Etheridge Knight, Tom Dent, Haki
Madhubuti2 and many others, poetry makes use of the black vernacular,
with “misspelling” of words. The poem “For Walter Washington” is one
example where Dent uses non-standard forms for words—blk for black,
blken for blacken, yr for your, you for your. Furthermore, he adds another
feature of African American Vernacular to his poetry: the omission of the
final letter “g” in words that end with the suffix -ing. In his poem, Dent
presents blues as a sad genre: “with shots of blue….”

We blk blues singers

we blken the chords
with shots of blue…
we blk blues singers
we are you pleadin

1
Bessie Smith was the greatest of the classic female Blues singers of the 1920s
and the 1930s.
2
Haki R.Madhubuti (Don L. Lee), 1942 - : “Watch yr/ every movement as u skip
thru-ou the southside // of chicago. // be hip to yr / actions… (“We Walk the Way
of the New World”).
48 Chapter Five

The chapter has explored the extent to which African American poets
have been under the influence of music. Music as well as Black speech is
considered to be ‘indigenous’ to African American writers. Jazz and blues,
even soul music have influenced a number of African American poets.
African American poets used jazz in poetry to such an extent that the term
jazz poetry emerged: “A jazz poem is any poem that has been informed by
jazz music. The influence can be in the subject of the poem or in the
rhythms, but one should not necessarily exclude the other” (Feinstein
1997, 2). African American poets have likewise successfully adapted the
rules that apply to the blues within the genre of poetry, rules on the
structure, theme and linguistic aspect of the blues. If one accepts
Feinstein’s argument why a jazz poem is a jazz poem, then one can claim
the same for blues poetry, and this was my intention: to argue that a blues
poem is any poem that has been informed by blues music.

References
Brown, Sterling. 1974. Southern Road. Boston: Beacon Press.
Feinstein, Sascha. 1997. Jazz Poetry: From the 1920s to the Present.
Westport: Praeger Publishers.
Feinstein, Sascha, and Yusef Komunyakaa. 1991. The Jazz Poetry
Anthology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Gates, Henry Louis Jr. 2001. “Talking Black: Critical Signs of the Times.”
In The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, edited by Vincent
B. Leitch, 2424-2432. New York: W. W. Norton.
Baker, Houston A. Jr. 2001. “Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American
Literature: A Vernacular Theory.” In The Norton Anthology of Theory
and Criticism, edited by Vincent B. Leitch, 2227-2240. New York: W.
W. Norton.
Hughes, Langston. 1994. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. New
York: Random House.
Labov, William. 1998. “Coexistent Systems in African-American
English.” William Labov. University of Pennsylvania. Accessed
November 5 2012. http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/Papers/CSAA
.html.
Liggins Hill, Patricia, ed. 1998. Call and Response: The Riverside
Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin.
Oubré, Alondra. 1997. “Black English Vernacular.” African American
Web Connection. Accessed November 5 2012. http://www.aawc.com/
ebonicsarticle.html.
 Sadness, Superstition and Sexuality in Blues Poetry 49

Palmer, Robert. 1981. Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the
Mississippi Delta. New York: Penguin.
Sanchez, Sonia. 1999. Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems.
Boston: Beacon Press.
Tracy, Steven C. 2001. Langston Hughes and the Blues. Illinois: Board of
Trustees of the University of Illinois.
 CHAPTER SIX

GETTING THE MESSAGE ACROSS:

ATTITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE POPULAR
SONGS “LIKE TOY SOLDIERS”
AND “TOY SOLDIERS”

AGATA KRIŽAN

The purposes and roles of song lyrics vary depending on the genre and
intentions of their authors, for example, to colour the song in techno, to
inspire and suggest in gospel or to narrate in country songs. Although in
some popular songs the role of lyrics is muted, while in others it is
paramount, lyrics can bridge the gap between the message the lyricist
wants to convey, the melody and emotion portrayed by the music, and the
audience. It is the lyrics that speak to the aware and reflective audience.
Furthermore, the language of song lyrics often expresses a range of
emotions, evaluations and values regarding the singer, audience, world or
society. It is often through these interpersonal meanings that the message
to the audience is conveyed. According to Halliday (Halliday and
Matthiessen 1994), interpersonal meanings realize the relationship
between the writer/singer and the reader/audience. The relationship
between the singer and the audience can thus be the key to a deeper
understanding of song messages and their hidden ideological impact. The
main focus of this paper is to show how attitudinal resources in two
popular songs “Like Toy Soldiers” by Eminem, one of the best-selling
artists and rappers in the world, and “Toy Soldiers” by Martika, an 80s
American pop singer, are used to express emotions, judgements and
evaluations, to elicit reaction from the audience, and to align the audience,
contributing to the transmission of particular values. These two songs were
chosen for analysis because they share a similar title, and the refrain of one
of the songs is incorporated as a background chorus into the other, which,
we suppose, would result in the expression of the same, or at least a
 Getting the Message Across 51

similar, set of attitudinal resources. An additional reason for choosing

them is the popularity of 80s pop and rap. According to Mitchell (2006,
17), many see rap as a voice for the socially marginalised and a means by
which they can “articulate the place in the world”; therefore, rap music has
been the object of much scholarly attention in recent years Riley (2005).
One effective way to reveal attitudes in a text is to draw upon appraisal
theory, which is one of three major discourse semantic resources
construing interpersonal meaning. It comprises three domains: attitude,
engagement and graduation (Martin and White 2005, 35; Halliday and
Matthiessen 1994). Since the interpersonal function of language is
concerned with the interaction between a speaker/writer and a
listener/reader, appraisals play a significant role in fulfilling this function.
The various expressions of self and influences on others are mostly
realized through appraisals, and visible in negotiated emotions,
judgements and valuations, their amplified versions and evaluative
engagement (Martin 2000, 145). Appraisals position us to feel, and in this
respect, are resources for negotiating solidarity (Martin 2004, 326). In this
way certain ideological positions are expressed and negotiated (White
2001, 1).
The three sub-categories of appraisals are attitude, engagement and
graduation. Attitude is further divided into affect, judgement and
appreciation. Affect is a resource for expressing feelings, while judgement
is a resource for judging people’s character and behaviour. It encompasses
resources of social esteem with categories of normality, capacity and
tenacity, while resources of social sanction include categories of propriety
and veracity. Appreciation is a resource for valuing the worth of things
and phenomena and is divided into reaction, composition and valuation.
Although the main focus in this paper is attitudes, these are often coupled
in their expression with engagement and graduation items, which are
related to the writer’s positioning and adjustment in propositions, and to
the attitudinal amplification. According to Bakhtin (1981, 1986),
propositions using these resources are “dialogic,” which means they
“anticipate the responses of actual, potential or imagined readers/listeners”
(Vološinov 1995). Attitudinal meanings in appraisal theory can be
inscribed or evoked, positive or negative (Martin 1997, 2000; Martin and
Rose 2003; Martin and White 2005). Macken-Horarik (2003, 299)
describes evoked attitude as a very important method by which “a text
insinuates itself into readers’ attitudes.” By using evoked attitude, the
author “...constructs relations of alignment and rapport between the
writer/speaker and actual or potential respondents” (Martin and White
2005, 1). According to Martin and White (75), attitudes that are indirectly
52 Chapter Six

expressed/evoked/invoked are termed “tokens” (Martin and White 2005,

75).
Since the appraisal system is still open for debate and reworking,
double-coding of attitudinal instances often occurs as a result of co-text,
varying cultural backgrounds as well as reading position (Rothery and
Stenglin 2000; Thompson 2005; Page 2003; Martin and White 2005).
Appraisal instances in every line of both songs were coded and marked
in terms of their attitudinal categories, sub-categories and status (attitudes
are marked in bold, graduation in italics and engagement by underlining).
The number of occurrences of attitudes in both songs was counted and
entered into the table, separately for inscribed attitudes and tokens (Tables
1 and 2). Owing to the frequent use of the personal pronoun I in both
songs, the author’s voice is considered to be the singer him/herself. Spatial
limitations mean that only the first 10 lines of both texts are coded by way
of illustration, whereas in the analysis all attitudinal instances are taken
into consideration.
The following abbreviations are used in this analysis:
bold = attitude ins = inscribed (direct) attitude -t = token attitude +/- =
positive/negative status aff = affect happ = happiness sat= satisfaction
sec = security incl = inclination judg = judgement norm = normality
cap = capability ten = tenacity ver = veracity prop = propriety
appr =appreciation reac = reaction comp = composition val = valuation

1 Martika “Toy Soldiers”

1 Step by step, heart to heart, left right left
2 We all fall down (-t/appr:val:-) like toy soldiers
3 It wasn’t my intention to (ins/aff:incl:+) mislead (ins/judg:prop:-)
(-t/judg:prop:+) (-t/aff:sec:-) (-t/aff:happ:-)
4 It never should have been this way (-t/appr:val:-)
5 What can I say ( -t/aff:sec:-; -t/judg:cap:-).
6 It’s true I did extend the invitation
7 I never knew (ins/judg:cap:-) how long you’d stay
8 When you hear temptation call (ins/aff:incl:-)
9 It’s your heart that takes, takes a fall (ins/aff:happ:-)
10 Won’t you come out and play with me (-t/aff:incl:+) (-t/aff:sec:-)

2 Eminem “Like Toy Soldiers”

The background singing:
Step by step, heart to heart, left right left
We all fall down (-t/appr:val:-) like toy soldiers
 Getting the Message Across 53

Bit by bit torn apart (ins/aff:happ:-) We never win (ins/judg:norm:-)

(-t/aff:sat:-) (ins/judg:cap:-)
But the battle wages on for toy soldiers (-t/aff.happ:-) (-t/aff:incl:+)
or (-t/appr:val:-)

The main lyrics:

1 I’m supposed to be the soldier who never blows his composure
(-t/aff:sec:+; -t/judg:norm:+)
2 Even though I hold the weight of the whole world on my shoulders
(-t/aff:happ:-)
3 I am never supposed to show it (-t/judg:ten:+; -t/judg:norm:+), my crew
ain’t supposed to know it (-t/judg:cap:-)
4 Even if it means goin’ toe to toe with a Benzino it don’t matter
(ins/appr:val:-)
5 I’d never drag them in battles (-t/judg:prop:+; -t/judg:norm:+) that I
can’t handle (ins/judg:cap:-) unless I absolutely have to
6 I’m supposed to set an example (-t/judg:cap:+)
7 I need to (ins/aff:incl:+) be the leader (ins/judg:cap:+), my crew looks
for me (ins/aff:incl:+) to guide ‘em (-t/judg:cap:+; -t/judg:cap:-).
8 If some shit (ins/appr:val:-) ever just pop off, I’m supposed to be beside
‘em (-t/judg:prop:+)
9 Now the Ja shit (ins/appr:val:-) I tried to (ins/aff:incl:+) squash it
(-t/judg:prop:+), it was too late to stop it (-t/appr:val:-) (-t/aff:happ.-)
10 There’s a certain line you just don’t cross (-t/judg:norm:+) and he
crossed it (-t/judg:prop:-) I heard him say Hailie’s name on a song and
I just lost it (ins/aff:sat:-)

Table 1 Inscribed values in Martika’s song and Eminem’s song

Value MS MS ES ES MS MS ES ES MS MS ES ES
% % Pos % Pos % Neg % Neg %
AFF 6 2.18 32 4.75 1 0.36 20 2.97 5 1.81 12 1.78
Incl 2 0.72 16 2.37 1 0.36 15 2.22 1 0.36 1 0.14
Happ 4 1.45 2 0.29 - - 2 0.29 4 1.45 - -
Sec - - 3 0.44 - - 2 0.29 - - 1 0.14
Sat - - 11 1.63 - - 1 0.14 - - 10 1.48
JUDG 4 1.45 22 3.26 - - 19 2.82 4 1.45 3 0.44
Cap 2 0.72 10 1.48 - - 7 1.04 2 0.72 3 0.44
Norm 1 0.36 2 0.29 - - 2 0.29 1 0.36 - -
Prop 1 0.36 5 0.80 - - 5 0.80 1 0.36 - -
Ten - - 2 0.29 - - 2 0.29 - - - -
Ver - - 3 0.44 - - 3 0.44 - - - -
APPR 2 0.72 19 2.82 - - 6 0.89 2 0.72 13 1.93
Reac 1 0.36 4 0.59 - - 1 0.14 1 0.36 3 0.44
Val 1 0.36 15 2.22 - - 5 0.80 1 0.36 10 1.48
TOTAL 12 4.3 73 10.84 1 0.36 45 6.68 11 4.00 28 4.16
54 Chapter Six

The results in Table 1 show that the inscribed values in Eminem’s song
are more frequently expressed (10.84%) than in Martika’s song (4.3%).
While in Eminem’s song positive values prevail (6.68%), in Martika’s
song the prevailing attitudinal status is negative (4.00%), and heavily
outnumbers the positive one (0.36%). Despite the prevailing positive value
in ES, the occurrence of negative value is also high (4.16%).
Although in both songs affect manifests most (MS: 2.18%; ES:
4.75%), its status in Martika’s song is mostly negative (1.81%), while in
Eminem’s song it is positive (2.97%). The inclusion of values of affect in
a text is a clear indicator of the attitudinal stance adopted by speakers and
is an effective strategy for positioning listeners and negotiating solidarity
with them. Martin (2000, 172) argues that where the audience is prepared
to share the speaker’s feelings, “a kind of bonding occurs,” where they are
less prepared, “the effect is alienating.” Most of the emotions expressed in
these songs signal the necessity for gaining sympathy and understanding
from the audience. In Martika’s song feelings of unhappiness (1.45%),
some strongly intensified through infusion (torn apart), are foregrounded,
with the emoter being the singer herself, and stressing sadness, despair and
emotional confusion. The only positive affect in Martika’s song is that of
inclination (0.36%). Based on M’s categorical denial of the conscious act
of causing harm to her partner intentionally (it wasn’t my intention to
mislead you), the proposition sounds like sincere regret. M’s desperate
inner state is signalled through the infused intensification of the
element/factor/item emptiness, as an extreme negative feeling of
unhappiness (pain → suffering → depression → emptiness) coupled with
the disclaiming counter-expectancy marker only. Her very personal
involvement is strongly present in the expression of feelings coupled with
personal and possessive pronouns (I, my), which are used 5 times. Besides
the pronoun I, the inclusive we is also frequently used as a general
reference to all drug addicts or to those being hurt in love affairs, including
herself (we never win; we all fall down). Through this pronoun, familiarity
with the listener can be seen, based on the singer’s assumption about some
people in her audience sharing the same feelings and problems. A similar
general referential role is played by the pronouns you and your (it’s your
heart that takes a fall), despite their primary role as markers of direct
address to the audience. Such reference is usually based on some common
knowledge or experience (disappointment and sadness being a logical
consequence of the temptation call). On the other hand, the amount of
positive inclination is much higher in Eminem’s song (2.22%), expressed
either through denials (don’t wanna, not gonna let, wasn’t my intention) or
lexical processes directly encoding fulfilment (tryna, tried to, need to, let
 Getting the Message Across 55

them know, willin’, walk away, to show them). These inclinations help to
present Eminem as a good person through his many attempts at calming
the violence between rappers, and as a person who tries to keep his
conscience clear by not harming the people around him. Through the
necessity verb need to in “need to be a leader,” the demand is imposed on
him from his crew to lead them, which simultaneously presents him as a
powerful, tough and capable man, otherwise his crew would not depend so
much on his guidance (looks for me). As regards negative affect in ES, the
prevailing dissatisfaction foregrounds E’s anger (1.48%) encoded in
intensified processes (lost it, fuck it, fuck him), attributes (sick of, busy
being pissed off), or generalized phenomena (motherfucker) targeting
mostly the individuals involved in rap struggles. Such intensified feelings
often accumulate to signal the prosody for a stronger effect (fuck that
motherfucker fuck him). To sharpen his propositions, Eminem uses a high
degree of infused intensification, in which swear words prevail (shit, fuck
it, fucked the game up, motherfucker, fuck him then). These are often
coupled with attitudinal meanings expressing strong anger (smash, mash,
grudge, pissed off), feelings of being emotionally drained (exhausted, sick
of, hold the whole world on my shoulders), and other strong attitudes
(crazy, yapping, destroy, coffin rest on my conscience). Besides infusion,
other intensifying resources are used to upgrade the force of attitudinal
inscriptions or to evoke attitudes through rhetorical triples (fell back,
watched and gritted, sat with him, kicked it and had a chat) and
comparisons (too late, feel like, different, same one, ain’t like, more than,
perfecter, too much, bigger). The intensifier just is frequently used to
foreground the simplicity or obviousness of particular actions, deeds or
intentions, often to seek sympathy and agreement from the listener (just
lost it, just say, just willing, just inherited). Feelings of insecurity are
encoded in the expressions of Eminem’s fatigue (sick of, exhausted), again
due to his serious attempts at calming down the situation and solving the
problem in a humane way. Eminem wants rap to go back to the way it
used to be, where rappers just rapped to insult people and never had to
worry about their getting angry and starting a long-lasting feud, as is often
the case now. Feuds obviously trigger feelings of insecurity. Eminem’s
positive feelings are those of satisfaction, expressed towards the reciprocal
inheritance of struggles accepted without complaint (ain’t we mind), and
those of happiness, expressed by the emoter Eminem and his crew towards
their fans with the intensified process love (To show them we love ’em
back).
The occurrence of judgemental values in Eminem’s song (3.26%) is
much higher than in Martika’s song (1.45%). In Eminem’s song positive
56 Chapter Six

judgement prevails (2.82 %), while in Martika’s song negative judgment is

the only occurrence (1.45%). In Martika’s song only three values are
expressed in terms of capability, normality and propriety, while in
Eminem’s song all five are present: capability (leader, battle was won, can
quit) and incapability (can’t handle, knew nothing about), normality,
propriety (bigger man, ain’t tryna hurt and murdered, help build up),
tenacity and veracity (frankly, honestly). The prevailing value in Martika’s
song in terms of judgement is incapability (blind, never knew - 0.72%),
while in Eminem’s song capability (1.04%), propriety (0.80%) and
veracity (0.44%) score the highest. Values of incapability prevail in both
songs (MS: 0.72%; ES: 0.44%). In Martika’s song incapability is
expressed by the singer in the sense that she lacks the ability to notice
harmful/hurtful things around her (being blind) and her lack of particular
knowledge (never knew). Despite the singer’s unintentionally misleading
behaviour, such behaviour nevertheless occurred, thus bringing a negative
judgement in terms of propriety. The categorical denial of drug addicts
winning the battle (never win) is negatively presented as a universal
behaviour with no positive outcome, thus presenting those involved as
unlucky. The frequency of this problem is encoded in the maximiser
never, stressing the complete lack of hope. In Eminem’s song values of
capability prevail (1.04%), targeting primarily Eminem and his behaviour:
he is presented as a strong and capable personality able to bear anything. It
is because of his strength that other people (his crew) depend on him and
need him to guide them. It is he who gives them orders if necessary (a
leader). His participation in and contribution to their success in winning
struggles (battle was won) have presumably empowered him, although not
all victories give him pleasure. He is also presented as a rational
personality who understands the world of business and who tries to find
logical answers and justification for certain deeds and behaviour while
demonstrating compassion. With the rhetorical question (wanna destroy
something I helped build?), Eminem seems to seek logical confirmation
from the audience of his harmless intentions. On the other hand, he is well
aware of the depth of the problem and the possibility of its re-emerging at
any time. As a rational man, Eminem would rather prevent (I’ll walk away
before it’s too late) bad things from happening than become involved in
them. E’s good intentions are often realised with his friends, mostly
signalled through the inclusive pronoun we, of whom one is specifically
mentioned (me and Dre). The value of ability is encoded in the process
can, suggesting the possibility and his ability to quit the struggles (quit
poppin’ off at your jaws), only dependent on the willingness of both sides.
The attitude of incapability appears when he cannot find a better word than
 Getting the Message Across 57

worthlessness to express his strong negative view on murdering and

hurting people. However, this does not signal any personal weakness. He
openly admits his lack of particular knowledge (knew nothing about) and
lack of ability to solve everything (can’t handle), which counters the view
of him by some as ‘all-mighty’. This definitely renders him equal to
ordinary people. Eminem is constantly presented as a positive figure with
the clearly good intention of preventing fights and struggles. His good
personality is reflected through the high level of positive affect (tried to
squash it; wasn’t my intention; tried to stop; not gonna let coffin rest on
my conscience), through his desire and intention to become a bigger man
(I’m just willin’ to be the bigger man), through his categorical denial of
bad intentions (ain’t tryna hurt and murder), and his helpful nature (wanna
destroy something I helped build?). However, his good intentions can only
be realised if the other side also participates (ya’ll can quit poppin’ off at
your jaws). He speaks openly, with an attitude of sincerity, (frankly,
honestly) not hiding anything from his fans and audience. The devotion of
his fans is expressed through their willingness to die for Eminem and his
crew, encoded as strong intensified inclination (willing to die for us as
soon as we give the orders). The will and need to express gratitude for the
fans’ loyalty and to emphasise its worth appears directly in the proposition
let ‘em know how important it is. The normality value is shown regarding
in particular his obvious and long lasting fame as a singer (that made me
famous). Another normality value in terms of behaviour is expressed
towards his fans (Reunion Avenue Soldiers), who are always loyal no
matter the situation. The loyalty and support of the fans are very important
for Eminem, since this means he can rely on them if needed (never to
extort us). As tenacity values, these are foregrounded.
Appreciation value is much more often expressed in Eminem’s song
(2.82%) than in Martika’s song (0.72%), with reaction and valuation being
the only expressed values. The status that prevails in both songs is
negative. In Martika’s song reaction (hard to wake up in the morning) and
valuation (difficulty of struggle—addiction, battle) share the same
occurrence rate (0.36%), while in Eminem’s song valuation manifests
most (2.22%). Half of the valuations in Eminem’s song are negative (hurt,
murder, destroy), while there are no positive valuations in MS. Both
appreciation values in Martika’s song are negative (0.72%). The
valuations (0.36%) stress the difficulty of struggling with addiction
inscribed in things (battle, addiction), whereas one instance of value (hard)
is expressed in terms of reaction (0.36%) towards the problem of waking
up in the morning as a physical and, probably, a psychologically negative
consequence of taking drugs (spinning head = physically = headache;
 58 Chapter Six

psychologically = confusion). Most of the negative values in Eminem’s

song (1.93%) are expressed in terms of valuation (2.22%), describing the
struggle between Eminem and Ja and Jay-z and Nas as very problematic,
encoded in the infused intensification of the word shit, which is repeated
often throughout the song. Negative valuations are directly encoded in the
processes hurt, murder, and destroy, which have general universal
acceptance as negative societal values. The worthlessness of such deeds is
clearly expressed with the denial of worth (ain’t worth), signalling
Eminem’s personal negative attitude towards such deeds and the
perception that these deeds are unacceptable. Besides the negative
valuations, there is a positive one encoded in winning, which describes the
positive result of a battle in which Eminem also participated. Values of
negative reaction (0.44%) are expressed towards interference in unknown
matters (talkin’ about something that I knew nothing about) that,
according to Eminem, is a sign of disrespect (out of respect). A strong
negative attitude of reaction (crazy) is also expressed towards the use of
his daughter’s name in a song, which is completely unacceptable to
Eminem. Through appreciation values, the nonsense and worthlessness of
rap struggles and murders are stressed.

Interpretation and comparison of results of tokens

in Martika’s song and Eminem’s song
Table 2 Tokens of values in Martika’s song and Eminem’s song
Value MS MS ES ES MS MS ES ES MS MS ES ES
% % Pos % Pos % Neg % Neg %
AFF 15 5.45 12 1.78 2 0.72 5 0.80 13 4.72 7 1.04
Incl 2 0.72 1 0.14 1 0.36 1 0.14 1 0.36 - -
Happ 2 0.72 4 0.59 - - 1 0.14 2 0.72 3 0.44
Sec 9 3.27 4 0.59 1 0.36 3 0.44 8 2.90 1 0.14
Sat 2 0.72 3 0.44 - - - 0 2 0.72 3 0.44
JUDG 4 1.45 42 6.24 1 0.36 34 5.03 3 1.09 8 1.18
Norm - - 7 1.04 - - 6 0.89 - - 1 0.14
Cap 2 0.72 9 1.33 - - 6 0.89 2 0.72 3 0.44
Ten 1 0.36 2 0.29 - - 2 0.29 1 0.36 - -
Prop 1 0.36 23 3.41 1 0.36 19 2.82 - - 4 0.59
Ver - - 1 0.14 - - 1 0.14 - - - -
APPR 7 2.54 13 1.93 1 0.36 3 0.44 6 2.18 10 1.48
Reac - - 1 0.14 - - - 0 - - 1 0.14
Val 7 2.54 12 1.78 1 0.36 3 0.44 6 2.18 9 1.33
TOTAL 26 9.45 67 9.95 4 1.45 42 6.24 22 8.00 25 3.71

The results in Table 2 display a similar number of tokens in the songs

(MS: 9.45%; ES: 9.95%). The prevailing status in Martika’s song is
negative (8.00%), while in Eminem’s song it is positive (6.24%). The
 Getting the Message Across 59

prevailing attitude in Martika’s song is negative affect (5.45%), while in

Eminem’s song it is positive judgement (6.24%).
Of affect, the foregrounding feeling in Martika’s song is that of
insecurity (2.90 %), mostly evoked through the singer’s use of rhetorical
questions that signal doubt, confusion, and even blame (How could I be so
blind? What can I say?) and that are aimed at seeking sympathy from the
audience. Her confusion can also be seen in the metaphorical spinning of
the head in the morning, indicating her psychological confusion and fear.
Insecurity is also evoked through the singer’s modulated command,
realised with the question inviting her beloved to spend time with her or to
be active (Won’t you come out and play with me?). Her invitation to play,
with a trace of yearning, can also be understood as a sign of loneliness.
The use of the process mislead is usually associated with feelings of either
disappointment or insecurity. Thus, addressing her partner directly with
the pronoun you signals the singer’s simulation of a dialogue, which adds
to the personal tone of the song. Although the identity of you is not clear,
it can be assumed with regard to the song’s video. The act of misleading
her partner into something unpleasant and perhaps harmful would
normally trigger a feeling of insecurity in the one misled (her partner),
generally perceived as a negative societal value. The lack of hope and
constant disappointment signalled with the denial of the possible
successful ending of drug addiction also evokes a feeling of insecurity (we
never win). The continuation of battle, symbolizing the never-ending
process of the struggle of drug addicts, is also strongly connected with the
feeling of insecurity. Entertaining markers stress obligation and ability
through modal verbs (should, can, could), and predict a definite future
result (gonna be me). The hypothetical if is a marker that helps in evoking
further insecurity in the proposition “If I don’t stop the next one’s gonna
be me,” through the realisation of definite negative consequences in case
of the singer’s passivity. The ending of drug addiction depends entirely on
the singer and is closely connected with feelings of (in)security. Only
activity would bring her security, while inactivity triggers insecurity
connected with the probable end. Even though affect is mostly directly
expressed through attitudinally loaded lexical items, the inscription
(wasn’t my intention) combined with other engagement markers triggers a
positive attitude of judgement, presenting the singer in a good light
through her unintentional deed and her regret. Insecurity is also evoked
through the process expressing duration (wages on) with no ending. There
seems to be no ending to the suffering of drug addicts, despite their
struggles to end their addiction. The realisation of hopelessness often
triggers insecurity and only deepens their misery. On the other hand, the
60 Chapter Six

prevailing affect in Eminem’s song is that of security (0.44%). Security is

expressed in relation to Eminem’s fans who will never turn their backs (we
still have soldiers who would), which might come as a surprise for some
because of the counter-expectancy marker still. Feelings of satisfaction are
all negative (0.44%) and encode Eminem’s anger, which is expressed
through the listing of particular intensified experiential meanings
(smash’em, mash’em) and through the intensified surge of behaviour
(gritted my teeth). Eminem’s anger can also be sensed in his realisation of
how strongly he is influenced by the problem and that he is more
emotionally involved than he wishes (caught in it). This involvement is so
intense that it even results in his speculating about his possible
responsibility for the problem and thus his guilt (I almost feel I’m the one
who caused it), which leaves him feeling insecure. Negative emotion is
evoked once through the metaphor hold the weight of the whole world on
my shoulders, which displays Eminem’s inner sensitivity towards the outer
world. Although he and his friends won the battle, Eminem does not feel
victorious. He cannot be entirely satisfied because of the continuing
struggles among rappers, which points to his unselfish and sensitive
personality (and even though the battle was won, I feel like we lost it). The
formulation even though is used to counter the proposition that would be
expected by others. The surprise effect is often present in Eminem’s song
through formulations (but, even though, actually, still) used, for instance,
to persuade the audience to believe his good intentions, about his
awareness of the importance and existence of a problem that can flare up
at any time (but still knowin’, but now it’s elevated), about his strong
attempts to protect his people (but I ain’t tryna have none of my people
hurt and murdered, we actually tried to) and about the loyalty of the fans
others would think have long deserted him (have soldiers willing to die for
us). Furthermore, his sad tone is noticeable in the failed attempt to squash
it, which was too late to stop it. Eminem’s concern for others is evoked
through his determination to help in this way, to prevent further struggles
and more casualties (not gonna let . . . coffin rest on my conscience).
Inclination is expressed only once (0.14%), through stressing the amount
of energy Eminem has put into solving the problem (spent too much
energy on it), which again signals his strong will and attempt at calming
rappers.
Of judgmental tokens, only capability, tenacity and propriety feature in
Martika’s song (1.45%), while in Eminem’s song normality and veracity
also feature (6.24%). The only positive judgement in Martika’s song is
propriety (0.36%), while in Eminem’s song the positive status appears
with all five values foregrounding propriety (2.82%). Tokens of judgement
 Getting the Message Across 61

in Martika’s song are mostly negative (1.09%) and target the singer and
her incapability through her lack of knowledge and experience. This is
realised with rhetorical questions that perhaps seek a rational explanation
or even sympathy from the audience (How can it be? What can I say?).
The denial of her intention to mislead appears as a result of something
bigger that the singer was unable to resist. In this way the singer becomes
more positively judged in terms of propriety, as possibly naive but
definitely not a harmful person. M’s denial of intentional hurt
simultaneously echoes sincere regret (wasn’t my intention to mislead you).
The pronoun you is used to address the one to whom M was closely
attached (a boyfriend or a close friend). Her unintentional deed can also be
seen in her current realisation of the extent and consequence of the
problem and of the unnecessary event through the hypothetical modality
(never should have been this way). Negative tenacity value is evoked with
regard to M’s behaviour in case she does not react, which would present
her as an irresponsible person being fully blamed for negative outcomes
(If I don’t stop). Her inactivity would be evaluated negatively as
worthless, while her active role in giving up drugs would obviously be
evaluated as valuable. The message here addresses all those involved in
drug issues, urging them not to be blind and inactive. The majority of
tokens in Eminem’s song are positive (5.03%) and mostly target Eminem.
Normality values are primarily positive (0.89%) expressed towards
Eminem in terms of self esteem through the repeated denial (never) of his
true behaviour, which points to its routine nature (to be a soldier who
never blows his composure; I am never supposed to show, it my crew ain’t
supposed to know it) to satisfy his crew’s expectations of the tough, calm
and courageous personality of their leader, who shows no emotions.
Normality can be also sensed in Eminem’s unwilling participation in
issues that do not concern him (wasn’t my beef). Propriety values are
those most frequently evoked (3.41%) and thus foregrounded.
Interestingly, propriety tokens (3.41%) appear more often than inscribed
propriety (0.80%). The majority of these are positive, resulting in the
presentation of Eminem’s positive personality through his many attempts
at calming down rappers. Such attitudes are evoked through other
linguistic markers, such as denials, with which he categorically rejects
some of the negative dialogic alternatives of views some might hold about
him (never drag, none of my business, for nothing, not to, out of respect,
without, none of my people, ain’t), obligation (supposed to be beside ‘em),
and an intensified process (squash the shit), or through reason (why) and
purpose (intention, my object for, being in for, (ain’t) trying, let, try to,
I’ll) as concur markers contracting propositions through the singer’s own
62 Chapter Six

strong engagement with no open alternatives. Eminem thus presents

himself as a responsible, sensitive and moral personality who does not
want to risk the lives of his people unnecessarily; he stands behind his
people, attempts to solve problems in a peaceful way, generally has good
intentions, even with rapping, is not willing to interfere in other people’s
business, has done nothing wrong, would do anything to prevent violence,
including active participation, and is an honest man who respects others.
When targeting others, propriety is mostly expressed towards those who
cause problems by mentioning the family names of rappers in their songs,
which according to Eminem, is inappropriate and irresponsible behaviour.
Tag questions are used to seek agreement and confirmation for such a
view (it ain’t just words no more is it; ain’t just rapping). Capability is also
often evoked (0.89%), mostly targeting Eminem, presenting him as a
clever, powerful and rational personality. Such an attitude is evoked
through his crew’s need for his guidance, which clearly signals his ability
to lead and be a role model based on his strong character (looks for me to
guide ‘em, to set an example). The value of capability in terms of his
rationality is also evoked in never drag them in battles unless necessary,
stressed with the disclaiming marker never and indicating a misalignment
with some third party who might hold a different view. Incapability is
evoked through the intensified process (he’s fucked the game up,
presenting the other as immature, and through the inclination towards a
readiness to die for Eminem and his crew, which foregrounds the
reliability of fans (willing to die for us). One person even sees him as his
salvation, thanks to Eminem’s musical success, which simultaneously
made this person successful, too (thinks that I’ll be his resurrection),
which points at Eminem’s music ability.
Tokens of appreciation in Martika’s song are all negative (2.18%) but
one (0.36%) and foreground valuation. Tokens are mostly evoked through
negative metaphorical experiential meanings (fall down = death), strong
denials coupled with hypothetical obligation (never should have been),
denials suggesting the lack of positive action consequently leading to a
negative outcome (no stopping = death/becoming a drug addict), or
through experiential meanings coupled with graduation markers signalling
the never-ending process (but the battle wages on), which evaluates drug
taking as harmful and as causing endless suffering. The disclaiming item
but expresses counter-expectancy in terms of a possible end to drug taking
and its accompanying suffering. The negative valuation appears in the
process fall down, which metaphorically means to die or to become
addicted. The inclusive pronoun we signals the target of evaluation to be
Martika and her fellow sufferers. In Eminem’s song tokens of appreciation
 Getting the Message Across 63

values are mostly negative (1.48%), with valuation (1.78%) prevailing.

Three positive attitudes of valuation are expressed towards peaceful
struggles in which people do not die. Most negative valuations target the
situation of putting family names in some of the rappers’ songs (words no
more is?). The tag question signifies that Eminem is seeking agreement
with his negative opinion on this issue. Eminem indirectly regards the
whole situation with Ja as bad and difficult. The possibility of popping off
is regarded as negative (could pop off at any minute, elevated). Eminem’s
comparison with the past foregrounds the attitude of positive valuation of
those times when a rapper could make a rhyme without precipitating a
struggle or even death (just say a rhyme, no worry). Eminem’s awareness
of the cause of his success is positively evaluated (that publication the
same one that made me famous) and presents him as a humble person who
recognises and acknowledges those who helped him become successful.
Eminem’s negative evaluation of his complete absorption in the problems
against which he struggles can be seen in the use of the isolated intensifier
so in “so busy being pissed off,” followed by the inscription of anger.
This appraisal analysis reveals that, despite the difference in topic
(drug addiction vs. rap struggles), a high number of attitudes are expressed
in both sets of lyrics, which effectively help shape and transmit the songs’
message to the audience. These attitudes are coupled with items of
engagement and graduation, aligning the audience into sympathy and
understanding. Although the occurrence of inscribed attitudes in both
lyrics prevails, tokens are also frequently used and thus function as
important contributors to the messages. An important difference, however,
lies in the distribution of the status and kinds of attitudes. The majority of
attitudes in Martika’s song have negative status, while in Eminem’s song
most attitudes have a positive one. The prevailing attitude in Martika’s
song is negative affect, strongly foregrounding feelings that evoke
sympathy and understanding from the audience. On the other hand, in
Eminem’s song the prevailing attitude is that of positive judgement in
terms of social sanction, targeting the singer with the aim of presenting
him as a sensitive, responsible, rational and moral personality. By using
personal pronouns and many disclaimers, Eminem rejects the anticipated
contrary position of those who do not see him as such.
This analysis also reveals the complexity of all appraisal items that
often work simultaneously and gradually towards the desired message.
Despite the many obvious inscriptions of attitudes, a more detailed
analysis reveals a number of evoked attitudes that play an important role in
the creation and understanding of the message—why a song means what it
does.
64 Chapter Six

References
Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination. Austin TX: University
of Texas Press.
—. 1986. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin TX: University of
Texas Press.
Halliday, Michael, and Christian Matthiessen. 1994. Introduction to
Functional Grammar, 2nd ed. London: Edward Arnold.
Macken-Horarik, Mary. 2003. “The Special Instructiveness of Narrative.”
Text 23(2): 285-312.
Martin, James. 1997. “Analysing Genre: Functional Parameters.” In Genre
and Institutions: Social Processes in the Workplace and School, edited
by Christie Francis, and James Martin, 3-39. London: Cassell.
—. 2000. “Beyond Exchange: Appraisal Systems in English.” In
Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of
Discourse, edited by Susan Hunston and Geoff Thompson, 142-175.
Oxford: OUP.
—. 2004. “Mourning: How We Get Aligned.” Discourse and Society 15(2-
3): 321-344.
Martin, James, and Peter White. 2005. The Language of Evaluation:
Appraisal in English. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Martin, James, and David Rose. 2003. Working with Discourse. London
and New York: Continuum.
Mitchell, Tony. 2006. “The New Corroboree.” The Age: A2: 17.
Page, Ruth. 2003. “An Analysis of APPRAISAL in Childbirth Narratives
with Special Consideration of Gender and Storytelling Style.” Text 23:
211–237.
Riley, Alexander. 2005. “The Rebirth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Hip
Hop: A Cultural Sociology of Gangsta Rap Music.” Journal of Youth
Studies 8: 297-311.
Rothery, Joan, and Maree Stenglin. 2000. “Interpreting Literature: The
Role of Appraisal.” In Research in Language in Schools and
Communities, edited by Len Unsworth, 222-244. London: Cassell.
Thompson, Geoff. 2005. “But Me Some Buts: A Multi-dimensional View
of Conjunction.” Text 25. 6: 763-791.
Vološinov, Valentin Nikolaevich. 1995. Marxism and the Philosophy of
Language. London: Routledge.
White, Peter. 2001. An Introductory Tour through Appraisal Theory.
Accessed October 15, 2011.
 CHAPTER SEVEN

THANK U TERROR:
MUSICAL AND LYRICAL NEURALGIAS
BY ALANIS MORISSETTE

DIOGO MARTINS

On parla des passions. “Ah ! qu’elles sont funestes!” disait Zadig.—Ce

sont les vents qui enflent les voiles du vaisseau, repartit l’ermite: elles le
submergent quelquefois; mais sans elles il ne pourrait voguer. La bile rend
colère et malade; mais sans la bile l’homme ne saurait vivre. Tout est
dangereux ici-bas, et tout est nécessaire.
Voltaire, Zadig ou la Destinée (1979, 112)

To have a sense of virtue, for Hume, is nothing but “to feel a satisfaction of
a particular kind”; to have a sense of duty is to follow the “course of our
passions.”
Daniel M. Gross, The Secret History of Emotions (2007, 130)

Understanding lyrics involves much more than what their verbal

content is able to offer. As attentive readers, not merely naïve listeners,
Lars Eckstein suggests we focus also on their inter-semiotic
surroundings—“questions of style and musical context, of social
embeddedness and cultural value”—and replace what could immediately
sound like a mediocre poetic assault with a silence full of hermetic and
hermeneutic possibilities, such as “the reciprocal relationship between
(embodied) verbal input and performance ideology” (Eckstein, 2010: 38).
For instance, through discourse analysis, supported by a pragmatic view of
“meaning as use,” we can become aware of how emotional modulations
tend to enhance new meanings underneath what is verbally and articulately
expressed. Although they instinctively resist scientific and academic
intelligence because of their esoteric properties, subjective experiences
like emotions tend to be erroneously blindsided and postponed as
semiological, even structural, remarks in the multimodal understanding of
66 Chapter Seven

aesthetic experiences.1 However, Daniel M. Gross claims in The Secret

History of Emotion, “…emotions do not simply represent themselves
unequivocally through the face or the voice or the gesture,” as Descartes
would insist (Gross 2007, 173). Gross recalls the thoughts of Adam Smith,
reflecting on the communicative or ilocutory stream of emotion, conceived
to “draw people’s attention to some things and not to others, what Smith
calls the rhetorical tradition of the principle of liveliness, or ‘vivacity’.” In
other words, it is the essence of successful communication, a vivid quality
that can induce audiences to feel included in what they are hearing. That is
probably what best explains how music overwhelms and embodies its
listeners.
Emotion is a main feature of Alanis Morissette’s songwriting and
concomitant self-understanding. Centuries of discursive, patriarchal
surveillance and phallocentric undertones cannot be dismissed in
Morissette’s global presentation as a songwriter and as an artist in a post-
grunge scenario. Through the lens of political inductance, musical
aggression expressed by a woman cannot be considered merely a rude
assault against the “establishment,” but should also be seen as an attempt
to replicate the (male) model in order to inscribe herself as an artist within
the musical (semiotic) system, and then to discard the same system to
emerge as a self-centred, self-confident, differential power. Thus, the lead
single “You Oughta Know” is all about repudiating macho conventional
habits—betrayal, “fucking,” performing fellatio “in the theatre”—by
assuming the role of a heartbroken and vengeful victim who is too real,
raw and explicit to pass unnoticed. She is not only playing the social
(cultural, signifying) part of a woman; she is playing it too much and too
loudly, using abusive manners. In fact, she reluctantly earned a worldwide
reputation as an avatar of feminist empowerment and sexual retaliation
through confessional writings that made Jagged Little Pill the pivotal
album of an entire generation, both male and female, between 1995 and
1996. It is no surprise that the Canadian singer-songwriter became the
year’s prime example of an angry white female, a no-holds-barred
performer, an equivocated, man-hating, post-grunge voice, stressing out
music critics while collecting millions of dollars around the globe.

1 “Passions”—dubbed emotions by neurophysiologic studies—are entangled with a

long tradition of philosophical rivalry: for instance, and just to mention two major
Western figures, from Cicero’s perturbationes animi to Spinoza’s belief (against
the Cartesian cogito) that body and mind derive from the same substance that links
God to Nature (deus sive natura). Alanis Morissette’s musical writings, supported
by many interviews on this subject, incline towards non-dualism.
 Thank U Terror: Musical and Lyrical Neuralgias by Alanis Morissette 67

It is undeniable that her voice was heard and recognized, but it is not
entirely clear that she was actually understood. Her second and most
daring musical effort, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, was released
on November 6, 1998, and explores the emergence of a self-proclaimed
victim who is willing to admit her inability to cope with the excess of
external (familial and social) pressure, the excess of workaholic
tendencies, and the excess of illusion in material self-fulfilment. After
spending four weeks in India, a trip that was considered a vertiginous
fracture between her recent past in the public eye and her willingness to
give up creating music, she went through a healing process; she speaks
about “writing a record from a place that wasn’t overtly suffering.”2 It’s a
counterculture life raft, this habit of seeking in Third World countries or
Eastern places a way to fulfill a sense of spiritual void that grows
dramatically from Western neurosis. 3 After she went through this
experience, Morissette’s new songs tried to deconstruct the ideological
(feminist) frames and the path that Jagged Little Pill’s media coverage had
carved for her. Now, the supposed “angry white female” equates frailty or
vulnerability with a sense of power, allowing the emergence of a
disinterested, gendered anxiety and a connotation-free perception of a
vulnerable condition as feminine-representative, stepping away from the
paternalist system that links women to emotion and men to reason, among
other recycled stereotypes (straight, white, masculine, middle-class and
hetero-patriarchal, postmodern discourses).
In analyzing Morissette, one must confront the autobiographical aspect
of her writing. Within the literary system and codes, autobiography
remains a troubled genre, since fiction and authenticity cannot be strictly
delineated, as both operate in the creation of art (Roland Barthes par
Roland Barthes is a suitable example). Recalling Philippe Lejeune, we
face the problem of being caught up by autobiographical reality and the
feeling of being in a hostage situation, affected by responsibilities and
promiscuities that “fiction” was supposedly meant to ignore;
autobiography deals with the disposition of an imaginary communication
which brings the author, the work and the reader/listener together.

2
VH1 – Alanis Morissette: Behind the Music (documentary aired on VH1 in 1999).
3 However, if “Thank U,” the first single on her second album, is a tribute to this
redeeming watershed, it does not imply a fully judgmental passivity: “India was
beautiful and paradoxical. There were environments that were touted as spiritually
enlightening and nurturing, and I found the opposite to be true. I felt a lot of
elitism. It was disheartening, but it further confirmed my belief that we don’t have
to travel any place, or acquire anything. What we think we can find outside of
ourselves is already here” (in Seventeen, January 1999, USA).
68 Chapter Seven

Autobiographical narratives defuse generic reading conventions and

destabilize the reader: “Comment peut-on penser que dans
l’autobiographie c’est la vie vécue qui produit le texte, alors que c’est le
texte qui produit la vie!” (Lejeune 1986, 29).
Autobiographical writing, in Morissette’s work, permits a dialogue
between the author and the ideas of her own body (her physical grammar)
expressed through musical performance in a figural (not figurative) mode,
which consecrates the possibility of a phenomenological approach to
perception, in the sense of Merleau-Ponty’s unity between experience and
meaning, at once kinetic, biochemical and mental. When performing on
stage, Morissette operates in an unapologetically spiritual trance mode.4
There is a grasping, spasmodic trembling of her fingers, arm-twisting, eyes
crying, half-opened mouth (like a vivid representation of post-mystical
possession), awkward movements, nonsensical actions recalling neurotic
images or epileptic contortions, with an emotional inflection of language
which Morissette presents in the form of garbled syntax, blank verse,
lyrics without a chorus section, a narrative imprint, elliptical metaphors
and so on. If we take Foucault’s logics of discourse, language acquires a
certain meaning and a certain ideological entanglement through the
author’s figure, which becomes a framework to help insert fiction inside
the realms of reality. Thus, Alanis Morissette has become not only the
civil name of a musical artist but also an expectation of reading, a
conditional web of signs that trivialize her inscription within pop/rock’s
surface. Her disruptive visual performance, using the body as a distorted
instrument for vicarious expression, can be paralleled to Deleuze’s concept
of a schizoid body and event: “Tout est corps et corporel. Tout est mélange
de corps et dans le corps, emboîtement, pénétration. Tout est de la
physique…” (Deleuze 1969, 106-107).
The single “Thank U” can be taken both visually and lyrically as a
meditative platform about the human body in general and the human face,
in particular. The latter is never cloudless, no matter how many
physiognomic sketches and drawings were made from the Renaissance to
the nineteenth century to underline the intimacy between personal inner
demons and their physiological correlatives. Despite its intimations of
elusiveness, a face cannot escape interpretative ambivalence and rhetorical
deceit, as long as it embodies social connotations and operates as a sign of
social inclusiveness. As a conventional sign for placing identity, faciality

4
For instance, the performances of “Would Not Come,” live in Budokan, Tokyo,
1999, or “Sympathetic Character,” taken from Feast on Scraps DVD, 2002, both
songs from her second album.
 Thank U Terror: Musical and Lyrical Neuralgias by Alanis Morissette 69

became a metonymic element in off-the-peg biographies, something that

everyone shares but that avoids reducible patterns towards a kind of
consistent feasibility (it is the opposite of Plato’s philosophical
contemplation of the face: a beautiful face is a universal revelation of an
ideal truth, an epiphany of eternal clarity that overlaps the factual
singularities of human diversity). Similar to the differential and negative
value of phonemes in a linguist chain, signification and the ability to build
meaningful structures reside in the interstices and intervals that a face is
able to suggest without semiotizing its expressions. Quoting Peter
Sloterdijk’s perspective on the “interfacial intimate sphere,” “[l]es visages
humains… sont déjà en soi les créatures d’un champ d’intimité spécifiques
dans lequel la vue offerte est modelée par la vision que l’on porte sur elle”
(Sloterdijk, 2002: 156). The autobiographical aspect is intimately revealed
in the lyrics of “Thank U”:

how ‘bout getting off of these antibiotics

how ‘bout stopping eating when I’m full up
how ‘bout them transparent dangling carrots
how ‘bout that ever elusive kudo

In an interview given to Carson Daly, Morissette explained the reasons

behind her decision to engage a wandering physical disclosure in the
music video of “Thank U,” directed by Stéphane Sednaoui (with whom
Morissette had collaborated earlier in 1996 while making “Ironic”):

I was in my shower one morning—we had just mastered the record—and I

was trying to think, or “feel” rather, what this video could be—and I was
naked in my shower, and I just felt very… I was feeling very raw, and very
real, and very myself, and I felt like “Thank U” is about that. It’s sort of
the heartspace that that song was written from, and also the rest of the
record, really. So I just thought it was appropriate to be naked in it and to
be “powerful” and “vulnerable” at the same time (quoted in Krims 2007,
22-23).

Considering all the implications that autobiographical experiences have

in her songwriting process, nakedness is the consequential reason behind
the overinvestment in clichéd forms and conventional codes that haunted
her after fame, fortune and material bliss proved to be unfulfilling.
Moreover, they have disguised what was meant to be seen, truth itself: as
she says, something “very raw, and very real, and very myself,” reflected
in the third verse of “Thank U”: “how ‘bout no longer being
masochistic/how ‘bout remembering your divinity/how ‘bout unabashedly
bawling your eyes out.” In fact, the key concept in the statement above
70 Chapter Seven

rests on her verbal twist: the images permeating her lyrics are based on a
feeling, not on a mental support. This straightforward view appears
conducive, however, to reflection on some remarks about the broader
implications of Deleuze’s, Merleau-Ponty’s and Lévinas’s thoughts on the
intimacy between the face and, by default, the body and the world,
focusing in particular on the ethical potential of the chair (flesh) as an
interface between the self and the Other. The song’s visual interpretation
begins by pointing directly to the artist’s face, the most heavily coded zone
of the body. It operates as an indexical metonymy for an entire package of
organs, fluids and tempers, as well as feelings, metaphysical suggestions
and phenomena proceeding beneath the surface. Her face oscillates
between a state of consciousness and unconsciousness, gazing towards a
luminous, flaming and amorphous figure, trying to touch a seemingly
intangible entity (an artistic visual attempt to render a possible and
sensible version of invisibility, no matter how paradoxical the results may
be). It can somehow operate as a facial reflection of the world in its purest
form, or “l’évidence naïve du monde” (Merleau-Ponty 1964, 18).
Her lips move smoothly, not in complete synchronization with the
lyrics, thus demystifying the usual playback in music videos, which tries
to confer a sense of vivid authenticity on what is a technical fraud (Alanis
had already made an obvious assault on this subject, as testified by her
“Head over Feet” video, the fourth single on Jagged Little Pill). As will be
developed further in relation to the lyrics, the lines of which do not
intertwine homologous semantic correspondences, the video (or some
parts of it) focuses on what José Gil (1996, 15) would call “naked images”
(“imagens-nuas”). Free from their verbal significations, naked images
arouse and overwhelm each second of our human existence, influencing
our dreams and those intimate thoughts that pass us by without our full
comprehension (Leibniz named them “pensées volantes”). It could be
musically interpreted by the initial twinkling sounds, a sort of sonic virgin
purity (a primordial intensive chaos), that anticipate the heavy synthesizers
upon which the music is structured from the beginning to the end, as a sort
of mantra-like beat. Despite their fragile innocuousness, those “naked
images” contain a powerful, vivid and informational quid that prevails
over the conventional verbal messages—like the perception of a face or a
human body, demanding a new sort of meaning (associated with force) to
bridge the gap between what we feel and what we cannot verbally express.
 Thank U Terror: Musical and Lyrical Neuralgias by Alanis Morissette 71

Recalling what Deleuze and Guattari, in Mille Plateaux,5 named the

process of visagéité, the human face acts as the staging of an appearance-
as-disappearance: to look at someone’s face is to expose one’s vision to
the infinite, continuously pluralized in a series of infinites, operating as
authentic cosmic capsules of meaning. The eye on eye attitude is
irreducible to its own perimeter: lips, hair, eyes, eyelids, nose, wrinkles,
shadows and lights—these are only trampoline entrances to intensities and
forces, or a black hole of unknowingness, which can be conventionalized
as the human soul (cf. Gil 1997, 161).6 The complex system of visagéité
operates between two parts: the black hole and the white wall. The white
wall unfolds as a surface where all expressions are marked, but then the
black hole absorbs and dissolves each expressive sign.
During the bridge section of the song/video, in a close-up shot of her
face, the camera lingers on a serene, indifferent, diminished or detached
face in a state of numinous bliss—but all these attributes surpass
physiological aspects, alongside the fact that the lyrics confess the
overcoming of an autophagous excess, syntactically reproduced by
echoing the same word: “the moment I let go of it was the moment/ I got
more than I could handle/ the moment I jumped off of it/ was the moment I
touched down.” The human face acts as a topological space where
profundity is inscribed, demanding all sorts of suppositions, allusions and
nomadic limbs: a face can be read as a multimodal text that challenges our
notion of invisibility. According to José Gil (1997, 148), perceiving a
body, and a face by default, means “being dodged and covering it up with
a quibble.” 7 We cannot take another’s place or exchange epidermis
positions, so as to be under another’s skin. Deleuze and Guattari (2004,
222-3) propose that the semiotic codes underlying the face can be traced
only after the head detaches itself from the rest of the body, specifying its
particular schemes of signs: the face involves surface/holes; the body deals
with volume/concavity. This abstract machine operates by the following
rules: only when the head-as-face accomplishes the body’s system,
piercing a sense of promiscuity, can subjectivity begin, always
deterritorialized, out of place, enlarging its perceptual domains, opening
black holes through which all energies, intuitive grasping or scratching
assaults are filtered and thereby eluded.

5
Mille Plateaux. Paris: Éditions du Minuit, 1980. I use the Portuguese translation
of this work (vide Works Cited).
6
I use the Portuguese version of José Gil’s Métamorphoses du corps (originally
published in Paris, La Différence, 1985).
7
José Gil was one of Deleuze’s students, and thus extremely influenced by the
French philosopher.
72 Chapter Seven

Through this epidemic fluidity, external surroundings become

facialized: in Morissette’s video, personal nudity comprises a sort of
representation of urban space and the urban ethos “as highly gendered”
(Krims 2007, 21), drawing softened signs from the interior to the exterior,
and vice-versa. As Merleau-Ponty (1994, 394) stresses, space is existential
but existence is spatial too: they are both committed to expressiveness,
beyond the signification of things. The urban place is reasserted in a social
and philosophical thought; the space of the landscape is the space of
intimate sensation, not clearly differentiating the subject from the object,
therefore taking place at a Deleuzian presubjective level (hence the naked
body, expressing a sort of pre-conceptual and germinal auto-genesis). It is
conceived in order to reciprocate the sense of wholeness since, following
Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, it is grounded on the recognition that
we are already within and part of the world at which we look, eclipsing
any attempt to sustain an objective and distanced view of it. In this sense,
Morissette moves abstractedly throughout the set, existing only minimally
in her urban surroundings. The urban structure per se is not menacing or
unsafe at all. She never looks directly at the camera; her eyes are looking
at something else, are pursuing some unspeakable and unwatchable truth
or desire, forged ahead of common perception. Once more, the traditional
technique used in mainstream music videos is displaced—the image is not
centred in the artist (she is not playing the role of a modish, iconic
“superstar”); her eyes are not seductively or commercially focused on the
camera to gain the audience’s attention. This alternative, ‘new age’ visual
feeling is recurrent in the promotion of her second album: all the videos—
So Pure, Unsent and the unreleased and unfinished Joining You—apply
this elusive artistry technique by dissolving the spectre of an eventual
audience seen as commercial target ready to be seduced.
By recounting autistic qualms about her conduct, she seeks fissures
through which otherness intrudes: the lyrics manage to bring her to the
Other, instead of canceling each other out (“how ‘bout me not blaming
you for everything,” “how about how good it feels to finally forgive you,”
“how ‘bout remembering your divinity,” “how ‘bout unabashedly bawling
your eyes out”). Musically, the soft, slow melodic constructions, alongside
the anaphoric syntactical repetitions, are conducive to a lyrical content that
overlaps its denotatum and designatum. For instance, in the lines “how
‘bout them transparent dangling carrots” and “how ‘bout that ever elusive
kudo,” both the pronoun and the demonstrative insist on a tactile virtuosity
of vision (even on an affective tone, concerning the informal use of
“kudo”), which, in Levinasian terms, would be a “revelation of presence”
or a “presentification” of a true life experience. In radical fidelity to the
 Thank U Terror: Musical and Lyrical Neuralgias by Alanis Morissette 73

truth of one’s own desire, the verses are more self-prescriptive than
descriptive; nevertheless, they contribute to punctuating a sort of
embodied fragile and doubtful persona, whose appearance depends on a
naked visage. In his major oeuvre Totalité et infini: Essai sur l’extériorité,
Lévinas describes the visage as “the way in which the Other presents
himself, exceeding the idea of the Other in me” (cf. Lévinas 1988, 43),
assuming that it reports not only to the human face but also to something
that cannot be seen, that leads us beyond the perceptual field and ahead of
a plastic medium. It is not a matter of perception, but of signification. The
face is an epiphany that acts unconditionally and unmanageably on the
image, allowing no duplicates, shadows or portraits, in order to respect the
very foundation of human-ness (a topic we will explain further in
connection with the relation between “Thank U” and a poem by
Morissette).

[L]e visage est signifiance de l’au-delà. Non pas signe ou symbole de l’au-
delà; celui-ci ne se laisse ni indiquer ni symboliser sans retomber dans
l’immanence du savoir. La signifiance du visage n’est pas une espèce dont
indication ou symbolisme serait le genre. Le visage est seul à traduire la
transcendance. Non pas à fournir la preuve de l’existence de Dieu, mais la
circonstance incontournable de la signification de ce mot, de son premier
énoncé (Lévinas 1987, 130).

According to Lévinas, “faciality” is ontologically iconoclastic, tied to

the Hebraic taboo on visual depictions, since representation can only
deface or efface le visage and the Otherness it stands for. Thus, describing
a face transcends the traditional limits proposed by phenomenology. It is
the Other who calls the self into question, who reveals itself to me,
transcending myself. Its nudity, as a form of ethical speech, is
commendatory: it forbids me to kill the Other, merely by being utterly
exposed and thereby threatened by that disclosure. “Le visage parle,”
Lévinas assures, “[l]a maniféstation du visage est déjà discours” (Lévinas
1988, 61). By considering the moral topics of blame and forgiveness in the
second stanza, Morissette rehabilitates a sense of heteronomy that is
visually recreated by her being gently touched and embraced by nomadic
strangers walking around the city through which she moves. These figures
appear in a sort of spectral, clouded and blurred form, fueled with tension,
harnessing affective (and compassionate) forces (Lévinas, reporting to
Merleau-Ponty, mentions that inter-subjectivity is founded through a
“communauté ‘esthésiologique’,” Lévinas 1987, 137). The Other’s
irreducibleness, the vulnerable face that imposes itself as a defying test
against violence and negligence—in other words, it’s the undressed face
74 Chapter Seven

that cannot be ignored, both ethically and morally. The sense of

thankfulness in her hit song shares a similar semantic heartspace with “To
walk gently upon this earth,” a poem published on her website around
May 2009.
More obscure and intransigent, both formally and poetically, than the
song, it dwells on neophyte images of a blocked individual, trapped
between unsafe, violent and abject situations: a personal state of crisis
depicts a cowardly, disempowering subject (“Dismissed, ducked below/
radars/ of care”). There’s an obvious parallel between the song and this
poem: for instance, “Is not the buck I have passed tallied up/and amassed”
echoes “how ‘bout me not blaming you for everything.” They both inflict
a sense of damage towards the other—expressions such as “tallied up,”
“amassed,” “unabashedly bawling your eyes out”—but it emerges from a
disrupted self, once embarked upon a project of untrue self-healing based
on simulations or false beliefs (“as decorative hedonist”). Both verbs and
nouns are semantically correlative in order to portray a sense of
asphyxiating chaos: “Do not I oft contradict in jungles of separateness.”
However, given the absorptive perception proposed by Merleau-Ponty,
what is interesting is how the subject aims to reveal himself in the flesh of
his text: the lines “and what my decades along/ lineage,/ thread through
song/ of my blood or un-blood could not rally a guess,/ ‘bout what I know
but un-know.” By contagion or inheritance, one can be immersed in one’s
perceptive world only to emerge with gratitude: in particular, by showing
gratitude to “disillusionment,” in the song’s refrain, how can we not
consider the fact that “[l]a dés-illusion n’est la perte d’une évidence que
parce qu’elle est l’acquisition d’une autre évidence” (Merleau-Ponty 1964,
63)?8 In other words, at the end of her poem, can “I apologize” express a
humble resignation towards the acknowledgement of truth itself, which is
proportional to a proverbial wink or a deep recognition?

8
A further visual explanation may be required: quoting the French philosopher’s
example, “Je croyais voir sur le sable une pièce de bois polie par la mer, et c’était
un rocher argileux. L’éclatement et la destruction de la première apparence ne
m’autorisent pas à définir désormais le “reel” comme simple probable, puisqu’ils
ne sont qu’un autre nom de la nouvelle apparition, qui donc doit figurer dans notre
analyse de la dés-illusion. … Ce que je puis conclure de ces désillusions ou
déceptions, c’est donc que peut-être la «réalité» n’appartient définitivement à
aucune perception particulière, qu’en ce sens elle est toujours plus loin, mais cela
ne m’autorise pas à rompre ou à passer sous silence le lien qui les réunit l’une
après l’autre au réel, qui ne peut être rompu avec l’une sans d’abord être établi
avec la suivante …” (Merleau-Ponty 1964, 63-64).
 Thank U Terror: Musical and Lyrical Neuralgias by Alanis Morissette 75

For I
Have dropped balls and snubbed sky
Passions: resigned, hence die
My own temple, salt eyes
Ashamed, ergo blown by
soft with a morning soul
I apologize

On the other hand, this phoenix-risen, apologetic illumination is

obtained once transcendence becomes equal to human-ness: “My own
temple” (the poem) alongside “How ‘bout remembering your divinity”
(the song). In the video, the ascension to spiritual enlightenment is
depicted by using conventional metaphors in a sort of visual progression:
from night (beginning) to day (ending).
By owning her body and reclaiming its malfunctioning, Morissette
through her writings builds upon its basic physiological immanence as a
lyrical start—the hypochondriac neurosis (“antibiotics”), the compulsive
eating disorder (she fought bulimia in her youth)—only to end up in a
more subjective domain concerning “divinity” or “death.” It always takes
a degree of suffering to begin self-examination and to embrace all areas of
human confounded fallibility, the brighter and the darker, until such
crystal-clear distinctions vanish. Neutralizing pain 9 means being able to
catch the “body-without-organs,” the famous Deleuzian-Guattarian
concept, involving a virtual and unconscious body that is beyond the
conceptual framework of the medical anatomical body or the
psychoanalytical phantasm-body. Thus, psyché and soma are utterly
bonded; the interior and the exterior become skinless.
If we have entered a postmodern era that has given rise to what Peter
Sloterdijk, in a less celebratory instance, has classified as an “enlightened
false consciousness,” paying no more tribute to highly influential meta-
narratives, Alanis Morissette’s quest for spiritual illumination could be

9 We can even trace a parallel with David Cronenberg’s cinematic view of viruses
and diseases (a genre commonly known as body horror or venereal horror) as
reflecting the traditional deep division between the allopathic (Western) and
homeopathic (Eastern) approaches to health and our organism’s equilibrium: “A
virus is only doing his job. The fact that it’s destroying you by doing so is not its
fault. It’s about trying to understand relationships among organisms, even those we
perceive as disease… [M]ost diseases would be very shocked to be diseases at all.
It’s a very negative connotation. For them, it’s a very positive when they take over
your body and destroy you. It’s a triumph. It’s all part of trying to reverse the
normal understanding of what goes on physically, psychologically and biologically
to us” (Rodhy 1992, 82).
76 Chapter Seven

considered an old-fashioned, atavistic fake. Nevertheless, it is precisely in

the dubious nature of authenticity that Supposed Former Infatuation
Junkie takes its stand: it embodies the way rock performers and music
critics have self-consciously struggled with the identity of rock as a matter
of pubescent ludicrousness and at the same time as an artistic form. In this
case, the well-received post-grunge crunchiness of Jagged Little Pill,
which has brought Morissette a record 33 million album sales, was
deliberately disrupted by replacing it by new musical and expressive
templates. However, that change was just as necessary and organic as a
body’s development, aligned with its unsuspended identity. If her debut
album was an attempt to expel her demons through an anguished voice and
angst-ridden lyrics, “Thank U” is only fiercely ineffective in its musical
tones; nevertheless, it is still full to the brim with her concept of
autobiography, writing about whatever is still lurking in the hidden
recesses of her psyche. Body and language are intricately linked as part of
Morissette’s emotionally inflected artistic message, which resonates in
catapulting “frailty,” “terror” or “silence” to new and higher levels of
personal and political empowerment, as expressed by the final screaming
modulations of her assertive, vibrating voice in the song. As a sonic wake
of attentive sensation, undulating in her body and also through it, affecting
the enveloping urban settings, it reclaims its source and raison d’être as
evidence of both a present and a presence, of the absoluteness of it,
without dialectical tones and irreversible impasses. It is Ecce homo (or
Ecce mulier?), not in a religious but in a sacred view10: when a sense of
gratitude and a sense of self intact become almost embodied synonyms.

10
As an evolved form of self-portrayal, side by side with autobiographical writing
(which is as old as Saint Augustine’s Confessions), Morissette’s lyrics, though not
exclusively, are tributary to the first painted individual representations: “Tout
portrait de personnage individualisé met en œuvre un événement facial qui a quitté
la christologie picturale pour entrer dans la dimension profane. Derrière chaque
portrait des temps modernes se dissimule le visage de l’Ecce homo—la scène
primitive du dévoilement de l’homme avec laquelle Jésus, à côté de Pilate, a fait
ses débuts comme transmetteur de cet impératif de la perception historiquement
inédit…. Chaque portrait montre un visage fait pour provoquer d’autres personnes
à reconnaître sa singularité. Si chaque âme isolée est intéressante pour Dieu, son
visage, sous les prémisses données, peut aussi susciter l’attention de ses
semblables” (Sloterdijk 2002, 178).
 Thank U Terror: Musical and Lyrical Neuralgias by Alanis Morissette 77

References
Deleuze, Gilles. 1969. Logique du Sens. Paris: Éditions du Minuit.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. 2004. Mil Planaltos. Capitalismo e
Esquizofrenia 2. Translated by Rafael Godinho. Lisboa: Assírio &
Alvim.
Eckstein, Lars. 2010. Reading Song Lyrics. Amsterdam/New York:
Rodopi.
Gil, José. 1996. A Imagem-Nua e as Pequenas Percepções—Estética e
Metafenomenologia. Lisboa: Relógio D’Água.
—. 1997. Metamorfoses do Corpo. Lisboa: Relógio D’Água.
Gross, Daniel M. 2007. The Secret History of Emotion. From Aristotle’s
“Rhetoric” to Modern Brain Science. Chicago and London: Chicago
University Press.
Krims, Adam. 2007. Music and Urban Geography. University of
Nottingham: Routledge.
“The Lady of Rage.” 1999. Seventeen. USA. Accessed April 19 2012.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~timabi/alanis/article14.html.
Le Breton, David. 1992. Des Visages. Essai d’anthropologie. Paris:
Métailié.
Lejeune, Philippe. 1986. Moi aussi. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
Lévinas, Emmanuel. Hors Sujet. Paris: Fata Morgana, 1987.
—. 1988. Totalité et infini: Essai sur l’extériorité. Paris: Livre de Poche.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1994. Fenomenologia da Percepção. Translated
by Carlos Alberto Ribeiro de Moura. São Paulo: Martins Fontes.
—. 1964. Le visible et l’invisible. Paris: Gallimard.
Morissette, Alanis. 1998. Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. Maverick.
Rodhy, Chris, ed. 1992. Cronenberg on Cronenberg. London: Faber &
Faber.
Sloterdijk, Peter. 2002. “Entre les visages.” In Bulles. Sphères.
Microsphérologie. Vol. I, 153-225. Paris: Pauvert.
VH1 Alanis Morissette: Behind the Music. Documentary. 1999. Accessed
April 19, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpdjTwWNAiA.
Voltaire. 1979. Zadig ou la Destinée. Histoire orientale in Romans et
contes. Édition établie par Frédéric Deloffre et Jacques van den
Heuvel. Paris: Éditions Gallimard.
 CHAPTER EIGHT

THE COMPLEXITY OF LYRICS IN INDIE MUSIC:

THE EXAMPLE OF MUMFORD & SONS

KATJA PLEMENITAŠ

At first sight, the genre of indie rock might seem a poor fit for the band
Mumford & Sons because their music is played with old instruments and
has a distinct flavour of folk music. In order to defend our classification of
Mumford & Sons’ music, I will first propose a tentative definition of indie
rock. The term Indie rock is short for independent rock. A closer look at
music generally classified as indie rock reveals the definition to be elusive.
There is the “traditionalist” definition of the term, which focuses not so
much on the characteristics of the music itself, but rather on its external
characteristics, simply claiming that indie music refers to any pop or rock-
style music that is not released by the Big Four conglomerates of the
recording industry—Sony/BMG, EMI, Warner and Universal
(MacDonald, n.d.). According to this definition, indie music is thus music
that challenges the major labels. This, of course, is a very broad definition,
which excludes any consideration of the characteristics of the music itself.
Another complication with this definition is that it also includes bands
that start out small, then become more successful, perhaps get a hit single
and later, whether or not they sign on with a major label, are still
considered “indie” A typical recent example is the American band The
Killers.
A more appropriate definition of indie music should thus also include
the characteristics of the style of music itself, but a definition based on this
criterion is not without its own problems, given that styles of music
labelled as indie or indie rock are diverse and could be classified into
many subgenres. I thus offer the following tentative definition of indie
rock. Musically, indie rock in its different versions is for the most part
guitar-based pop music with more complex artistic explorations of sound.
Thematically, indie rock generally presents reflections about the world that
are more complex than those in major-label rock and thus usually contains
 The Complexity of Lyrics in Indie Music 79

poetically more challenging expressions of meaning. Nowadays, the terms

indie rock and guitar pop rock are sometimes used interchangeably in
opposition to non-guitar based pop music, such as hip-hop, rap and rhythm
and blues. A notable recent example is the rock band The Foo Fighters,
whose music is sometimes referred to as indie rock and sometimes just as
rock. It seems that an internal definition based on the features of the music
is difficult because the different styles of music defined as indie are linked
by their spirit more than by a musical approach. What they all seem to
have in common is that, despite the fact that they belong to the genre of
pop or rock music, they retain an outsider status in popular music by
taking a more explorative and artistically complex approach to music and
lyrics. According to Erlewine, it is rock music that is “too sensitive and
melancholy; too soft and delicate; too dreamy and hypnotic; too personal
and intimately revealing in its lyrics; too low-fidelity and low-budget in its
production; too angular in its melodies and riffs; too raw, skronky and
abrasive… too oblique and fractured in its song structures; too influenced
by experimental or otherwise unpopular musical styles” (Erlewine 2002,
1344-6).
The band Mumford & Sons started in December 2007 and consists of
four multi-instrumentalists led by Marcus Mumford. At first they played in
smaller venues, and their breakthrough success came with their debut
album Sigh No More, released in 2009, which they self-financed in order
to avoid artistic and technical compromises. They have licensing deals
with various record companies, but they have not signed with any major
record labels (http://www.mumfordandsons.com/biography). They have
been touring heavily recently and presenting songs for their planned third
album. The music they play is sometimes described as folk rock, which
developed as part of the West London folk scene. The band members
themselves reject the label folk, claiming that, although they include some
elements of folk, they do not belong to a scene, but rather to a community,
which is much more diverse than a scene (Adams 2010).
Members of Mumford & Sons play guitar, drums, keyboard, bass,
accordion, banjo, mandolin, and resonator guitar. It is clear from their
origin, as well as from their music and videos, that the folk sound and the
retro image of the band are not meant as a strengthening or authentic
recreation of musical roots or tradition but rather as a potential for using
traditional musical elements to create a new sound while exploring the
universal topics of life, death and love. This is consistent with the aims
and elements of most indie rock.
The overall visual appearance of the band, together with the music
played on traditional instruments, suggests a well-thought out artistic
80 Chapter Eight

consideration behind the overall image of the band, its music and its
videos. In their videos, the band members are usually featured with their
instruments, either playing on the stage in front of an empty hall (as in the
video for “Lion Man”), or carrying their instruments (“Sigh No More”).
The outdoor scenes often show band members walking through the woods,
on dusty roads or through high grass, often having to brave the elements
while doing so (as in “Sigh No More”). The scenes from the videos are
intensely symbolic and intensify the artistic impression of the music and
song lyrics.
The lyrics by Mumford & Sons provide an example of lyric usage in
indie rock that shows more complexity compared to the simpler templates
of pop, hip-hop, or mainstream rock music. I will focus on songs from
their album Sigh No More, and raise the question of the extent to which
lyrics in indie rock music can be called poetry.
The above mentioned definitions and descriptions suggest that,
compared to the genre of mainstream pop or rock music, indie rock enjoys
a special status because of its relative autonomy to explore more complex
sounds, emotions and subjects that do not necessarily appeal to
mainstream audiences. We can expect that the lyrics used in indie rock
will deal with more complex topics and express more nuanced emotions
than lyrics in more mainstream pop, hip-hop or rock music. In other
words, song lyrics in indie rock will maintain a high degree of their artistic
value independently of the music to which they are set or the videos in
which they occur.
The album consists of 12 songs: “Sigh No More” (which is also the
name of the album), “The Cave,” “Winter Winds,” “Roll Away Your
Stone,” “White Blank Page,” “I Gave You All,” “Little Lion Man,”
“Timshel,” “Thistle & Weeds,” “Awake My Soul,” “Dust Bowl Dance,”
and “After the Storm” (Released in 2010 by Glass Note).
By examining the titles of the songs themselves, we can see that they
all depend to a large degree on the context of the song lyrics themselves.
The only title from the album standing out as perhaps less context-
dependent compared to others is the title “I Gave You All,” which could
be a line from everyday language, typically suggesting a relationship
quarrel or a break up. Nevertheless, the title contains a powerful literary
allusion beneath its simple diction.
The most easily recognizable characteristic of the song lyrics from
Sigh No More that separates them from the lyrics in other popular music
genres is their heavy intertextuality. Most of the songs contain references
to a classic work of world literature. “Sigh No More,” for example,
consists almost entirely of lines from Much Ado about Nothing. The few
 The Complexity of Lyrics in Indie Music 81

lines used in the song that are not from Shakespeare (“Love; it will not
betray you/Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free/Be like the man you
were made to be”) function more like a superimposed coda to the overall
message of the song about the complexity and power of love.
In addition to the heavily intertextual song “Sigh No More,” the album
contains other songs that refer to literary masterpieces. The song “I Gave
You All,” for example, takes its title allusion from King Lear’s pathetic
complaint to his undutiful daughters. The song also contains indirect
references to Shakespeare’s King Lear (“the blind man sleeps in the
doorway, his home; /But I gave you all”), while the song “Roll Away
Your Stone” uses phrases reminiscent of lines from Macbeth (“Stars hide
your fires/For these here are my desires”). In addition to Shakespeare,
there are references to other literary classics. The song “Timshel” contains
references to Steinbeck’s East of Eden, (the word Timshel is Hebrew for
Thou Mayest, “You have a choice,” and was used in Steinbeck’s East of
Eden). The songs “Dust Bowl Dance” and “After the Storm” also appear
to be inspired by Grapes of Wrath (a narrative about a young man who did
something wrong to redress injustice). The song “The Cave,” on the other
hand, probably contains references to The Odyssey, especially in the lines
about the sirens’ call. The allusion to the cave could be interpreted with
reference to The Odyssey, but it could also refer to Plato’s cave. In
addition to references to works of fiction, some songs seem to contain
indirect biblical references, for example, “Thistle and Weeds” with its
indirect references to the gospel of Matthew. Some of the songs also
contain religious references, but not as a question of faith or belief in a
Christian God, but rather as a way of conferring a folk patina to the
dealing with existential topics of life, suffering and death, as in the song
“Awake My Soul” (“Awake your Soul/You were made to meet your
maker”). The title and the refrain of the song are a reference to an old
Anglican hymn written by Thomas Ken1. However, the optimism and light
of the original hymn is here replaced by a pervasive feeling of emptiness
surrounding the individual who is faced by both the necessity and the
impossibility of love. “Awake my soul” is a helpless plea that suggests the
existential angst of the human condition bereft from the hope of any real
connection. It is also an echo of a 19th century poem entitled “Awake, My
Soul, Lift up Thine Eyes” by Anna Laetitia Barbauld.
The pronouns used for the poetic personae are mainly expressed
through first person and second person pronouns, which is at first sight

1
I thank Michelle Gadpaille for pointing out this reference to me in personal
correspondence.
82 Chapter Eight

very similar to songs about love in mainstream popular music. In the case
of Mumford & Sons’ song lyrics, however, the poetic personae are
difficult to pinpoint, owing to the occurrence of sudden shifts in
perspective and internal dialogue. Indeed, most songs on the album are
about love, which again is not very different from mainstream pop music,
but it could be claimed that the topics of the songs are much more nuanced
here. Different forms of love are referred to, and the range of feelings goes
from self-loathing, through regret, hope and fulfilment, to frivolity and
even rage. Some of the songs deal with distinctly spiritual and existential
topics such as coping with death (“Timshel”) and the purpose of life
(“Thistle & Weeds”).
It is not always clear if the poetic personae of the songs are specific or
generic. The fluid line between the two in poetry allows for specific and
intimate experience to be generalized into universal feelings, a potential
that is fully exploited by the Mumford & Sons song lyrics. The intensity of
feeling expressed in the songs is compounded by the retro image of the
band and the traditional elements in their music, which at the same time
achieve a kind of distance from the intimacy and specificity of the
experience depicted, coalescing into a truly universal experience.
Let us take as an example the lyrics of the song “Little Lion Man.”
This song does not have direct literary references, but there is probably
some intertextuality if we interpret the main participant, who is called the
lion man, as a reference to the lion from the Wizard of Oz and his pretend
courage. The lion as a Christian symbol is probably a less appropriate
interpretation here.
The lion man is referred to by the pronoun you. This you can be
interpreted as the authorial voice of the songwriter in an internal dialogue
with himself (“Weep for yourself, my man/You’ll never be what is in your
heart). There is a shift to the first person singular in the refrain, which
could be interpreted as a shift from the first stanza you, where the lion man
is referred to as you. You in the refrain is no longer the lion man but
somebody being directly addressed by the lion man, who is now expressed
as the first person singular. This is probably a lover or an ex-lover, with
whom the lion man enters into a dialogue (“But it was not your fault but
mine/And it was your heart on the line/I really fucked it up this
time/Didn’t I my dear?”). Interestingly, this is the only example of the use
of profanity or of a rhetorical question on the whole album.
We could interpret this song as a song of self-loathing and inadequacy
(“Weep for your self, my man, You’ll never be what is in your heart…/
Rate yourself and rake yourself”), about wasting energy and courage on
matters of little importance (“Take all the courage you have left/Wasted on
 The Complexity of Lyrics in Indie Music 83

fixing all the problems that you have made in your head”; “Your grace is
wasted in your face”), and about the failure to correct one’s faults because
of the damage already done (“Your boldness stands alone among the
wreck/You’ll never settle any of your scores”).
At first this is a classic scenario in a romantic relationship where the
break-up is followed by an apology on the part of the lover who caused the
break-up: it is not you, it is me…. In this case, however, the apology is too
full of self-loathing, perhaps even sarcasm in some of the overtones, to be
valid as a sincere apology or to be interpreted as simple window-dressing.
The participants in the main grammatical functions of subject, object
and subject complement are, in addition to the deictic pronouns you and I,
abstractions such as “the courage,” “all the problems,” “any of your
scores,” “your grace,” “your boldness,” “your days,” “own neck,” “your
heart.” Most of these nouns are connected to the perceived self-image and
problems due to that self-image, such as courage, problems, scores, grace,
boldness, and vulnerability of emotions (neck, heart).
There is an interesting line in the song that is quite ambiguous: “Now
learn from your mother or else spend your days biting your own neck.”
Biting one’s own neck probably means continually punishing oneself and
never learning from one’s own mistakes, as a lioness bites the neck of her
cubs when they do something wrong.
Marcus Mumford himself offers the following explanation:

It’s a very personal story, so I won’t elaborate upon too much. Suffice to
say, it was a situation in my life I wasn’t very happy with or proud of…
and sometimes when you can’t describe a feeling with your own words,
it’s almost easier to express in a song. And then, when you get asked about
the songs, it’s quite difficult to explain. It’s a conundrum—you don’t want
to seem self-indulgent explaining yourself; it’s always awkward. Which is
weird again, because it’s never awkward actually singing them. I suppose
the song should stand on its own and people draw their own interpretation
from the words. But for me, personally, it’s the lyrics that I listen to again
and again in a song. I place specific importance on them. I can’t write
lyrics unless I really feel them and mean them, which can sometimes be
quite frustrating—because if you’re not feeling much at the time, you’re
stuck. (Countdown 2010)

A recent definition of poetry suggests that “poetry is primarily

governed by idiosyncratic forms and conventions to suggest differential
interpretation to words, or to evoke emotive responses. Devices such as
assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to
achieve musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism,
irony, and other stylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem
84 Chapter Eight

open to multiple interpretations” (Strachan and Terry 2000). Based on this

definition, the song lyrics by Mumford and Sons from the album Sigh No
More are unquestionably poetic. They are open to multiple interpretations,
they use a variety of stylistic devices, and they deal with complex
emotional and existential topics. Their poetic effect, however, depends to a
great degree on the music to which they are set, in terms of rhythm and
rhyme. Based on their dependence on a non-textual medium, song lyrics in
general can be described as context-dependent, multimodal texts (Martin
and Rose 2008), so even in their highly poetic form they do not function
like poems in general. The English term I propose for such song lyrics is
poetic song lyrics, which have a similar role as the lyrics of la chanson in
the French musical tradition, or Slovenska popevka in the Slovene musical
tradition. In this way such texts can be distinguished from poetry in the
strict sense of the word, on the one hand, and from the aesthetically and
thematically much simpler and aesthetically less valuable lyrics used in
pop and rock music, on the other.

References
Adams, Cameron. 2010. “Mumford & Sons Have Taken Australia by
Storm.” Herald Sun. Accessed March 15, 2012. http://www.herald
sun.com.au.
Countdown: Hottest 100—2009. 2010. ABC Online. Accessed January 27,
2010.
Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. 2002. “American Alternative Rock / Post
Punk.” In Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra and Stephen T.
Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: The Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop,
and Soul, 3rd edn., 1344–46. Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books.
MacDonald, Heather. n.d. “What Is Indie Rock?” Music.lovetoknow.com.
Accessed March 10, 2012.
Martin, James Robert and David Rose. 2008. Genre Relations: Mapping
Culture. London, Oakville: Equinox Publishing.
Mumford & Sons Biography. Accessed March 12, 2012. http://www.mum
fordandsons.com/biography.
Mumford & Sons Lyrics. Accessed March 10, 2012. http://www.azlyrics.
com/lyrics/mumfordsons.
Strachan, John R., and Richard G. Terry. 2000. Poetry. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
Video for “Little Lion Man.” Accessed March 10, 2012. http://www.you
tube.com/watch?v=lLJf9qJHR3E.
 CHAPTER NINE

THE INFLUENCE OF ENGLISH

ON SLOVENE RAP LYRICS

NADA ŠABEC

Rap is a music genre that lends itself to research from a number of

perspectives: it is of interest not just to music experts, but also to scholars
in the social sciences and, because of the specific language variety that it
uses, certainly to linguists. This chapter will begin with a brief history of
rap, looking into the social and other reasons for its emergence in the U.S.
and its consequent rapid spread around the world, and then focus on the
relatively new rap scene in Slovenia. Excerpts from selected rap songs will
be used to illustrate various rap styles. The emphasis, however, will be on
the analysis of the language used in rap lyrics and particularly on the
English element within them.
Rap music involves spoken or chanted lyrics set over a rhythmic
musical background (mostly drums). The lyrics typically, although not
necessarily, rhyme and are performed in time to a beat. The music often
consists of sampling or sequencing of other songs and recordings. The
term rap itself means quick speech or repartee, while rapping is part of the
broader hip-hop culture that also includes breakdancing, graffiti art, a
special style of clothing and a specific slang or street vernacular (Rose
1994, Krims 2000, Keyes 2002). Rap started in the mid-1970s among
Black youth in the South Bronx in New York City; however, its origins
can be traced back to West African work songs and the Caribbean tradition
of the toasting or rapped out songs of heroism. The call-and-response
chants, which are frequent components of rap lyrics, can also be traced to
the African tradition of ritual chanting to the gods and ancestors, and the
same is true of storytelling. Stylistically, rap represents a mixture of
poetry, prose, music and speech, while in terms of its message it is the
voice of those who live in the inner city and feel marginalized,
disenfranchised and discriminated against in American society. The
general feeling of marginalization is first channeled through bragging,
86 Chapter Nine

fantasy and personal stories, but soon develops into more complex,
socially engaged directions. The old-school rap with its typical block-party
atmosphere and primary focus on verbal virtuosity and creativity becomes
highly politicized and rich in critical social commentary. It speaks against
white America’s racism and Eurocentric cultural dominance (Smitherman
1997).
Another trend that emerged toward the end of the 1980s is gangsta rap,
which glorifies an outlaw lifestyle of drugs, violence, crime and sex. The
lyrics are explicit, tough and raw, the sound noisy and abrasive, which has
sparked a great deal of controversy, criticism and even public protest.
Regardless of the specific sub-genre or style, it is the language that plays
the most powerful role in rap. By rapping in the street vernacular, the
artists express identification with their communities and intentionally
distance themselves from others. In other words, they use language as a
tool of cultural resistance (Kopano, Baruti 2002). In addition, the
technique of sampling allows them to reuse and repopularize parts of old
Black songs, which gives them a sense of continuity and of Black musical
history. Also, the relatively simple sound patterns initially used developed
into faster, more complex ones, and by the end of the 1980s and in the
early 1990s reached a peak with the flow, involving the interaction of
rhythm and rhyme. More recent trends favour what is called free-styling,
or improvisation, which allows for even more freedom of creative
expression.
Even though rap was initially performed exclusively by African
Americans, the feeling of frustration and disempowerment is something
that many others, especially the young, can identify with. They embrace
rap as an expression of counter-culture and refusal to conform to
mainstream society. By the mid-1980s it thus became popular among the
white population, as well. Even though it essentially retained a critical
social tone, a degree of commercialization was inevitable, and by the end
of the 1980s it had become part of the mainstream American music
industry. At the same time, its influence has spread rapidly, and rap has
found admirers and followers around the world, including Europe and
Slovenia.
Rap and hip-hop first reached Slovenia in the mid 1980s, but it was not
until 1994 that the first rap album by the rapper Ali-En was released. At
first it was no doubt just a fad expressing a fascination with something
new and different; at the same time, it could be seen as conforming to
trends of westernization/Americanization within Slovene society. Given
that rap stems from the fundamentally different historical, social and
cultural context of African Americans (slavery, deprivation, social and
 The Influence of English on Slovene Rap Lyrics 87

economic inequity), it is difficult to see how it could take root;

nevertheless, it did—with necessary adaptations to the local context, of
course. An interesting attempt at popularizing the genre was made by the
skiing champion Jure Košir with his crew Pasji Kartel (Dog Cartel), which
was then followed by other rappers, from Ezy-G and his duo Dandrough to
those that are still active today: Klemen Klemen, 6Pack Čukur, Murat &
Jose, Rok Trkaj, N’Toko, Zlatan Čordić (Zlatko), Samo Boris, Eyeceeou,
Boštjan Gorenc Pižama, Sadež & Slon, Valterap and others.
The remaining section of this chapter is not intended to be an
exhaustive review of individual rap artists, but will focus instead on the
themes and language of Slovene rap. The two are naturally partly
intertwined; however, the focus of the analysis will be on the shared or
distinct features of African American and Slovene rap. The linguistic
analysis, on the other hand, will focus on the influence of English on
Slovene rap, more specifically on the extent of English used in Slovene
lyrics and the reasons for the mixing of the two languages, as well as the
lexical, semantic, morphological, orthographic and stylistic analysis of the
English elements encountered in Slovene texts.
Rap is not a homogeneous genre, which is why it deals with a variety
of themes, from personal narratives to social commentary. A comparison
of (African) American and Slovene rap lyrics shows a number of
similarities and also a few differences. In view of the different historical,
social, economic and cultural backgrounds from which American and
Slovene rap artists come, these similarities may strike us as somewhat
unusual. Apparently, however, the appeal for the rappers is the shared
feeling of being marginalized and of not having their voices heard. Many
thus seem to identify with the ghetto mentality of their Bronx idols,
despite the different environment in which they live, drawing parallels
between, say, a ghetto in New York or Philadelphia, on the one hand, and
the Fužine district of Ljubljana or the working class city of Velenje, on the
other. For them, these are the “hoods” on which they can base their stories.
We notice the local, original element (references to Slovene places,
personalities and cultural references) in these lyrics, painting a picture of
hopelessness and social injustice, discrimination (often against the čefurs,
economic immigrants from the former Yugoslav republics who do not fit
in, cannot make it and are often constructed as equivalent to the
historically oppressed African-Americans), frustration and alienation.
Some rappers react to such a harsh situation angrily and aggressively by
glorifying violence and brutality, on the one hand, and a hedonistic
lifestyle, on the other. This is why rap is sometimes accused of fostering a
culture of crime and drugs as well as of dealing with socially and
88 Chapter Nine

politically controversial issues (criticizing the government, materialism,

double standards, hypocrisy and the like).

Jaz sm z ulc1 Ljubljane I’m from the streets of Ljubljana,

ulc v katerih ni tapravih prjatlov, where there are no real friends,
k te sreča zapusti when you’re down on your luck
kjer število mrtvih se where the number of the dead
veča iz leta v let, rises year by year,
državo dol …. down with the country!
(Zlatko: Ta šit 2)

The critical social note is even more pronounced, for instance, in the lyrics
of 6Pack Čukur, a rapper from the economically depressed city of Velenje.
The lyrics convey a hint of sarcasm.

To so hip hop soundi These are hip hop sounds

iz crazy Veleja, from crazy Velenje,
ki vsak dan dogaja, where things happen all the time,
tuli sirena … the sirens are blaring …
Sej sam dobri ljudje As only good people
v našem mestu in our town
grejo na cesto, are thrown out onto the street,
kriminalci pa valjda and the criminals
na višja mesta. get promotions.
Življenja postajajo pestra Life is spicing up
koka bejbe vip fešta. coke, babes, VIP parties.
Mi pa v parku z litrco While we are in the park drinking
a liter,
policaji pridejo na hitrco, the cops come fast
nas fuknejo v marico and throw us into the police van,
say hello to pendrek palico. say hello to the truncheon.
(6Pack Čukur: Začela se je saga)

There are other rappers, however, who in order to avoid such criticism,
take a more positive approach, warning teenagers and the young in general
against violence and drugs, telling them that street fighting is not a
solution to their problems, encouraging them to give up fantasy and face
reality, to choose right over wrong and try to make something of
themselves.

1
All lyrics are presented in their original form found on the Internet, grammatical
and typing errors included. English words and loanwords from English are written
in bold. English translations of the lyrics are given in the right-hand columns.
 The Influence of English on Slovene Rap Lyrics 89

Bil mld čefur, meu sm I was a young čefur,

željo da bi vladu, I wanted to rule,
priznam, situacije takrt I admit,
nism obvladu I couldn’t handle the situation,
sčasoma na to pozabu, after a while I gave up on it,
a zgolj propadu, I was vegetating,
sam k tebe vidim, and now when I look at you,
me zanima as ti tud notr padu. I wonder if the same thing is
happening to you.
(Zlatko: Bluz rap).

Lajf je kork pokr avtomat Life is like a poker machine,

če hočeš nek vn dobit if you want to get something out
je treba najprej notr dat you have to put something in.
Revn al bogat, No matter if you’re rich or poor,
Vse na teb je brat. it’s all up to you, brother.
Nikol ne pust stat, Don’t be passive,
dej življenje notr put your life into it
da boš dobu rezultat. so that you’ll get something out.
(Trkaj: Poker avtomat)

Apart from broader social topics, rappers use lyrics to express their
inner feelings and to tell their personal stories (of loneliness, emptiness,
drug abuse, teen problems, conflicts with parents and the like). While this
is similar to American rap, it is at the same time a chance to include local,
even intimate elements, which makes their narratives more authentic and
original. The sentiment they express is their passion for rap, with which
they can completely identify; indeed, rap is their life.

Tuki not je moj življenje. This is my life in it.

Vse kar sem prnesu je kle. All that I bring with me is here.
(Trkaj: Zadnji svoje vrste).

Evrbadi spredi zadi Everybody, in front, in the back

Vsi norijo k slišijo se komadi they all go crazy when they hear
the hits
Nej vas slišim vse—evribadi. Let me hear everybody—
everybody.
To je za vs folk k me podpira This is for all the folks that support
me
in k mi daje moč and give me strength
k skače gor in dol who jump up and down
kn ki čist znori and go totally crazy
k bit iz boxov poč when the beat jumps out of the box
(Murat & Jose: Evribadi)
90 Chapter Nine

They thus look down on those for whom rap is just an “in” thing or a
vogue, since not everybody can rap. Rap means “keeping it real”; it is a
real and genuine art in which mere aping will not suffice.

Vsak mulc ma kapo postran, Every kid wears a cap turned to the
side,
ruto okol glave, a scarf round their head,
vsi znajo repat najbolj they all know how to rap
vsi majo svoje pozdrave, they all have their greetings,
vedt morš kaj kej pomen you have to know what something
means
ful2 skupin naštet you have to know a long list of
bands
da si od boga poslan, to be heaven sent by God
da pridš repat na svet to rap
(Zlatko: Bluz rap)

Frequently, rappers talk about where they come from and why they are
proud of their hoods, presenting themselves as kings of a particular area
and putting down their opponents. This is a typical feature of battle
rapping: put-downs directed at other rappers. It is here that the influence
of African American rappers with their experience of inner city
schoolyards and street corner fights is particularly noticeable. The same is
true of the ritual of insulting one’s friends and acquaintances (signifying),
which sounds strange to a Slovene listener. By the same token, we note an
interactive dimension of rap, seen in the constant taunting and provoking
of their opponents. In their lyrics they boast about their own (aspirations
to) wealth and possessions and frequently resort to name dropping specific
brands, such as BMW, Ferrari, and Armani.

Bla bla bla iz tvojih ust vn leti Bla bla bla is coming out of your
mouth
a še vedno misliš and you still think
da si the greatest mc3 that you are the greatest mc
Preveč si predvidljiv You’re too predictable
dejmo karte na mizo let’s put our cards on the table
Naj ti feget Deni pove Let the faggot Deni tell you
kaj te čaka to zimo what’s in store for you this winter

2
Full is an adjective in English; in Slovene slang, however, it is frequently used as
an intensifier: to je ful cool is to be really/very/extremely cool, or a adverb of
quantity: ful skupin—many groups.
3
Rappers are often referred to as MCs and rapping alternatively as Mcing,
emceeing, rhyming or spitting bars.
 The Influence of English on Slovene Rap Lyrics 91

Nič, spal boš kot lansko leto Nothing, you’ll just sleep like last
year
jaz pa v studio se bom zapru but I’ll lock myself into the studio
in nove bite delu and work on new beats
Ker vsak mislu da to pride Because everyone thinks it comes
out
kr samo od sebe all by itself
da mal zaplejaš you play a little
pa je uzuni še cd and the CD is already out
Zato pust da 6Pack casanova So leave 6Pack Casanova
naredi šta se mora to do what he has to do
Grem gor na oder I go on the stage
folk zamiga z glavo folks nod their heads
ko Stevie Wonder. Like Stevie Wonder.
(6pack Čukur: Vseen)

Dolg cajta sem se čudil— I’ve been wondering for a long

time -
a evo nas skupa - and here we are -
6Pack čukur 6Pack čukur
in Bronxtarz da grupa and the Bronxstarz da grupa
playa iz veleja – player fromVelenje -
z gengsteri z veleja with gangsters from Velenje
Še bejbe se derejo naša imena The babes are shouting our names
tk k Backstreet boys— like Backstreet boys -
Cristina whatever Cristina whatever
Ne bomo nehali— We won’t stop
dokler ne naredimo cdja until we have a CD
Z milijonsko naklado— with a million copies
da si kupmo bmw-ja so we can buy a BMW
Da kruzamo vsak dan So that we can cruise
čez ulice veleja. the streets of Velenje every day.
(6Pack Čukur: Ne se čudit)

I wanna be milionaro, I wanna be a millionaire

rad bi furu ferari, and drive a Ferrari
mel dve bejbe na vsaki strani with two babes in my arms on each
side
I wanna bi milionaro, I wanna be a millionaire
rad bi mel zlate zobe, I wanna have gold teeth
nosu Armani cote and wear Armani.
(6Pack Čukur: Milionaro)

The lyrics examined show that, while the language used is

predominantly Slovene, almost all the songs contain English elements at
least to some extent. This is proof of the strong stylistic and linguistic
92 Chapter Nine

influence of American rappers on their Slovene counterparts. While most

readily admit to it and do not mind it, some wish to be known for their
own, original style. Zlatko is one such rapper who purposely sticks to
Slovene, saying that he was born and raised here, this is where he lives and
this is the only language in which he can express himself fully (from an
interview on Info TV, Odpeto z Urško Čepin 2012). Another example,
albeit inconsistent as shown by the following lyrics, is Klemen Klemen:

The nigazz sayin’ wu-tan, wu-tang, The nigazz syin’ wu-tan, wu-tang,
Get the fuuuuuck… Get the fuuuuuck…
K js sm Klemn Klemn ‘coz I’m Klemn Klemn
in imam svoj stil, and I have my style,
Velik reprjou je probal A lot of rappers tried
ampak nikol ni nč nrdil but didn’t accomplish anything
…
10 let repa, za mano že stoji, 10 years of rap experience behind
me,
zakaj bi pel po anglešk why rap in English
če smo u Sloveniji if we’re in Slovenia
zrcalce zrcalce na steni povej, mirror, mirror on the wall
gdo najboljši je MC v deželi tej, tell me who is the best MC in this
country
Ezy-G … prec sam ga razbou, Ezy-G—I beat him immediately
Ej you Ezy-G sej drgač Eh you Ezy-G you’re otherwise ok
ti pa kr dobr gre,

you are the biggest nigger repr you’re the biggest nigger rapper
on the majk iz štajrske, on the mike from Štajerska.
Ampak js mam u seb But I still carry my world in me
še zmeri svoj svet
in tist, kar maš u seb and what you have inside,
ti noben ne more vzet no one can take away.
(Klemen Klemen: Moj svet)

There is an obvious discrepancy between his claims and reality, as his

lyrics contain perhaps even more English that those of some other rappers
6Pack Čukur, on the other hand, has no problem with using English.

Ok, naj še jaz povem Ok, let me get to the point

kam pes taco moli
Odgovor na vprašanje The answer to the question
zakaj repamo v angleščini why rap in English
Delam to kar mi godi I do what I please
Če vam to ne diši… If you don’t like it…
(6Pack Čukur: Vseen)
 The Influence of English on Slovene Rap Lyrics 93

Some others rappers are also comfortable with English. N’Toko, one of
the best and most popular free-style rappers, who was born and spent his
childhood in the United States, while predominantly rapping in Slovene,
also performs whole passages in English.
As previously noted, language is a crucial element of rap. American
rappers use the African American Vernacular English (AAVE), which
Potter (1995) considers to be a fundamental element of cultural resistance.
Employing a language variety that is different from the standard
emphasizes their separation from the dominant society. It is a symbol of
their frustration and anger at being unable to change the unfair and
deplorable conditions in which they are forced to live. Similarly, Slovene
rappers use non-standard language varieties in both Slovene and English.
In Slovene we find a mixture of teen slang and technical jargon, and in
addition various regional dialects and accents. While this certainly makes
it sound more authentic, the question is whether the language used is as
powerful a tool as that used in American rap. The answer is unclear: Slang
is simultaneously a sign of in-group solidarity among its users and of
rebellion against mainstream society. However, perhaps it is not as strong
a symbol as it is in the States because of the difference in the experiences
of the artists and their respective communities. While African American
rap communities are marked by the heavy historical burdens of slavery
and racism, and a more recent feeling of exclusion and discontent, in
Slovenia the stratification of society is less extreme. Therefore, the
rappers’ use of slang and dialect is perhaps more an expression of their age
and regional identity than that of a very active/aggressive ethnic or cultural
resistance. It may be, though, that with the growing economic and ethical
crisis, the situation is beginning to change. Just as the voice of today’s
Black youth is transforming the culture of America, Slovene rap may be a
part of the broader social changes that are currently in progress across
much of Europe.
Examples of slang will be discussed under the heading of vocabulary,
while the use of regional dialects is best illustrated by Klemen Klemen
from Ljubljana, 6Pack Čukur from Velenje and Murat & Jose, rapping in
the Dolenjska dialect.

Bed stari It’s bad, man,

kwa se to z mano dogaja… what is happening to me?
(Klemen Klemen: Terapija)

Najprej dečko iz Veleja First a boy from Velenje,

zdej pa god damn playa! And a goddamn player!
(6Pack Čukur: Šluk šluk)
94 Chapter Nine

Yeah Nigga Yeah Yeah Nigga Yeah

D’lenska variant, d’lenska varianta the Dolenjska variant, the
Dolenjska variant
K’ga je zdej s 30 kubično motorko Why did he hit everybody with a
30 cubic meter chainsaw
use čez pu glave preseku and split their heads in half
Ej, šnopc jebenmumater, šnopc Eh, schnapps motherfucker,
schnapps
Yeah maddafaka. Ah Yeah Yo. Yeah madafaka. Ah Yeah Yo.
You know what this is yo yo. You know what this is yo yo.
(Klemen Klemen: Šnopc)

Vocabulary is the area of Slovene language most heavily influenced by

English. This influence is seen in either individual words or whole phrases
and longer chunks of discourse. Many words are the same as those used in
the slang of other teenagers (such as keš, dilanje, bend, bejba, luzer,
kruzati, čilati, čil, frend, kul, na izi, skulirati se, densat, lajf, kapsi, džoint,
šit, fejk, fensi, and fajtatm from the English words cash, dealing, band,
baby, loser, to cruise, to chill, chill, friend, cool, easy, to cool down, to
dance, life, cops, joint, shit, fake, fancy and to fight ). In addition, we
encounter technical jargon (for example, flow, majk, vokabular, rejpr,
grunč, batlat from Eng. flow, mike, vocabulary, rapper, grunge, to battle).
Longer discourse units represent examples of code switching, or alternate
use of the two languages.

The roof is on fire The roof is on fire

Kam pa zdej bežiš frajer Where are you off to, playa
Ne moreš nič You can’t do anything
Pretrgan telephone wire Cut-off telephone wire
Sem ti reku da kličeš 113 I told you to call 1134
(6Pack Čukur: To je moje ime)

Individual words belong mostly to the semantic fields of sex, drugs,

violence, crime and other taboo topics, which is in line with the general
themes addressed by the rappers.
Morphologically, the words that are borrowed from English (unless in
their original form) have typically undergone adaptation, whereby Slovene
suffixes are attached to English bases, for eample, to move + -ati > muvati.
Such words are also phonologically adapted to Slovene and behave in all
respects as any other Slovene word. They are mostly open-class items such

4
113 is the Slovenian equivalent of 911 (US) or 999 (UK).
 The Influence of English on Slovene Rap Lyrics 95

as nouns, verbs and adjectives (See Šabec 2009, 2011 for more on the
adaptation of English loanwords into Slovene).
Calques from English may occur as well, for example, Vse kar gre
naokrog pride naokrog, What goes around comes around.
Spelling or orthography varies. In most cases it imitates pronunciation
as closely as possible (luzer, kruzati, đanki—from Eng. loser, to cruise,
junkie—the last one is even spelled with a Serbo-Croatian letter that is not
part of the Slovene alphabet). Occasionally, it remains in its original
English form respect, show, message, fun) or deviates somewhat from the
norm (bitchiez, nigga, da greatest, da grupa, 4ever). The punctuation is
often missing or used incorrectly.
What is particularly interesting and somewhat extreme, however, is the
deliberate spelling of the Slovene place name Trnovo as Trnow in the
lyrics themselves and in the title of the album Trnow Stajl. Stajl is a
Slovene spelling of the English word style, while the English letter w does
not exist in Slovene, which suggests a rather uncritical borrowing of
anything foreign for reasons of cultural prestige (similar to what some
non-rap speakers do to give an appearance of being cosmopolitan and/or
sophisticated).
Owing to the typological differences between Slovene and English,
there are very few examples of the English influence on Slovene. These
consist mostly of traces of English word order found in noun + noun
combinations (brouk družine, brouk člouk—Eng. broken families, broken
man), where English nouns are used in premodifying positions instead of
Slovene adjectives.
Other English borrowings include interjections, greetings and
discourse markers. These are words such as yo, yeah, hey you, yo you,
ueaaah, ej you, jov, ouuu yeah, wuf, and their use is so common that it
cannot be overlooked. In fact these are used on a regular basis as
greetings, fillers and discourse markers, on an almost subconscious level.
In this respect they are far from negligible, as they may be perceived as
expressions of a person’s cultural, social or any other identity. This raises
a number of questions that could be used as a basis for further research: Is
the rappers’ identity therefore Slovene, or African American or global? To
what extent is their use of such words deliberate? Is it just a routine, an
imitation of their African American idols to which they do not give much
thought?
Finally, we must mention the frequent occurrence of swearwords,
obscenities and other vulgar and taboo expressions (both English and
Slovene). These are typical, particularly of gangsta rap, and constitute the
reason that this genre has gained notoriety and earned public criticism.
96 Chapter Nine

What the fuck man? What the fuck man?

Klemen’s in the madafakin house, Klemen’s in the madafakin yeah!
yeah! house,
Poslušte vsi, Man madafaak Listen all, Man madafaak what’s up
what’s up man? man?
Yeah, cel Trnow, cela Lubljana Yeh, all Trnow, all Ljubljana yeah!
yeah!
(Klemen Klemen: Keš pičke)

Stylistically, rap is characterized by literary devices such as word play,

alliterations, metaphors, similes, rhyme and rhythm, all proof of the
performers’ powerful verbal skills. Analyzing these stylistic features,
which are the same as those used in traditional written poetry, however,
would exceed the scope of this chapter and will not be addressed here.
One interesting phenomenon, however, will be mentioned: the mixing
of mainstream themes, household names and quotations (in italics) with
rap, which creates an ironic, but very effective impression.

To je nekaj drugega!! This is something else!!

Can you hear the sound Can you hear the sound
na sončni strani Alp on the sunny side of the Alps
(6Pack Čukur: To je moje ime)

Je nekdo zapisu: “Žive naj vsi Someone wrote,“Let all the nations
narodi…” live in peace…”
Al tako nekak neroden bil je ta How idiotic was he!
bedak,
Mrtu pesnik ni več znan po pesmih, Dead poet, no longer known for his
poetry,
le kot tisočak, to je čas, only as a banknote, this is the time
k mali v petem klasu se kokira when he a kid in the 5th class is
sam: taking coke on his own:
“Mama, pa ja nisi misnla, “Mom, you didn’t really think
da tistih pet čukov gre za športni that those five thousand tolars were
dan?” for Sports Day, did you?”
(Trkaj: Odštevanje)

The analysis of selected rap lyrics shows that Slovene rap has been
heavily influenced by English, in terms of both content and language.
Despite attempts to give it a local colour and make it sound as authentic as
possible, it cannot hide its foreign origins. Telling stories to a beat is
simply not part of our tradition or culture, yet it seems to have a special
appeal not just for Slovene performers, but also to global rap artists. The
likely reason is the universal identification with those dissatisfied with
 The Influence of English on Slovene Rap Lyrics 97

unequal opportunities and poverty. Rap represents a cathartic outlet not

only for the Black youth of American inner cities, but apparently also for
many others. In the words of Lipsitz (quoted in Walser 1995, 210), “In a
world where more and more people feel dislocated and disenfranchised,
the culture of people who have historically lived with the contradictions of
being outsiders becomes increasingly relevant to everyone.” Rap is
therefore a powerful medium of expression that “intersects with many
aspects of contemporary life-technology, pop culture, linguistics,
globalization, geography, race…” (Watkins 2005, 244) and as such
represents a challenge for further research in terms of both form and
message.

Internet sources of rap lyrics

Klemen Klemen. http://www.leoslyrics.com/klemen-klemen/moj-svet-
lyrics/
—. http://www.lyricsvip.com/Klemen-Klemen/Terapija-Lyrics.html
—. http://besedila.es/klemen-klemen-snopc-i/
—. http://www.justsomelyrics.com/882976/Klemen-Klemen-Keš-pičke-
Lyrics
6Pack Čukur. http://www.lyrics.si/lyric/6/6_pack_Čukur/To-je-moje-
ime.html
—. http://www.lyrics.si/lyric/6/6_pack_Čukur/Začela-se-je-saga.html
—. http://www.lyrics.si/lyric/6/6_pack_Čukur/Vseen.html
—. http://www.lyrics.si/lyric/6/6_pack_Čukur/Ne-se-čudit.html
—. http://www.justsomelyrics.com/1962171/6pack-čukur-Šluk-šluk-
Lyrics
—. http://slolyrics.com/6-pack-cukur/milionaro/
Murat in Jose. http://slolyrics.com/murat-in-jose/spredizadi/
Zlatko. http://www.lyrics.si/lyric/z/Zlatan_Čordić_(Zlatko)/Ta-šit-2.html
—. http://www.lyrics.si/lyric/z/Zlatko_feat_Gero/Bluz-rap.html
Trkaj. http://www.lyrics.si/lyric/t/Trkaj/Odštevanje.html
—. http://slolyrics.com/trkaj/zadnji-svoje-vrste/

References
Keyes, Cheryl L. 2002. Rap Music and Street Consciousness. Illinois:
University of Illinois Press.
Kopano, Baruti N. 2002. “Rap Music is an Extension of the Black
Rhetorical Tradition: ‘Keepin’ it Real’.” Western Journal of Black
Studies 26: 204-215. Accessed November 12, 2012. http://www.
98 Chapter Nine

questia.com/read/1G1-101173271/rap-music-as-an-extension-of-the-
black-rhetorical)
Krims, Adam. 2000. Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity. Cambridge:
CUP.
Odpeto z Urško Čepin, Info TV, Nov. 21, 2012.
Potter, Russell A. 1995. Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the
Politics of Postmodernism. New York: SUNY Press.
Rose, Tricia. 1994. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in
Contemporary America. London: Wesleyan University Press.
Smitherman, Geneva. 1997. “’The Chain Remain the Same.’
Communicative Practices in the Hip Hop Nation.” Journal of Black
Studies 28:3-25.
Šabec, Nada. 2009. “Recent English Loanwords in Slovene.” ELOPE 6:
19-27.
—. 2011. “The Globalizing Effect of English on the Language of the
Slovene Media.” In The Global and Local Dimensions of English:
Exploring Issues of Language and Culture, edited by Marija Brala
Vukanović and Irena Vodopija Kristanović, 113-126. Vienna: LIT
Verlag.
Walser, Robert. 1995. “Rhythm, Rhyme and Rhetoric in the Music of
Public Enemy.” Ethnomusicology 39: 193-218.
Watkins, S. Craig. 2005. Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the
Struggle for the Soul of a Movement. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
 CHAPTER TEN

2PAC OR 6PACK:
SLOVENE GANGSTA RAP
FROM A SOCIOLINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE

BARBARA MAJCENOVIČ KLINE

Rap (Rhythmically Accentuated Poetry) is talking in rhyme to the beat,

often with content through which the artist tries to convey a message of
broader social or cultural importance. Three major components are
content, delivery and flow, and these features distinguish rap from spoken
word poetry. Although rap has been described as a “grey area between
speech, prose, poetry and song,” (http://www.nationmaster.com/
encyclopedia/MC-(hip-hop)#_ref-13), there is nothing “grey” about its
origin, stemming from the work songs and spirituals of slavery, which still
mark the content of modern “black” rap.
American rap has had a profound influence on world music; I will
discuss some of the major differences between American rap and Slovene
rap. First, Slovene rap is neither black nor English. Nor does it convey any
of the African-American tradition of slavery and freedom. The names of
Slovene rappers sound anything but Slovene, while the content of their
lyrics shows evidence of foreign influence. I will explore the cultural
components in the content of Slovene rap and investigate to what extent its
flow calls for foreign (American English) intrusion into the words used by
Slovene rap artists.
Rap music’s African roots date back to the second half of the 19th
century, when “griots” used to tell stories of history, current events,
gossip, satire, and political comment. Their storytelling was accompanied
with drums or sparse instrumentation, which laid the foundation for
modern rap—talking in rhyme to the beat, often with political or socially
critical content. Later, in the Mississippi Delta region, blues music was
influenced by the work songs and spirituals of slavery. It was first played
by blacks and only a few whites. Some claim it was rapped as early as
100 Chapter Ten

1920. Furthermore, jazz, which developed from blues, was one influence
on hip hop, and the characteristic drum beat of funk music from the middle
60s is the most common rhythm used for rap music.
In the mid-20th century, the word rap, which means “to discuss or
debate informally” and the music itself became popular in the Caribbean,
where their local culture was being influenced by changes in American
music. In the 70s, a musical genre was born and further developed in the
streets of the Bronx, which were commonly avoided by outsiders because
of a high crime rate, and this influence remains in modern rap. Later, in
early 80s old school rap, “the emphasis was not on lyrical technique, but
simply on good times” (Bogdanov 2001, xiii). The genre underwent
dramatic changes in the “Golden age,” in the late 80s, where, as the writer
William Jelani Cobb (2007, 47) says, “[I]n these golden years, a critical
mass of mic prodigies were literally creating themselves and their art form
at the same time.” By the 90s, rap had “matured” from relatively simple
lyrics into more complex ones, which along with its diversity, innovation
and influence, marked the “golden era,” with rappers such as The
Notorious B.I.G, Snoop Dog, and Eminem among the most popular white
rappers of all times. Today, the genre thrives, which speaks to its
popularity and the strong influence of the performing artists.
In 1980 a Slovene singer, yet not a rap artist, Tomaž Domicelj, in his
song “Banane” claimed that you did not need a musical education to be
able to perform. One could claim this statement holds true, however, on
two different and opposing levels. First, it reflects the general perception
of the public towards the first rap artists (some people did not like that
there was no melody in rap, that the language was often crude, and that
rappers dared to offer open critique). Furthermore, it proves how little
people (even musicians) knew of rap, claiming it was neither difficult nor
challenging, yet on close examination we can see that contemporary rap
artists manage to “freestyle” challenging poetic techniques such as
assonance, consonance or advanced rhyme. Some critics went so far as to
say that “if you cannot sing, you rap.”
“Kekec rap” is the first Slovene rap song, and Klemen Klemen the first
Slovenian rap artist, dating back to 1987/1988 (during the time of
Yugoslavia, when Slovenia was one of the federal republics). His garage
rap songs attracted the attention of Simon Stojko Falko and Ali En, who,
as skaters and BMX riders, had rap music in common. Klemen Klemen
initially worked on several records with other rap artists before releasing
his first record Trnow Stajl in 2000.
There was a considerable rise in the number of Slovene rap performers
in the 1990s, and YO-MTV RAPS was like an open window into world
 2pac or 6Pack: Slovene Gangsta Rap From a Sociolinguistic Perspective 101

rap. The first funk band was the skaters Heavy Less Wanted, but these
were still not mainstream. The performers who made Slovene rap/hip-hop
“something interesting and worth listening to,” were the Alpine skier Jure
Košir, with his group Košir Rap Team, and its successor, Pasji Kartel
(their first record Kartelova teorija, 1998). Košir became popular for his
self-deprecating lyrics, in which he joked about the variation in his skiing
speed. After Košir and Kartel, the progress of rap in Slovenia picked up
with Ali En. In 1994, he recorded his first album (Leva scena), which
marked a turning point in the development of Slovene “mainstream” rap.
“The main events took place in Ljubljana, Nova Gorica, Velenje, Maribor
and Kranj, but apart from some exceptions (Klemen Klemen, 6Pack
Čakur), rap still remained at the level of subculture, which was heard in
local clubs” (Izola.info, http://izola.info/novica.php?izola=991). In 2000,
6Pack Čukur performed in English first, and then in Slovene, even though
he claimed that Slovene was a “rigid, stiff” language for rap. 6Pack Čukur
was followed by Dandrough, Ezy-G, Tekochee kru, Samo Boris, Murat &
Jose, Valterap, Nikolovski, Trkaj, N’toko, King, Zlatko, Plan B, Kosta,
Kocka, Eyeceeou and others.
One feature of Slovene rap is that there is no specific local or historical
origin, “fertile soil” for the development of rap, in contrast to the traceable
origins of African-American rap. The influences of Slovene rap are a
mixture of “world rap and /or hip-hop,” for example, the TV influence of
YO MTV RAPS and other local events (the socio-cultural, political, and
economic atmosphere of that time). Yet, the one thing Slovenia shares
with African-American peoples is its continuing status as a minority; it is
one of the smallest states both in the former Yugoslavia and in the EU
today. Rap lyrics are often about open critique of the existing regime,
culture, or system, about rising from subculture to mainstream, moving on
from singing in the streets and on to the stages, opposing injustice and
being different, fighting for rights, and trying to find one’s place in and
recognition from the world. Although slavery was officially abolished in
1865 in the USA, racial conflict persists. People of minorities are
statistically less well educated, successful and employed than the majority,
their health issues are considerably worse and death rates are higher. This
holds true in Slovenia; in a country which is itself a small part of a large
political organization, there are areas that are economically weaker than
the central part, where the social status of the inhabitants is lower. This is
reflected in their opposition to the prevailing socio-cultural, economic and
political atmosphere, which, consequently is reflected in Slovene rap. For
example, when there were job cuts at one of Slovenia’s biggest factories,
Gorenje, rappers joined the strikes and even wrote songs about the issue.
102 Chapter Ten

Stanković (2006, 96) wonders whether “rap is about linear takeover of

the style as a whole, or whether a more selective acceptance exists.” Here
we have to take into account music as a set of characteristics, on the one
hand, and of content connotations, on the other:

The content of a hip-hop song (sometimes called the subject matter)

includes every subject you talk about in your lyrics. It is what you’re
actually rapping about, rather than the rhythms and rhymes you’re using
(the flow), or how you’re using your voice to perform, or “spit,” those
rhythms and rhymes (the delivery). Hip-hop artists tackle a huge range of
content in their music—anything you can think of can become the subject
of a hip-hop track. (Edwards 2009, 3)

Modern rap was initially meant for “boosting up” parties, but most rap
artists are known for their sociopolitical subject matter; they tend to refer
to racism, gangs and drug abuse. However, their approach to this subject
matter differs from one artist to another. Tupac Shakur is known for
rapping about issues such as police brutality, teenage pregnancy and
racism; some even celebrate crime and a hedonistic lifestyle, achieved by
drug abuse, while some such as KRS-One change their tune completely
after a life-changing experience leads them to condemn violence and racial
discrimination. Ice-T tried to use his fame and influence to warn against
joining gangs. Moreover, there is a much rapping about crime and the
gangster lifestyle in “gangsta rap,” where a hedonistic approach is
predominant. In contrast, rappers such as Five Percent Nation and
Christianity have a more religious and spiritual focus with their “Christian
rap,” which is evident in their performer names. In contrast, some hip-
hoppers and rappers choose materialism as their subject matter. By
frequently mentioning brands of clothing, liquor or cars, they boast about
their possessions and wealth. Last but not least, some artists are actively
involved through their lyrics in current political events. Some support
current politicians, governments and their actions, while others express
political criticism, sarcasm or irony and make it into the news.
Peter Stanković states that “…we arise from the hypothesis that
‘authentic’ communities, which are supposed to ‘produce’ ‘authentic’
music genres as a ‘reflection’ of a real life experience within these
communities, are an ideological construct, whereby it can be estimated
that some basic local commitment (obligation) of certain music genres
actually does exist” (Stanković 2006, 95).
The basic constituents of Slovene rap, produced by local artists who
are distant and detached from the reality of North American ghettos,
constitute a search for identity. Can we, then, talk about the authenticity of
 2pac or 6Pack: Slovene Gangsta Rap From a Sociolinguistic Perspective 103

Slovene rap? Adams and Fuller claim that “music is a reflection of the
cultural and political environment from which it is born” (2006, 948).
What political and cultural influences, if any, are reflected in Slovene rap?
Rose, as quoted in Adams and Fuller, states that “hip hop is a cultural form
that attempts to negotiate the experiences of marginalization, brutality,
truncated opportunity, and oppression within the cultural imperatives of
African American and Caribbean history, identity, and community”
(Adams and Fuller 2006, 939). To what extent are these characteristics
present in Slovene rap? In the documentary Veš, poet, svoj dolg? Slovene
rap artists were asked about Slovene rap, when they first learned about it
and how they perceived it, and their responses were as follows:

When I was in the second grade of primary school, I asked my schoolmate

about the strange thing where the music is scarce (pruned) and there are
angry black men talking all over each other. Her answer was rap. ‘Rap?’ I
asked, ‘That’s the exact name?’ (Dandrough)

“At our primary school it was said that it is the “čefurs” who listen to rap.”
(Mr. Tado / DJ Dado). The term “čefur” is a derogatory, stylistically
marked term, used for the first time in the Slovene dictionary (Slovar
slovenskega knjižnega jezika) in 1991, but it was then removed from the
following editions. It denotes the inhabitants of Slovenia whose national
origins can be found in other countries of the former Federal republic of
Yugoslavia, and it derives from the Turkish word čifut (Cühut), meaning
Jew.

“This is street music.” (N’toko)

“Rap is supposed to be some kind of a statement.” (Fidži)
“Rap is self-reflection, self-therapy.”(Emkej)
“It’s like catharsis.” (Kosta)
“You say what you see and you say it in a fresh way.” (Trkaj)
“Everyone can find their place in hip hop. It’s life.” (Ghet in Mrigo)

From these statements one can see that Slovene rappers express their
own perception and experience of rap; one which is, in most statements,
basically in sync with the universal perception of rap: street music, self
reflection, expressing oneself in a “fresh way,” and hip hop as a way of
life. Can we even talk about “gangsta” rap in Slovenia? Yes, since both
world and Slovene rap discuss such issues as drugs, weapons, and street
fighting, issues which the artists observe and convey to wider audiences.
There are traces of marginalization here; specifically, minorities are
often mentioned. Slovenian rappers don’t necessarily talk about African
American “black brothers”; rather, the characters in question are
104 Chapter Ten

minorities from the former Yugoslav republics, or the economically and

socially weaker Slovene minorities, including factory workers, retired
people, the unemployed and people from certain parts of Slovenia and ex-
Yugoslavia, such as Velenje, Fužine, Murska Sobota, and Bosnia.
Social criticism is prevalent in the rap songs of N’toko, Samo Boris,
and Eyeceeou, who are known as “intellectual rappers,” strongly
criticizing social anomalies, commercialism, double standards, corruption,
manipulation (N’toko); the Protestant view of the world (Samo Boris);
issues of personal existence, joblessness, and the quest for answers
(Eyeceeou). Some criticize the Slovene music scene and expose problems
with drugs (Ali En), while others emphasize hedonism (referring to drugs,
sex and partying) and machismo (Klemen Klemen and 6Pack Čukur).
There are also issues of local patriotism in the lyrics and local dialect in
6Pack Čukur, Plan B and Thug Connect (Velenje), Kosta (Ljubljana) and
Kocka (Kranjska gora), while others refer to and even provoke constant
rivalry between the capital city of Ljubljana and the more rural region of
Styria (Klemen Klemen). Some boast about themselves (self-awareness)
or put down others (Ali En, Klemen Klemen) with their provocative lyrics.
Murat & Jose present relatively serious social commentary, as opposed to
the self-centered hedonists. Their record V besedi je moč (The Power of
Words) contains no swear words, no mention of racism, and no local
patriotism. They criticize hedonism and machismo, while being politically
correct. Kosta has a critical view of the world; in his lyrics there is no
boasting about self-awareness, and he presents mature, intelligent and
innovative texts. He raps in a slang that has features of local dialect, while
presenting himself and his city (Ljubljana). He uses the everyday language
of youth because, he claims, this is the only way to comprehend the
situation.
Some of the best freestylers are 6Pack Čukur, N’toko, King, Zlatko,
and Trkaj who, as a student of theology, marked his lyrics with
existentialism and religion. Among those who first broke into the
mainstream were Trkaj, Zlatko, and Klemen Klemen; each had his own
style and approach to allure the audience.
Slovene rappers use wordplay to draw attention to specific themes.
Rappers satirize middle-class Slovene values and aspirations, such as
buying furniture from Ikea, filling the garden with gnomes, adult children
living with their parents and obsessing over whether one’s car is newer or
one’s grass greener than the neighbour’s. They describe Slovenes as
xenophobic, suicidal, and envious, as a nation with corrupt and
incompetent politicians who deflect responsible choice in countless
referenda, while casting doubt on the Constitution. In the rap worldview
 2pac or 6Pack: Slovene Gangsta Rap From a Sociolinguistic Perspective 105

we are a land on the sunny side of the Alps where the young no longer
hide and smoke but do drugs instead, where young couples have no hope
of children because they cannot get jobs or homes. However, those who
steal, cheat and rob, or those who are prominent politicians, lawyers,
priests or managers seem to find success. Most have only comfort as their
life goal; thus, even a fellow human being becomes only a means to
achieving such goals. Affairs, illegal drug and weapons deals and other
criminal activities are shown to be the result of the wrong-doings of
government, and the over-involvement of politics in the state economy has
pushed us into poverty. These observations are the fertile ground that gives
Slovene rappers ample material. Towns like Velenje, Maribor and Fužine
become symbols for this miserable state of affairs, while Avseniki (the
most popular folk ensemble) and France Prešeren (the greatest Slovene
poet) take the same stage as Laibach (a Slovene avant-garde music group
associated with industrial, martial, and neo-classical musical styles) and
rap artists.
Let us now look at the degree of foreign influence on Slovene rap.
First, the names of Slovene rap artists/groups were gathered and analyzed
in terms of foreign (English/American, other) influences/intrusions (Table
1). Then the titles of their songs and/or albums were similarly analyzed
(Table 2). We can see that there are strong foreign influences not only in
musical components of Slovene rap, but, as analysis of the lyrics reveals,
also in content, no matter how the artists strive to maintain creativity and
authenticity. This leads to the conclusion that general sociological and/or
economic concepts have common traits in global rap but evolve into
particular varieties characteristic of the place of origin. A more detailed
analysis on different levels (vocabulary, syntax, pronunciation, and
spelling) will be clarified with examples.
Table 1 shows that, despite the common impression of a strong foreign,
especially American, influence in Slovene rap, Slovenian rap artists use
many authentic Slovene names. These are derived from first names and
surnames (Jure Košir, Klemen Klemen, Samo Boris, Zlatko), but in
different combinations (name + surname, first name + first name, etc.) or
from common nouns (Šunka—ham). Also, there is a strong influence from
Croatian and Serbian, as mementos of the former Yugoslavia, yet
frequently with derogatory connotations. Unfortunately, this attitude is
present in real life as well, for example, Govno Smradić, 6Pack Čukur,
Zlatan Čordić, and Doša. Artists often give themselves English/American
names, but with peculiar spellings, such as Ali En, Eyeceeou, and Ezy-G
or changes in spelling, such as Dandrough. Sometimes names of Serbo-
106 Chapter Ten

Croatian origin are used as their Slovene equivalents, as in the

transformation from Zlatan Čordić to Zlatko.

Table 1: A selection of Slovene rap artists according to the origin of

their stage names.
Slovene:
Jure Košir (Slovene name and surname, one of the best world Alpine
skiers), Pasji kartel (Dog cartel), Samo Boris (both could be used as
Slovene names, but Samo could also be translated as only, meaning The
Only Boris, referring to originality).
American / English:
Ali-en (English: alien, but changed spelling), Dandrough (an early
Slovenian rap duo, with a wordplay on the English dandruff), Rhyme G
Combination (Slovene + foreign influence):
6Pack Čakur (combination of partly American and partly derogatory
term for Southern Slavic people (kafir); hip hop dancing in Slovenia is
sometimes called Čefur dance), Kranjski mixtape (Kranj is a town in
north-western Slovenia)
Others (miscellaneous):
Denile (also known as Ledeni), which means the artist is playing with
the letters in his name; ledeni is Slovene for iced), Govno Smradić
(derogatory (meaning human waste and awful smell), of southern, ex-
Yugoslav influence), Valterap

A similar comparison of the titles of a selection of albums and/or songs

of Slovene rap artists appears in Table 2.

Table 2
Artist: 6Pack Čakur
Slovene Sluk sluk (Sip Sip), En lep dan (One fine day),
Kapo dol (Hat off), Dobro jutro Slovenija
(Good Morning, Slovenia)
Combination Hej DJ, No1 žena (No 1 Wife)
(Slovene + foreign)
Artist: Dandrough
Slovene: Dobrodošli v MB (Welcome to Maribor), Iz
zibelke v grob (From Cradle to Grave)
American/English Bring it on
 2pac or 6Pack: Slovene Gangsta Rap From a Sociolinguistic Perspective 107

Others Flo-master (this could be a pun, with one

(miscellaneous) meaning as flomaster—a colour pen, or, as the
second meaning, flow master, or, the master of
the flow)
Artist: Jure Košir (Pasji kartel)
Slovene Kartelova teorija (Cartel Theory), Pesjansa
(from the game Solitaire, which is called
Pasjansa in Slovene, but because the group is
called Pasji kartel (Dog Cartel), the word play
results in Pesjansa, from the word dog—pes)
Artist: Klemen Klemen
Slovene Baraba (Bastard), Intervju (Interview),
Maribor, Terapija (Therapy), Jaz sem umrl (I
Died)
American/English Still Love Her
Combination Trnow Stajl (The Trnovo Style), Keš pičke
(Slovene + foreign) (Cash Babes)
Artist: Murat & Jose
Slovene V besedi je moč (The Power of Words), Od
ljudi za ljudi (From People to People), Nazaj
(Back)
Combination Na izi (Easy)
(Slovene + foreign)
Others Bili so muzičarji (There Were Musicians),
(miscellaneous) Alko budalko (Alco Fool)
Artist: Rhyme G
American/English Rhymes and Bosnians
Artist: Denile (also known as Ledeni)
Slovene Sam za pikico (Just a Touch), Kleptoman
(Kleptomaniac), Spust komad (Roll the Music)
Others Skank fank
(miscellaneous)
Artist: Šunka
Slovene Hip hop kugla (Hip Hop Ball), Šunka, sir in
gobice (Ham, cheese and mushrooms; the
most popular Slovenian pizza topping combo)
Combination Funkee Pica (Funky pizza)
(Slovene + foreign)
Others Kao ptica na mom dlanu (Serbo-Croatian;
(miscellaneous) Like A Bird on My Palm)
108 Chapter Ten

Artist: N’Toko
Slovene Slovenec sem (I’m Slovene), Dvojna morala
(Double Morale)
American/English Super human
Others Zig Zig, Zombi Caffe, Khan in Barbi
(miscellaneous)
Artist: Ali-en
Slovene Zadeta si lepa (You’re Beautiful When High),
Ljubljana, Leva scena (Left Scene)
Artist: Trkaj
Slovene Ljuba Ana (a word play, literally Dear Ana,
but referring to Ljubljana, the capital of
Slovenia; it could be a personification of
Ljubljana), Svet je moj (The World is Mine)
Artist: Doša
Slovene Iz ulc Lublane (From the Streets of Ljubljana)
(very strong local dialect and slang)
Artist: Samo Boris
Slovene Vsake tok časa (Every Now and Then),
Zavračam (I Refuse)
Artist: Eyeceeou
Slovene Lepota po mariborsko (Maribor Beauty),
Ležerno je moderno (Easy is Fashionable)
Artist: Valterap
Slovene Barska pevka (Bar Singer), Mladoletna (A
Minor)
Others NuKanu? Dowga njiva (Long Field), Kašni
(miscellaneous) dnevi@Ljubljana (What Days@Ljubljana)
Artist: Zlatan Čordić (Zlatko)
Slovene Zlato ti daje sijaj, ne pa sreče (Gold Brings
You Splendour, But not Luck), Ena na ena
(One on One), Mi je žal (I’m Sorry), V iskanju
sreče (In Pursuit of Happiness)
Artist: The first compilation of Slovene hip hop
music
Combination Radyoyo: Za narodov blagor—5’00” of fame
(Slovene + foreign) (Radyoyo: For the Nation’s Welfare—5’00” of
Fame)

A synopsis of the basic characteristics from Table 2 above shows that,

although the general impression might be that foreign influences on
 2pac or 6Pack: Slovene Gangsta Rap From a Sociolinguistic Perspective 109

Slovene rap are strong, the reality for album and song titles is somewhat
different. Slovene titles dominate, even though they are often informal, in
strong local dialect and/or slang, and with intentional spelling mistakes
(Zlato ti daje sijaj, ne pa sreče, Ena na ena, Mi je žal, V iskanju sreče,
Kokr kol obrnš, Hip hop, Recesija, Moj zaklad, Ni več tko, Nasmej se).
What follows are miscellaneous titles (NuKanu? Dowga njiva, Kašni
dnevi@Ljubljana), or those where a combination of both Slovene and
foreign influence occur (Radyoyo: Za narodov blagor—5’00” of fame).
Titles in English alone are rare (Super human, Rhymes and Bosnians).
Rap lyrics are enriched by complex vocabulary. In addition, not only
are international (madmatizacija– madmatisation, junksi—junks, haš—
hash,) and regional slang used (fotr—dad, laufaš—to run, cote—rags), but
regional dialects can also be found (L’blan—Ljubljana, Veleje—Velenje,
kwa—what, včeri—yesterday), and new vocabulary is constantly invented
(fjučering—futuring). Even though the language is predominantly Slovene,
rap does use English and Serbo-Croatian (code switching), yet not to the
extent one would expect, given the extensive adoption of English words by
young Slovenes (prvic vidu pote junksov in zapadu v nevarne vode—saw
the junks sweat and sailed into troubled waters for the first time;Trkaj:
Prvič—The First Time).
Many swear words and profanities in Slovene (najbolj na kurac mi
grejo keš pičke, vse hočejo met zlate rokavičke; Klemen Klemen: Keš
pičke—Cash Babes), English (mother fucker, what’s up, yeah; Klemen
Klemen: Keš pičke—Cash Babes) and Serbo-Croatian are used in order to
express frustration, machismo and rebellion against standardized forms or
accepted rules and norms.
Deviations from standard syntax show the rebellious and often
nonsensical character of rap artists and their songs. Often, syntax is
subordinated to rhyme, which is by far the most important element in rap,
since the flow and delivery of the song depend on it.

fotru sm zasikal nazaj prvič

bil poklican TRKAJ prvič
(Trkaj: Prvič)
hissed back at my dad for the first time,
Was called Trkaj for the first time
(Trkaj: First Time)

Some non-standard language varieties occur: teen Slovene (fotr—dad,

hejter—hater, lajf—life), along with technical jargon (devetka—a 9 mm
gun, majk—mike, rejpr—rapper, betlam—to battle), regional dialects
(L’blan—Ljubljana, Veleje—Velenje, kwa—what, včeri—yesterday), with
110 Chapter Ten

concomitant non-standard pronunciation. Other examples can be found in

the use of individual vowels or consonants (vêtêr instead of vétɘr—wind,
vɘrjamêm instead of verjamɘm—believe, and dolga instead of douga—
long).
There are many deviations from standard spelling, and the reasons are
twofold; first, the more the artists wish to be heard (but not necessarily
understood), the more they break the rules; and secondly, rap artists try not
to conform; they use freedom of expression to the fullest, thus breaking
conventions of spelling and pronunciation. Furthermore, they wish to
emphasize the linguistic characteristics of their region: biu—was/were,
odkriu—discovered, ubu—to kill, spustu—let go/drop, jst—I/me, drgač—
or/or else/otherwise/different). Thus, rappers bend both pronunciation and
spelling for their own purposes.
On the broader level of style and semantics, one can find numerous
rhetorical figures in international, as well as Slovene rap. Adam Bradley
marks these as “some of the most advanced in all forms of poetry” (2009,
51–52). Many of them are difficult to translate, and this is one reason there
are many foreign borrowings in the lyrics of Slovene rappers.
Rhyme is the strongest and most distinguishing poetic feature in rap.
Many different rhyming techniques are used, including complex rhyme
schemes, internal rhymes, offbeat rhymes, and multisyllabic rhymes:
čekirajo s pogledi me strelajo, zaterajo, zvezde se rojevajo takrt borci
umerajo—checking, they’re killing me with their looks, suppressing, stars
are born as the fighters die (Zlatko feat. Gero: Bluz Rap Lyrics).
Repetition is also common: ko fantazije zgorijo, cilji svojo smer zgubijo,
generacija X je generacija kiks, in večina nje tlele išče sam še dobr, sam
še dobr, sam še dobr fiks!—when fantasies burn, when goals lose their
directions, generation X is a failed generation, and most of them are only
looking for a good, good, good fix! (Kosta: Morm povedat—Gotta Say It);
What the fuck, nč bad, nč bad—What the fuck, ain’t bad, ain’t bad
(Klemen Klemen: Zdravljica. Double entendre also occurs: poklali bomo
Štajerce—we’ll slaughter Styrians; this is not only a reference to football,
the everlasting rivalry between Ljubljana and Maribor, but also to
everyday life or political and economic relationships (Klemen Klemen:
Sovražm Maribor—I Hate Maribor).
Many rap lyrics feature metaphor: musko vsrkaš vase—as you sip the
music in you (Murat & Jose: Poslušaš Rap?—Do You Listen to Rap?); al
me slišjo sam ušesa al tut tvoja duša?—is it only the ears that hear me, or
does your soul listen, too? (Murat & Jose: Poslušaš rap?—Do You Listen
to Rap?). References are made to fairytale (lucky) numbers: mam 7 let
 2pac or 6Pack: Slovene Gangsta Rap From a Sociolinguistic Perspective 111

sreče čeprov sm 7x razbou se—got 7 years of luck, though I crashed 7

times (Zlatko feat. Gero: Bluz Rap Lyrics).
Borja Močnik classifies three kinds of Slovene rap: provoking and
politically incorrect rap, where the rappers “fool around” for fun; the
second, “keeping it real” rap, which declares true spirit from the streets;
and the third, which claims to be socially and politically critical. Močnik
admits this is a general and not overly accurate classification, but it can be
argued that the Slovene audience is too demanding in terms of rap lyrics.
This position supports the suggestions by Gregory et al. (cited in Stokes
2008, 30), who “found that culture may affect the ways in which listeners
respond to music.” He claims that we should accept the fact that rappers
also sing about broader topics, not limited to the local situation in Slovenia
(http://iztokgartner.blog.siol.net/2012/03/16/slovenski-poslusalci-rapa-so-
vcasih-res-totalni-idioti/). Therefore, rap can be a means of expressing
personal power while having fun. This energy can then empower the
audience, get them on their feet and make them feel good, and this can
also be the intention of the rap artist, as opposed to “more serious,”
“street-wise” and “politically critical” authors.
According to Stokes, “connections between music and language have
long been of interest to scholars across academic fields” (Stokes 2008, 23),
and she cites five scholarly studies as evidence. In terms of “general
structural parallels,” Stokes continues, Jackendoff and Lerdahl (1982)
“compared the syntax and prosody of music and language,” and Sloboda
(1990) drew “comparisons between the phonology, syntax, and semantics
of music and language.” Thus, Sloboda noticed that both music and
language consist of phonological building blocks, or small, individual
sounds. In a language, these sounds are phonemes; in music, they are
notes. In either situation the syntax orders and structures these sounds,
creating recognizable and meaningful patterns of sound. According to
Sloboda, semantics, or the meaning of language, may be extended to
music through the emotional experiences people have in response to
music, as well as listeners’ abilities to identify general characters of music
(happy or sad, restful or agitated) (2008, 23).
Generally speaking, and from the point of view of a non-connoisseur,
in both “American” and Slovene rap, it is “the prosody of the language”
that “requires certain words and syllables to receive accents as part of
regular pronunciation.” Since rap adopts many characteristics of spoken
language, one could argue whether there are cultural similarities between
the structures of music and language, as Patel and Daniel (2003) suggest.
Slovene is known for its comparatively “flat” intonation, as opposed to
American or British English (as a “stress- and syllable-timed” language).
112 Chapter Ten

In Slovene rap, however, the intonation follows the melody and becomes
more “pronounced and active,” with higher and lower pitches more
forcefully expressed. The stress, on the other hand, mostly remains intact,
except in cases where the rhyme or the rhythm of the song requires
changes.
6Pack Čukur claims that Slovene is a rather “rigid and stiff” language
to be used in rap songs, and that is why a lot of artists use English words
in their lyrics. Furthermore, many authors turn to regional dialects to
express their innermost feelings or frustrations and critical judgment.
Sometimes rap Slovene does not even sound like Slovene; this makes it
difficult for listeners to understand what the authors are trying to convey.
It would be interesting to further investigate to what extent the use of
regional dialects in Slovene rap affects listeners’ understanding and,
accordingly, acceptance of rap songs. Stokes claims that the character of
the melody is important, but she continues by citing Stratton et al. (1994),
who “also found that lyrics have a greater effect on listeners’ moods than
melody alone. They found that depressing lyrics significantly increase
feelings of depression, regardless of the type of melody to which the lyrics
were paired” (2008, 31). Further research could be done to address issues
such as whether Slovene rap music has similarities in rhythm, tempo, and
fluidity to Slovene, since Patel and Daniele noted that “the average
rhythmic differences emerging between cultures’ musical traditions
paralleled the prosodic, or rhythmic, differences between those cultures’
native languages” (2003).
Bradley and DuBois describe rap as “the lingua franca of global youth
culture, varied in its expressions but rooted in a common past” (2010).
One could argue that Slovene rap has no common history with American
rap, yet there are many features that can be compared. The most noticeable
is the “lingua franca,” i.e. features that are present in local raps around the
globe. The English language certainly has a strong influence on Slovene
rap. The form, the art and the language attract wider audiences, who either
admire rap and accept it for what it is, or dislike it, but still pay attention to
it because it breaks the rules and deviates from standard forms. This is,
after all, the main purpose of rap as art, be it Slovene, American, or global.
One Slovene rapper said, “It is the music that attracts you, but it is the
text that holds you.” This is similar to the perception of Bradley and
DuBois, who claim that rappers “make storytelling a key component of
their art” (2010). Rap may be musically impoverished, but its texts, as
Andrej Karoli has said, have always had the capacity to describe change. If
one understands this, one can also accept the claim that “there are only few
 2pac or 6Pack: Slovene Gangsta Rap From a Sociolinguistic Perspective 113

performers in rap, but they are artists because they write the lyrics
themselves.”
Furthermore, Stratton and Zalanowski (1994, quoted in Stokes 2008,
25) wanted to determine whether music or lyrics have the greater affective
impact. The first part of the hypothesis, that lyrics convey a clear affective
message, was confirmed by their research, while the second part, wherein
they claim that music intensifies the effect of the lyrics, could not be
supported with statistical significance. This could certainly be considered a
challenge to music researchers.
In conclusion, rap works because it is perceived as real art that reflects
an agreed construct of reality. A rap artist presents himself as true to
himself and to the world. This is clearly one way of inspiring people. The
artistry lies in the capacity to communicate with as wide an audience as
possible, and to warn and inform people about current injustice. This has
been true for any music at any time in history.

Discography
Ico Lumbago, Samo Boris, Valterap. “Dežela.” (Self-released as internet
single), 2008.
Klemen Klemen. “Keš Pičke.” Trnow Stajl. Nika Records, 2000.
—. “Trnow I/The Neralić Story.” (This is the original title of the song
known on the internet as “Sovražim Maribor”). Trnow Stajl. Nika
Records, 2000.
—. “Zdravljica.” Hipnoza. Nika Records, 2003.
Kosta in Markof. “Moram Povedat.” Rillah. (Self-released on CD-R),
2002.
Murat & Jose. “Poslušaš rap.” V besedi je moč. T3S/Multimedia, 2002.
Trkaj. “Prvič.” Rapostol. Nika Records, 2007.
Zlatko. “Bluz Rap ft. Gero.” Zlatko in prijatelji. Street13, 2008.

References
Adams, Terri M. and Douglas B. Fuller. 2006. “The Words Have Changed
but the Ideology Remains the Same: Misogynistic Lyrics in Rap
Music.” Journal of Black Studies 36: 938-957.
Bogdanov, Vladimir, Chris Woodstra, Stephen T. Erlewine and John
Bush, eds. 2001. All Music Guide to Electronica: The Definitive Guide
to Electronic Music. San Francisco: AMG: Backbeat Books.
Bradley, Adam. 2009. Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip-Hop. New
York: Basic Books Civitas.
114 Chapter Ten

Bradley, Adam and Andrew DuBois, eds. 2010. The Anthology of RAP.
New Haven & London: YUP.
Cobb, William J. 2007. To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop
Aesthetic. New York & London: New York University Press.
Edwards, Paul. 2009. How to Rap: The Art and Science of the Hip-Hop
MC. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.
Menart, Urša. 2010. “Veš, poet, svoj dolg? Zgodba o slovenskem rapu”
Vest. Accessed November 2, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=HKo3O2tHQcE
Močnik, Borja. “Svet je siv.” Odzven: Spletna revija o glasbi. Accessed
August 10, 2012. http://www.sigic.si/odzven/svet-je-siv
Stanković, Peter. 2006. “Hip hop v Sloveniji: Ali obstaja lokalno
specifičen vzorec prevzemanja značilnosti žanra.” Družboslovne
razprave, XXII 51: 93-112.
Stokes, Juniper. 2008. “The Effects of Music on Language Acquisition.”
CELE Journal, A Publication of the Center for English Language
Education Asia University 16: 23-33.
Sullivan, Rachel E. 2003. “Rap and Race: It’s Got a Nice Beat, but What
About the Message?” Journal of Black Studies 33: 605-622.
 CHAPTER ELEVEN

“NATIONAL ADVISORY: EXPLICIT LYRICS”:

CONSIDERING CENSORSHIP
OF ANTI-VIETNAM WAR ERA SONGS

ERIN R. MCCOY

When American folk musician Pete Seeger was asked to perform on

The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in October of 1967, he was
surprised to find that his performance of his song “Waist Deep in the Big
Muddy” was censored by CBS1 during the broadcast of his appearance on
the show (Seeger). The lyrics to “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,”2 which
did not specifically mention any of the hot-button issues of the Vietnam
War, including the current foreign policies of the U.S. toward Indochina or
President Lyndon Johnson’s role in escalating the Vietnam War, were
deemed too much of a risk to be sung on the network. The issue over the
song’s censorship was taken to court, ultimately resulting in the song’s
broadcast in January 1968.
The reasons CBS censored Seeger’s performance of his song echo the
same ideology that led to censorship of The Doors’ 1968 song “Unknown
Soldier” and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s 1970 song “Ohio” from
television and radio airwaves—but what was it about these songs’ lyrics
that made them too controversial for mainstream audiences? What this
chapter seeks to explore is why these song lyrics were censored in
America during the country’s participation in the Vietnam War, and how
these lyrics relate to media censorship of the anti-war movement. What do
these censored song lyrics—and the anti-Vietnam War protest in

1
CBS stands for “Columbia Broadcasting System,” the full name of the studio that
owned the rights to the Smothers Brothers.
2
A copy of Seeger’s performance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour can be
found on YouTube.com at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3SysxG6yoE.
116 Chapter Eleven

general—say about American cultural values during one of the most

turbulent eras in its history?
Before launching into a dissection of any anti-Vietnam War music
lyrics, it is important to understand exactly what the function of censorship
was during the Vietnam War era in the United States, or at least what the
idea of censorship means to American cultural ideology. To attempt to
understand art and reactions to it—and thus the reasons behind
censorship—one should first discern how audiences react to art forms. In
other words, are audiences as impressionable as censors might believe
them to be? Can censorship be justified in a democratic society in the first
place? In a psychological study of college students, social scientist Susan
B. Neuman challenged the idea that censorship was even necessary in the
United States; she determined that readers often brought their own beliefs
to a work of art or literature rather than the work bringing new beliefs to
them. Neuman asserts that “people tend to read for reinforcement of ideas
and beliefs already held… what readers get out of a passage depends to a
large extent on what they bring to the passage” (Neuman 1986, 49).
Furthermore, Neuman discovered that audiences of a work of art find their
own meanings in texts without the aid of their environment, although their
environment may shape their initial attitudes when they approach a work
of art. Neuman believes that an audience derives “meaning” from a work
of art by an evolution “from an interplay of reader and material. Rather
than being uniform, the manner in which people are exposed to content
varies from person to person because of individual psychological
differences” (Neuman 1986, 47). In other words, reading—or participating
in the consumption of art—is a subjective and wholly individualized
process. This interpretation of the relationship between art and its audience
naturally leads one to the possibility that censorship remains a moot issue;
the ideology behind censorship contains a noted absence of consideration
of individual experience. Censorship also performs the questionable task
of preventing individuals from learning about information that is deemed,
by a small selection of people generally in positions of social power,
somehow inappropriate, immoral, or unnecessary for audience interaction:

Censorship is negative because it eliminates choice and discourages

reading. It does not encourage or create opportunities for positive reading
experiences. Further education, rather than censorship, can lead to an
informed citizenry. (Neuman 1986, 49)

Censorship thus prevents a work of art from reaching or educating its

audience in any way. To censor a work of art is also decidedly un-
democratic, for it reserves the responsibility of discerning what is “good”
 “National Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” 117

or “right” for society—the ideas and messages of art deemed

inflammatory—to a privileged few. The absence of choice for an audience
in regard to a piece of art presents a hypocritical paradox in American
culture, which claims to be founded on “freedom of speech” yet imposes
censorship on speech that only a few people deem inflammatory, thus
eliminating the opportunity for an audience to even evaluate the work of
art for itself. Evaluation of the work has already been done for the
potential audience, often without their knowledge.
The prohibition of art without public input on its cultural value
maintains a false sense of society. The most dangerous aspect of
censorship is that the very act of censoring something implies that there is
information available to an audience that has to be hidden. Censorship can
be considered a public insult; how does a censor know what an audience
can handle? Moreover, how can a censor know what sort of information
should remain unknown to a potential audience? C. Benjamin Cox of the
University of Illinois at Urbana, Champaign asserts that the practice of
censorship implies that an audience needs to be “protected” from a
perceived evil; he explains that “censorship appears always to be a
protective device and that its exercise is intended to shield or guard
something… [But] what is shielded by censorship is a given way of
thinking about something” (Cox 1979, 316). This vague “given way of
thinking” is often censored because it runs contrary to the tolerated,
respected, institutionalized, established, and pre-approved “way of
thinking” that has been publicly acknowledged. If the only thing being
warded off by the shield of censorship is a different “given way of
thinking,” then what harm, truly, can just “thinking” do? What and who
determines what sorts of “given ways of thinking” are tolerable or
acceptable? Historian Walter Hixson’s thesis in The Myth of American
Diplomacy is that the United States maintains a hegemonic national and
cultural identity based on the belief that its ideas are superior to others, so
perhaps censorship in the United States is an offshoot of Hixson’s thesis.
Censorship continues the time-honoured and traditional hegemonic
discourse that has long been the American standard. Perhaps the United
States’ issues with censorship reflect the country’s desire to prevent
pollution of established ideas of superiority and its “special right to exert
power in the world”; certainly the anti-war music that permeated U.S.
culture during the Vietnam War challenged all the traits present in
Hixson’s analysis of American national identity.
Cox concurs with the idea that challenges to the United States’
previous beliefs would lead it to censor material that disagreed with the
country’s fundamental interests. The United States censors ideas and
118 Chapter Eleven

“given ways of thinking” that it perceives as threatening to its fundamental

political ideologies; such actions point to a vulnerability in the country’s
national identity. If the U.S. truly censors “out of fear, based on our
inability to trust ourselves and others, or out of arrogance, based on the
notion that what we believe and value is correct not only for ourselves but
also for others,” then censorship in the United States represents an
inability of the nation to consider or entertain thoughts or ideas contrary to
its own (Cox 1979, 312). This method of censorship can be seen, at least
in regard to the Vietnam War, as an unmistakable error in national
judgment. Censorship, through the lenses of Cox and Neuman, exposes a
problem of national closed-mindedness toward different political and
social modes of being. Cox further asserts that the nastiest parts of
American culture are expressed through the process of censorship, which
shows that censorship is less about protecting citizens from perceived ills
or immoral material than about protecting those in elite social positions:

In history and literature, censoring is linked frequently with censuring

and… further such censorial traits as arrogance, fault-finding, and
surliness. Moreover, censors are presumed typically to practice
supervision, judging, and blaming. All these were in the interest of doctrine
and decorum, in saving good citizens from heresy and immorality, and in
protecting governments, governors, other powerful elites, and true
believers from offense. (Cox 1979, 311)

A country that aspires to be a “beacon of liberty” is hypocritical if it

suppresses ideas that fail to agree with its idea of liberty; “immorality and
heresy” are, as Neuman points out, entirely subjective terms, pending the
reaction of the audience, and may only apply as pejorative terms to those
“other powerful elites” who are offended by the material.
One of the primary aspects of censorship in the United States is
inextricably linked with who is doing the censoring; censors have
positions of elite power. Political philosopher Christopher Kelley looked
to Enlightenment philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau for the roots of this
problem; Rousseau, a man rarely in favour of elite totalitarian power, felt
that “effective social criticism depends on respect for [society’s pre-
established beliefs and] one can successfully improve a community only
by appealing to and clarifying standards that it already accepts” (Kelley
1997, 1244). One of the problems inherent in censorship, however, is that
the material being censored often goes against the “standards” already
accepted by society; can’t standards be altered or changed by allowing
new “given ways of thinking” to be presented to an audience, who could
then decide how social standards would be thereby affected? What if a
 “National Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” 119

time period is rife with political and social change, such as the United
States in the 1960s? Wouldn’t that qualify as a prime moment for
reassessment of social standards? Rousseau notes that, when social
standards are wavering, there is little reason for censorship and “suggests
that censorship is ineffective in restoring a public morality that has largely
disappeared or in bringing about a new one” (Kelley 1997, 1249). In a
time characterized by events and figures that represented new directions
for American society—the Civil Rights movement, the anti-Vietnam War
movement, the Women’s Rights movement—censorship could certainly
be considered moot in lieu of educating the American public on current
issues and events. Society in the United States kept actively informed on
the subjects of racial injustice and violence in the Deep South, as well as
the horrors of guerrilla warfare in Vietnam, via television broadcasts and
the daily newspapers. New “given ways of thought” were surely beginning
to percolate in the social consciousness of many Americans, causing them
to question the social “standards” in place at the time. Thus, to follow
Rousseau, if the ideas were already present in the culture, then why would
they need to be censored? Rousseau believes that censorship in a changing
social landscape is pointless, and art, music, and literature only reinforce
the thoughts, as Neuman suggests, that Americans would have already
begun to foster and thus to bring to the potentially censorable art: “When
public morals have already been corrupted, it is too late for the arts to do
much harm (Rousseau quoted in Kelly 1997, 1247). While this statement
could lead to a lengthy discussion about the “corruption” of “public
morals,” what is important to note is that, when pre-established social
mores are brought into question, there is little reason to worry about the art
that comments on these morals and their so-called corruption.
If the arts can inflict little harm on a public whose “morals” have
already been “corrupted,” then it is worth questioning why the U.S.
television network CBS was adamant about censoring their weekly variety
show The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, which ran from 1967 to 1969.
Censorship, as various scholars have established, stems from fear or
arrogance concerning the threat posed by potentially censored material to
so-called accepted social standards. However, the social standards in
Vietnam War-era America were already in flux; those involved in the
production of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour did not consider the
show’s content to be radical or amoral, but rather as reflecting what was
current. The majority of censored material on the show involved what was
already being talked about in U.S. culture, such as the sketches discussing
religion, drug use and the Vietnam War. It appears that CBS’s censors—a
group of social elites who took “offense” at the material—did not believe
120 Chapter Eleven

that the American public needed to further that discussion, at least not on
CBS’s watch. Rob Reiner, a writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy
Hour, remarked that the show’s inflammatory and potentially censorable
material was inescapable:

It was right around us; we were living in the middle of the most exciting
politically and socially exciting times—the 60s. It wasn’t very difficult to
find things to write about. Anybody who was espousing, “we’re all equal,
we’re all one, do unto others” was getting hammered. We had in the space
of five years in this country, between 1963-1968, five leaders were
assassinated, who all essentially embodied the same philosophy. This
meant artistic assassination [for the show]. (quoted in Muldaur 2003)

The fact that The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour showcased new
“given ways of thinking” that disrupted the establishment, as represented
by CBS’s censors, embroiled the show in massive struggles against
censorship. Tommy Smothers, one half of the show’s comedic host duo,
remarked that he and his brother, Dick Smothers, “were not political until
we got the show… We just started seeing the war [and other social
problems] as something wrong” (Tommy Smothers quoted in Muldaur
2003). Thus, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour began pointing out
what they saw as “wrong” with social standards in America and therefore
became an ultimate target for those who felt threatened by America’s
changing political and social landscape.
One of the most notable battles the Smothers Brothers fought
concerned a guest performance by folk musician Pete Seeger in 1968.
Seeger had been “blacklisted and kept off television for some time”
because of his overt antiwar and “leftist” leanings, including his support
for the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). His
previous public musical performances, which often coincided with his
constant presence at anti-Vietnam War marches, rallies, and protests, did
little to earn him favour among the conservative censors at CBS and
Middle America in general (Dann3 quoted in Muldaur 2003). Seeger was
excited to be on the show and performed a new song that he had written in
the fall of 1967. He recalls the moment thus:

I sang a new song I’d just written that year. I’d seen a picture in the paper
of American troops wading across the Mekong River. A line came to me
all of a sudden: ‘Waist deep in the big muddy/the big fool says to push on.’
I didn’t say in the song who was the big fool, but you probably didn’t have

3
Mike Dann, Former Vice President of Programming for CBS – New York.
 “National Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” 121

to think too much that it was Lyndon Johnson. (Seeger, quoted in Muldaur
2003)

While the song made no obvious reference to the Vietnam War or

President Johnson, the censors saw through the double entendre of the
song’s lyrics and demanded that the performance be removed. The
Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour had pushed CBS’s ratings ahead of their
rival network, ABC’s, hit western show Bonanza!, and CBS did not want
their new hit show’s fall premier to feature a prominent member of the
counterculture. George Sunga, one of The Smothers Brothers producers,
remembers audience backlash over Seeger’s impending appearance, which
had been announced prior to the airing of the show: “When the world
discovered that it was a premier episode and that Pete Seeger was going to
be the guest star, [the show] got something in the area of 30,000 letters
saying ‘how dare you put this man on television’” (Sunga quoted in
Muldaur 2003). Seeger, already accustomed to public outcry against his
staunch anti-Vietnam War stance, “wasn’t surprised that [“Waist Deep in
the Big Muddy”] was scissored out of the tape,” yet believed that there
were enough people who wanted to hear his song to make a fuss. He was
correct; the Smothers Brothers “took to the printed media and launched a
campaign [against CBS’s censorship]” and Seeger’s performance aired in
February 1968 (Seeger quoted in Muldaur 2003).
Seeger’s performance of “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” lends itself
easily to counterarguments that the song had nothing to do with the
Vietnam War; the artist is wearing a simple sweater and playing an
acoustic guitar in the performance, which would not immediately have
evoked images of the counterculture to the Smothers Brothers audience.
Furthermore, the song introduces its setting as “Louisiana” in “1942,” and
the narrator is a soldier, not a hippie or another undesirable member of a
counterculture movement; he even describes his military outfit as a “good
platoon,” a phrase which reinforces preconceived American social
standards (Seeger 1967). The lyrics contain the repeated refrain “the big
fool said to push on,” along with description of a disagreement between
the platoon’s sergeant and captain as to the best way to cross a river;
again, such content does not make the song necessarily about the Vietnam
War. Nevertheless, the audience—at least those familiar with President
Johnson’s use of the phrase “nervous nellies”4 toward his naysayers and

4
There are several references to Johnson’s use of this phrase in various historical
texts (Cf. Johnson, Nixon and the Doves—Gitlin; The Best and the Brightest—
Halberstam; Choosing War—Logevall), but it is unclear at this point in writing
whether the public of the time was aware of Johnson’s penchant for the phrase.
122 Chapter Eleven

Secretary of Defence, Robert McNamara, or those familiar with Pete

Seeger’s general ethos—knew that the song was about the futility of the
Vietnam War and American frustration with the country and war’s leader.
Perhaps the lyrics that prompted the censors to take the song off The
Smothers Brothers show were those that showed a sergeant—a man likely
younger than the captain of the “good platoon” and holder of lesser rank—
questioning the captain’s decisions. Certainly the lines “Sir, are you sure
this is the best way back to the base” and “Sir, with all this equipment, no
man will be able to swim” rang with a youthful impertinence that rankled
the censors (Seeger 1967). The narrator-soldier is somewhat kind in his
treatment of the misguided captain, admitting that the captain “didn’t
know that the water was deeper than the place he’d once been,” but this
line carries a foreboding warning about the war in Vietnam. Those in
charge did not know how to navigate the waters into which they had
carelessly taken their troops, and the lyrics imply that the Vietnam War
was different from other wars where America had “once been” (Seeger
1967). Of course, the gruesome demise of the captain—drowned (perhaps
on purpose, by his own men) in the Big Muddy with “a gurgling cry”—
was surely not a heroic ending for an American warrior. The soldier-
narrator’s opinion that the platoon was “lucky to escape from the Big
Muddy when the big fool said to push on” undermines the authority of the
captain, and thus undermines those in charge of the Vietnam War. Seeger
refrains from openly tacking an anti-Vietnam War message to his song,
going so far as to sing

Well, I’m not going to point any moral;

I’ll leave that for yourself
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We’re—waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on (Seeger 1967).

But Seeger does point to a moral; his narrator is reading current

papers. The narrator-soldier’s frustration returns “every time” he hears
about the war. The “big fool’s” call for his men to “just keep slogging”
while goading them with “all you need is a little determination,” has
pushed the country “neck deep” into a morass of a war that the soldiers—
and the United States—would be “lucky to escape from” despite those in
power encouraging them to “push on” (Seeger 1967).
The censors had plenty to get angry about, but the lack of flagrant
mention of the Vietnam War and President Johnson implies that the
censors were paying more attention to the double meaning of the lyrics
 “National Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” 123

than at least some of the audience likely would have. The Smothers
Brothers Comedy Hour caused enough trouble in its first nine episodes to
warrant tapes of the show being previewed every Wednesday before the
show’s airing on Sundays, so that affiliates could edit the show according
to advertisers’ wishes, thus adding another layer of censorship (Muldaur).
CBS’s executives maintained a special relationship with the White House
in order to secure their federal broadcasting license, and their close link to
the Johnson administration made some instances of censorship particularly
heavy-handed; journalist and historian David Halberstam explained that

CBS had a very complicated and not entirely appropriate relationship with
Lyndon Johnson, and the connecting link was Frank Stanton (President of
CBS, Inc.). And in every way, it would be something that good journalists
should investigate; instead it was a living endemic problem there. And it
got worse during the Vietnam War where Stanton was supposed to
represent the interests of broadcasting but he was also Lyndon Johnson’s
man at CBS, and Johnson would leverage him all the time. (quoted in
Muldaur 2003)

Not only does Halberstam shed light on the tight association between
CBS and the White House, but he also points out that this relationship was
irresponsible and inappropriate; the censorship was coming from the
Commander in Chief, not from a public committee nor even from CBS
executives. A few elite censors suddenly translated the President’s wish to
avoid offense, underscoring the hypocrisy of censorship in regard to
television in the late 1960s. CBS’s connection with the Johnson
administration partly explains why “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” would
have triggered heavy censorship, but Seeger’s performance of the song
eventually aired in February 1968, right after the catastrophic Tet
Offensive, which shook America’s confidence in regard to the Vietnam
War and rattled those in charge of establishing the war’s “winnability.”
The Smothers Brothers had won their case for airing the performance,
but perhaps CBS allowed “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” on the air
because they couldn’t escape the song’s prophetic message. David
Halberstam explains that 1968 was a “watershed year in American life”
and notes that “the Tet Offensive makes a shambles of all the rationales of
the Johnson Administration [it is clear that] the enemy is very tough and
resilient… and that the war could quite possibly go on endlessly” (quoted
in Muldaur 2003). The American public did not welcome the possibility of
an endless war, and the country began to have what Halberstam called a
collective “nervous breakdown” in the middle of 1968 (quoted in Muldaur
2003). The country realized it was “waist deep in the big muddy” and, for
124 Chapter Eleven

one of the first times in history, sided with the sergeant and did not want to
“push on” under the direction of a “big fool” (Seeger 1967).
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour did not set out to be a political
show. Tom and Dick Smothers, along with their team of talented young
writers, found themselves making satire out of current events because they
“started to find that satirical, political-based comedy was getting some
laughs” (Blye 5 quoted in Muldaur 2003). The laughs, however, turned
more serious as the show and the Vietnam War dragged on. Carl Gottlieb,
a writer for the show’s third and final season, stresses that the heavy anti-
war messages were actually lighter than what the Smothers Brothers
themselves wanted; they had to play to an audience divided on the issue of
the war, and they wanted to draw respectful attention to the situation in
Vietnam:

The Vietnam War was a huge issue. It was tearing a nation apart. The
Smothers Brothers were on the side of ‘get out.’ But we were playing to an
audience of middle Americans, many of whom had sons and family in the
Army… so we had to walk a thin line. We didn’t want to demean the
action of real patriots, but at the same time we felt it was an unjust and
immoral war, and American participation in it was shameful. (Gottlieb,
quoted in Muldaur)

One of the ways Tom and Dick Smothers walked the thin line of Anti-
Vietnam War protest was to have musical guests who spoke the words that
they, the clean-cut hosts, could not say. Anti-Vietnam War music and
musicians were key to this mission of public service and education. The
anti-Vietnam War music featured on the show offered a new “given way
of thinking” that was difficult for audiences and censors to decipher. Anti-
Vietnam War music

[C]elebrates anti-materialism, spiritual reawakening and social

disengagement; but the dominance of idealist thought in the
countercultures prevented structural social analysis, except for theories of
youth as a class revolt against a generalized establishment, an ideology
well-fuelled by the passage of the postwar baby-boom into an economic
expansion, itself at least partially the result of the war. (James 133)

The dominant ideology, or what Rousseau would have referred to as

“social standards” of the United States, ultimately refused to be corrupted.
The Smothers Brothers were eventually pulled off the air in 1969 after one
too many conflicts with the ideology of those who believed the message

5
Allan Blye, Writer/Producer, Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
 “National Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” 125

the show presented was merely that of a childish youth movement.

Moreover, while Tom and Dick eventually sued CBS over their show’s
termination—and won—one juror remarked that the brothers were
essentially “Davids” going up against a corporate “Goliath”; they won
their lawsuit, but they lost their platform for saying what they believed
needed to be said (Nolan6 qtd. in Muldaur). Despite the encouraging words
of one guest on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour—George
Harrison—“Whether you can say it or not, keep trying to say it” to the
brothers, the show could not go on. CBS ultimately pulled the plug to keep
new “ways of thinking” out of the living rooms of America’s citizens,
ultimately without their permission (quoted in Muldaur). Thankfully, The
Smothers Brothers broke a glass ceiling in comedy and television, opening
doors for political commentary and satire that would not have existed
without their dogged perseverance against their censors. For three short
years, the United States had a space, one evening a week, at the same time
as Bonanza! where an alternative perspective—one that turned a critical
eye on the war in Vietnam, censorship, and authority—was given
consideration; the Smothers brothers were not fools, and American culture
should feel fortunate that they, in regard to their country’s censorship,
decided to “push on.”

References
Cox, C. Benjamin. 1979. “The Varieties of Censorial Experience: Toward
a Definition of Censorship.” The High School Journal 62: 311-319.
Hixson, Walter. 2008. The Myth of American Diplomacy: National
Identity and U.S. Foreign Policy. New Haven, CT: YUP.
James, David. 1989. “The Vietnam War and American Music.” Social
Text. 23: 122-143.
Kelley, Christopher. 1997. “Rousseau and the Case For (and Against)
Censorship.” The Journal of Politics 59:1232-1251.
Muldaur, Maureen (Director) & C. Derbyshire and S. Gee (Producers).
2003. Smothered: The Censorship Struggles of The Smothers Brothers
Comedy Hour. United States: New Video Group.
Neuman, Susan B. 1986. “Rethinking the Censorship Issue.” The English
Journal 75: 46-50.
Seeger, Pete. 1983. How “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” Finally Got on
Network Television in 1968. Adapted from an original exhibit, Give

6
Nancy Nolan, juror on Smother Brothers Court Case
126 Chapter Eleven

Peace a Chance. Peace Museum, Chicago. 1983. Accessed July 8,

2011. http://www.peteseeger.net/givepeacechance.htm.
—. 1968. “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.”
 CHAPTER TWELVE

MICHAEL MUHAMMAD KNIGHT’S

TAQWACORES:
FICTION VERSUS REALITY
IN A SUBCULTURE’S POPULAR MUSIC

SAŠA VEKIĆ

You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace
unless he has his freedom.
(Malcolm X)1

The Taqwacores (2003), a novel by Michael Muhammad Knight, is a

fictitious story of Yusef and a group of Muslim punks living in Buffalo,
New York. Knight’s novel inspired young Muslims in the United States to
form Taqwacore, a new dynamic subculture of punk bands, art, writing,
discussion forums, webzines, films and music; it reflects their distinctive
cultural, personal, and group identity in the post-9/11 world of religious
and political conflicts. The Taqwacore subculture imagined in Knight’s
novel invites an exploration of punk as a vital and fluid segment of
popular music.
During the May Day anti-capitalism protest in London in 2000, a turf
Mohican was added to the head of the statue of Sir Winston Churchill2; it

1
“Prospects for Freedom in 1965,” speech, Jan. 7 1965, New York City (Malcolm
X Speaks, 1965).
2
Also, graffiti was sprayed on the plinth and, according to Audrey Gillan’s article
“Ex-soldier Admits Defacing Statue of Churchill (Gillan 2000), a former soldier
named James Matthews defaced the statue; He “climbed on top of the statue of the
former prime minister in Parliament Square and sprayed it with red paint so that it
looked as if blood was dripping from the mouth...”; Matthews added, “The May
Day celebrations were in the spirit of free expression against capitalism. Churchill
was an exponent of capitalism and of imperialism and anti-semitism....”
128 Chapter Twelve

was, as Jon Savage writes in England’s Dreaming: Sex Pistols and Punk
Rock, “for some a symbol of violence and desecration, for others an
example of creative protest” (Savage 2005, vii). The Mohican or Mohawk
hairstyle is generally related to punk rock subculture (primarily in the
U.K.),3 although this hairstyle has been worn throughout history in many
parts of the world. Many punks wore coloured Mohicans, notably during
the 1980s, and this hairstyle still seems to be important nowadays as a
stylistic feature (possibly) representing revolt, rebelliousness and a punk
rock attitude. It could also be merely a fashion detail reflecting a specific
ethos identity. Frank Cartledge writes in his paper “Distress to impress?
Local punk fashion and commodity exchange” (also referring to David
Laing) that “The spiked Mohican haircut, bondage trousers and studded
leather jacket… have become ‘commodity punk’, the resale value of punk
culture. Punks today literally buy into this image—it is now an iconic
code, serving as a medium for the expression of a particular youth cultural
lifestyle” (Cartledge 1999, 147). Furthermore, it is important to emphasise
that “early punks were too dependent on music and fashion as modes for
expression” (Clark 2003, 225); additionally, many other style-based
subcultures combined music and a specific style of clothing or hair as their
key features. 4 The attitudes of punks at the present time still find
expression in music and fashion and occasionally even in literature. As for
a Mohican haircut, it could be a potent symbol, even embodying political
and social commentary in many different contexts. Undoubtedly, it is a
characteristic element of today’s punk iconography, including the
relatively new subculture, Taqwacore, which has its origins in the United
States. Taqwacore had previously been imagined in a work of fiction The

3
In his paper “What did I get? Punk, memory and autobiography,” Andy Medhurst
also writes about “the marketability of punk imagery in tourist memorabilia, where
punk becomes simply another variant of quaint Englishness. Hence all those
postcards of Mohican-sporting youths bearing the caption ‘London’ are stocked
alongside cards showing red buses or Union Jacks, while it was possible a couple
of years ago on Brighton seafront to buy ‘punk dolls’, part of a series that also
included Tower of London Beefeaters and ‘British Bobbies” (Medhurst 1999,
229). Also, in this context, it is worth noting that according to Dick Hebdige,
“Youth cultural styles may begin by issuing symbolic challenges but they must
inevitably end by establishing new sets of conventions; by creating new
commodities, new industries” (Hebdige 1988, 96).
4
Zootsuiters in the 1940s, beatniks and Teddy boys in the 1950s, hippies, surfers,
mods and rudeboys in the 1960s, or skinheads, rastas, glam rockers, funksters and
soulboys in the 1970s, then in the 1980s New Romantics, and many other fans,
admirers, enthusiasts belonging to gothic rock, anarcho-punk, heavy metal, hip-
hop, grunge, rockabilly and rave.
 Michael Muhammad Knight’s Taqwacores 129

Taqwacores (2003) by Michael Muhammad Knight. Originating in

Knight’s novel The Taqwacores, the term coined by the author is
oxymoronic; it is a conflation of taqwa meaning “God-consciousness,
love/fear/awe of God” (Knight 2007, 252) and core, an abbreviation for
“hardcore punk rock.” It is generally an extraordinary intertwining of the
most important elements of punk and Islam (in the first place, for the
participants involved); neither is Taqwacore religious in a conventional
way, both as a concept in Knight’s fiction and a subsequent subculture in
the reality of contemporary America. Moreover, it is a challenge to
religious, cultural and political rigidity, conservatism and homogenisation,
and it reinforces or shapes a specific, fluid subcultural identity. The
censored version of the book available in the UK from Telegram Books
was published in 2007, with a new strip cartoon-based front cover design
depicting a punk with a red Mohican haircut and Dr Marten’s boots (or
similar footwear), wearing a black T-shirt with a star and crescent motif
(obviously, to evoke Islam). Thus, the very cover of this edition
symbolically announces an unusual amalgam of (controversial) subcultural
and religious issues, popular music and a unique work of fiction. Carl W.
Ernst, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, called Knight’s novel “The Catcher in the Rye” for young
Muslims (Maag 2008), and many other critics have compared Knight’s
work to that of Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac. Nonetheless,
Knight’s writing and standpoint were deeply influenced by F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, the hip-hop band Public Enemy, punk
rock, the African-American Islamic tradition, Alex Haley’s Autobiography
of Malcolm X and “the way Malcolm transformed himself through
knowledge” (Knight and Majeed 2009).
Michael Muhammad Knight (born in 1977) grew up in Geneva, New
York, brought up by his mother in an Irish Catholic family. At 16 he
converted to Islam, and at 17 he studied at a madrasa in Islamabad,
Pakistan. Subsequently, he went through a period of disillusionment with
Islam, during which it was punk that clarified his situation: “The punk
rock kids brought me out of my shell [Knight asserts], empowered me to
question myself, to question where I was coming from what I was doing
with Islam, and I wished that, in some way, I could inject that spirit, that…
mythology that they lived by, into my religious life… I just wrote that
fantasy of that kind of Islam I wanted to see.”

At the time that I wrote [the novel] in 2002, I didn’t know if I could call
myself a Muslim... I didn’t sign on to this whole checklist of beliefs. I felt
that I’d failed as a convert and I was an exile, outside the mosque and on
130 Chapter Twelve

the margins. But punk celebrates that. The punk kids inspired me to not be
afraid of who I was. (Bhattacharya 2011)

Originally, Knight photocopied The Taqwacores, mailed it to anyone

who was interested in reading it and distributed copies without charge,
from his car in mosque parking lots. In 2003 Alternative Tentacles, the
punk record label founded by Jello Biafra, provided distribution for The
Taqwacores; in 2004 the novel was published by Autonomedia; it was also
re-released in the United States by SoftSkull Press.
Moreover, to date, two films have been inspired by Knight’s novel: a
2010 film adaptation directed by Eyad Zahra, and a 2009 documentary
Taqwacore: the Birth of Punk Islam directed by Omar Majeed. Having
been deeply influenced by Knight’s novel, Majeed said,

After 9/11 like a lot of Muslims… I was… doing some soul searching… I
felt Islam was kind of so under attack, I didn`t know what that meant for
me… I was… looking for a project that I felt would speak to young
Muslims… Muslims like myself… I wanted to find the alternative Muslim
voice… Mike’s book is great as a great resource if you are young and…
Muslim and you don’t know quite how to reconcile things that might seem
opposing… this is really a chance for young Muslims to have a voice and
to express their confusions. (Knight and Majeed 2009)

The director of the film The Taqwacores, Eyad Zahra, greeted the
novel enthusiastically:

I couldn’t believe it… It was a real, full-on punk book and a real book
about Muslims. And it merged those two worlds in an unapologetic way.
The vernacular it used, the discussions that they had: it was so refreshing.
For me, having grown up as an American Muslim, I found it to be the most
sincere exploration of the American Muslim that I had ever come across—
in books, films, anything. It was right-on there. (Zahra 2011)

Certainly, the Muslim readers of Knight’s novel come from different

social or family backgrounds; they also see cultural or religious issues
from different perspectives, but they frequently share similar horrifying
experiences. According to Sirine and Fine, “For Muslim youth living in
the US, negotiating their identities across different cultural terrains became
decidedly more challenging after the events of 9/11 (Cainkar, 2004). On
one hand, their lives, like those of everyone else in the U.S., were under
attack. On the other hand, they were perceived as a potential threat to the
safety of their neighbours” (Sirin and Fine 2007, 151). Hanan Arzay from
New York, for instance, describes her everyday experience in the months
after the 9/11 attacks as traumatic: “pedestrians threw eggs and coffee
 Michael Muhammad Knight’s Taqwacores 131

cups at the van that transported her to a Muslim school . . . [a]t school, her
Koran teacher threw chalk at her for requesting literal translations of the
holy book...” (Maag 2008). It seems that she was/is in a cultural and social
vacuum or a bounded and marginalised space between the two opposing
sides; she says that The Taqwacores is her lifeline.
Knight’s work of fiction articulates the thoughts and emotions of
young Muslim readers, who create an alternative space between their own
authoritative, restrictive traditions and the intolerance, confusion or
anxiety of the society and its dominant culture, especially in periods of
turbulence. It has inspired a continual, fluid subculture on the North
American scene, involving art, writing, music, discussion forums,
webzines, films, and bands—a number of which cross genres—such as
The Kominas, Secret Trial Five, Al Tahwra, Vote Hezbollah, Diacritical,
Sagg Taqwacore Syndicate, Fedayeen. Nevertheless, there is certain
reluctance on the part of some bands to be labelled Taqwacore—which
could be perceived as a typical punk attitude as well—and thus, be limited
to the uniformity of the particular style and to predictable lyrics; themes in
the lyrics frequently include astringent political and cultural comment.
Furthermore, according to the explanation of Taqwacore offered by
Taqwacore Webzine, “Taqwacore does not endorse any specific religious
ideology. Taqwacore only represents a safe space for free
expression. There are no standards of faith or practice. Taqwacore includes
believers, atheists, and everyone in between, as well as artists and friends
from non-Muslim backgrounds who identify with Taqwacore on a
personal or political level” (Taqwacore Webzine 2011). Hence, all the
above-mentioned bands could certainly be associated with Taqwacore
subculture.
Knight conceives “a safe space where you can be a Muslim on your
own terms and engage the tradition in your own way” (Knight and Majeed
2009). His novel indicates the significance of religion (or spirituality) as a
cultural factor, an identity category or a fundamental element in identity
construction and, also, the significance of popular music—punk—in
creating open, heterogeneous cultural spaces and (re)defining identities.
The Taqwacores is structured around punk, which, as a subcultural form,
could be a reflection of social and cultural marginalization (of the Muslim
protagonists in this novel or in reality) and a vehicle for creating new open
spaces, both personal and collective, challenging dominant traditions,
systems, politics, orders and cultures.
To what extent is punk of contemporary relevance in local and global
spaces? Could punk or Taqwacore, as genres of popular music, raise
young people’s awareness of different cultures? How is the Islamic punk
132 Chapter Twelve

rock subculture represented in this novel? How relevant could this novel
be for Muslim readers in multicultural societies and communities in their
historical context? Can religion and punk be complementary in
contemporary social or political circumstances and experience?
It can be asserted that “punk opened the eyes and sympathies of many
young people to musical and ethnic cultures which they may have
otherwise remained unaware of, or even hostile towards” (Adams 2008,
478-479). Currently, Taqwacore in America could be one of many
possible realizations of various concepts of individual liberty and a
genuine, uninhibited multicultural idea. Its unique mixture of punk ideas
and music with an individualized concept of religion (Islam) evolving
from a work of fiction into a vibrant subculture is part of the continual
processes of creating new, open and vital cultural spaces that could
eventually become broader and more complex and that could, in time,
establish new conventions; furthermore, it is possible that the various,
fluid communities, in the new (sub)cultural spaces could also redefine or
recreate their own identities at regular intervals, or generate novel and
potentially more balanced value systems and social structures.
According to Sheila Whitely, “music plays an important role in the
narrativization of place, that is, in the way in which people define their
relation to local, everyday surroundings” (Whitely 2005, 2). Also, as
Simon Frith notes, music “defines space without boundaries. Music is the
cultural form best able both to cross borders… and to define places” (Frith
1998, 276). Punk, as a vigorous and dynamic musical form and subcultural
ethos, can certainly play these roles. As Taqwacore, it spanned not only
subcultural and social diversity, but also subversiveness, liberalness and
individualism (the original features of punk), irrespective of right-wing
punk ideologies, “punk fundamentalism” or Islamic beliefs and values.
Punk crossed borders from its beginning: it “evolved as a hybrid musical
and subcultural entity through a process of American and British cultural
exchanges [and] evidence suggests that punk emerged through a process of
cultural syncretism” (Gilroy, [1987] 1992) (Lentini 2003, 153). The role of
punk in the narrativization of place is, at the present time, more complex.
Quotidian urban surroundings have become both local and global (still
incompatible in many instances); dynamic processes of cultural
reterritorialization are often perceived as a threat to particular static local
milieux, and the multicultural identity of modern (western) societies is
frequently disputed and highly politicized, especially during recessions.
Hence, the Taqwacore concept is not always easily accepted. Its
syncretism is sometimes perceived as a contradiction and, in surroundings
culturally distinct from North American or European cultures, punk often
 Michael Muhammad Knight’s Taqwacores 133

provokes angry or violent reactions from the authorities (or the dominant
culture).5
In Hansen’s opinion, “it is worth admitting that punk itself is difficult
to define,” as Knight describes the scene in his novel: “It was so easy to
imagine them, each in their standard costumes: spikes, Mohawks, burqas,
patches, tattoos, sunglasses, pork-pie hats, hoodies. And there was me.
What the hell was my place in that zoo?” (Knight 2007, 44). As Jon
Savage notes of punk’s early days, in the mid to late 1970s, there could be
“as many contradictions as there were groups” (Hansen 2010, 99).
Contradictions are provoking and important aspects of the Taqwacore
imagined in Knight’s novel, which eschews simple definitions. The
novel’s seemingly incongruous synthesis of punk and Islam could
indisputably be controversial; the novel has been censored, boycotted and
confiscated; it has polarized “public punk opinion” by reason of the
unorthodox connecting of religious issues and punk: as Knight explains,
“some punks are fundamentalists about their scene. I’ve heard people
argue that if you’re truly a punk, you have to oppose religion in all its
forms—which doesn’t really seem like a ‘punk’ thing to say” (Knight
2009). Taqwacore (in fiction and reality) opposes rigid religious, political,
social or cultural dogmas, bigotry, sexism or homophobia. It seems,
therefore, that Taqwacore subculture is also a challenge to
conventionalized punk postulates. Thus, the essence of contemporary punk
might lie in Taqwacore and not in the punk rock philosophy that has
entered the mainstream, which is often burdened with its own orthodoxy.
However, it should also be emphasized that “the appropriation of
subcultures by the mainstream is a continuous and not inherently negative
process” (Schilt 2003, 14). According to Hebdige, “in order to render a
subculture non-threatening, it must be pulled into the mainstream and
commodified” (Schilt 2003, 11). Could Taqwacore (after a period of
evolution) be accepted by the mainstream, and would such mutual
acceptance benefit everyone concerned? It is difficult to predict with

5
Examples include articles about Indonesian punks, in The Guardian (14
December 2011 and 20 December 2011): “Indonesian punks detained and shaved
by police” and “Indonesian punks undergo military drills to bring them into line”;
“Police in Indonesia’s most conservative province have stripped away body
piercings and shaved off Mohicans from 65 youths detained at a punk-rock concert
because of their perceived threat to Islamic values” (“Indonesian punks” Dec. 14,
2011). “Mohawks shaved and noses free of piercings, dozens of youths march in
military style for hours beneath Indonesia’s tropical sun—part of efforts by the
authorities to restore moral values and bring the “deviants” back into the
mainstream” (“Indonesian Punks” Dec. 20, 2011).
134 Chapter Twelve

precision, although it is certain that many young Muslim Americans have

already been enthused by the heterodoxy of the novel and the DIY ethos of
(fictional) Taqwacore. They have recognized the need to create their own
subcultural space, resisting the rigid limitations of the mainstream; they try
to understand and redefine their own hybrid identities.
Explaining the kind of Islam in the new subcultural space created in his
novel, Knight says that he “imagined this fantasy world where Islam didn’t
have an absolute definition, and you had the power to define it yourself...”
(Bhattacharya 2011). He draws a specific parallel between Islam and punk
in the words of Yusef Ali, the narrator in The Taqwacores:

‘[P]unk’ is like a flag; an open symbol, it only means what people believe
it means… I stopped trying to define punk around the same time I stopped
trying to define Islam. They aren’t so far removed as you`d think. Both
began in tremendous bursts of truth and vitality but seem to have lost
something along the way—the energy, perhaps, that comes with knowing
the world has never seen such positive force and fury and never would
again. Both have suffered from sell-outs and hypocrites, but also from true
believers whose devotion had crippled their creative drive. Both are
viewed by outsiders as unified, cohesive communities when nothing can be
further from the truth. (Knight 2007, 7)

Yusef lives with his Muslim friends, an eclectic group, in Buffalo,

New York, in a house that also serves as a place of prayer—“a mosque
with no imam” (Knight and Majeed 2009)—as well as for their boisterous
parties. The various (punk) music styles and (sub)cultural stylistic
ensembles in the novel are used as indirect characterization to reveal the
hybrid identities of the protagonists. Every Friday night “Everyone in the
house would unload their CDs by the stereo and fight for turns at DJ”
(Knight 38); “skinny Sudanese guy in sharp black suit, tie, shades and
pork-pie hat” (Knight 2007, 23), “A Jamaican-Fundamentalist, Rude
Dawud hated any corrupted second-wave American punk-ska… Rude
Dawud played his Desmond Dekker and Specials and Skatalites” (Knight
2007, 38); the rather conservative Umar “put on the expected Minor
Threat and Youth of Today” (Knight 2007, 38), the bands affiliated with
the straightedge subculture of hardcore punk, whose adherents abstain
from drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or a promiscuous lifestyle.6

6
It should be noted that “despite these high-minded ideals and earnest beginnings,
the straight edge scene has developed a nefarious reputation for violence and
intolerance in many circles” (Sutherland 2006).
 Michael Muhammad Knight’s Taqwacores 135

Fasiq Abasa liked it loud and fast in the vein of NOFX or the Descendents
and even had a CD containing one hundred songs that were each
approximately thirty seconds long. Amazing Ayyub went mainly for Sham
69. Rabeya would put in political bands like Propagandhi or riot-girrrl fare
like The Lunachics… Jehangir played a Business song like ‘Guinness
Boys’. (Knight 2007, 38)

The novel’s wide varieties of punk rock subgenres and closely related
subcultural styles embrace liwaticore. As one of the protagonists,
Muzammil, explains, “the blending of Taqwacore (Muslim punk) with
homocore (gay punk) into something entirely new: liwaticore, subculture
within subcultures of a subculture”—this depiction highlights the
marginalisation of gay punks—but, also, the extreme concept of the band
Bilal’s Boulder is included: “They don`t even allow girls at their shows!”
(Knight 2007, 189). Although Bilal’s Boulder earned a reputation as a
bigoted, intolerant band, the organizer of the Taqwacore festival,
Jehangir—one of the novel’s protagonists and a symbol of Taqwacore—is
determined not to exclude them from the concert, trying to give an
adequate explanation: “the whole point of Taqwacore is that Islam can
take any shape you want it to” (Knight 2007, 189). Jehangir’s statement
and viewpoint could be in direct contradiction to a basic principle of
Taqwacore: that it should be a safe space where various liberal views can
be expressed. Many attitudes of Bilal’s Boulder are extremely
conservative and belligerent. Jehangir’s live performance of the standard
“My Way” at the Taqwacore festival is symbolically an introduction to
tragic events: he dies in a brawl initiated by the aggressive members of
Bilal’s Boulder. Jehangir’s colourful character represents the dynamic,
progressive and contradictory aspects of Taqwacore: “Jehangir Tabari fell
in love with everyone in the world. Every guy was his best friend, every
girl his little sister and he would fight to his dying breath for each one of
us. It was insatiable but charismatic sentimentality that moved him”
(Knight 2007, 39). His call to prayer with the electric guitar, from the roof
of the house, and his appearance, which incorporates all the elements of
punk aesthetic, possess a new set of meanings symbolizing—in the
cultural context of contemporary America—a new, hybrid, generation of
Muslims with hyphenated identities, “identities that are at once joined, and
separated, by history, the present socio-political climate, geography,
biography, longings and loss” (Fine, 1994) (Sirin and Fine 152).

Jehangir Tabari stood statuesque with foot-high yellow Mohawk thick and
bristly like the brush on an old Roman soldier’s helmet, guitar hanging off
his lean but urgently powerful frame… There’s no word for me but taqwa
to call what beamed from his empyreal profile: the hair reaching for
136 Chapter Twelve

heaven, black leather vest crowded with spikes reflecting the sun, guitar
dangling freely on its strap as he let go. (Knight 2007, 13-14)

The significance of the spiritual aspect of the character’s hyphenated

identity, unconventional lifestyle and attitudes is emphasised here; the
iconic punk codes and religious context in the portrayal are strangely
compatible. Jehangir’s Mohican, “reaching for heaven,” represents both
nonconformity and individuality. Nevertheless, it seems for a moment that
Jehangir yearns to express his individuality and redefine his identity in the
wider mainstream cultural space as well; in his dream, he wants “to be
Johnny Cash more than anything… I was hurting on the inside because I
wanted to be him so bad, a fuckin’ Everyman Baritone Populist, fuckin’
beyond Time and Place. I can’t be that guy, you know, who just speaks to
everyone... I’m too wrapped up in my mix-matching of disenfranchised
subcultures” (Knight 2007, 64).
In her essay “The Woman Punk Made Me,” Lucy O`Brien writes
“Punk was also a place where women felt free to express difference”
(O`Brien 1999, 191). In Knight’s novel, Taqwacore is also a place where
the (feminist) individuality (and “difference”) of the “riot girrrl” 7 Rabeya
can be expressed without restraint. Rabeya’s burqa—the burqa is often
seen in the West as a symbol of oppression or fundamentalism, and
women wearing it are frequently victims of prejudice—seems to be a
properly provocative symbol in the novel’s punk context (or in that of
post-9/11 American society); wearing the burqa, or sometimes niqab, is
Rabeya’s personal choice and open to interpretation:

We never saw her face, which I think empowered Rabeya with a certain
psychological leverage... This was the girl who jumped in front of the
microphone at last night’s party decked out in full purdah to cover the
Stooges ‘Nazi Girlfriend’ through her niqab, singing slow and spooky like
Iggy Pop’s withered Old Man Mortality voice (Knight 2007, 9)

7
Kristen Schilt writes about the emergence of “riot girrrls” in her essay “A Little
Too Ironic: The Appropriation and Packaging of Riot Girrrl Politics by
Mainstream Female Musicians”: “Riot Girrrl began in 1991, when a group of
women from Washington, D.C., and Olympia, Washington, held a meeting to
discuss how to address sexism in the punk scene. Inspired by recent antiracist riots
in D.C., the women decided they wanted to start a “girl riot” against a society they
felt offered no validation of women’s experiences. The name “Riot Girrrl”
emerged. The use of the word “girl” came from a desire to focus on childhood, a
time when girls have the strongest self-esteem and belief in themselves (White
397). The rewriting of the word as “grrrl” represented the anger behind the
movement; it sounded like a growl (Carlip 9)” (Schilt 2003, 6).
 Michael Muhammad Knight’s Taqwacores 137

‘Why does Rabeya wear the full burqa?’ I asked Fasiq... ‘Well, she doesn’t
wear it for the notion that it’s sunna... and she doesn’t wear it because her
family is strict... and I don’t think she wears it for some Islamo-feminist
gesture... so I don’t know why... ‘Ever have a day when you didn’t want
people looking at you?’ ‘Yeah,’ I replied, ‘I guess so. Is that why she
wears it?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he said with a puff and then dramatic exhale.
‘But that’s why I’d wear it’ (Knight 2007, 87).

The typical components of the punk style—insignia, particular clothing

symbolizing the subcultural identity of the protagonists—are modified and
developed to some extent in Knight’s novel. A number of members of the
Taqwacore bands wear Dogpile pants, Dr Martens footwear, “kuffiyas and
knit ski caps, turbans and Aqua Net mohawks” (Knight 2007, 205). Some
also wear the Star of David, explaining that this symbol has an unsettling
effect on their Muslim audience—so “it’s fun” to “rile everyone up”
(Knight 2007, 207)—and that this provocation could be equivalent to the
old-school-punks’ provocative use of the swastika. Furthermore, it was, at
that time in the U.K., as Siouxie Sioux (Siouxie and the Banshees)
clarifies, “an anti-mums and anti-dads thing… We hated older people [she
says] always harping on about Hitler, ‘We showed him’ and that smug
pride. It was a way of saying, ‘Well I think Hitler was very good,
actually’: a way of watching someone like that go completely red-faced”
(Savage 2005, 241). In his paper “Jews, Punk and the Holocaust: from The
Velvet Underground to the Ramones—the Jewish-American story,” Jon
Stratton quotes Victor Bockris, the author of biographies of Blondie and
The Velvet Underground: “My generation, the punk rockers, grew up
totally affected by the war. All our comic books, our games, our films
were about it. The reason the punks wore Nazi uniforms and flirted with
fascist iconography was the same reason the Stones had. It was like, ‘Stop
fucking telling me about the war’” (Stratton 2005, 84).8 In Knight’s novel,

8
In his essay “Notes on Deconstructing the Popular,” Stuart Hall writes: “Every
now and then, amongst the other trinkets, we find that sign which, above all other
signs, ought to be fixed—solidified—in its cultural meaning and connotation
forever: the swastika. And yet there it dangles partly—but not entirely—cut loose
from its profound cultural reference in twentieth-century history. What does it
mean? What is it signifying? Its signification is rich, and richly ambiguous:
certainly unstable. This terrifying sign may delimit a range of meanings, but it
carries no guarantee of a single meaning within itself. The streets are full of kids
who are not fascist because they may wear a swastika on a chain. On the other
hand, perhaps they could be…. What this sign means will ultimately, depend, in
the politics of youth culture, less on the intrinsic cultural symbolism of the thing in
138 Chapter Twelve

the Taqwacores affected by recurrent global issues, conflicts, hostilities,

and animosities in the local surroundings defy widely accepted cultural
and political symbolism; also, they frequently use provocation only
because they believe “[I]t’s fun.”
The inventive, provocative, and even humorous names of the bands in
The Taqwacores—which inspired actual Taqwacore bands—reflect a
particular political, religious, and social milieu as well as possible
ideological variety: Vote Hezbollah, Burning Books for Cat Stevens,
Osama Bin Laden’s Tunnel Diggers, The Zaqqums, The Bin Qarmats, The
Mutaweens. The Taqwacore songs in the novel and the bands
performances are a form of contemporary social and political commentary:
“The bisexual Pathan girl singer from Gross National did her anti-WTO
song and burned an American flag. The Imran Khan Experience burned an
Israeli flag though its guitarist wore the Star of David. The Wilden
Mukhalloduns sang anti-war anthems that got everyone going” (Knight
2007, 231). Furthermore, the protagonists in The Taqwacores try to see the
punk rock (or protopunk) standards from a different perspective. For
instance, a new interpretation of the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog” is
offered: “Fasiq said the song blew his mind in a whole big Sufi way
because he had been reading about the dog being the symbol for the
nafs… He wants to be Allah’s dog. It’s like punk Rumi”9 (Knight 2007,
39). The references to punk standards and classic punk bands The Stooges,
Dead Kennedys, Sham 69, The Sex Pistols, UK Subs, GBH, or Ramones,
and various artists spanning different musical styles, such as Jimi Hendrix,
Billy Bragg, Tori Amos, Patti Smith, or Johnny Cash, create a dialogue
with the history of Anglo-American popular music. This communication
(or exchange) refers to the emergence of new identity maps in the cultural
space created in Knight’s novel.
Jon Savage writes that, in the 1970s, “Punk hit America as a rush of
claustrophobic nihilism” (Savage 2005, 440). Punk in its Taqwacore form
is a means of escaping and confronting simultaneously the frequent
nihilistic visions, stereotypes, or harsh realities of American society (or the
world). It is a challenge to political, religious and cultural dominant orders.
Furthermore, it is possible to draw a parallel between the punk in the
1970s and Taqwacore in the 2000s: “Punk was total cultural revolt. It was
a hardcore confrontation with the black side of history and culture, right-
wing imagery, sexual taboos” (Savage 2005, 440). Taqwacore possesses

itself, and more on the balance of forces between, say, the National Front and the
Anti-Nazi League, between White Rock and the Two Tone Sound” (Hall 1981).
9
nafs—Soul, Ego, Self; more about this in: The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn Al-
‘Arabi’s metaphysics of imagination by William C. Chittick (Chittick 1989).
 Michael Muhammad Knight’s Taqwacores 139

the same qualities. Moreover, it involves youth of Muslim descent, but it

can effectively communicate with various social groups.
The Taqwacores can be characterised as punk novel but not the very
first punk novel. Thus, “writings which might be termed punk” (Rivett
1999, 31) appeared in the early days of punk. For instance, The Punk by
Gideon Sams—a narrative of the daily life and the relationship between a
punk and a teddy girl in West London—was first published in 1977, and
this book is often referred to as the first punk novel. In writing about it,
Miriam Rivett says, “the juxtaposition of punk and novel is not an
expected one and seems to situate the book not only as a document of
punk, but also as a constituent of punk—it’s not just a novel about punk it
is punk” (Rivett 1999, 35). It is possible to draw a parallel between
Rivett’s opinion on the key characteristics of the first punk novel and the
qualities of the first Taqwacore novel by Knight: the juxtaposition of
Islamic beliefs, punk and fiction in The Taqwacores could, also, be
unexpected; although a work of fiction this novel is a document of
Taqwacore and essentially Taqwacore. The Taqwacores is certainly
relevant for the (Muslim) readers in contemporary American multicultural
society, symbolising the mood of an era. As Patti Smith says on her album
Babelogue, “at heart, i am a muslim/at heart, i am an american...”.10 Both
the novel and Taqwacore are important cultural narratives.
As genres of popular music, punk or Taqwacore can raise young
people’s awareness of diverse cultures; Taqwacore in particular can raise
young Muslims’ awareness of their own hybrid cultures and identities in
multicultural communities. Furthermore, as punk “created a safe space in
which individual expression and diversity could be given free rein”
(Adams 2008, 477), Taqwacore, in a similar manner, creates alternative
social space. Punk as an essentially open and tolerant subculture
(sometimes using radical methods, which is another contradiction), and
religion in its more flexible forms seems to be complementary in the
hybrid, fluid subcultural space of Taqwacore. Popular music “seems to be
a key to identity because it offers, so intensely, a sense of both self and
others, of the subjective in the collective” (Frith 1998, 295). Punk plays an
important role in the processes of individual or collective identity
redefining. Although punk evolved from American and British popular

10
Lyrics by Patti Smith in “Babelogue,” on her album Easter (1978); also, in
Knight’s The Taqwacores, pp. 132. In an interview with Andrew Masterson, Patti
Smith gave an explanation of the song: “That was really just symbolic of
appreciating the spirituality of other civilizations and their manner of prayer”
(Smith 1997).
140 Chapter Twelve

culture forms and specific social milieu, it is open to new interpretations in

various global and local spaces.
In his comment on the May Day anti-capitalism protest in London in
2000, Savage returns to that defining moment with the statue of Churchill:

The simple, temporary reclaiming of Winston Churchill’s statue for Punk

radicalism is one of those freeze-frame moments that reveals a profound
gap of perception: between 1940 and 2000… It also asserts the continued
vigour… of the Punk DNA, not as music or culture or one group, but as a
global symbol for youth disaffection, rebellion, sheer trouble. After all, if
nothing gets challenged, nothing gets changed” (Savage 2005, xvii).

As this analysis has established, Taqwacore challenges all sides in the

global game of schism.

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O`Brien, Lucy. 1999. “The Woman Punk Made Me.” In Punk Rock, So
What? Edited by Roger Sabin, 186-198. Abingdon: Routledge.
Rivett, Miriam. 1999. “Misfit lit: ‘Punk Writing’, and Representations of
Punk Through Writing and Publishing.” In Punk Rock, So What?
Edited by Roger Sabin, 31-48. Abingdon: Routledge.
Savage, Jon. 2005. England’s Dreaming: Sex Pistols and Punk Rock.
London: Faber and Faber.
Schilt, Kristen. 2003. “’A Little Too Ironic’: The Appropriation and
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Popular Music and Society 26: 5-16.
Sirin, Selcuk R., and Michelle Fine. 2007. “Hyphenated Selves: Muslim
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Stratton, Jon. 2005. “Jews, Punk and the Holocaust: from the Velvet
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142 Chapter Twelve

Sutherland, Sam. 2006. “Straight Edge Punk: The Complicated

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Zahra, Eyad. 2011. Interview with Tara Brady. “The Misfits.” The Irish
Times, July 29.
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN

VERY LIKE A WHALE:

THE PARADOX OF POSTMODERN POP

VICTOR KENNEDY

Performance variants of songs can be compared to translation from one

language to another, or adaptations from one genre to another.1 The intent
of an adaptation can be parody, tribute or theft. As Ian Anderson of Jethro
Tull noted when he was asked what he thought of the similarity of The
Eagles’ song “Hotel California” (1977) to the Jethro Tull song “We Used
to Know” (1969), “I look at it as a kind of tribute—it’s a bit like this
tribute Rolex that I'm wearing” (Wiser). With modern recording
technology, it is easy to combine segments of old recordings to create new
ones, and it is sometimes difficult to tell where the quoting begins and
ends. Dave Mandl describes the phenomenon of “re-recording,” in which
the original artists record new versions of their songs, usually to recoup
some of the money lost through oppressive contracts with their old record
companies (Mandl 2013). Mandl notes that many music fans consider this
to be like auto-plagiarism, in which an author is accused of plagiarizing
him or herself. The question arises, how can you steal your own work?
Take the example of a student submitting the same essay for credit in two
different courses; this is like getting paid twice for working once.
Similarly, scholars are expected to cite their previously published work
whenever they incorporate it into something new. Mandl suggests that
artists clearly label the remake so that listeners (or more precisely, buyers)
know what they are getting.
How do we approach this apparently new genre of adapted music?
Musicians have always “borrowed” from each other. Classical composers

1
One fascinating example is the Indian version of Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty
Woman” (1964) used in Nikhil Advani’s 2003 Bollywood film Kal Ho Naa Ho,
which uses a mix of Hindi and English lyrics, and the refrain “Pretty woman,
dekho dekho na.”
144 Chapter Thirteen

and performers quote themes by earlier composers, such as Brahms’

Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35, (1863), based on Niccolò
Paganini’s “Caprice No. 24 in A minor” (1809). Folk musicians, including
rock and blues performers, transform and adapt old songs, from the
sixteenth-century traditional “Greensleeves” to Robert Johnson’s “Sweet
Home Chicago” (1937), for new generations of performers and listeners.
Since the advent of digital technology, however, the distinction between
“borrowing” and “copying” has become blurred. One of the techniques
commonly used in creating popular music now is sampling, taking
snippets of old recordings and incorporating them into new ones. Digital
sounds created by synthesizers and computers can be endlessly reproduced
and patched into recordings. In the 1980s, audiences became used to
synthetic rhythm tracks from drum machines and synthesisers. The
technology has developed until now there are synthetic vocals created or
modified by vocoders, and modern recording techniques enable
posthumous duets where a vocal part is added to accompany a long dead
performer, such as “Unforgettable” (1991) by Natalie Cole and her father,
Nat King Cole (1919-1965) and “All the Way” (1999) by Celine Dion and
Frank Sinatra (1915-1998). In this chapter, I will discuss adaptations of
three popular songs, Paul Simon’s “Mrs. Robinson,” Arthur Johnson and
Sam Coslow’s “Cocktails for Two,” and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’
“No Expectations,” that illustrate some of the possibilities of musical
revision.
A different arrangement can completely change a song’s message, as in
Frank Sinatra’s 1969 parody of “Mrs. Robinson” (1968). Previous
generations of musical parodists such as Spike Jones did the same thing,
playing a largely unchanged version of the song’s lyrics and
accompaniment but interjecting unconventional instruments and sound
effects such as slide whistles, kazoos, and bicycle horns into arrangements
of classical and popular songs. On the other hand, musical parodist Weird
Al Yankovic made his career out of sending up popular songs by changing
the words and accompanying them with a straight version of the music;
juxtaposing incongruous visual images in the video added another level of
irony, for example, Yankovic’s “Eat It!” (1984), a reworking of Michael
Jackson’s “Beat It” (1983).
One such parody is Spike Jones and his City Slickers’ 1944 recording
of Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow’s “Cocktails for Two,” originally
sung by Carl Brisson in the film Murder at the Vanities (1934). Jones’s
version is based on the original arrangement, uses the same lyrics, and
Slickers vocalist Carl Grayson’s tenor sounds much like Brisson’s, but the
 Very Like a Whale: The Paradox of Postmodern Pop 145

parody is created by the insertion of incongruous sound effects that

undercut both the meaning and effect of the lyrics:

In some secluded rendezvous, [“yippee,” slide whistle, gunshot]

That overlooks the avenue, [bicycle horn]
With someone sharing a [“yakety-yakety”]
delightful chat,
Of this and that,
And cocktails for two. [glasses clink]

As we enjoy a cigarette, [exhale, cough]

To some exquisite chansonette, [fiddle scraping]
Two hands are sure to slyly meet
beneath a serviette,
With cocktails for two. [clink clink]

My head may go reeling, [slide whistle]

But my heart will be obedient, [thump thump on head with
hammer]
With intoxicating kisses,
For the principal ingredient, [cork pops]

Most any afternoon at five, [bell rings 5 times]

We’ll be so glad we’re both alive, [heavy breathing]
Then maybe fortune will
complete her plan,
That all began
With cocktails for two [clink, smash]
[Theme restated on trombones with gargling, spitting and hiccups]

Brisson’s performance of the original version of the song in the film is

itself mildly ironic. The soundtrack, with his operatic tenor and the lush
string accompaniment, suggests the seriousness of the crooners who were
to follow a generation later, but the lyrics celebrate the recent repeal of
Prohibition (1920-1933), and the newly regained right of adults to choose
what and where they could drink. This is explained in the song’s
introduction, “Oh what delight to be given the right/to be carefree and gay
once again/no longer slinking, respectfully drinking/like civilized ladies
and men.” The visuals, with Brisson’s immaculate tuxedo, fixed smile, and
harem of attractive, subservient girls, add another hint of subtle irony to
the song. Jones’s irony is not subtle; his cartoon-soundtrack sound effects
clearly convey the message that there’s nothing romantic or sophisticated
about getting drunk.
146 Chapter Thirteen

There is no ambiguity in the sound effects Jones uses in his parodies.

Like onomatopoeia in poetry, sound effects in music are simple
representations or imitations that convey a single meaning. Anthropologist
Janis B. Nuckolls contends that “the interrelations between sound and
meaning are anything but arbitrary and unmotivated” (Nuckolls 1999),
compared to the Saussurean view that language is made up of arbitrarily
connected sound symbols. Nuckolls’ survey of different languages reveals
many connections between sound and meaning; in English, the most
common example of a connection between sound and meaning is
onomatopoeia (moo, clink). In general, sound effects in music can have
similar properties as verbal metaphors (Kennedy 2013).
In his 1969 parody of Paul Simon’s “Mrs. Robinson” (1968), Frank
Sinatra goes even further than Spike Jones, taking Simon’s song and
replacing the acoustic guitar, electric bass and conga accompaniment with
a jaunty big band swing arrangement, and changing the lyrics; his
interjections, “boo hoo hoo” and “how’s your bird, Mrs. Robinson?” both
infantilize and sexualize the song. Simon’s original version of the song
was used as part of the sound track to Mike Nicholls’ film, The Graduate
(Nichols 1967). Although the film was sexual enough, the climax of the
plot being Mrs. Robinson’s seduction of her daughter’s boyfriend, Ben,
the only hint of sex in Simon’s song is an allusion in the lines “It’s a little
secret, just the Robinsons’ affair/but most of all you’ve got to hide it from
the kids.” The meaning of these lines is ambiguous, hinging on the
interpretation of the word “affair.” Sinatra’s version also makes use of
some of his well-known vocal techniques, especially pauses and
pronunciation, which also change the meaning of the song. Simon and
Garfunkel’s original recording, like the film, was a satire on middle-class
hypocrisy. Sinatra, speaking for his middle-class audience, turned the
satire back on itself, making the song into a joke. The song itself is
ambiguous, but Sinatra’s interpretation of it is ironic. Like some of Elvis
Presley’s late live performances, his delivery mocks the song he is singing.
Remakes of songs can be parodies, as in the two previous examples, or
tributes. Postmodernist theorists, following Linda Hutcheon (Hutcheon
1985), argue that parody is at the heart of all postmodern art, including
literature, film, painting, architecture and music:

What I mean by ‘parody’ here is not the ridiculing imitation of the standard
theories and definitions that are rooted in eighteenth-century theories of
wit. The collective weight of parodic practice suggests a redefinition of
parody as repetition with critical distance that allows ironic signaling of
difference at the very heart of similarity. (Hutcheon 1986)
 Very Like a Whale: The Paradox of Postmodern Pop 147

Hutcheon’s article focuses on architecture, but she claims that the same
principles apply to all forms of art. To Hutcheon, parody is not satire or
burlesque, but any sort of allusion to an earlier work. However, this is a
radical redefinition of a term central to the analysis and understanding of
art and literature. Postmodern theorists from Derrida to Lacan on have
argued for the “slippage” of meaning between signifier and signified.
Unlike Humpty Dumpty’s “portmanteau words” that automagically
combine sounds to combine meanings, however, Hutcheon’s claim raises
the question “whether you can make words mean so many different
things” (Carroll and Tenniel 2011).
Disregarding the claim that there is any need to redefine words to
describe what is going on in the arts, Fredric Jameson argues that, rather
than being based on parody, postmodernism is grounded on “pastiche,”
assembling bits of older works to create new ones (Jameson 1991). 2
Hutcheon’s definition of postmodernism implies that all works of art in the
postmodern era are deliberately ironic; some undoubtedly are, and some
are unintentionally ironic (as when the plagiarist gets caught), but many
others are not. John Duvall points out in “Troping History: Modernist
Residue in Jameson’s Pastiche and Hutcheon’s Parody” that Hutcheon is
focused on artistic intention, rather than audience perception, and
concludes that “there is no poetry in her poetics” (Duvall 2002).
Another kind of performance variant, the tribute, is more difficult to
classify as a parody. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’s “No Expectations”
(1968) is a slow ballad about a broken relationship. Some elements of Jim
Campilongo’s 2010 version, the words and the melody, are the same, but
his arrangement creates a different effect on the listener than the original.
Popular song lyrics use figurative language like imagery, symbol,
metaphor, and irony to enhance and complicate meaning. Metaphor in
poetry, for example, creates layers of meaning based on the multiple
possible associations between referents. Sound effects in poetry also create
shades of meaning. When a poem is read, vocal inflections and pauses
properly done can enhance the poem’s effect and meaning. The same is
true when a song is performed, but the music adds to the overall effect.
The lyrics of “No Expectations” contain an interesting progression of
similes and metaphors. In the first few lines, the figurative language is
plain, even clichéd, as in the second verse “Once I was a rich man/but now
I am so poor” (love = wealth). The third verse begins “Your heart is like a
diamond/you throw your pearls at swine”; these lines would be clichéd for
native English speakers of The Stones’ generation, although the idiom is

2
Rather like the way that Dr. Frankenstein created his monster
148 Chapter Thirteen

dated now. The next two lines “And as I watch you leaving me/you pack
my peace of mind” contain a fresh metaphor. The fourth verse contains
two deceptively simple-looking similes/metaphors: “Our love was like the
water/that splashes on a stone” echoes the paradox of the anvil and the
hammer. Those with no experience of anvils and hammers intuit that it is
the anvil that breaks, but experts tell us that it is the other way round. Over
a short time the water flows off the stone, but over time, the stone wears
away. Short-lived love leaves little effect, but longer lasting love can wear
down the hardest (by implication) heart, if given the chance. The next two
lines “Our love is like our music/it’s here and then it’s gone” is a self-
reflexive metaphor, made even more effective by the change from the past
tense of the previous line to the present tense. The metaphor of evanescent
art is an old one, although paradoxical: Ὁ βίος βραχύς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή
(life is short, art is long), but love transformed into music or poetry can
last almost indefinitely, as in Edmund Spenser’s “Amoretti LXXV”:

My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew. (Spenser 1997)

The Rolling Stones’ recording featured a mid-tempo accompaniment

with the whole band playing, and notably an acoustic slide guitar played
by Brian Jones. The song has been covered many times; Joan Baez’s 1970
version keeps the tempo and instrumentation, but her soft voice imparts a
slightly different inflection to the words than Jagger’s; Johnny Cash’s
1978 uptempo country arrangement, with electric instead of acoustic
guitars and a bluegrass-style acoustic guitar and harmonica solo, is harder-
edged. Cash changed the lyrics in the second-last verse to “your love is
like the water/sparkling on the stone,” and in the first and last, “Come and
pour me on a train/plane,” add a reference to alcohol not in the original
that fits with Cash’s hard-living persona. Each of these artists took the
song and tailored it to their performing personas. Campilongo’s version
(2010), with vocals by Leah Seigel, changes the song more noticeably.
The instrumentation is pared down from the full band employed in the
other versions mentioned to two electric guitars and a bass, and the tempo
is slowed drastically. Siegel’s vocals are extremely quiet, breathy and
halting, a delivery that conveys extreme emotion, and the solo guitar’s
hyper-clean, reverberation-drenched tone enhances the song’s mood of
loneliness. Campilongo’s phrasing makes use of short pauses, reflecting
the hesitation in Siegel’s vocals. One of Campilongo’s influences was Roy
Buchanan, who became well known in the early 1970s for his soulful
 Very Like a Whale: The Paradox of Postmodern Pop 149

instrumental performances, as on “The Messiah Will Come Again”

(1972), and Campilongo’s guitar playing in this recording can be regarded
as a tribute to Buchanan (one of the other tracks on the same album is
entitled “Blues for Roy”). There is no parody, in the traditional sense of
the word, in this recording. The original is not ridiculed, as in Jones’s
version of “Cocktails for Two” or Sinatra’s “Mrs. Robinson.” Siegel’s
vocals and Campilongo’s guitar serve to intensify, rather than negate, the
lyrics’ original message. There is no irony, intentional or unintentional,
added to the song by Campilongo’s interpretation.3
Paul Valery wrote “Il faut s’attendre que de si grandes nouveautés
transforment toute la technique des arts, agissent par là sur l’invention
elle-même, aillent peut-être jusqu’à modifier merveilleusement la notion
même de l’art” (We must expect great innovations to transform every
technique of the arts, affecting artistic invention itself, perhaps even
causing a marvellous change in our very notion of art) (Valery 1928). The
notion of what constitutes art changes, and in the age of mechanical (now
digital) reproduction, the artist’s palette has expanded. Parody, copying
with comment, has always been regarded as an art form when the
comment is the main feature of the new work, but now in the late
twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the commentary is often
minimized or implied by juxtapositions between the quoted passages. In
the three examples discussed, the commentary in Spike Jones’ parody of
“Cocktails for Two” is provided by the insertion of incongruous sound
effects; in Frank Sinatra’s “Mrs. Robinson,” by changes to the lyrics and
substitution of an incongruous musical arrangement. In Jim Campilongo’s
“No Expectations,” the commentary is expressed by style, in
Campilongo’s stripping down of the arrangement to a minimum and
melding two complementary styles, Jagger/Richards’ poetic lyrics and
Roy Buchanan’s poetic guitar style. All three adaptations are effective
examples of post-modern style, the first two of comic effect added by
insertion of musical and lyrical commentary, the third of a love ballad
intensified by stylistic substitution which is different enough from the
original to be a tribute, not merely a copy.

3
Except perhaps to diehard music fans who are aware that shortly after the original
“No Expectations” was recorded, Roy Buchanan turned down an invitation to
replace Brian Jones as The Rolling Stones’ lead guitarist
150 Chapter Thirteen

Discography
Anderson, Ian. “We Used to Know.” Stand Up (Recorded by Jethro Tull).
Island/Reprise, 1969.
Buchanan, Roy. “The Messiah Will Come Again.” Roy Buchanan.
Polydor, 1972.
Felder, Don, Glenn Frey, and Don Henley. “Hotel California.” Hotel
California (Recorded by The Eagles). Asylum, 1977.
Gordon, Irving. “Unforgettable.” (Recorded by Natalie Cole with Nat
King Cole). Rhino/Elektra, 1991.
Jackson, Michael. “Beat It.” Thriller. Epic, 1983.
Jagger, Mick and Keith Richards. “No Expectations.” Beggar’s Banquet.
(Recorded by The Rolling Stones). London/Decca, 1968.
Jagger, Mick and Keith Richards. “No Expectations.” One Day at a Time.
(Recorded by Joan Baez). Vanguard, 1978.
Jagger, Mick and Keith Richards. “No Expectations.” Gone Girl.
(Recorded by Johnny Cash). Columbia, 1978.
Jagger, Mick and Keith Richards. “No Expectations.” Orange. (Recorded
by Jim Campilongo). Blue Hen Records, 2009.
Johnston, Arthur and Sam Coslow. “Cocktails for Two.” From the film
Murder at the Vanities, Paramount Pictures, 1934.
Johnson, Arthur and Sam Coslow. “Cocktails for Two.” (Recorded by
Spike Jones and His City Slickers). Victor, 1944.
Johnson, Robert. “Sweet Home Chicago.” Vocalion. 1937.
Orbison, Roy. “Oh Pretty Woman.” Monument, 1964.
Simon, Paul. “Mrs. Robinson” (Single recorded by Simon and Garfunkel).
1968.
—. “Mrs. Robinson.” My Way. (Recorded by Frank Sinatra). 1969.
Van Heusen, Jimmy and Sammy Cahn. “All the Way.” All the Way… A
Decade of Song. (Recorded by Celine Dion with Frank Sinatra).
Epic/Columbia, 1999.
Yankovic, Weird Al. “Eat It!” Weird Al Yankovic in 3-D. Scotti Brothers,
1984.

References
Advani, Nikhil. 2003. Kal Ho Naa Ho. India: Yash Raj Films.
Carroll, Lewis, and Sir John Tenniel. 2011. Through the Looking-glass &
What Alice Found There. London: Macmillan Children’s. Original
edition, 1871.
 Very Like a Whale: The Paradox of Postmodern Pop 151

Duvall, John N. 2002. Productive Postmodernism: Consuming Histories

and Cultural Studies, SUNY Series in Postmodern Culture. Albany:
State University of New York Press.
Hutcheon, Linda. 1985. A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-
century Art Forms. New York; London: Methuen.
—. 1986. “The Politics of Postmodernity: Parody and History.” Cultural
Critique 5: 179-207.
Jameson, Fredric. 1991. Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late
Capitalism. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.
Kennedy, Victor. 2013. Strange Brew: Metaphors of Magic and Science in
Rock Music. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Mandl, Dave. 2013. Same Old Song? Not Exactly. Accessed May 10,
2013. Available from http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/
2013/05/re_recordings_runaway_and_other_classic_songs_redone_in_
the_studio_can_we.single.html.
Nichols, Mike. 1967. The Graduate. Hollywood, USA: Embassy
Pictures/United Artists.
Nuckolls, Janis B. 1999. “The Case for Sound Symbolism.” Annual
Review of Anthropology 28: 225-252.
Spenser, Edmund. 1997. Edmund Spenser’s Amoretti and Epithalamion: a
Critical Edition. Tempe, Arizona: Medieval & Renaissance Texts &
Studies.
Valery, Paul. 1928. “La conquête de l’ubiquité.” In De la musique avant
toute chose. Paris: Éditions du Tambourinaire.
Wiser, Carl. 2013. Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. Accessed May 4, 2013.
Available from http://www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/ian_
anderson_of_jethro_tull/.
 PART III

SOUNDTRACKS
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN

COMPUTER GAME SOUNDTRACKS AND LYRICS

AS PART OF GAMEPLAY

BORUT JURIŠIĆ

When we play a computer game, we enter a digitalized world in which

every single thing that we are able or unable to do is carefully defined.
Every action we take within this world has its effect, one that has also
been predetermined.
U.S Patent #2 455 992 was issued on December 14th, 1948 to Thomas
T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann for a game that could be played on a
Cathode Ray Tube (CRT)—it was called: Cathode Ray Tube Amusement
Device. The system used eight vacuum tubes (four 6Q5 triodes and four
6V6 tetrodes) and simulated a missile being fired at a target. Several knobs
allowed adjustment of the curve and speed of the moving point
representing the missile. It is believed to be “the earliest system
specifically designed for game play on a CRT screen” (pong-story 2011).
Technicians might argue that this CRT game was neither a video nor a
computer game, for it did not generate video signals, which were sent to a
raster scan, and no interaction with a computer was involved. However, it
could be considered the predecessor of video/computer games because it
did have a range of predetermined actions that a player could perform in a
basic virtual environment.
It is now believed that the earliest actual graphic computer game was
made in 1952 by Professor Alexander “Sandy” Shafto Douglas, PhD at the
University of Cambridge. “It was a game of Tic-Tac-Toe played against a
computer, which used special algorithms to win whenever possible; it was
named OXO” (Andersen 2008, 538). In 1971, the US television
manufacturer Magnavox signed a contract with Ralph Baer, and on May
1972 Magnavox Odyssey became the first ever home video game. “In
November 1972 Atari released the arcade version of Ralph Baer’s game
and named it PONG” (pong-story 2011). This was the beginning of
computer games, which over the years grew into a large branch of the
entertainment industry.
 Computer Game Soundtracks and Lyrics as Part of Gameplay 155

Since computers can produce both images and sounds, they can use
this characteristic to capture the attention of a game player: “In order to
play a game, a player must possess two characteristics: interest in the
objectives of play, and sufficient intelligence to understand the
consequences of possible lines of play” (Langdon 2011).
Tens of thousands of computer games exist. They range from short
games, which can be finished in a matter of seconds (such as OXO—the
very first computer game) to open-ended games, which have no set goal
for victory and can be played endlessly (such as the online game
FarmVille). As the length of gameplay increases, so does the repetition of
the actions a player must take in order to play the game. In order to avoid
the monotony of repeated actions, which could lead to a loss of interest in
playing the game, game developers use various methods to enliven the
game. The most obvious way to do so is by use of sound effects and
music. Generally, sound effects and music do not have an effect on the
progress of the game but can change according to the relevant stage of the
game. Such variation is used to set and/or enhance the mood in certain
parts of the game.
Some sound effects, and especially speech, can also be used as part of
the game interface. Some instructions on how to play the game can be
given vocally. The simulation game Stunt Island, for example, places the
player in the role of a stunt pilot on a movie set, where the player must
successfully perform movie stunts. At the beginning of each scene, the
director explains the scene and the objectives. These objectives are read
out loud by the in-game director. This is a case of audible interaction with
the game, where the player must listen to and understand instructions that
have been pre-recorded in order to successfully achieve the goal of a
single mission. At the same time, during the operation of the in-game
airplanes, engine sound effects are important components of the gameplay,
since only variations in the sound indicate when to perform certain
actions—such as a simulated gear shift. In such cases, sound is still used
only as a different kind of interface, since other indicators for certain
actions could easily replace it. The instructions for achieving the goals of
single missions can also be written and displayed, just as there could be
gauges that display the rotations within the simulated engine, indicating
when a gear shift should take place. This is typical of games that simulate
real-life conditions—hence their name: simulations. However, there are
games that do make sound an essential part of gameplay, which cannot be
replaced by other types of interface. This is most typical in puzzle games
with sound puzzles (involving either repeated tunes/note sequences, or the
recognition of sounds/songs).
156 Chapter Fourteen

Adventure games are games that focus on connecting various elements

into a complex situation, such as clogging up a toilet on the airplane, in
order to place an egg in the microwave oven, to distract the flight attendant
so she cannot prevent you from stealing the oxygen tank you will need
later in the game. “An adventure game is a video game in which the player
assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by
exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. Essential
elements of the genre include storytelling, exploration, and puzzle
solving” (Adams 2010).
Adventure games have been described as puzzles embedded in a
narrative framework, where the games involve “narrative content that a
player unlocks piece by piece over time” (Salen and Zimmerman 2003,
385). These are also the most complex games, which are, in my opinion,
potentially a new art form, one that cannot exist outside the computerized
world. Such games use all of the multimedia capabilities of a computer in
order to present the player with complex and intriguing puzzles. It is in
such games that music and poetry are occasionally used.
In 1993 Virgin Interactive published the first game that used solely
CD-ROM as the carrier and therefore tried to use the potential of this new
media to the fullest. The game was published on two CDs, where most of
the program was placed on disk 1, while disk 2 included a soundtrack,
which could be played on a regular audio CD player. The 7th Guest was a
puzzle game and included a puzzle where the player needs to repeat a
sequence of tunes on the grand piano keyboard, thus playing the first few
chords of the main theme song “The Game.”
The song “The Game” is performed by George “The Fat Man” Sanger.
Along with another song by Sanger, “Skeletons in My Closet” (sung by
Kris McKay), these two tracks represented recorded songs on the
soundtrack to The 7th Guest. Both songs were also released on Sanger’s
independent album entitled 7/11. The lyrics to “The Game” are based on
the plot of the game, just as many theme songs in motion pictures are.
Since the storyline was a horror story involving a haunted mansion,
most of the sounds are used to set the eerie mood. Therefore, several
screams, shrieks and sinister laughs appear in the game. As part of the
narration, though, a simple poem was composed by a member of the game
development team (probably Matthew J. Costello, who wrote the script for
the game). The literary value of this poem is disputable, but it does
conform well to the mood of the game:

Old man Stauf built a house

And filled it with his toys
 Computer Game Soundtracks and Lyrics as Part of Gameplay 157

Six guests were invited one night

Their screams the only noise.

Apart from the poem, the computer-generated music is mostly the

background sound, which keeps changing according to the events taking
place in the gameplay, usually to increase the tension.
In 1982 George Lucas wanted his film production company, which had
its own computer effects team, to branch out and founded LucasFilm
Games. In 1990 Lucas’s company was reorganized, and the gaming
division was renamed LucasArts. At that point it had already published
two trend-setting games: Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken and the
Alien Mindbenders. Both games fall into the graphic point’n’click
category of computer games, to a great extent defining the category.
With the introduction of speech, the animated characters of adventure
games acquired voices, very much like cartoon characters. This cartoon
aspect was exploited to the fullest in the comic adventure game entitled
Sam & Max: Hit the Road. As with The 7th Guest, this game was released
on CD-ROM and included a soundtrack consisting of 4 songs. Only one of
these was a live recording, and this song was used as part of the gameplay.
The lyrics of the song “King of the Creatures” reveal the main motivation
of the game villain for the kidnapping of Bruno (a Big Foot) and Trixie (a
giraffe-neck girl). Just as the game can be easily compared to an
interactive full length animated motion picture of the highest comic
quality, the song “King of the Creatures” recalls some of the Monty
Python musical interludes, and that is probably why it is sung with an
accent and voice that imitate Eric Idle. Apart from this song, there is a part
of the game where the taxidermic animal heads on the walls explain to
Max (the rabbit partner of the dog Sam—they are the Freelance police)
who John Muir was. They do it in the form of a limerick (unknown
author):

There once was a man named John Muir

A naturalist, noble and pure
His love for all beasties
The most and the leasties
Has never been equalled
For Sure.

During this recital, a game-show style sign appears explaining that this
is EDUTAINMENT. The word edutainment was itself coined from
education and entertainment, which were among the goals of many self-
proclaimed edutainment games of the era. This game refers to John Muir,
who was an actual person, a naturalist and preservationist. This apparently
158 Chapter Fourteen

silly limerick thus contains several layers of irony, as well as a visual pun
on the word “preservation.” As with many such games, the appeal is to an
in-group of game players, in this case, those who can decode the irony.
The third LucasArts game in the Monkey Island franchise is also the
first Monkey Island game that used speech and vocal music. This is yet
another point’n’click graphic adventure game where, apart from collecting
and combining various elements, there are some musical and poetic
riddles. As a continuation of the first game, the sword games are
accompanied by insults. The idea was that by insulting your opponent you
could throw him off balance and defeat him in swordplay. One of the first
insults was “You fight like a dairy farmer,” to which the appropriate
defensive reply is: “How appropriate, you fight like a cow” (Gilbert 1990,
The Secret of Monkey Island). In this game (the third in the series) these
insults and replies, however, must rhyme. The first rhyme you learn is
“You’re as repulsive as a monkey in a negligée.” In order to defend
yourself, you must reply, “I look that much like your fiancé?” (Ackley
1997, The Curse of Monkey Island). True, these insults are not poems, yet
they do use rhyme, which is traditionally considered a key element of
poetry. Moreover, they constitute an updated, parodic version of flyting:
the ritual exchange of rhyming insult that can be found in Old Norse and
Anglo-Saxon poetry.
As a parody of “Duelling Banjos,” made famous in the 1972 film
Deliverance, the main character needs to beat an opponent in a banjo duel,
where both characters play a melody on the banjo, with the challenger
playing a single note in the end, which you as the player must also play. It
is not much of a challenge, for there are only four strings and you not only
hear, but also see which string to play. Yet it is another puzzle that
incorporates music as part of the gameplay.
The most important use of music as part of the gameplay in this game,
however, is the song “A Pirate I Was Meant to Be.” Since the plot
demands that you take charge of the ship and recruit a crew, you convince
three pirate barbers, members of a barbershop quartet, to join the crew. As
you embark, they start singing instead of working. The song reminds us of
stereotypical pirate songs, but it is a song where the crew does not want to
stop singing and always finds a rhyming verse to every single command
given by you as the player. Your goal is, therefore, to find a line to which
the singing pirates cannot make a rhyme and thus to stop the singing (it
ends with the word orange).
The game Death Gate also uses poems and music as part of the
gameplay in order to solve puzzles. In this game, poems and music have
two roles, one being stereotypical and not part of the gameplay, while the
 Computer Game Soundtracks and Lyrics as Part of Gameplay 159

other directly influences the game’s progress. In this graphic adventure

game, the player is placed in a world where fairy creatures live and must
communicate with them in order to find the pieces of the world seal.
Along the way you need to rob a rich merchant, in whose house you find a
book of poems. This book is an item that works on two levels. First, you
need to read it. It opens to the favourite poem of the owner (author
unknown):

She lifts from the mist in the morne,

She breathes the first air of the day.
She flies towards the ‘rise as she’s borne,
But dies before she’s away.

This poem is a clue on its own, for the player needs to open the safe,
which instead of a numbered combination has five words to be pressed in
sequence to open the hidden compartment. The verses of the poem hint at
the correct sequence. As a gameplay item, this poem functions a clue, and
you need to read the poem and solve its ambiguities to learn the correct
sequence. Later in the game, the player will again need this book of
poems, but here in a more stereotypical role. You need to give the book to
a boy who is in love and wishes to learn some poems in order to charm a
girl. Such stereotypical views of poetry and music also occur in the part of
the game where you present a princess with the notes to the “Song of
Pryan,” the world you are in, in order for her to play the song on her flute.
As long as the princess plays the tune, you are safe from the forest giants
and can get their crystal. Thus, a poem appearing in a game can be both
talisman and riddle, the latter requiring more in-depth engagement from
the player.
The most innovative use of lyrics in this game, however, is the book of
nursery rhymes. In one part of this game, you encounter zombies—dead
bodies brought back to life by the use of necromancy. The necromancers
use zombies as a work force, yet the zombies can perform only one duty at
a time, usually their main activity from their former lives. When you
encounter a huge snake, you need to get the help of these zombies, yet you
cannot keep telling them what to do. That is why you go to the nursery of
an abandoned house and steal the book of nursery rhymes from the
babysitter. Since she is used to reading from that book, she will just open
it and read it, wherever she may be. You command her to follow you, and
command another zombie to join you on the way and approach the snake.
Here you open the book of rhymes, which contains several nursery
rhymes, and find the poem “Get That Snake” (author unknown). The
babysitter starts reading the poem, and the other zombie, who understands
160 Chapter Fourteen

it as a command, therefore grabs the snake and holds it, allowing you to
pass:

Grab the snake and hold him fast.

Don’t let him go!
Grab him quick or you won’t last,
If you’re too slow.

This is one of the best examples of how to use a poem or a song lyric
creatively in a computer game. Not completely a talisman, the poem here
has an instrumental function, implemented by proxy. Again, as with The
7th Guest, the literary value of these songs is not the main issue. It is more
important to see how they are incorporated into gameplay in order for the
player to interact, manipulate or better understand the virtual world of the
computer game.
Computer games can be pleasant time wasters, or they can serve as an
educational tool. In both cases, they have been pushing the limits of
computer capacity further and further by using complex algorithms that
might one day lead to actual artificial intelligence. “Work consists of
whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not
obliged to do” (Twain 1903, 33). Games existed among many ancient
peoples and have been known in all contemporary human cultures. It has
been suggested that the playing of games is one of the key defining
characteristics of man, though all young mammals and at least some birds
play. Playing games is therefore a crucial part of our lives, and the
computer offers new possibilities for creating games by combining the
visual and auditory elements, with the potential for creating virtual worlds
with their own “laws of nature” and allowing us to interact with our
created fictional reality.

References
Ackley, Jonathan, Jordan Jordan, Chris Purvis and Larry Ahern. 1997. The
Curse of Monkey Island. LucasArts.
Adams, Ernest. 2010. Fundamentals of Game Design. Berkeley: Pearson
Education.
Andersen, Robin, and Jonathan A. Gray. 2008. Battleground THE MEDIA.
Westport: Greenwood Press, vol 2.
Death Gate. 1994. Legend Entertainment.
Fortier, Ronald J., and Adrian Stephens. 1992. Stunt Island. Disney
Interactive.
 Computer Game Soundtracks and Lyrics as Part of Gameplay 161

Gilbert, Ron, Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer. 1990. The Secret of
Monkey Island. Lucasfilm Games.
John Muir: A Brief Biography. http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_
exhibit/life/muir_biography.aspx. Accessed November 27, 2011.
Landeros, Rob, and Graeme Devine. 1993. The 7th Guest. Virgin
Interactive.
Langdon, Kevin. 2011. “What is a game?” http://www.polymath-
systems.com/games/whatgame.html.
Purcell, Steve, Sean Clark, Michael Stemmle and Collette Michaud. 1993.
Sam and Max: Hit the Road. LucasArts.
Salen, Katie, and Eric Zimmerman. 2003. Rules of Play: Game Design
Fundamentals. Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Sanger, George. 1997. 7/11. Haight-Masonic Laboratories.
Twain, Mark. 1903. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. New York: Harper
and Brothers.
Video Game. http://www.freebase.com/view/e n/video_game. Accessed
November 27, 2011.
Winter, David. Pong-Story-com: the Site of the First Video Game.
http://www.pong-story.com/. Accessed November 27, 2011.
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN

MUSIC IN NEIL GAIMAN’S CORALINE

MAJA SCHREINER

Music is an integral and powerful element of many works of children’s

literature that can complement a text in many different ways. Scenes
containing music can provide an affective mode of auditory images that
influence and stimulate a reader’s mood and emotions, while also
providing historical, cultural and psychological context. This chapter
explores the use of poems, rhymes and musical references in Neil
Gaiman’s gothic children’s fantasy Coraline (2002), which won numerous
awards including the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novella for the
year 2003, the Locus Award, the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Superior
Achievement in a Work for Young Readers, and the 2002 British Science
Fiction Award for short fiction. In 2009, the book was adapted into a
successful animated movie. The aim of this chapter is to illustrate from a
psychoanalytical perspective how dramatic poems and scenes of music
contribute a new dimension to the dark, creepy tale for children, Coraline.
Karen Coats notes that “Gaiman often combines humour and horror,
which has been the legacy of the Gothic since its inception, and indicates
the close relation between fear and humour as two affective responses to
incongruent stimuli” (Jackson and Coats 2009, 78). Music in Coraline
adds both fear and humour; primarily, though, the auditory images
emphasize the gap between the characters’ needs and their desires. In
Coraline, music marks pivotal transitions that lead young readers to some
basic understandings of human nature relating to the sense of identity and
self.
Coraline is a story about an eleven-year-old girl named Coraline Jones
whose family moves to an old house with strange neighbours. Although
her parents work at home, Coraline believes that they are not paying her
 Music in Neil Gaiman's Coraline 163

enough attention, and she frequently feels bored.1 Shortly after their move,
she finds a strange door in their flat, behind which is a brick wall. Coraline
nevertheless manages to find a way through, and she enters another world
where her other parents and neighbours live, who are, or so it seems at the
beginning, better versions of the real people. Coraline soon realizes,
however, that this wonderful new world holds many dangers, since her
other mother wants to sew black buttons into her eyes and keep her on the
other side of the door forever. The plot revolves around Coraline’s battle
with the other mother and her attempts to save the souls of other trapped
children, while saving her own parents from entrapment in the other
mother’s world. The role of song and music in this quest drama is small
but significant.
The first appearance of music in Coraline is at the beginning of the
story when we learn that in the upper flat of the old house lives a crazy old
man, who tells Coraline that he is training a mouse circus. He tells her that
the songs he has written for the mice to play go “oompah oompah,” but the
mice only play “toodle oodle.” His onomatopoeic expressions do not
convince Coraline that there is a mouse circus, and she thinks that the old
man is probably making it up. Here, we see that the first reference to song
or music appears unreal, just a part of the old man’s imagination, and
Coraline rejects the idea of its being true. From a psychoanalytical
perspective, we may see music as a link to an individual’s unconscious or
what the psychoanalytical theorist Jacques Lacan calls the Real order,
which is a realm of the material or external world, undistorted by an
individual’s perceptions, a universe prior to our classification and which
resists symbolisation. The Real order is thus aligned with sound as
opposed to word, which is a part of the Symbolic, or image, which is a part
of the Imaginary. Gaiman is thus using Coraline’s reaction to imaginary
music to specify the stage of her psychoanalytical development.
The first mention of a song occurs in the first chapter, when Coraline,
lying in bed and almost falling asleep, hears “t-t-t-t-t-t” and “kreeee” and
“aaaak.” The strange sounds get Coraline out of bed, and she starts
following them. As she walks down the hallway, she wonders if she has
only dreamed these sounds. Then, she sees something moving, a shadow, a
small black shape. She sees a door in the drawing room slightly ajar, but

1
Adam Phillips asserts that “boredom starts as a regular crisis in the child's
developing capacity to be alone in the presence of the mother.” Karen Coats
explains that “when a child develops the capacity to be bored, it is a signal that he
or she is in a transitional state, a state where he or she is developing a separate
sense of self, a need to assert his or her desires over and against the desires of the
mother” (Jackson and Coats 2009, 86).
164 Chapter Fifteen

there is nothing behind it except a red brick wall. Coraline goes back to
bed, falls asleep and dreams the “little black shapes with little red eyes and
sharp yellow teeth” (Gaiman 2003, 21). Thus, it is in her dreams that we
first hear a song. The little black shapes start to sing:

We are small but we are many

We are many, we are small
We were here before you rose
We will be here when you fall.
(Gaiman 2003, 21)

It is significant that Coraline first hears the song when she is asleep. If
we consider Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, dreams are a connection to an
individual’s unconscious, and in Lacan’s terms, a part of the Real order.
Coraline’s dreams in this case manifest her fears; it might be that she fears
the unknown. The last word of this song, “fall,” implies some sort of
transition and usually has a negative connotation. The pairing of the two
verbs rise and fall is also disturbing; the more natural binary pairing for
rise would be go to bed, but the switch to the sinister notion of falling
transforms the theme from a bedtime lullaby to veiled threat. Despite the
nursery-rhyme metre and stanza form, this is far from formulaic pabulum.
Not only does this song feel disturbing, but it also illustrates the passage
between the two “realities” between which Coraline will soon be caught.
The dreams extend the oddness of the story and foreshadow the
unavoidability of the following events. The narrator tells us that the voices
she hears are high, whispery and slightly whiny. Unlike conventionally
soothing lullaby melodies, they are not pleasant to the ear, and they make
her feel uncomfortable. The auditory and affective discomfort Coraline
feels is important for the story; it adds to the feeling of unease and genre
uncertainty. The rats represent a part of Coraline’s unconscious, her fears,
doubts or unfulfilled needs.
Another verse of the song appears in the third chapter, when Coraline
first finds the way to the “other” or “mirror” world. She sees the rats in her
“other” bedroom, and once again they start to “sing, in high, whispery
voices:”

We have teeth and we have tails

We have tails, we have eyes
We were here before you fell
You will be here when we rise.
(Gaiman 2003, 42)
 Music in Neil Gaiman's Coraline 165

This verse is a continuation of the song Coraline heard in her dreams,

and it indicates that the “fall” has already occurred. Indeed, it has.
Coraline “fell” into this “alternative” world through the passageway
behind the door, and she has entered “the unconscious fantasy landscape”
(Parsons 2008). The narrator tells us that the song is not pretty and that
Coraline finds it familiar, as if she had heard it before. Here, we can see an
instance of Freud’s concept of the Uncanny, which defines something
horrible and dreadful and, most importantly, something both familiar and
long forgotten. It creates a feeling of repulsion, and as the narrator
suggests, the song is not pretty.
The next time we hear music in Coraline is in Chapter Ten, when still
in the “other world” and in search of the souls of the children and her
parents, she enters the crazy old man’s flat. As soon as she steps in, she
hears the whispering of “a dozen or more tiny voices”:

We have eyes and we have nerveses

We have tails, we have teeth,
You’ll all get what you deserveses
When we rise from underneath
(Gaiman 2003, 135)

This verse of the song builds on the feeling of menace established by

the two preceding ones. The spelling inaccuracies (“nerveses” and
“deserveses”) indicate that the rules that hold true in the realm of language
are violated or diminished in the dream world. Though such non-standard
usages could be seen as infantile, they carry a content that is overtly
threatening. Right after this song, the crazy old man tells Coraline that she
can have whatever she wants (whatever she “desires”) if she decides to
stay there. To that, Coraline replies, “You really don’t understand, do
you?” she said. “I don’t want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really.
What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted? Just
like that, and it didn’t mean anything. What then?” (Gaiman 2003, 139).
Now she verbalizes her thinking, understanding that “desire” 2 doesn’t
work by getting everything you want. Furthermore, this time the song does
not make Coraline feel uneasy, since by now she is used to all kinds of
eerie sounds and smells and occurrences. She is starting to find her own
strength, a process that begins when she tells herself, “I’m not frightened.”
She decides that the other mother cannot truly create anything: “She could
only twist and copy and distort things that already existed” (Gaiman 2003,

2
Slavoj Žižek explains that desire is not something given in advance, but
something that has to be constructed; fantasy helps us to desire (Žižek 1991).
166 Chapter Fifteen

137). Here we see that Coraline denies the very existence of the world the
other mother has created, the world of her every desire being met; thus,
she realigns herself with the meaningful world of the Symbolic order,
where she explores and creates her own desires separate from her
mother’s.
The last song in the novel summarizes Coraline’s journey of self-
discovery, appearing in the final chapter when Coraline sets out on a
perilous adventure to finish off the last monstrous remnant of the other
mother, her hand (which was cut off at the wrist and is now capable of
uncannily moving around). She comes up with a plan to lure the hand onto
the tablecloth covering the deep well in the vicinity of their house. As she
prepares for the finale, she realizes she cannot whistle; instead, she starts
to sing “a song her father made up for her when she was a little baby and
which had always made her laugh”:

Oh ... My twitchy witchy girl

I think you are so nice,
I give you bowls of porridge
And I give you bowls of ice-
cream.
I give you lots of kisses,
And I give you lots of hugs,
But I never give you sandwiches
with bugs
in.
(Gaiman 2003, 179)

As Coraline sings, her voice “hardly trembled at all” (Gaiman 2003,

180), indicating that the song has made her feel braver and more self-
confident. The fact that the song also makes her laugh is crucial when we
remember that humour attenuates fear, which is important in gothic
fantasy for children. It is also important that this poem was sung to her by
her father, and that it spells out unconditional parental love. Real parents
indulge in the tame but enjoyable game of word play (e.g., the line break
between ice and cream, or between bugs and in) but do not cross the line
to cruel games. Coraline remembers her father as being brave when she
tells the cat a story about her father saving her from some wasps. Her
father is a representative of the Symbolic order, which she now seeks and
desires to become a part of.
In Coraline many things are closely connected to food, including this
song. Although her mother doesn’t cook and her father usually cooks from
recipes that she doesn’t like, they still don’t offer her bugs, like her other
mother, who feeds on them and devours them hungrily (and at the same
 Music in Neil Gaiman's Coraline 167

time offers them to Coraline). Food is strongly symbolic; here it represents

the fulfilment of psychological and emotional needs and the desired
object. Thus, unlike the other mother, Coraline’s real parents do not seek
either to smother their daughter with confining love or to consume her
completely.
After singing this song, Coraline succeeds in disposing of the other
mother’s right hand, which lands somewhere deep in the well. Inevitably,
Mr. Bobo, the crazy old man, tells Coraline that the mice now play
“tumpty umpty and toodle oodle,” they dance and do everything they
should, and thus everything is in its right order. Furthermore, not only has
Coraline won the fantastic battle with the evil “other” mother, she has won
her inner battle with her own fears about becoming an individual in the
world she inhabits, separate from her parents but still loved by them.
The novel ends with music; Coraline hears “sweet music on the night
air: the kind of music that can only be played on the tiniest silver
trombones and trumpets and bassoons, on piccolos and tubas so delicate
and small that their keys could only be pressed by the tiny pink fingers of
white mice” (Gaiman 2003, 185). As she listens, she imagines that she is
in her dreams, seeing the two girls and the boy she freed, and she is happy.
Again, we are shown music as a transition to a parallel world of the
imagination, but now Coraline is not afraid because she has reaffirmed
herself as a confident and independent individual. The last sentence of the
novel describes music as a gentle background sound when Coraline finally
falls asleep. The anti-lullaby of the creepy mice has been replaced by
something more wholesome and complex in its musicality. Music, in the
end, is something pleasant, gentle and sufficiently heart-warming to allow
her to peacefully “fall” asleep and rest, assured of her own identity.
Coraline has gone through a series of ordeals, overcome her fears about
who she is in relation to others (especially her parents), and found peace
within herself and her place in the world. Music is an important element in
this self-transformation and in the text, since it accompanies Coraline’s
transitions in order for her to achieve selfhood.

References
Freud, Sigmund. 1919. The Uncanny. Accessed November 27, 2011.
web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf
Gaiman, Neil. 2003. Coraline. London, Berlin, New York: Bloomsbury
Publishing.
—. 2008. Coraline. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga.
168 Chapter Fifteen

Jackson, Anna, Karen Coats and Roderick McGillis. 2009. The Gothic in
Children’s Literature: Haunting the Borders. New York, London:
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
Nikolajeva, Maria. 1996. Children’s Literature Comes of Age: Toward a
New Aesthetic. New York and London: Garland Publishing.
Parsons, Elizabeth, Naarah Sawers and Kate McInally. 2008. “The Other
Mother: Neil Gaiman’s Postfeminist Fairytales.” Children’s Literature
Association Quarterly 33: 371-389.
Rudd, David. 2008. “An Eye for an I: Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and
Questions of Identity.” Children’s Literature in Education 39: 159–
168.
Žižek, Slavoj. 1991. Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan
through Popular Culture. Cambridge Massachusetts; London: The
MIT Press.
 PART IV

USING WORDS AND MUSIC

TO TEACH ENGLISH
AS A SECOND LANGUAGE
 CHAPTER SIXTEEN

POP LYRICS FOR GRAMMAR TEACHING

IN A PRIMARY CLASSROOM

TADEJ BRAČEK

According to the new Slovenian National Curriculum for English in

Primary Schools (Eržen 2011), which was implemented on September 1,
2011, students will begin their study of English between grades 4 and 9
and must acquire a particular set of language skills.
For the skill of listening, at the end of the third cycle of primary
education students should be able to understand unknown words in a
spoken text with a known topic, extract the main idea of a text, understand
specific data in spoken language and recognize the sequence of tenses
(Eržen 2011, 26). Not surprisingly, all these standards can be addressed
and achieved by using popular song lyrics in the classroom as a lead-in to
the study of traditional poetry.
To reach, or surpass, the standard necessary for one to be successful in
gimnazija (European secondary school) and vocational programs, a
teacher can use explicit or implicit teaching methods. When explaining the
form, meaning and use of grammar structures, it is better to use an explicit
method. However, explicit teaching does not offer any insight into the use
of grammar structures in context. Therefore, a teacher has to find an
appropriate text or, even better, a medium preferred by teenagers to foster
their interest in learning English. One such medium is, of course, music.
Why should teachers use music in the classroom? Brock Dethier, who
uses music as a starting point to teach students essay writing, explains this
notion:

[N]o matter how young, hip, and student-oriented we may be, we are
separated from most of our students by a chasm of age, experience,
education, and power. A new generation seems to come along every thirty
months now, not every thirty years, and teachers who ignore these rapid
changes quickly find themselves isolated and, in students’ eyes, irrelevant.
Students who trust us, who feel that we share enough of their values to
understand them, listen better and really hear what we have to say. The
 Pop Lyrics for Grammar Teaching in a Primary Classroom 171

common language of music can bridge the chasm and lead to improved
communication in both directions. (Dethier 1991)

In Dethier’s opinion, music not only has a motivational role, but it also
plays a part in creating class cohesion and rapport between a teacher and
his or her students. Dethier deals with the following categories when using
music in his classroom: analysis; artistic influence, by which he means one
artist copying part of the song from another artist, yet adding something
new; context; images; irony; leads or “hooks” in popular music; metaphor,
narrative and meaning; revision, symbol, themes and voice (Dethier 1991).
Not every primary teacher can use all the categories above in teaching
poetry and grammar. Narrative, meaning, themes, voice and basic analysis
constitute a sufficient basis for most second-language classrooms. The
choice of songs is, naturally, paramount. Of the many sets of lyrics
available, two stand out for the grammar classroom. The first is “What If”
performed by Kate Winslet (Winslet 2000). The song was written to
accompany a version of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and is thus
particularly suitable for use around the holiday season. Since Belle is
taking a retrospective look at her past with young Scrooge and wondering
if things could have been different, this is clearly a song that can be used
to identify conditional sentences and discuss their meaning.

If I’d stayed
If you’d tried
If we could only turn back time

First, a teacher plays the music video from YouTube and then gives the
students handouts containing the song’s lyrics as well as some relevant
tasks (McCrostie 2007). In the next stage, the class is asked to listen to the
song again and underline all the conditional clauses and the corresponding
main clauses. Then they are challenged to identify which type the
conditional clauses are. In this song there are two types: conditional type 2
and a mixed conditional. The third, and final task is to explain the meaning
of sentences where conditionals are used. After the grammar part of the
lesson, the teacher can elicit a discussion about the images from the video
and how they support the lyrics. Focus should then shift to the lyrics and
the question of which words (nouns, verbs) carry the meaning of isolation
and loneliness.
In pairs, students can also practice the 3rd conditional and a mixed
conditional by explaining what they would have done differently in the
past under certain conditions, and how that would have influenced them
then or how their lives now would be different.
172 Chapter Sixteen

Such a song can form a vital part in the teaching of difficult grammar
concepts. Zero conditionals present few problems because even weaker
students can master the present simple tense. In contrast, third and mixed
conditional sentences present greater challenges on account of the perfect
tenses in both the conditional and main clauses. Mixed conditionals can be
particularly well illustrated with the lyrics of “What If.” Ideally, the use of
song lyrics can lessen the understanding gap between slower and more
gifted learners of English grammar.
Another song that can be used in the classroom is “I Wish,” performed
by Skee-Lo (Skee-Lo 1995). As a rap song by a popular young artist, it
should make a particularly strong connection with students in the upper
grades of primary school. Moreover, it correlates with studying the 2nd
conditional, with its form I wish + past simple tense to express wishful
thinking, so that students are asked to generate examples of wishes that
cannot come true, such as “I wish I was a little bit taller.”
The song’s premise of a radio station “wish line” for “wacky wishes”
could provide a useful schema for practice with conditionals.
Nevertheless, the teacher should warn students that the form I wish I was
is colloquial and that in formal speech I wish I were is used. This might be
a good place to introduce the matter of register in English and to discuss
which registers are appropriate for certain speech occasions. Apart from
the study of grammar, “I Wish” can also be used to make students
acquainted with African-American teenage/youth culture via vocabulary,
such as: ‘64 Impala, phat, scat, skittle, scabobble and Crenshaw. This
could lead to a discussion of the students’ own culture and values.
After giving students a taste of poetry through pop songs and lyrics, a
teacher can progress to more advanced poetry, perhaps using the poems set
for the general school-leaving examination, which in Slovenia is called the
matura. Practice with theme, voice, image and register in the song lyrics
will help students to deal with the more complex lyrics of traditional
poetry such as Emily Dickinson’s “I’m Nobody! Who are You?” Langston
Hughes’ “I, Too, Sing America,” William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 and
William Wordsworth’s “Upon Westminster Bridge.”
Students may need some background explanation for the older poems,
in particular, an introduction to Petrarchan sonnet conventions about
female beauty for the Shakespearean sonnet. It might be possible to
facilitate student understanding of conventional rhetorical patterns in
comparison to “I Wish.” When teaching Wordsworth’s poem, the teacher
should be ready to provide information about Romanticism, the industrial
revolution and London life in the nineteenth century.
 Pop Lyrics for Grammar Teaching in a Primary Classroom 173

Even in song lyrics and poetry, direct teaching of vocabulary can be

applied. Words that can be taught this way are, according to Bukowiecki,

[W]ords with multiple meanings, which need the context of the sentence to
determine the exact derivation. Second, structure words (am, is, are, was,
the, and, of, for example) often need to be pointed out, since these words
lack meaning and may look similar to other words. Calling attention to root
words with prefixes and suffixes also can be helpful in unlocking the
meaning of novel words. Likewise, key words, which come directly from
the context being read and convey important ideas and concepts, should be
included in direct vocabulary teaching. (Bukowiecki 2006, 31)

In “What If” the vocabulary worth being pointed out is the phrase
“hands of time,” since a literal translation would be misleading. Teachers
can show their students a picture of a clock and point to the clock hands
(using a real clock would be optimal, but one can no longer count on there
being a real clock in a contemporary classroom). In this way, they see that
turning the hands of time actually means pushing clock hands in an
anticlockwise direction and thus, metaphorically speaking, going back in
time. In “I Wish,” one word to be discussed is certainly “fly” in its
adjectival sense. The explanation can be found in a slang dictionary and it
stands for something nice-looking or stylish. In Emily Dickinson’s poem,
a term to be explained directly is “bog”—marshes—to avoid any
interference with the Slovene word bog, meaning God. In “Upon
Westminster Bridge,” an interesting verb is “glideth,” since second-
language students are not accustomed to the archaic form of English verbs.
They can quickly learn that the suffix –th in verbs is equivalent to today’s
suffix –s.
In the ever-changing world, an English teacher’s role is becoming
more and more that of a mentor. The teacher is not the sole source of
knowledge any more. As a mentor, a teacher must be acquainted with
modern trends in music to be able to direct students to such pieces of
music and lyrics that enhance their understanding of grammar and
vocabulary. By studying examples of pop lyrics and their rhetorical
devices, ESL students can gain practice for when they apply this newly
obtained knowledge to serious, canonical poetry.

References
Bukowiecki, Elaine. 2006. “Vocabulary Instruction: Advice to New
Teachers.” The New England Reading Association Journal 42: 29-40.
174 Chapter Sixteen

Dethier, Charles Brock. 1991. “Using Music as a Second Language.” The

English Journal 80: 72-76.
Eržen, Vineta. 2011. Učni načrt, Program osnovna šola, Angleščina.
Ljubljana: MZŠŠ, ZRSŠ.
McCrostie, James. 2007. “Examining Learner Vocabulary Notebooks,”
ELT Journal 61: 246-255.
Skee-Lo. 1995. “I Wish,” D.F.R. Records, March 27.
Winslet, Kate. 2000. “What If,” EMI Records Ltd.
 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

SCOTTISH AND SLOVENE SONGS

IN THE INTERCULTURAL CLASSROOM

KIRSTEN HEMPKIN

ESL teaching has been engaged for a number of years in a debate on

the question of the teaching of culture in language learning. While the
discussion has focused on how to define the aims of that teaching, and on
the way and degree to which it should be incorporated into the curriculum,
what has largely remained unchanged throughout is the understanding of
how important it is for language students to be exposed to or undergo
some kind of cultural education in order to become interculturally
competent. It is generally accepted that acquiring purely language skills is
not enough; students must be able to negotiate the cultural challenges
brought by an era of mobility in which we expect them to live with those
from other cultures, at home or abroad. Our students at Filozofska
Fakulteta in Maribor are increasingly travelling, studying and working
throughout Europe (especially through Erasmus and similar schemes), or
at least coming into contact with those from other cultures who have
chosen to live in Slovenia.
Michael Byram, one of the leading figures in intercultural education,
has recently widened the notion of intercultural competence into what he
terms Intercultural Citizenship Competence (Byram 2000, 9). Byram
argues that language teaching has been guided too long in curriculum
planning by applied linguistics rather than pedagogy, and in order to
respond to the needs described above, language teaching should instead be
considered in a social, cultural, and political context. To that end, he has
elaborated an integrated framework which combines both language and
citizenship education, built on a number of orientations which serve as
overall aims, and corresponding objectives which guide the student to
achieving them.
Of all the orientations on which ICC is founded, Byram identifies that
of evaluation or “savior-être” as of primary importance, since the
176 Chapter Seventeen

objectives relating to attitudes and values are, he argues, “a pre-condition

for intercultural citizenship” (Byram 2008, 15). The goal of this
orientation is defined as the need for teachers to foster: “curiosity and
openness—a readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief
about one’s own.” This he further defines as: “…a willingness to relativize
one’s own values, beliefs and behaviours, not to assume that they are the
only possible and naturally correct ones, and to be able to see how they
might look from an outsider’s perspective who has a different set of
values, beliefs and behaviours” (Byram, Gribkova and Starkey 2000, 13).
From classroom experience, it is clear that many of the students at
Filozofska Fakulteta, Maribor, the vast majority of whom will go on to be
teachers themselves, have very fixed ideas about themselves as Slovenes,
and stereotypical ideas about other cultures that run counter to the goal
outlined above. Yet, reflecting on and ultimately challenging the
perceptions one has about one’s own culture seems to present an
especially difficult task. As Fennes and Hapgood state, “The existence of
culture is to a large degree not noticed by those who are a part of it—like
the existence of water for fish” (Fennes and Hapgood 1997, 13). The
challenge for intercultural teachers, therefore, is to find ways of effectively
exploring cultural issues with language students. This chapter presents a
selection of exercises based on Scottish and Slovene songs to explore the
values, beliefs, and behaviours which are key elements of national and
cultural identity and to encourage students to reflect critically, not only on
their perceptions of what it means to be Slovene, but also on how being
Slovene may be seen by those from other cultures.
The first exercises we engage in ask our students to begin considering
what national (Scottish and Slovene) music is and at the same time what
role music and songs play in our society. Students are asked to consider
how important (or not) the following factors are in determining the
“nationality” of a song: the language of the song; the content; the
instruments; the nationality of the singer and the genre (folk, traditional,
pop or rock). To stimulate discussion of this topic, some examples of the
two types of music are shown. “Mull of Kintyre” by Paul McCartney and
Wings serves as an excellent starting point to test student intuitions about
the “nationality” of music. While this piece has some of the elements of a
typical Scottish song (the song is an ode to the Mull of Kintyre in
Scotland; the accompanying video shows the surrounding area; bagpipes
feature in the chorus), it’s sung by an English recording artist with a strong
connection to his home city of Liverpool. Can we categorise it as a
Scottish song?
 Scottish and Slovene Songs in the Intercultural Classroom 177

The responses of students vary, although many identify the Liverpool

factor as an obstacle to the song’s being Scottish. However, the
conclusions students reach here are much less important than the fact that
they have embarked on a process of considering what gives something a
cultural or national identity. If we can establish a set of criteria to
determine the “nationality” of a song, can we undertake a similar process
with people, and how do we apply these criteria to ourselves? In order to
explore this issue further, students are asked to complete the simple
sentence I am Slovene because…. Each class builds a composite picture of
what it means to them to be Slovene. The following set of criteria was
produced by a fourth year class and is more or less representative of the
responses given to this task: I am Slovene because… I work hard; I eat
beef soup on a Sunday; I dance the polka; I speak Slovene; I was born
here.
This simple task has proven very effective in encouraging students to
articulate their feelings on the issue of their own “Sloveneness.” As a
follow-up, we attempt to categorise the factors on the list, encouraging
students to draw wider conclusions as to the nature of national/cultural
identity, and in particular to the pattern of values, beliefs and behaviours
described above that Byram argues we must consider in our quest for
intercultural competence.
On the one hand, music is almost universal in that most cultures
appreciate, produce and perform it; on the other, music is culturally
specific in the way it is created, enjoyed and used. These exercises explore
the role of music in Slovene and Scottish society, in particular the habits,
customs and rituals music accompanies, not only enhancing our students’
knowledge of certain behaviours but also reinforcing the idea that they are
culturally generated.
The task begins with a shot from an awards ceremony to elicit ideas
about the purpose of music. The featured song is “Someone Like You,” a
tale of lost love, by the British singer Adele. The clip shows her at the Brit
Awards (a music awards ceremony); she delivers a powerful and
emotional performance, and the reaction of the audience reflects their
enormous appreciation. The clip allows us to pose a number of questions
on the nature of music and its role in society: Why do you think the
audience react so enthusiastically to her performance? Is it the song itself,
her performance, or the occasion? Why is love such a common theme in
songs? Does the fact that we give awards for music tell us something
about the way music is regarded in U.K. society? Are there similar awards
in Slovenia for popular genres? If you do, why do you listen to music or
play an instrument?
178 Chapter Seventeen

Students respond positively to the pared-down nature of Adele’s

performance, to the fact that she performs the song accompanied only by a
piano and with none of the theatricality of more outlandish performers
such as Lady Gaga. Many express the opinion that the delivery matches
the mood of the song well, lending authenticity to the pain expressed in the
lyrics. As to its wider nature or function, students identify enjoyment and
pleasure as the major reasons they listen to music.
In the exercise, our students focused on the basic function of music—
as a form of enjoyment, entertainment, something that stirs our emotions.
The next exercise introduces other purposes, one of which is music “with a
message.” The song “Letter from America” by the Scottish group The
Proclaimers works well for this exercise, as it introduces the theme of
political/social comment, addressing the issue of emigration and the large
Scottish diaspora in the USA, Canada and Australia in particular.
The song resonates with Slovene students, as Slovenia and Scotland
share a number of common features and experiences, one of them being
emigration. 1 In the song and accompanying video, a negative mood
prevails, with the lyrics clearly suggesting that no amount of personal gain
could make up for the loss of so many of the population. Students are
asked to comment on the following lyrics: What is the blood that’s flowed
away? (The emigrants); who is the dying mutual friend? (Scotland); why
would Scotland be dying and what part would emigration play in that?
This exercise has set the context of songs with a purpose; we build on
this in the next step with a more detailed analysis of the purpose of songs
and music. Students are asked to watch a montage of video clips with a
range of songs and match each of them to one of several functions. Does
the song represent a country (the clip is of the unofficial national anthem
“O Flower of Scotland” at a rugby match; give praise (the clip shows a
congregation singing in a church); mourn (the bagpipe piece “Flowers of
the Forest”—a lament played at military funerals); support (football
supporters singing/chanting); soothe (lullaby); or bring luck (“Auld Lang
Syne”—end of wedding)?
This list is a modest selection of the functions of music; students are
asked to supply more, this time from the Slovene context. Answers in the
past have included protest (groups such as Kombitantke), satire (for
example, Adi Smolar), as an accompaniment to work (traditional songs

1
Luka Ličar in “Literature of Scotland and Slovenia: From Devolution to Post-
devolution, from Socialism to Independence and Beyond” argues that Scotland and
Slovenia, despite being separated geographically and politically, have a common
experience of being countries with a strong sense of national identity subsumed by
a larger cultural/political entity (Ličar 2011).
 Scottish and Slovene Songs in the Intercultural Classroom 179

sung on occasions such as trgatev—grape harvest) and humour/satire

(Slon in Sadež). As before, the exercise can be complemented by other
intercultural development tasks. If we see music as one aspect of
behaviour/lifestyle that characterises us in terms of national/cultural
identity, what are the others? Fennes and Hapgood suggest a range of
activities that explore culture-bound rituals and concepts relating to time,
eating and education, among others (Fennes and Hapgood 1997, 198-219).
The next set of activities asks students to define cultural values through
the use of exercises based on the Scottish and Slovene national anthems.
Students are asked to consider their anthem as a symbol, and to consider
what, if anything, it says about them and the values they cherish. Scotland
has no official national anthem. As part of the United Kingdom, the Scots’
national anthem is the UK anthem, “God Save the Queen.” On sporting
occasions, however, “Flower of Scotland,” a song written in 1965 by Roy
Williamson, is generally used; while for the opening of the Scottish
Parliament, “A Man’s a Man for A’ That” by Robert Burns was chosen.
Williamson’s song is overtly political and very much a product of its time.
Written when many Scots were pushing for independence from the U.K.,
the song is, from one perspective, a lament, questioning when
independence will ever happen and a rallying cry rousing the Scots to rise
once more against the English (the enemy). This perhaps partly explains
its popularity as a sporting anthem.
“A Man’s a Man for A’ That” and the Slovene national anthem
“Zdravljica” (a toasting song) by France Prešeren are both poems set to
music, written around fifty years apart (“A Man’s a Man for A’ That” in
1795; “Zdravljica” in 1844). It is perhaps not surprising that they touch on
similar themes. Burns sets out his concern for the status of the working
man and ends with a plea for world-wide unity. Prešeren expresses
concern for the Slovene nation and the Slavs in general, and echoes Burns
by widening his call to all nations in the most famous refrain of the poem,
the seventh verse.
An analysis of the lyrics allows students to focus on the values
enshrined in each of the anthems and to question their relevance: do these
values still apply? Burns’ language is difficult for Slovene students at first,
but once help is given with the Scots, it is clear that Burns is calling for the
working man, or as he describes him, the “honest man,” to be granted the
credit and value he deserves, rather than those who are usually granted
society’s honours, the ruling classes and the aristocracy. According to him,
anyone who is unable to see that is misguided. The classroom task is
straightforward. First, students are asked which two contrasting groups are
described in the poem: the working, common man and the aristocracy (the
180 Chapter Seventeen

lords, knights, marquises, dukes etc.). They are then asked to analyse the
descriptions in the poem and consider how each group is depicted.
The working man is seen as “honest,” “the gowd”—the gold,
“dignified,” as having a “pith o’ sense”—a modicum of sense. In contrast,
the aristocracy are “coofs” and “birkies”—fools, deserving of scorn and
laughter. The last stanza, calling for unity among humankind, links us to
“Zdravljica”:

Then let us pray that come it may,

That Sense and Worth o’er a’ the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an a’ that.
That Man to Man, the world o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’ that

Students are asked if they see any similarities between Burns’ ideas in
the stanza above and those of Prešeren, provided in the English translation
below. Obviously, the notions of brotherhood and unity stand out in both
works:

God’s blessing on all nations,

Who long and work for that bright day,
When o’er earth’s habitations
No war, no strife shall hold its sway;
Who long to see
That all men free
No more shall foes, but neighbours be.

The seventh stanza is considered the heart of the anthem, yet it is only
part of the message Prešeren wishes to convey. As the second step in their
task, our students are asked to identify the other core values he expresses.
“Zdravljica” expresses a strong patriotic sense: Prešeren appeals to the
notion of duty and love of the homeland, imploring the youth to feel this
sense of patriotism, imploring women to bear Slovenes. He also appeals to
a sense of justice and calls for peace and conciliation. What is also very
appealing about the anthem is the fact that it is a toast. In the first stanza,
Prešeren addresses his friends, calling on the wine that has just been
produced to invigorate the downtrodden and depressed. While this stanza
can be understood literally, metaphorically speaking we see the parallel
between the wine and the effect it has on the body and the patriotic fervour
Prešeren is stirring in Slovenia.
Focusing on the anthems by Burns and Prešeren provides a starting
point in defining what Slovene values are. The questions which follow on
from this task ask students if they think the values Prešeren describes—
 Scottish and Slovene Songs in the Intercultural Classroom 181

patriotism, duty to homeland, justice and brotherhood—are still relevant.

Who would be Burns’s “gowd” and “birkies” in Slovene society today?
There are several follow-up possibilities. One direction focuses on
identifying where else cultural values are expressed; for example, other
symbols that have been chosen to represent Slovenia, or other areas in
which students think cultural values are expressed (for example, folk tales
and proverbs). What do the students think the images selected for the
Slovene euro coins say about how Slovenes see themselves, or wish to be
seen (Prešeren is given the highest value and is depicted on the two euro
coin)? How would the students widen this list of values? What would they
say are the importance of the following factors? —work, family, freedom,
technology or art. Another direction is to explore other genres to find an
alternative anthem, perhaps one more relevant to today’s world. Students
can “borrow” excerpts from a range of songs, for example, Jessie J’s
“Price Tag,” a song which suggests that we live in an overly materialistic
world.
Fennes and Hapgood contend that one of the main obstacles to
achieving intercultural awareness is the stereotypes we hold about other
nations (Fennes and Hapgood 1997, 162). It is clear that the fixed nature
of such ideas runs contrary to the spirit of “curiosity and openness” of the
intercultural student; not only that, there is also a strong link between
stereotypical beliefs and prejudicial behaviour (Čebron 2008, 28-29).
Encouraging students to see how stereotypes may lead to prejudice is
surely one of the most important tasks of the intercultural classroom. Yet,
disentangling the complex nature of stereotypes is a daunting task,
especially as classroom experience suggests that our students hold
conflicting views towards them.2 However, it is vital that we do address
these issues in a classroom setting, as research suggests that work and
study abroad often simply strengthen the pre-conceived ideas we hold
(Coleman 1998, 59).
A number of songs deal with stereotypes, often with a touch of
humour, providing an ideal starting point for a deeper investigation into
our beliefs. The songs selected here present a set of stereotypes about
Scots and Slovenes, and the accompanying tasks ask our students to
identify them.
The first song is the world-famous (in Scotland) song “Donald,
Where’s Yer Troosers?” the best-known version of which is sung by the

2
Our students are not unusual in this regard, as sociological studies on sterotypes
and prejudice suggest that stereotypical views are often extremely complex and
contradictory in nature (Beeman 1996, 299).
182 Chapter Seventeen

entertainer Andy Stewart. The subject matter of the song plays on a well-
worn Scottish stereotype of the naive Highland boy, the classic innocent
abroad, who travels to London determined to take advantage of all the city
offers. While his kilt is a valuable asset in one sense—attracting the
attention of the ladies—it is also a source of concern, as Donald imagines
himself in a series of awkward and potentially embarrassing situations.
This is illustrated in the following stanza, in which Donald is afraid he
may fall over at a dance, exposing himself to those present:

A lady took me to a ball

And it was slippery in the hall
And I was feart that I would fall
For I hadnae on my troosers

Another song offering a classic stereotype is “I Belong to Glasgow”:

I belong to Glasgow
Dear old Glasgow town
There’s something up with Glasgow
Cause it’s spinning round and round

Students are generally quick to identify the main stereotypes captured

in the songs: the kilt-wearing habit and small stature of the Scots (“I’m no’
very big”), along with drunkenness. The other familiar attributes are
stinginess, having red hair and a fiery temper (many students are familiar
with the Willie the Janitor character in The Simpsons).
In the next exercise, the tables are turned, and our students must
complete a task focusing on stereotypes relating to Slovenes. An
extremely effective tool here is a song entitled “Mi Živimo Bolje,” a
satirical piece in the style of a South Park cartoon, written for a Croatian
comedy show. The lyrics refer to Janez (a typical Slovene name) and carry
the message (in less than polite terms) that Slovenes look down on
Croatians because they (the Slovenes) feel they have a better standard of
living (Mi živimo bolje). When asked to identify what makes them
Slovene, many of our students described a typically hard-working nature.
What is interesting for our students to explore is the notion that the pride
that Slovenes have in seeing themselves as hard-working may actually be
seen by others as arrogance. They may also be able to provide other
examples of this mismatch between intention and perception. Šabec and
Limon hint at this when discussing the Slovene attitude to hospitality, with
the host offering more and more food and drink, behaviour which may
seem “pushy” to a guest from the U.K. or U.S.A (Šabec and Limon 2000,
111).
 Scottish and Slovene Songs in the Intercultural Classroom 183

There are a number of follow-up activities for focusing on stereotypes,

based on two main approaches. Dlaska proposes that we try to “knock
down” or “blow-up” stereotypes (Dlaska 2000, 261). In knocking them
down, we exploit the resources we have to hand (including the internet),
encouraging students to become more aware of stereotypes, to question
their nature and origins and whether they are the same the world over. In
blowing them up, the main aim is to point out how unreliable stereotypes
are.
Humorous tasks seem to work well, and joke-based activities
effectively illustrate the universal nature of stereotypes (Bosnians are the
butt of Slovene jokes, while the Irish are the target of the infamous
Scotsman, Englishman and Irishman jokes).3 Listing the top ten reasons to
be Slovene and creating a Slovene internet-rant (based on “Cuz I’m
Scottish”) also allows students to play with perceptions of themselves as
Slovenes in a humorous way.
There is a clear need for teachers to address the issue of intercultural
competence in the contemporary language classroom, and songs provide
an effective tool for doing so. The Slovene and Scottish song activities
presented here allow students to explore key questions in the intercultural
classroom, to consider the nature of national and cultural identity and how
that identity is arrived at, to explore their perceptions of themselves as
Slovene and reflect on how others may view the same attributes
differently, and ultimately, to begin the most difficult process of all—
challenging their stereotypical beliefs about themselves and others.

References
Beeman, Mark, and Robert W. Volk. 1996. “Challenging Ethnic
Stereotypes: A Classroom Exercise.” Teaching Sociology 24(3): 299-
304.
Burns, Robert. “A Man’s A Man for A’ That.” Complete Works. N.D.
Accessed May 21, 2011. http//www.Robertburns.Org/Works/496
.Shtml.
Byram, Michael, Bella Gribkova, and Hugh Starkey. 2000. Developing the
Intercultural Dimension in Language Teaching. A Practical
Introduction for Language Teachers. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
http://Www.Coe.Int/T/Dg4/Linguistic/Source/Guide_Dimintercult_En.
Pdf (Accessed June 2010)

3
Depending on who is telling the joke.
184 Chapter Seventeen

Byram, Michael. 2008. Introduction to Close Otherness: English

Language as a Bridge to Intercultural Citizenship, by Neva Čebron.
Koper: Univerza na Primorskem: Založba Annales.
Coleman, Jim A. 1998. “Evolving Intercultural Perceptions among
University Language Students in Europe.” Language Learning in
Intercultural Perspective, edited by Michael Byram and Michael
Fleming, 45-76. Cambridge: CUP.
Čebron, Neva. 2008. Close Otherness: English Language as a Bridge to
Intercultural Citizenship. Koper: Univerza na Primorskem: Založba
Annales.
Dlaska, Andrea. 2000. “Integrating Culture and Language Learning in
Institution-Wide Language Programmes.” Language Culture and
Curriculum 13(3): 249-63.
Fennes, Helmut and Karen Hapgood. 1997. Intercultural Learning in the
Classroom. London and Washington: Cassel.
Fyffe, Will (Perf.). 1920s. “I Belong To Glasgow.” (Trad.).
Ličar, Luka. 2011. “Literature of Scotland and Slovenia: From Devolution
to Post-Devolution, From Socialism to Independence and Beyond.”
ELOPE: Studies in the English Language and Literature in Slovenia 8:
77-87.
Prešeren, France. N.D. “Zdravljica.” Trans. Janko Lavrin.
http://www.Vlada.Si/Si/O_Sloveniji/Politicni_Sistem_Drzavni Simboli
(Accessed May 20, 2010)
Proclaimers, The. 1987. “Letter from America.” This Is The Story. EMI.
Stewart, Andy. 1961. “Donald, Where’s Yer Troosers?” Emi Top Rank.
Šabec, Nada and David Limon. 2000. Across Cultures. Maribor: Založba
Obzorja.
 INDEX

“A Man’s a Man for A’ That”, 179 6pack Čukur, 87, 92

“A Poem For Myself (or Blues for a A Christmas Carol, 171
Mississippi Black Boy)”, 47 Adele, 177
“Amoretti LXXV", 148 Advani, Nikhil, 143
“Any Woman’s Blues”, 45 Anderson, Ian, 143
“Auld Lang Syne”, 178 Antony and Cleopatra, 35
“Awake My Soul”, 81 Armide, 4
“Blues”, 46 Auden, Wystan Hugh, 23
“Cuz I’m Scottish”, 183 Baez, Joan, 148
“Duelling Banjos”, 158 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 51
“Flowers of the Forest”, 178 Barbauld, Anna Laetitia, 81
“Hotel California”, 143 Barthes, Roland, ix
“I Belong to Glasgow”, 182 Battle rapping, 90
“Letter from America”, 178 Baudrillard, Jean, 23, 25
“Like Toy Soldiers”, 50 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 5
“Lion Man”, 80 Bellini, Vincenzo Salvatore
“Master Charge Blues”, 45 Carmelo Francesco, 11
“Mi Živimo Bolje”, 182 Berlioz, Hector, 4, 5
“Monday Morning Blues”, 46 Blake, William, xii
“Mrs. Robinson”, 146 Blondie, 137
“Mull of Kintyre”, 176 Boito, Arrigo, 10
“O Flower of Scotland”, 178 Bonanza!, 121
“Ode to Napoleon”, 7 Boštjan Gorenc Pižama, 87
“Ohio”, 115 Brahms, Johannes, 144
“Ramblin\’ on my Mind”, 43 Brisson, Carl, 144
“Sigh No More”, 80 Brown, Sam, 7
“Someone Like You”, 177 Brown, Sterling, 45
“Song of Myself”, 21 Buchanan, Roy, 148
“Southern Road”, 45 Burns, Robert, xii, 179
“Tea”, 7 Byron, Lord, 7
“The Dream Keeper”, 44 Campilongo, Jim, 148
“The Messiah Will Come Again”, Capriccio, 22
149 Cash, Johnny, 138, 148
“Toy Soldiers”, 50 Čefurs, 87, 103
“Unknown Soldier”, 115 Central Park in the Dark, 7
“Waist Deep in the Big Muddy”, Churchill, Sir Winston, 127
115 Civinini, Guelfo, 26
“We Used to Know”, 143 Cocteau, Jean, 3
“Zdravljica”, 179 Cole, Nat King, 144
186 Chapter Seventeen

Cole, Natalie, 144 Hughes, Langston, 44, 172

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, 115 Hutcheon, Linda, 146
Dandrough, 87 I Due Foscari, 10
Daniélou, Abbe Jean, 3 Illica, Luigi, 26
Dead Kennedys, 138 Indie Rock, x
Deliverance, 158 Ives, Charles, 7
Derrida, Jacques, 147 Jackson, Michael, 144
Dickens, Charles, 171 Jagged Little Pill, 66, 76
Dickinson, Emily, 172 Jagger, Mick, 147
Dion, Celine, 144 James, Skip, 43
Donizetti, Gaetano, 11 Jameson, Fredric, 147
Doors, The, 115 Jethro Tull, 143
Dumpty, Humpty, 147 Johnson, President Lyndon, 115
Eagles, The, 143 Johnson, Robert, 43
East of Eden, 81 Joining You, 72
Eminem, 50 Jones, Brian, 148, 149
Ernani, 10 Jones, Spike, 144
Eyeceeou, 87 Jung, Carl, ix
Ezy-G, 87 Kal Ho Naa Ho, 143
Falstaff, 10 Killers, The, 78
Farewell, 5 King Lear, 81
Faust, 4 King Oedipus, 3
Fontanne, Lynn, 32 Kiss Me, Kate, 30, 31, 34, 36, 38
Foo Fighters, The, 79 Klemen Klemen, 87, 93
Forza del Destino, 10 Knight, Etheridge, 47
Frankenstein, 147 Košir, Jure, 87
Free-styling, 86 Kostenbaum, Wayne, 24
Freud, Sigmund, 164 Kristeva, Julia, 26
Frye, Northrop, ix, xii, 38 La Fanciulla del West, 23
Gangsta rap, 86, 95, 102 La Traviata, 10
Genette, Gerard, 29 Lacan, Jacques, 147, 163, 164
Giacosa, Giuseppe, 26 Lady Gaga, 178
Giovanni, Nikki, 45 Leoncavallo, Ruggero, 26
Gluck, Christoph Willibald, 4 Levitin, Daniel, 2
Gounod, Charles, 4 Lunt, Alfred, 32
Grapes of Wrath, 81 Macbeth, 10, 81
Grayson, Carl, 144 Madgett, Naomi Long, 46
Groos, Arthur, 22 Majeed, Omar, 130
Halberstam, David, 123 Manon Lescaut, 24
Harlem Renaissance, 45 Martika, 50
Haydn, Joseph, 5 Matthews, Artie, 44
Hebrides Overture (Fingal’s Cave), McCartney, Paul, 176
5 McNamara, Robert, 122
Hendrix, Jimi, 138 Mendelssohn, Felix, 5
Hixson, Walter, 117 Monteverdi, Claudio, 22
Honegger, Arthur, 5 Monty Python, x
 Words and Music 187

Morissette, Alanis, x, 66 Samo Boris, 87

Much Ado About Nothing, 80 Sanchez, Sonia, 46
Mumford & Sons, 79 Saussure, Ferdinand de, 146
Murat & Jose, 87, 93 Schönberg, Arnold, 6
N’Toko, 87, 93 Seeger, Pete, xi, 115
National Curriculum for English in Seigel, Leah, 148
Primary Schools, 170 Shakespeare, William, x, 29, 33,
Nicholls, Mike, 146 172
Oedipus Rex, 3 Simon and Garfunkel, 146
Oliva, Domenico, 26 Simon, Paul, 146
Onomatopoeia, 146 Sinatra, Frank, 144, 146
Orbison, Roy, 143 Siouxie and the Banshees, 137
Orpheus, 22 Slon in Sadež, 179
Otello, 10 Smith, Mamie, 43
Othello, 35 Smith, Patti, 138, 139
Pacific 231, 5 Smolar, Adi, 178
Paganini, Niccolo, 144 Smothers, Dick, 120
Pantoum, 6 Smothers, Tommy, 120
Pasji Kartel, 87 So Pure, Unsent, 72
Pastoral, 5 Sonnet 130, 172
Pearl Harbor, 32 Sophocles, 3
Pérotin, 2 Spenser, Edmund, 148
Piave, Francesco Maria, 10 Steinbeck, John, 81
Pierrot Lunaire, 6 Stevens, Cat, 138
Porter, Cole, 29 Stewart, Andy, 182
Praga, Marco, 26 Stooges, The, 138
Prešeren, France, 179 Strauss, Richard, x, 22
Presley, Elvis, 146 Stravinsky, Igor, 3
Prévost, Abbé, 24 Štritof, Niko, 12
Proclaimers, The, 178 Supposed Former Infatuation
Prohibition, 145 Junkie, 67
Puccini, Giacomo, x Suzuki, Hideyuki, 4
Ramones, The, 137 Symphonie Fantastique, 5
Rattle, Sir Simon, 5 Symphony of Psalms, 3
Ravel, Maurice, 6 Taqwacore: the Birth of Punk Islam,
Reiner, Rob, 120 130
Richards, Keith, 147 The Birth of Opera, 22
Ricordi, Giulio, 26 The Graduate, 146
Rigoletto, 10 The Myth of American Diplomacy,
Rok Trkaj, 87 117
Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes, The Odyssey, 81
67 The Simpsons, 182
Rolling Stones, The, 148 The Smothers Brothers Comedy
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 118 Hour, 115
Sadež & Slon, 87 The Taming of the Shrew, 29, 32,
Salieri, Antonio, x 34, 36, 37
 188 Chapter Seventeen

The Weary Blues, 44 Whitman, Walt, 21

Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello, 6 Williams, Sherley Anne, 45
Troilus and Cressida, 36 Winslet, Kate, 171
Twelfth Night, 35 Wizard of Oz, 82
Valery, Paul, 149 Wordsworth, William, 172
Valterap, 87 Yankovic, Weird Al, 144
Velvet Underground, The, 137 Zangarini, Carlo, 26
Verdi, Giuseppe, 10 Zlatan Čordić (Zlatko), 87
Vietnam War, xi, 115

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