tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/lyrics-30859/articles
Lyrics – The Conversation
2024-03-01T17:24:54Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224320
2024-03-01T17:24:54Z
2024-03-01T17:24:54Z
An ode to the social realism of ‘boring’ lyrics – from The Kinks to The Streets
<p>The majority of chart artists content themselves with writing lyrics about relationships, breakups or their lavish lifestyles. Take the current top 10 song, Prada by Cassö, RAYE & D-Block Europe. As one might expect from the title, it speaks of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgGT_C_kuZQ">designer clothes, fancy hotels and expensive cars</a>. Other artists, however, satisfy themselves with something a little less glamorous – songs about the everyday, with lyrics about the ordinary and banal.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Realism/Grant/p/book/9781138283206?gad_source=1&utm_source=cjaffiliates&utm_medium=affiliates&cjevent=6dd0caa2d7b311ee836ca00b0a18b8f8">Social and literary realism</a> have long been valuable tools in detailing the everyday lives of people, and they have been a staple in popular music for decades. When The Kinks released <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/2zYEcirgirihBtUr9ninD6">The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society</a> in 1968, it was perhaps the first album to actively focus on the mundane, everyday aspects of life as lived by the average person in Britain. </p>
<p>It was about as far removed as it was possible to be from the psychedelic introspection that was popular among the biggest selling bands of the time (led, of course, by The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band). The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society delighted in detailing the smaller joys of life, with songwriter Ray Davies singing about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc7dmu4G8oc">strawberry jam, draught beer, custard pies and Desperate Dan</a> in songs that gave an insight into a world that was familiar and relatable to its listeners.</p>
<h2>The Smiths to The Streets</h2>
<p>The Kinks started a trend. In the 1980s, The Smiths chose the name to be as unglamorous and bland as possible, positioning themselves as the antithesis to the Spandau Ballets and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Darks of the music world. Lead singer Morrissey <a href="https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-song-that-that-bonded-the-smiths-duo-morrissey-and-johnny-marr/">told an interviewer</a>: “It was the most ordinary name and I thought it was time that the ordinary folk of the world showed their faces.” </p>
<p>With lyrics that portrayed a life of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3IjN8whXM0">rented rooms</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnv0JnyOaTE">high-rise estates</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXrbR2rOZz0">motorway service stations</a>, Morrissey was writing lyrics about unexceptional, everyday experiences that jarred with the glitz and glamour the New Romantic bands were singing about. </p>
<p>And while The Smiths provided an alternative to the pomposity of early 1980s music, The Streets’ debut album Original Pirate Material was released in 2002 into a UK music market dominated by cheesy lyrics like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz_pZ_feXM0">“I’m flying high ‘cause your love’s made me see”</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FsEyEUU4oU">“Baby I would climb the Andes solely to count the freckles on your body”</a>. Its lead vocalist Mike Skinner instead wanted <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Story_of_The_Streets/CMBDN6JcozsC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=mike+skinner+to+write+good+lyrics+about+contemporary+British+life&pg=PA89&printsec=frontcover">“to write good lyrics about contemporary British life”</a>. </p>
<p>His songs about Playstations, London Underground travel cards, cans of Carling, bottles of Smirnoff Ice, smoke-reeking jeans, McDonald’s and KFC documented the lives many of us were actually living.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Could Well Be In by The Streets (2004) includes lyrics about JD Sports, playing pool and ITV.</span></figcaption>
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<p>When COVID swept the world in 2020 and we were confined to our houses, gazing out of our windows at a world that was off limits, songs with everyday lyrics became even more important. </p>
<p>After all, did we really want to be listening to Ed Sheeran’s boast about how he’d <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwWNGJdvx8">found love in a bar</a> when we couldn’t go to bars, or Dua Lipa going on about how she was once again <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHuBW3qKm9g">dancing her ass off</a> when we couldn’t go to clubs? What many of us really wanted were lyrics that showed solidarity with our situation and represented the lives we were living, with all the glamour, excitement and gloss wiped off.</p>
<p>Lyrics to 2021 songs like Niko B’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGjg_MMMhRU">Who’s That, What’s That?</a> (“Copped a Big Mac, milkshake and some large fries … take the gherkin out of the inside”) or Lady Leshurr’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktFemM-LNPU">Quarantining</a> (“I went Sainsbury’s just to get bog roll”) became poignant. </p>
<p>Even love song supremo Paul McCartney got on board, pondering in the track <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmF1H_vUhbc">When Winter Comes</a> (2021) how he must “dig a drain by the carrot patch” and “fix the fence”. Not a hint of “patron”, “poolside drinking”, or “Margarita rounds” in sight (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDNaVtTzPvg">sorry, Drake</a>).</p>
<h2>The future of the banal</h2>
<p>Sixty years since champions of the everyday The Kinks came onto the scene, the ordinary lyric is alive and well. <a href="https://diymag.com/news/the-streets-are-back-announcing-new-album-the-darker-the-shadow-the-brighter-the-light">Mike Skinner is back</a> releasing albums as The Streets after a decade-long hiatus, and new pretenders to the throne of the mundane, Leeds’s Yard Act, are about to release their second album Where’s My Utopia.</p>
<p>The band have been praised for how their songs have <a href="https://www.theskinny.co.uk/music/interviews/yard-act-on-their-debut-album-and-documenting-modern-britain">documented modern life in Britain</a>. With <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPIk27ve3uo">lyrics like</a>: “We’re gonna put Poundshop terracotta frogs everywhere / And wrap solar power fairy lights round the gutter … I got a prosecco o’clock poster half price in Ikea”, they continue to fly the flag of joyous banality. </p>
<p>Songs about love, breakups and extravagance will undoubtedly continue to dominate the charts, but in among it all, it seems, there’s always room something a little more ordinary.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenn Fosbraey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Social and literary realism have long detailed people’s everyday lives – and they have been a staple in popular music for decades.
Glenn Fosbraey, Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Winchester
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219436
2023-12-11T13:13:42Z
2023-12-11T13:13:42Z
Changing the lyrics to hit songs might be increasingly noticeable – but it’s a longstanding musical practice
<p>Electronic dance music band The Prodigy are the latest act to <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/the-prodigy-have-changed-the-lyrics-to-smack-my-bitch-up-live-3549626">attract attention</a> for changing the lyrics to a longstanding hit in recent live shows. They now repeat the opening line “change my pitch up” in place of the song’s title “Smack My Bitch Up”. The song’s been a source of controversy since its release in 1997 – BBC Radio One only played an instrumental version of and it received <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/totp2/features/top5/banned_songs.shtml">only limited airplay at all</a>.</p>
<p>Changing song lyrics is an increasingly common phenomenon, although not as recent as headlines might suggest. </p>
<p>The roots of much rock n’ roll and modern pop are in the blues where <a href="https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/discovering-music-the-blues/content-section-8">an oral rather than written tradition</a> frequently saw lyrics amended for different situations – or adapted as songs passed from artist to artist.</p>
<p>The advent of recording in the late nineteenth-century and the associated growth in publishing revenues from the music saw a shift towards a primary “text” in the form of a record or sheet music. But, adaptability has remained a feature.</p>
<p>Now there are multiple motivations and contexts for altering lyrics, which is part of a long tradition of amending songs. </p>
<h2>Motivations for altering lyrics</h2>
<p>A song may simply evolve over time, subject to artistic decisions – or even just a whim – on the part of the performer. Paul Simon, for instance, changed the lyrics to his 1973 hit Kodachrome from “<a href="https://youtu.be/8rlDTK6QI-w?si=PTXFNCK9Ya6kZBV-&t=89">everything looks worse in black and white</a>” on the recording to “<a href="https://youtu.be/8rlDTK6QI-w?si=PTXFNCK9Ya6kZBV-&t=89">everything looks better in black and white</a>” in the live performances recorded in New York’s Central Park. Subsequent live performances have seen him change it back.</p>
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<p>More formally, Simon re-arranged and re-recorded a tranche of his songs for the 2018 album <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/paul-simon-in-the-blue-light-review-8474023/">In The Blue Light</a>, with revised lyrics a part of the process. </p>
<p>In a similar vein, The Who have included <a href="https://youtu.be/n_4QrPPPcBw?si=kZGMVl8bQvv4XV3Y&t=130">new lyrics</a> in performances of My Generation, the song where they famously sing “I hope I die before I get old”. Now, accounting for their status as musical elder statesmen, the band have added “still here today” in a new section of the song.</p>
<p>Alternative versions have also long been used to maximise a song’s exposure. Radiohead recorded two versions of their early single Creep, one with the original lyric “so fucking special” and one with the swearing removed – “so very special”. Editing songs into “clean versions” for radio is now a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/11/08/454606994/the-art-of-the-clean-version">recognised aspect</a> of production technique.</p>
<h2>Changing taboos</h2>
<p>The decision about what to edit is also a factor. Shifting times and shifting social mores are key drivers for lyrical changes to avoid causing offence. Edits may derive from the desire to move in step with evolving conventions, eliminating terms that have become or, perhaps more accurately, become more widely recognised as offensive. </p>
<p>The words “faggot” and “slut” have been edited out of The Pogues’ signature hit <a href="https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/pogues-fairytale-new-york-lyrics-19307294">Fairytale of New York</a> by the BBC. Even here, though, there’s a longer history to the revision. The “new” lyrics – “You’re cheap and you’re haggard” – come from a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20231201-fairytale-of-new-york-shane-macgowan-the-pogues-and-kirsty-maccolls-rousing-and-controversial-christmas-classic">1992 performance</a> on Top of the Pops. </p>
<p>Similarly, Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing now no longer features the homophobic slur, although the band themselves had already removed the offending verse from a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/18/direstraits-popandrock">1998 compilation album</a>.</p>
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<p>Opportunities and motivations for altering songs are increasing. As well as technology making the changes sound more seamless, artists re-record their music for other reasons and can take the opportunity of revisiting lyrics.</p>
<p>Taylor Swift is engaged in a <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/taylor-swift-rerecording-albums-masters-fearless-b928211.html">programme of re-recording albums</a> to regain control of her music amidst a dispute over rights in the original master recordings with her former record label. She took the opportunity to change Better than Revenge after the lyric <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/news/taylor-swift-changes-lyrics-better-than-revenge-speak-now-1235663483/">was accused of “slut-shaming”</a> an ex’s new girlfriend - “She’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress” was replaced with “He was a moth to the flame, she was holding the matches.”</p>
<p>The wider context is that taboo words change over time. As linguist John McWhorter <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/04/books/review/nine-nasty-words-john-mcwhorter.html">has noted</a>, this initially involved words that referred to the divine – hence the use of “heck” instead of “hell” and so on – than the bodily. Words that referred to physical processes – “fuck” or “shit”, for instance – were deemed unsayable.</p>
<p>Today, swearing is more, though not wholly, acceptable. An unacceptable category, however, includes words that refer to matters of identity, initially from a derogatory perspective but sometimes even aside from the intent of the speaker or singer, so even if quoting someone. The ‘n’ word is a salient case in point. Identity based slurs are indeed a problem even when they’re deployed in “character”, as was the case for The Pogues and Dire Straits.</p>
<p>Audiences also now have a “right of response” via social media and can critique artists and labels in an organised way much more quickly. Artists are responding to this shift, with both technology and industry structures facilitating that. </p>
<p>But it’s never been the case that a song was set in stone from inception. Tweaking and editing to please audiences, or censors – or the artists themselves – are established parts of the creative and commercial process.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the British Academy.</span></em></p>
Lyrics have changed for a myriad of reasons, including evolving social mores and sometimes simply because the artist wants a change.
Adam Behr, Senior Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215627
2023-10-16T15:38:07Z
2023-10-16T15:38:07Z
As Dark Side of the Moon: Redux shows, when it comes to lyrics, less is usually more
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554004/original/file-20231016-22-iiykzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C11%2C1473%2C1053&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The cover to Dark Side of the Moon: Redux. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roger Waters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s a scene in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbeilmP2wY8">The Simpsons</a> episode, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0779668/">Lisa The Simpson</a> (1998), where Lisa is watching a jazz violinist’s performance and a man is criticising it. “You have to listen to the notes she doesn’t play,” Lisa says in the music’s defence. “I can do that at home,” the man drily replies. </p>
<p>The scene is meant to poke fun at the perceived pomposity of jazz, but it got me thinking about lyrics instead. I research lyrics and songwriting, and I believe that, sometimes, the best thing a lyricist can do is say as little as possible.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Roger Waters introduces Dark Side of the Moon: Redux.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Which brings me to the recently released <a href="https://rogerwaters.com">Dark Side of The Moon: Redux</a> by former Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters. It was <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/pink-floyd-the-dark-side-of-the-moon-at-40-classic-track-by-track-review-1552399/">Waters’ intention</a> for the original Pink Floyd album to cover the themes of greed, conflict, religion, mortality and mental illness. And it’s these themes (or, at least, his desire to hammer them home) that are at the root of his decision to create this “redux” version of the album. </p>
<p>Although redux means “revived”, in the hands of Waters the words become expanded, overstated and overwritten.</p>
<p>Boiling down complex themes and arguments into a three-minute pop song is a test of skill that positions good lyricists (as the award-winning songwriter <a href="https://www.jimmywebb.com/the-songwriter">Jimmy Webb</a> puts it) as “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8zWFEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=%22the+Swiss+watchmakers+of+music+and+literature%22&source=bl&ots=4mJvCpIJOk&sig=ACfU3U39h0QBnM-jf2wzo2cIBrJB2lK_eg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjg9Ne4nPqBAxWLLcAKHZTeAQEQ6AF6BAgDEAM#v=onepage&q=%22the%20Swiss%20watchmakers%20of%20music%20and%20literature%22&f=false">the Swiss watchmakers of music and literature</a>”.</p>
<p>Morrissey, the lead singer of The Smiths, achieved this effect in the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_3oFRcTNHo">Still Ill</a> (1984). As author Will Self noted in his book <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Feeding_Frenzy/V1YFHVI0KHYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=morrissey&pg=PT298&printsec=frontcover">Feeding Frenzy</a> (2002), Morrissey “is responsible – among other things – for encapsulating 200 years of philosophical speculation in a single line: ‘Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body, I dunno.’”</p>
<p>But the subtlety, nuance and art of suggestion that comes with brevity in lyrics seems to have escaped Waters on Dark Side of The Moon: Redux.</p>
<h2>Revisiting Dark Side of the Moon</h2>
<p>When asked in a <a href="https://www.radiox.co.uk/artists/pink-floyd/roger-waters-claims-hes-re-recorded-dark-side-of-the-moon/">recent interview</a> why he’d decided to remake the record, Waters said: “Because not enough people recognised what it’s about, what it was I was saying then.” But it’s this presumed need to clarify and explain that’s the major shortcoming of the Redux – it’s removed all subtlety. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUVmeYgo1Iw">Money</a> (theme: greed), he bolsters the “capitalism is evil” message of the original track by adding in lines like: “The devil pats the briefcase that holds the Faustian pact.” </p>
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<p>In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbfH8sSEW48">On the Run</a> (theme: conflict and religion), Waters says that there are: “Hordes and hordes / Too many to count / Poised to attack.” </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUEUqGbW7VQ">Brain Damage</a> (theme: mental illness), he takes away all ambiguity with his introduction: “Why don’t we re-record Dark Side of the Moon? He’s gone mad” – before launching straight into the opening line: “The lunatic is on the grass.”</p>
<p>This positions himself as said “lunatic”, instead of – as the original does – allowing the listener to wonder who the subject is (former Pink Floyd bandmate Syd Barrett? The media? Humanity in general?)</p>
<h2>The problem with overwriting</h2>
<p>It’s perhaps on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMWO8s6yGOA">The Great Gig In The Sky</a> (theme: mortality) where Waters is most successful in removing the nuance and subtlety of the original. He chooses to replace the largely wordless original track with a monologue about a friend who died of cancer.</p>
<p>On the original track, Abbey Road Studios doorman Gerry O’Driscoll <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PMnJ_Luk_o">utters the lines</a>: “And I am not frightened of dying, any time will do, I don’t mind / Why should I be frightened of dying? / There’s no reason for it, you’ve gotta go sometime.” This is followed by a three-and-a-half minute, searing, emotion-packed but lyric-less vocal from Clare Torry that manages, in the words of Vulture journalist Craig Jenkins, to “<a href="https://www.vulture.com/2020/01/clare-torry-pink-floyd-dark-side-of-the-moon.html">express the full range of human emotion without relying on words</a>”.</p>
<p>And those few words are all the song needs. They succeed in putting the theme of mortality into the listener’s mind, then the music allows them time to mull it over and ruminate over their own place in the world. In his book <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/301122/the-world-in-six-songs-by-daniel-j-levitin/#:%7E:text=About%20The%20World%20in%20Six%20Songs,-The%20author%20of&text=and%20throughout%20history.-,Dr.,culture%20and%20society%20to%20evolve.">The World in Six Songs</a> (2008), psychologist Daniel Levitin says that the compression of meaning in song lyrics invites us to interpret, to be participants in the unfolding of the story. </p>
<p>But in force-feeding the listener a pathos-soaked story on Redux’s The Great Gig in The Sky, Waters isn’t allowing us to participate, to figure out our own thoughts, to feel. Waters is explicitly telling us the meaning, and as a result, he risks losing our engagement altogether.</p>
<p>In Redux, Waters goes from the extreme of understatement in his earlier work to the extreme of overstatement and overwriting. Redux has its moments – not least in how Waters’ weathered, character-filled voice inhabits and adds weight to his original lyrics – but sometimes, less really is more.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215627/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenn Fosbraey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In Redux, Waters goes from the extreme of understatement in his earlier work to the extreme of overstatement and overwriting
Glenn Fosbraey, Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Winchester
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204167
2023-08-14T14:56:29Z
2023-08-14T14:56:29Z
The science of why you can remember song lyrics from years ago
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534865/original/file-20230629-22632-ez2qiu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=42%2C71%2C9447%2C6245&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The science behind rhyme, rhythm and repetition.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-african-american-woman-singing-song-2137952063">Krakenimages.com/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Why is it that many people can’t remember where they put their car keys most mornings, but can sing along to every lyric of a song they haven’t heard in years when it comes on the radio? Do song lyrics live in some sort of privileged place in our memories?</p>
<p>Music has a long history of being used as a mnemonic device, that is, to aid the memory of words and information. Before the advent of written language, music was used to <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1995-97902-000">orally transmit stories and information</a>. We see many such examples even today, in how we teach children the alphabet, numbers, or – in my own case – the names of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h44uaNXEQI">50 states</a> of the US. Indeed, I’d challenge even any adult reader to try and recall the letters of the alphabet without hearing the familiar tune or its rhythm in your mind.</p>
<p>There are several reasons why music and words seem to become intricately linked in memory. Firstly, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.20.6.1471">features of music</a> often serve as a predictable “scaffold” for helping us to remember associated lyrics. </p>
<p>For instance, the rhythm and beat of the music give clues as to how long the next word in a sequence will be. This helps to limit the possible word choices to be recalled, for instance, by signalling that a three-syllable word fits with a particular rhythm within the song. </p>
<p>A song’s melody can also help to segment a text into meaningful chunks. This allows us to essentially remember longer segments of information than if we had to memorise every single word individually. Songs also often make use of literary devices like rhyme and alliteration, which <a href="https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197096">further facilitate memorisation</a>. </p>
<h2>Sing it</h2>
<p>When we have sung or heard a song many times before, this song may become accessible via our implicit (non-conscious) memory. Singing the lyrics to a very well-known song is a form of <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/procedural-memory.html">procedural</a> memory. That is, it is a highly automatised process like riding a bike: it’s something we are able to do without thinking much about it. </p>
<p>One of the reasons music is so deeply ingrained in memory in this way is because we tend to hear the same songs many, many times <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-were-obsessed-with-music-from-our-youth-154864">throughout our lifetimes</a> (more so, than say, reading a favourite book or watching a favourite film). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman with pink hair singing into music device with headphones on." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534867/original/file-20230629-25452-718jfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534867/original/file-20230629-25452-718jfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534867/original/file-20230629-25452-718jfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534867/original/file-20230629-25452-718jfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534867/original/file-20230629-25452-718jfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534867/original/file-20230629-25452-718jfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534867/original/file-20230629-25452-718jfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘I just can’t get you out of my head’: we tend to remember songs and lyrics quite easily.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-active-stylsh-teenage-girl-pinkish-1765476086">Anatoliy Karlyuk/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Music is also <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-sad-songs-say-so-much-to-some-people-but-not-others-65365">fundamentally emotional</a>. Indeed, research has shown that one of the main reasons people engage with music is because of the diversity of emotions it conveys and evokes. </p>
<p>A wide range of research has found that <a href="https://theconversation.com/making-a-mark-on-the-brain-how-emotion-colours-memories-15872">emotional stimuli are remembered better than non-emotional ones</a>. The task of trying to remember the ABCs or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXtpjBzPMeY">the colours of the rainbow?</a> is inherently more motivating when set to a catchy tune – and we can remember this material better later on when we make an emotional connection.</p>
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<h2>Music and lyrics</h2>
<p>It should be noted that not all previous research has found that music facilitates memory for associated lyrics. For instance, upon the first encounter with a new song, memorising both the melody and associated lyrics is <a href="https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03198404">harder than memorising just the lyrics</a>. This makes sense, given the multiple tasks involved. </p>
<p>However, after getting over this initial hurdle and being exposed to a song several times, more beneficial effects seem to kick in. Once a melody is familiar, the associated lyrics are generally <a href="https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.106.3.927-957">easier to remember</a> than if you tried to memorise these lyrics without a tune behind them. </p>
<p>Research in this area is also being applied to assist people with various neurodegenerative disorders. For instance, music seems to help those with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2012.29.5.521">Alzheimer’s disease</a> and <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00395/full">multiple sclerosis</a> to remember verbal information. </p>
<p>So, the next time you put your car keys in a new spot, try creating a catchy song to remind you of their location the next day – and, in theory, you shouldn’t forget where you’ve put them so easily.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelly Jakubowski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Music creates powerful memories and emotional connections in our brains.
Kelly Jakubowski, Associate Professor in Music Psychology, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204072
2023-05-09T15:30:43Z
2023-05-09T15:30:43Z
How to win Eurovision: the secret code of the contest’s winning lyrics
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521608/original/file-20230418-20-ol287p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4446%2C2888&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Eurovision Song Contest stage. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/kyiv-ukraine-february-08-2020-scene-1643769724">Review News/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Eurovision Song Contest is one of the few remaining examples of event TV – and UK audiences lap it up. With <a href="https://eurovision.tv/story/eurovision-2022-161-million-viewers#:%7E:text=Ratings%20Rise&text=6.8%20million%20viewers%20on%20average,%2C%20up%2020%25%20on%202021.">8.9 million viewers</a> in 2022, Britain formed the largest audience of all Eurovision markets. And this time around, there’s even a bit of hope for those cheering on the home talent.</p>
<p>Although it’s been 26 years since the UK’s last victory, courtesy of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMYOTEapVpg">Katrina and The Waves in 1997</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU5cJfaX3DI">Sam Ryder’s Space Man</a> marked a return to the runners-up podium last year. The UK has now chalked up a <a href="https://eurovision.tv/story/history-united-kingdom-eurovision-song-contest">record 16</a> second place finishes. But what would it take to go one better and win the whole thing?</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Sam Ryder performing Spaceman at the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the late 1940s, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13698230701400296?casa_token=lEt-KarYmnAAAAAA%3APefyqU79sEJ4gsNfH8eeiGkk8NOpyBbGhSG3V9C0hcljpDf50lWmSmEuM3wlOZo7yKcor-jlLWU">philosopher Theodor Adorno</a> suggested that popular music was formulaic. Each song, he argued, was the same length, had the same structure and expressed the same lyrical sentiments.</p>
<p>As curmudgeonly as this might sound (and keeping in mind that he died in 1969, before the likes of Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa really tore up the pop rule book), his point still rings true. And it’s certainly applicable when it comes to successful Eurovision entries.</p>
<p>For a start, Eurovision songs really are the same length, given the rule that makes <a href="https://eurovision.tv/about/rules">the maximum duration three minutes</a>. But there are also notable thematic and structural similarities between songs that fare well in the contest.</p>
<p>Of the last 20 winning songs, 17 have been sung in English, 17 are about relationships, 13 have used the word “love”, 18 have at least one direct address (“I” to “you”) and all 20 have repeated choruses. And it’s this last element that’s the non-negotiable.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Maneskin stand on stage in leather trousers holding their musical instruments aloft." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521620/original/file-20230418-14-a73s39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521620/original/file-20230418-14-a73s39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521620/original/file-20230418-14-a73s39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521620/original/file-20230418-14-a73s39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521620/original/file-20230418-14-a73s39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521620/original/file-20230418-14-a73s39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521620/original/file-20230418-14-a73s39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eurovision 2021 winners, Maneskin of Italy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/ahoy-rotterdam-netherlands-may-22th-2021-1982762177">Ben Houdijk/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>If, as sociologist Brian Longhurst says, <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Popular_Music_and_Society/PxnOFDDMZOUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%27The+most+successful,+best+music+is+identified+with+the+most+often+repeated.%27+longhurst&pg=PA7&printsec=frontcover">“the most successful, best music is identified with the most often repeated”</a>, this counts double when it comes to Eurovision. Viewers of the live final only get the one listen and therefore need to bond with a song immediately if they’re to remember it when it comes to the voting.</p>
<p>Psychologist Daniel Levitin says that two of the main elements to making a song memorable are <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Writing_Song_Lyrics/5YpJEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">rhyme and cliches</a>. Although the <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Writing_Song_Lyrics/5YpJEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=fosbraey+cliche&pg=PA89&printsec=frontcover">definition of cliche is ultimately subjective</a> (a cliche to me, for example, may be new and exciting to my 12-year-old), research <a href="https://researchrepository.rmit.edu.au/esploro/outputs/conferenceProceeding/In-your-eyes-identifying-cliches-in-song-lyrics/9921861854601341">from 2012</a> and <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Writing_Better_Lyrics/3B9jDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=pat+pattison+writing&printsec=frontcover">2009</a> has done a decent job in outlining the most-used words and phrases in lyrics.</p>
<p>To win Eurovision, then: sing in first-person, direct English about a relationship, using loads of rhymes and cliches and make sure you repeat the chorus. </p>
<h2>Rating Mae Muller’s Eurovision chances</h2>
<p>What chance, then, of Mae Muller’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRaVGKk4k6k">I Wrote a Song</a> winning in Liverpool this year?</p>
<p>With the song currently on 3.6 stars based on 12,000 ratings on the <a href="https://eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/2023/united-kingdom">Eurovision World website</a> and a somewhat sniffy <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/mar/09/mae-muller-i-wrote-a-song-review-uk-eurovision-entry-alexis-petridis">three-star review</a> in the Guardian, early indicators aren’t great. But when compared with previous champs, things become a little rosier.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rRaVGKk4k6k?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Mae Muller’s 2023 Eurovision entry, I Wrote a Song.</span></figcaption>
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<p>I Wrote a Song is an “I” to “you” song. It’s about a relationship. It’s got a catchy chorus. It’s extremely repetitive both lyrically – with only 29% unique words out of its 308 total (the average from the last 20 winners is 36%) – and musically, with a looped, four-chord structure throughout.</p>
<p>I Wrote a Song sits at about an eight or a nine on the cliche-ometer, relying as it does on common phrases like “you did me wrong”, “cried at home” and “spent the night alone”. And it uses a succession of basic, “<a href="https://dial.uclouvain.be/pr/boreal/object/boreal%3A249760/datastream/PDF_01/view">perfect” rhymes</a>, such as Benz/friends, song/wrong, home/alone.</p>
<p>It’s also accessible to a mass audience, with its subjects <a href="https://time.com/5287962/best-breakup-songs/">ending a relationship</a>, feeling down about it and eventually finding the courage to move on, among the most common shared human experiences. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/mar/09/eurovision-2023-uk-entry-announced-as-mae-muller">Muller has said</a>: “I wrote the song … when I was going through a hard time and wanted to feel empowered about relationships.”</p>
<p>Ultimately, Muller’s performance on the night will have a big role in determining how the UK fares. </p>
<p>If a singer is suitably captivating and the song is easy enough to learn, there is an opportunity to get the audience singing along on the night. <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Singing_Out/7D4LEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">This interaction leads to more of a connection</a>, making the song more memorable, which may eventually translate into points.</p>
<p>Muller succeeded in getting the crowd singing along to the chorus at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EMepsNxZUU">LIVE @ Eurovision in Concert in Amsterdam</a> on April 15 (albeit with some coaxing). If she manages to do that in Liverpool, there may yet be a UK winner in the 21st century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204072/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenn Fosbraey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The UK has now chalked up a record 16 second place finishes. But what would it take to go one better and win the whole thing?
Glenn Fosbraey, Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Winchester
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/173287
2021-12-07T13:46:15Z
2021-12-07T13:46:15Z
Break up songs owe a lot to the love lorn lyrics of the Romantics
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436114/original/file-20211207-159504-2ut82w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1599%2C900&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lord Byron was the original breakup artist.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/use-this-image/?email=naomi.joseph%40theconversation.com&form=cc&mkey=mw00989">National Portrait Gallery, London</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Taylor Swift’s recently re-recorded and released 2012 album <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/taylor-swift-red-taylors-version/">Red</a> is a discombobulating affair for those interested in the singer’s relationship status. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1D1AgDfreg&ab_channel=TaylorSwiftVEVO">Treacherous</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNoKguSdy4Y&ab_channel=TaylorSwiftVEVO">I Knew You Were Trouble</a> build into the earworm magnum opus <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4iX5D9Z64&ab_channel=TaylorSwiftVEVO">We are Never Ever Getting Back Together</a>. But this is pop, not tragedy, and Swift’s “never ever” starts to take on a “never-say-never” tinge. The Last Chance Saloon has revolving doors and the next track is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhJ-S9Nrh7Q&ab_channel=TaylorSwiftVEVO">Stay, Stay, Stay</a>.</p>
<p>Also no stranger to breakup songs, Adele’s latest album, <a href="https://theconversation.com/adele-30-the-psychology-of-why-sad-songs-make-us-feel-good-170322">30</a>, takes relationship disintegration to the next level. Like Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/8qmqpg/rumours-fleetwood-macs-break-up-magnum-opus-turns-40">Rumours</a>, this is a full breakup album, charting the singer’s lockdown divorce, her guilt at the effect of this on her son, and the prospect of picking up the wine-stained pieces. It is raw, straight-through-your-bullet-proof-vest stuff. Songs like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpzmn4ZoB5k&ab_channel=AdeleVEVO">To Be Loved</a> make you feel every hangover, every ugly cry, every vocal cord nodule to come. It’s the breakup song to break your speakers. </p>
<p>Breakup songs express big, universal feelings. 1. Please don’t go 2. You’ve gone and the world is broken 3. You’ve gone, thank God, and we are never ever ever…</p>
<p>We can all get on board, which is why there are so many successful breakup songs with equally or more successful cover versions. Sinead O’Connor, with unscripted tears rolling down her cheeks, turned a song from a Prince side project (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpGA0azFdCs&ab_channel=Prince">Prince and the Revolutions</a>) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-EF60neguk&ab_channel=Sin%C3%A9adO%27Connor">Nothing Compares 2 U</a> into a breakup classic. Jacques Brel’s <em>Ne Me Quitte Pas</em> (Don’t Leave Me) has been reworked by, among many others, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rJ_sgv645o&ab_channel=NinaSimone">Nina Simone</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwGUqx6vngY&ab_channel=kidm2m">Shirley Bassey</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxmYDWVK50g&ab_channel=edizeba">Sting</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fewRSNwR5BM&ab_channel=LeandroL%C3%B3pez">Barbra Streisand</a>. </p>
<p>Brel is a modern representative of the French <em>chanson</em> tradition, a poetic style of songwriting that can trace its origins back to the medieval period. He bridged the gap, along with artists such as <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/5UWyW1PcEM8coxeqg3RIHr?si=eADw5qIPQgiK1kzR903FnA">George Brassens</a> and <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/6NB0vY1HQgkUpCBsm5eAvo?si=5hcrFYvNTGaEo8QkOemZZw">Léo Ferré</a>, between popular music and serious literature. They were latter-day Romantics, growing up on the writers Lamartine, Vigny and Victor Hugo. </p>
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<h2>Mourning the loss of childish innocence</h2>
<p>The Romantic poets defined, in many ways, the cultural concerns of the 19th century, and remain vitally influential to this day. They were preoccupied by lost states of innocence and the darkness we risk in trying to recover paradise. Breakup pop, whether it knows it or not, is marked by this Romantic inheritance. The serial breaker-upper is an idealist, forever searching for a heaven on Earth that is either lost or withheld. </p>
<p>In I Drink Wine, Adele recalls that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When I was a child, every single thing could blow my mind<br>
Soaking it all up for fun, but now I only soak up wine </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Being a grownup is a permanent state of mourning for the enchanted consciousness of childhood. Repetition of the experience wears away what William Wordsworth, in his <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45536/ode-intimations-of-immortality-from-recollections-of-early-childhood">Immortality Ode</a>, calls the “visionary gleam”. As a child, his world had been “apparelled in celestial light”, but no longer.</p>
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<p>Wordsworth sought to compensate for the lost “gleam” through his lifelong enthusiasm for the natural world. Nature can still save us, if we accept the shadows that build with age: “To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears”. But not everyone is in a position to make such sensible commitments. The serial monogamist seeks a lost paradise pathologically, in a series of echoes, in diminishing returns. Other Romantics took the path of chemical obliteration – Coleridge’s opium, Adele’s cases of rosé. </p>
<h2>Byron the breakup artist</h2>
<p>The titan of Romantic disappointment (and wine abuse) was Lord Byron, another great breakup artist. </p>
<p>When Byron departed England for the final time in 1816, he left behind a disastrous marriage (that lasted about as long as Adele’s), a young daughter he would never see again, and his half-sister Augusta, with whom he had an intense, and probably incestuous, relationship. His always-fragile emotional world was shattered, and he wrote about his feelings in some of the most powerful, but also complex, <a href="https://englishhistory.net/byron/poems/fare-thee-well/">breakup lyrics</a> in the English language. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Love may sink by slow decay,<br>
But by sudden wrench, believe not,<br>
Hearts can thus be torn away </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Every “We will never ever..” has a “Stay, Stay, Stay” B-side because the wrench is never clean when sudden. </p>
<p>Byron’s breakup lyrics are not always what they seem. His poems to Lady Byron are canny public relations exercises with a nasty side. </p>
<p>Like Taylor Swift and Adele he was a major celebrity who knew the world was fascinated by his personal life. By taking control of the narrative in the public sphere, he could limit the damage to his reputation and deflect from his undoubted culpability in the affair. In the end, he realised that acceptance was the best policy. Heaven is for the young and should not bear repetition: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Could I remount the river of my years<br>
To the first fountain of our smiles and tears<br>
I would not trace again its stream of hours<br>
Between its outworn banks of withered flowers.<br>
But bid it flow as now – until it glides<br>
Into the number of the nameless tides. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Even if he could go back to the start he wouldn’t. The flowers only bloom once, so attend to the part of the journey you still have left. If Adele ever does 35, perhaps it will be a more Zen affair.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173287/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Howe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
From Jaques Brel to Adele, those who sing of lost love owe a lot to the lyrics of the Romantics.
Anthony Howe, Reader in English Literature, Birmingham City University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/173178
2021-12-03T15:57:15Z
2021-12-03T15:57:15Z
Letters from Sondheim: how I got to know the great composer
<p>In 2014, I went out on a limb and sent eight-time Tony award-winning composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim a letter. I, like many, was (and still am) mesmerised by the 1971 musical <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXpAFaY4X58&ab_channel=NationalTheatre">Follies</a>.</p>
<p>Having been a dancer in Las Vegas for many years, the story of a troupe of showgirls and stage-door Johnnies (men who are infatuated with the dancers) returning to a soon to be demolished theatre, haunted by their younger selves, hit a frighteningly personal chord. The bittersweet nostalgia I felt as songs such as “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBZCKVMT2ow&ab_channel=NewBroadwayCastof%22Follies%22%2CRonRaines%2CChristianDelcroix%2CNick...-Topic">Broadway Baby</a>”, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TInk1BcbAMQ&ab_channel=NationalTheatre">I’m Still Here</a>”, and “Losing My Mind” washed over me, was unshakable. </p>
<p>And so, as part of my studies at New York University, I decided to explore how memory and nostalgia became the lifeblood and pulse of Follies. I wanted to know why, by the end of the performance, I felt rinsed of the present day and cast back into the rapture of life as a showgirl and the agony of ageing. My advisor suggested: “He lives in the same city as you, why not look him up?”</p>
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<h2>A surprising correspondence</h2>
<p>I set off on a campaign to seek out Sondheim’s contact information and sent him a hand-written letter requesting an interview. Three weeks later, much to my disbelief, a small ivory coloured envelope arrived in my rusted mailbox. He suggested I send him my questions and he would get back to me when he could. For the next four months, we exchanged letters. </p>
<p>In the first letter, I asked him about the notion of nostalgia in the show. He responded:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t think the word ‘nostalgia’ ever occurred to us. We merely were telling the story of four characters with regrets they couldn’t cope with.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the second letter, curious about the disheartened reunion of the two lead couples in the musical, I asked: “You were in your early 40s when you wrote Follies – did you know a lot about regret at that time?” To which he replied: “As for knowing a lot about regret, we were strictly average. Regret starts when you’re about two years old.”</p>
<p>Perhaps, in Follies, and much of Sondheim’s work, it is his ability to tap into the feelings of regret, heartache or longing that we all hold. By and large, the sometimes discordant, often cynical, resolutely beautifully, and achingly affected tone of his massive oeuvre of work resonates in a deeply personal manner. </p>
<p>The powerful expanse of his works is saturated with these ripples of anguish, shame, remorse and discomfort. But also laughter, love, joy and a desire to carry on despite all of our imperfections and flaws. This tangle of emotions, anxieties, fears and – for me – nostalgia, is wrapped up in so many of his lyrics, sung by characters who press on, who endure, who sit in the discomfort and mess of life.</p>
<p>One need only think of the survival anthem I’m Still Here sung by former showgirl Carlotta:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Good times and bum times, I’ve seen ‘em all<br>
And, my dear, I’m still here<br>
Plush velvet sometimes<br>
Sometimes just pretzels and beer, but I’m here</p>
<p>I’ve run the gamut, A to Z<br>
Three cheers and dammit,<br>
C'est la vie<br>
I got through all of last year, and I’m here<br>
Lord knows, at least I was there, and I’m here<br>
Look who’s here, I’m still here</p>
</blockquote>
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<p>As I re-read these lyrics, I think what makes Sondheim’s music so lasting is his unusual capacity to delve so deeply into the work and feeling of “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGstwWx1bZI&ab_channel=StephenSondheim-Topic">Being Alive</a>” (another one of his classic songs). Even more mysteriously, he can take you there, deep “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrDU8DcT9lU&ab_channel=DisneyMusicVEVO">Into the Woods</a>”, without you ever noticing the journey – that is, until you feel it welling up, irresistibly, from within. In this way, it’s quite possible you may not have even heard of Stephen Sondheim, but in all likelihood, you have heard him. He’s been playing in the background of our lives for nearly three-quarters of a century.</p>
<p>Sondheim and I corresponded back and forth over several more letters. I asked him if any of the characters in Follies have a sense of closure by the end of the musical, to which he replied: “As for the end of the show, the word 'closure’ may be the most overused of the last 20 years.” I can’t agree more.</p>
<p>After I heard the news of his death on November 26 I pulled out the final letter he sent to me – he would have been 84 when he wrote it. He concluded our conversation, which had ranged from probing the precarious and unfair nature of life to the small details of writing hit Broadway musicals by humbly saying: “But that’s merely my opinion. Yours truly, Stephen Sondheim.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173178/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phoebe Rumsey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Over numerous letters, Dr Phoebe Rumsey found a great man who understood the pain and joy of “Being Alive”.
Phoebe Rumsey, Senior Lecturer Musical Theatre, University of Portsmouth
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/170322
2021-11-17T10:59:36Z
2021-11-17T10:59:36Z
Adele 30: the psychology of why sad songs make us feel good
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427805/original/file-20211021-25-oveyx4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C12%2C2878%2C1318&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3ASj1L6_sY&ab_channel=AdeleVEVO">Adele/Youtube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Adele’s new album, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_(Adele_album)">30</a>, is finally available. Last month, hundreds of millions of us streamed its first single, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3ASj1L6_sY">Easy On Me</a>. This song evokes feelings not easily put into words. But we can probably agree it is a sad song.</p>
<p>It isn’t obvious that we should like sad music. Sadness is usually a feeling <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0110490">we try to avoid</a>. An alien might expect us to find such music depressing and dislikable.</p>
<p>Yet, sad music pulls us in and lifts us up. So, why does hearing sad music feel so good?</p>
<hr>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/adele-30-the-psychology-of-why-sad-songs-make-us-feel-good-170322&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/audio-narrated-99682">here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>The biology of sad music</h2>
<p>Let’s start with biological theories. When we experience real-life loss, or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04504.x">empathise with another’s pain</a>, hormones such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1029864911401171">prolactin</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2017.11.016">oxytocin</a> are released within us. These help us cope with loss and pain. They do so by making us feel calmed, consoled, and supported.</p>
<p>Feeling Adele’s pain, or recalling our own, may cause such <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2017.11.016">chemical changes within us</a>. Clicking on Adele’s song may be like clicking on our own metaphorical morphine drip. </p>
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<p>The jury is still out on this theory. One study <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1029864919890900">found no evidence</a> that sad music increases prolactin levels. Yet, other studies have hinted at <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-00751-001">a role for prolactin</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14660">oxytocin</a> in making sad music feel good.</p>
<h2>The psychology of sad music</h2>
<p>A key reason we enjoy sad songs is because they profoundly “move” us. This experience is sometimes <a href="https://theconversation.com/goosebumps-tears-and-tenderness-what-it-means-to-be-moved-72545">called <em>kama muta</em></a>, a Sanskrit term meaning “moved by love”. Feeling moved <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000271">can involve</a> chills, goosebumps, a flood of emotions (including <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00311/full">romantic ones</a>), a warmth in our chest, and elation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/goosebumps-tears-and-tenderness-what-it-means-to-be-moved-72545">Goosebumps, tears and tenderness: what it means to be moved</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But why do we feel moved? The American writer James Baldwin got at this when he reflected: “The things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” Similarly, feeling moved can come from us <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000271">suddenly feeling closer to other people</a>.</p>
<p>This may explain why the people most likely to feel moved by sad music are those <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00439/full">high in empathy</a>. Indeed, when we have listened to 30 we may turn to reaction videos to see how others feel. This lets us share an emotional experience with others. A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000271">sense of communal sharing</a> boosts our feeling of being moved and triggers feelings of comfort and belonging. </p>
<p>A related suggestion is that Adele’s sad music can be a friend to us. It can act as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2017.11.016">a social surrogate</a>. Sad music can be experienced as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735613517410">an imaginary friend</a> who provides support and empathy after loss. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Adele singing while sitting on a chair." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427806/original/file-20211021-20-1funfq7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427806/original/file-20211021-20-1funfq7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427806/original/file-20211021-20-1funfq7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427806/original/file-20211021-20-1funfq7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427806/original/file-20211021-20-1funfq7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427806/original/file-20211021-20-1funfq7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427806/original/file-20211021-20-1funfq7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sad songs like Easy on Me can make us feel moved through a shared emotional experience.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3ASj1L6_sY&ab_channel=AdeleVEVO">Adele/Youtube</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Feeling moved can also result from <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0128451">memories being triggered</a> of important moments of our lives. Adele’s songs are powerfully nostalgic. It may be nostalgia, rather than sadness, that we enjoy. </p>
<p>Indeed, when people listen to sad music, <a href="https://internal-journal.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00404/full">only around 25%</a> say they actually feel sad. The remainder experience other, often related emotions, most commonly nostalgia. This feeling of <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01186/full">nostalgia can help increase</a> our sense of social connectedness, mitigate feelings of meaningless, and reduce anxiety.</p>
<p>A completely different type of psychological theory is that Adele’s songs are emotional gyms. They give us a safe, controlled space in which we can explore simulated sadness. They are the emotional equivalent of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhrNgXJ__n8">Neo sparring with Morpheus</a> in the Matrix movie.</p>
<p>Simulated sadness lets us experiment with and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6924.2008.00073.x">learn from this emotion</a>. We can enhance our empathy, learn to better see things from other people’s perspectives, and try out various responses to sadness. This may make us better prepared for when real loss strikes. Such learning experiences may have evolved to be pleasurable to encourage their use.</p>
<h2>Making sense of sadness</h2>
<p>Alternatively, it could be that Adele’s songs aren’t pleasurable because they are sad or nostalgic. They may be pleasurable simply because they are beautiful. Sadness might just happen to coincide with beauty. Indeed, seeing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000271">acts of moral virtue or beauty</a> have been suggested to provoke feelings of elevation and can touch, move and inspire us.</p>
<p>We can also think <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2017.11.016">at the cultural level</a>. Here we can view the pleasure Adele’s songs gives us in terms of the meaning she helps us make. Adele takes hard life experiences and helps makes sense of them. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Adele singing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427802/original/file-20211021-13-9sneq3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427802/original/file-20211021-13-9sneq3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427802/original/file-20211021-13-9sneq3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427802/original/file-20211021-13-9sneq3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427802/original/file-20211021-13-9sneq3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427802/original/file-20211021-13-9sneq3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427802/original/file-20211021-13-9sneq3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=346&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adele’s music can look back at hard life experiences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3ASj1L6_sY&ab_channel=AdeleVEVO">Adele/Youtube</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is what much <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2017.11.016">tragic art does</a>. It takes the pain and the suffering and the sadness of the world and gives it meaning. As the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once put it, someone who has a why to live can bear almost any how.</p>
<p>Ultimately, Adele’s songs will mean something different to each of us. We listen to sad music when we want <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0157444#pone.0157444.s002">to reflect, belong, or relax</a>. We listen to <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0157444#pone.0157444.s002">experience beauty, receive comfort or reminisce</a>. </p>
<p>But to all of us Adele’s songs say: you are not alone in your pain. They let us feel her pain, share our suffering, and connect with others past and present. And in the sharedness of our humanity is beauty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170322/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon McCarthy-Jones receives funding from the Irish Research Council. He also likes Adele's music.</span></em></p>
It may seem odd that we get pleasure from sad songs.
Simon McCarthy-Jones, Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology, Trinity College Dublin
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/100168
2018-08-02T21:01:01Z
2018-08-02T21:01:01Z
Neil Sedaka’s 1975 song revived for anti-immigrant era
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230441/original/file-20180802-136673-507p0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A top hit in 1975, Neil Sedaka's song “The Immigrant,” proves its continuing relevance, with the rise in xenophobia in the United States. Here people on an Atlantic Liner arrive at what is probably Ellis Island, the gateway for over 12 million immigrants to the U.S. from 1892 to 1954</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3a13598/">Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Neil Sedaka is an American singer-songwriter who has written dozens of hit songs. Many of them he sang himself. Others are better known in cover versions by artists ranging from Elvis Presley to Ariana Grande. </p>
<p>Sedaka’s wholesome image and infectious cheerfulness are easy to slight and have too often belied an extraordinary career. His song “The Immigrant” was a Top 30 hit when he released it in 1975, but today it seems even more relevant, as debates rage in the United States over <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-disgrace-of-detaining-asylum-seekers-and-other-migrants-99673">immigration</a>, repatriation and <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21975">racism</a>. </p>
<p>Recent events along the U.S.-Mexican border have revealed how easy it still is for restrictionists and xenophobes to gain the upper hand, and to enact hard-line policies that inflict misery on people drawn to the U.S. in hopes of a better life. Sedaka dedicated “The Immigrant” to John Lennon, who at the time was mired in a bitter dispute with U.S. authorities over his application for permanent residence in America. “I thought the song was beautiful,” Lennon told Sedaka after watching him perform it on TV. “Yoko and I were watching and we loved it.” </p>
<h2>A musical talent at eight-years-old</h2>
<p>Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1939, Sedaka was only eight-years-old when he began to attend the Juilliard School of Music on a piano scholarship. By the time he was thirteen, though, his interests had shifted decisively from classical to popular music, and after teaming up with his neighbour, the 16-year-old lyricist Howie Greenfield, they found work in the fabled Brill Building on Broadway, where professional hit-makers wrote rock ‘n’ roll songs for an exploding teenage market.</p>
<p>Sedaka composed songs for some of the great Black female singers of the late 1950s, including LaVern Baker (“I Waited Too Long”) and Dinah Washington (“Never Again”), but he scored his biggest success with Connie Francis, for whom he and Greenfield penned the trivial “Stupid Cupid.” Their range and growth as a songwriting team, however, was evident by 1960, when they wrote the lush ballad “Where the Boys Are,” which Francis recorded for the “spring break” movie of the same title, and which many artists have since covered.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230422/original/file-20180802-136661-imljgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230422/original/file-20180802-136661-imljgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230422/original/file-20180802-136661-imljgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230422/original/file-20180802-136661-imljgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230422/original/file-20180802-136661-imljgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230422/original/file-20180802-136661-imljgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230422/original/file-20180802-136661-imljgy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">(Left to right) Nigel Olsson, May Pang, John Lennon, Jozy, Neil Sedaka.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twitter/@NeilSedaka</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sedaka’s career as a singer took off during these same years. Beginning in 1959, he produced a string of bubbly, doo-bee-doo-wappy hits such as “Oh! Carol,” “Calendar Girl,” and “Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen,” before achieving his first number one record with “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.” During these years, Sedaka sold 25 million records, second only to Elvis, and unlike Elvis, he wrote or co-wrote his own songs.</p>
<p>And then the wheels came off. The Beatles arrived, revolutionizing the music scene in America as they had already done in Britain, and immediately casting successful solo acts like Sedaka (as well as Paul Anka, Ricky Nelson, Frankie Avalon, Fabian, Elvis and others) into cultural obscurity. </p>
<p>Sedaka continued to write and record songs, but his most notable airplay during these years came when other people sang his music, including The Monkees, The Fifth Dimension, Tom Jones and Tony Christie (“Is This The Way To Amarillo”).</p>
<p>By 1971, Sedaka had abandoned hope of making his comeback in the United States and moved his family to England, where he played rough working men’s clubs in the north, and tried hard to get his voice back on the radio. His luck turned when he recorded an album with the future members of 10cc (best known for their number one hit, “I’m Not In Love”), and met Elton John, who signed him to his Rocket Record Company, and re-launched him in America.</p>
<h2>‘Sedaka’s Back’</h2>
<p>The comeback attempt worked, and Sedaka stormed again to the pinnacles of popular success with his album <em>Sedaka’s Back</em> and singles like “That’s When the Music Takes Me,” “Laughter in the Rain” (his first number one since “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do”), “Bad Blood” (another number one, with Elton John on backing vocals), “Solitaire” (covered by The Carpenters, Jann Arden, Sheryl Crow, Clay Aiken and many others), and “Love Will Keep Us Together” (the best-selling single of 1975, not for Sedaka, but for The Captain and Tennille).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qNfY62BbInw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A live-concert recording of Neil Sedaka singing ‘The Immigrant.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“The Immigrant” belongs to this period. Strikingly different from the love songs and ballads that make up the bulk of Sedaka’s output, it was among the finest products of his new songwriting partnership with the lyricist Phil Cody, and it took Sedaka as close as he ever came to political controversy.</p>
<p>The issue of immigration was important to Sedaka and Cody. Sedaka’s parents both came from Jewish families who relocated to New York. His mother’s origins were Russian-Polish. His father’s were Turkish. </p>
<p>Cody’s father, meanwhile, emigrated from Sicily to New York in 1930 with dreams of becoming an opera singer, but he spent his career as a carpenter. Cody said he wrote the lyric for “The Immigrant” with his dad in mind, but it also clearly arises from painful personal experience. “I spent a lifetime being teased about being a little dark Italian kid in a white Protestant neighbourhood,” he remarked recently.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A live-concert recording of The Captain and Tennille singing Neil Sedaka’s song, ‘Love Will Keep Us Together.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘The Immigrant’</h2>
<p>In “The Immigrant,” Cody and Sedaka do not go back to the beginning of international migration to America when roughly 30,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas crossed over from Asia.</p>
<p>Instead, they concentrate on the powerful allure of what for more than two centuries has been known as “the American Dream” of freedom, equality and opportunity, and the ways in which that dream — then as now — was being betrayed by intolerance and self-interest, as indeed it had been betrayed from the start by vigilante and legislative agendas that were virulently anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-African, anti-Asian and anti-communist.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230300/original/file-20180801-136655-16cdskz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230300/original/file-20180801-136655-16cdskz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230300/original/file-20180801-136655-16cdskz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230300/original/file-20180801-136655-16cdskz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230300/original/file-20180801-136655-16cdskz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230300/original/file-20180801-136655-16cdskz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230300/original/file-20180801-136655-16cdskz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Neil Sedaka with Elton John.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rocket Records</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cody begins the lyric with a vision of what the United States was like when his father (“the young searching foreigner”) arrived “to live in the light of…liberty.” </p>
<p>There were, he imagines, harbours with open doors, billboards with advertisements, “plains and open skies,” “dream boats” travelling “to the heart of America,” and people “waiting in line for a place by the river.” “Was it anything like that when you arrived?” he asks his father.</p>
<p>In the chorus, Cody is much more confident. Steeped in nostalgia, he asserts that, when his father settled in New York, “It was a time when strangers were welcome here.” </p>
<p>Sedaka’s music enhances the optimism of Cody’s words, lifting the emotional register of the song, and displaying his immense gift for the memorable melody. Above all, the chorus speaks directly to the belief that shaped the U.S. as a nation of immigrants: “people could come from everywhere.”</p>
<p>In the second verse, Cody makes it plain that those days of acceptance are gone. “Now,” in the 1970s, people still arrive with hearts “set on miracles,” but they are turned away, and the promises of the “magical land called America” are denied to them.</p>
<p>Sedaka closes the song with a return to the hope of the chorus, and a reaffirmation of the America Dream that places “The Immigrant” in the same tradition as Emma Lazarus’s “The New Colossus” (1883), the sonnet affixed to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230303/original/file-20180801-136664-spviql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230303/original/file-20180801-136664-spviql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230303/original/file-20180801-136664-spviql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230303/original/file-20180801-136664-spviql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230303/original/file-20180801-136664-spviql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230303/original/file-20180801-136664-spviql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230303/original/file-20180801-136664-spviql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Neil Sedaka performing in Canada, 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©Neil Sedaka</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The promises of the U.S. have always been threatened by powerful forces both within and without the country. Cody and Sedaka’s song concerns the liberal ideals of freedom and cultural plurality that drew people like Cody’s father and Sedaka’s grandfather to America, and that in the current political climate are once again under siege. </p>
<p>Like many great songwriters, Sedaka has fallen in and out of favour. But at his finest, he composed songs that lodge themselves firmly in the mind, and that remain moving and relevant. In “The Immigrant,” he speaks out on one of the most controversial issues in all of American history and champions a vision of the country that prizes compassion and diversity.</p>
<iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/album/68SWbVaqoabS4rGruvReyG" width="100%" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true"></iframe>
<p><br></p>
<h2>Lyrics to “The Immigrant”</h2>
<p>Harbors opened their arms to the young searching foreigner<br>
Come to live in the light of the beacon of liberty<br>
Plains and open skies, bill boards would advertise<br>
Was it anything like that when you arrived?<br>
Dream boats carried the future to the heart of America<br>
People were waiting in line for a place by the river<br>
<br>
[Chorus]<br>
It was time when strangers were welcome here<br>
Music would play<br>
They tell me the days were sweet and clear<br>
It was a sweeter tune, and there was so much room<br>
That people could come from everywhere<br>
<br>
Now he arrives with his hopes, and his heart set on miracles<br>
Come to marry his fortune with a hand full of promises<br>
To find they’ve closed the door, they don’t want him anymore<br>
There isn’t any more to go around<br>
Turning away, he remembers he once heard a legend<br>
That spoke of a mystical, magical land called America<br>
<br>
[Chorus x 2]</p>
<p>©Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100168/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Morrison does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Neil Sedaka’s song “The Immigrant” was a top hit in 1975, but today it seems even more relevant, as debates rage in the United States over immigration, repatriation and racism.
Robert Morrison, Professor of English Language and Literature, Queen's University, Ontario
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/96305
2018-05-09T11:06:53Z
2018-05-09T11:06:53Z
Your Spotify history could help predict what’s going on with the economy
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218265/original/file-20180509-4803-n8rhh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/chilling-digital-device-headphone-relaxation-audio-362657822?src=4lBSRy5X4pJ1Y5aAYFGScw-1-37">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, <a href="https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2018/andy-haldane-centre-for-data-analytics-for-finance-and-macro">has urged</a> his colleagues to examine the musical mood of the nation when contemplating changes to the bank’s interest rate. How could an increase in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/apr/30/music-downloads-can-gauge-consumer-vibe-bank-of-england">Taylor Swift downloads</a> or a decline in the popularity of rock and roll be relevant for managing the economy? </p>
<p>It all comes down to measuring economic sentiment. This is a way of gauging how people feel about the economy, which behavioural economists use to make predictions about how it will respond to different policies. For example, if people are generally pessimistic about the economy then raising interest rates might encourage them to stop borrowing and spending by so much that it harms the economy.</p>
<p>For some time, researchers have been able to measure economic sentiment by analysing the language used in large numbers of online <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2504147">news stories</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187775031100007X">Twitter posts</a>. But recently, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323560860_The_Rhythm_of_Markets">researchers from Claremont Graduate University</a> have shown that sentiment may be extracted from pop music top-100 lists and music platforms such as Spotify. What’s more, these new sentiment indicators are at least as useful as conventional surveys of consumer confidence.</p>
<p>The idea is that songs have an emotional component that anyone can relate to, encoded in musical attributes such as the songs’ energy, tempo and volume. Online music services such as Spotify already use these kinds of attributes to categorise songs and <a href="https://qz.com/571007/the-magic-that-makes-spotifys-discover-weekly-playlists-so-damn-good/">recommend new music</a> to users based on similar tracks they have already listened to.</p>
<p>You can also understand the emotions expressed by songs from their lyrics, depending on your cultural background. These can be analysed using the same “natural-language processing” software that is used to assess the language of news and Twitter feeds.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218273/original/file-20180509-34027-xg3wrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/218273/original/file-20180509-34027-xg3wrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218273/original/file-20180509-34027-xg3wrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218273/original/file-20180509-34027-xg3wrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218273/original/file-20180509-34027-xg3wrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218273/original/file-20180509-34027-xg3wrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/218273/original/file-20180509-34027-xg3wrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">All songs have emotional attributes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/20-december-2015-istanbul-turkey-spotify-353400926?src=4qqUH46oIfFfHRj1t8B9Ew-1-58">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This can be done in a simple fashion, encoding words’ positive or negative emotional loading, or more elaborately by matching words <a href="http://saifmohammad.com/WebPages/NRC-Emotion-Lexicon.htm">to eight core emotions</a>: joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise, trust and anticipation. The software then counts up the number of times each emotion is cued within a song’s lyrics.</p>
<p>By identifying the emotional components of the most popular songs, researchers can put together a picture of listeners’ own feelings and use this to predict economic sentiment. Running the emotion mapping exercise on all songs in a top-100 chart captures the lion’s share of new music being purchased and listened to on a month-by-month basis.</p>
<p>This is where the advantages of using “big data” from large numbers of people come to the fore. Survey results only tell you what people who have chosen to participate want you to know. Music charts, on the other hand, reflect actual consumer choices from a much wider group of people.</p>
<h2>Emotional downturn</h2>
<p>The Claremont researchers <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323560860_The_Rhythm_of_Markets">applied this technique</a> to charts from before and after the 2008 global economic crisis. They found that, after the crash, the frequency of words associated with anger and disgust increased while the frequency of words associated with trust decreased. This type of evidence strongly suggests that music consumers’ states of mind do have a bearing on what music they choose to pay for and listen to.</p>
<p>This research and Andy Haldane’s comments suggest that both the music and lyrics of popular songs can indeed be used to predict economic sentiment, and even short-term stock market movements. Streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music are sitting on data that could help build a far more detailed map of economic sentiment than top-100 lists. Because these companies have data on individual households, we could even create sentiment indexes for different regions and groups of people (for example, based on how much they earn).</p>
<p>Calling for economists to consult the musical mood of the nation may seem somewhat surprising, bizarre even. But research suggests that the big data approach to tracking consumer sentiment really could be useful. It is just one aspect of the Bank of England’s general drive to broaden and diversify the sources of information it consults in its analyses and decision making. And that should be welcomed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96305/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The emotions associated with trends in popular music and lyrics can predict economic sentiment.
Kim Kaivanto, Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University
Peng Zhang, Lecturer in Economics and Finance, Guizhou Minzu University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/87459
2017-11-15T10:59:40Z
2017-11-15T10:59:40Z
Have scientists found a secret chord for happy songs?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194603/original/file-20171114-26420-xs74n9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the BBC radio comedy show I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, panellists are sometimes asked to sing “one song to the tune of another”. Hilarious results ensue when the words of one song fit the rhythm and metre of the other but they have completely different sentiments: <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42916/jabberwocky">Jabberwocky</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/jerusalem-a-history-of-englands-hymn-55668">Jerusalem</a>, for example. The game works because audiences recognise the disconnect between the sentiment of the lyrics and the music. Everyone knows that a good tune needs not just to fit the rhythm of the words but to convey something appropriate to their meaning. </p>
<p>We can explain the meaning of lyrics by looking at their component words and grammatical structure. But how do we explain the meaning of music? What does the music of, say, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah convey? <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0173392">Some people think</a> if we gather enough data to answer these questions then we might be able to program a machine to work out what our ears tell us with ease: that Jerusalem is rousing and Singin’ in the Rain is joyful.</p>
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<p>New research published in the journal <a href="http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/lookup/doi/10.1098/rsos.170952">Royal Society Open Science</a> attempts to tackle this issue by investigating the links between the emotions of lyrics and the musical elements they are set to. While the methods used are sophisticatedly statistical, the conclusions are extremely dry. The finding that a single chord type is most associated with positive lyrics is a huge simplification of the way that music works, highlighting the sheer scale of the challenge of creating a machine that could understand and compose music like a human can. </p>
<p>The data came from combining information from three large-scale public sources, two of them originally intended for entirely different purposes. The authors downloaded the lyrics and chord sequences of nearly 90,000 popular songs from <a href="https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/">Ultimate Guitar</a>, a longstanding community website where users upload their own transcriptions of music.</p>
<p>To match the lyrics of the songs to emotions, the researchers took data <a href="http://trinker.github.io/qdapDictionaries/labMT.html">from labMT</a>, a crowd-sourced website that rates the emotional valence of words (the degree to which they represent good or bad feelings). The details of when and where the songs originated from were taken <a href="http://www.gracenote.com/">from Gracenote</a>, the same database as your music player probably uses to show artists’ information.</p>
<p>By correlating the valence of words with the type of chord accompanying them, the authors confirmed that major chords were associated more with positive words than minor chords. Unexpectedly, they found that <a href="https://www.musictheoryacademy.com/understanding-music/seventh-chords/">seventh chords</a> – chords with four different notes rather than the usual three – had an even higher association with positive words, even in the case of minor seventh chords. This is in constrast to <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0305735614552006">other studies</a> which have placed the valence of seventh chords between minor and major.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ipLa1D1bJxE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Quantitative studies like this of music and emotion are becoming increasingly common and popular, using ever larger quantities of data. The <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0929821042000317813">most highly cited articles</a> in Journal of New Music Research (which I edit) are of this type. They sometimes provoke amazement that art, often set in opposition to science, can be explained by numbers. And sometimes they provoke fear that soulless machines are invading the territory of human creativity.</p>
<p>Counting things is a proven way of making discoveries in other domains, so we shouldn’t be surprised this is so in music also. And those who are frightened of the musical machines need to be aware that it is too late: they are among us already. Look, for example, at <a href="http://songsmith.ms/index.html">Microsoft’s Songsmith</a>. My fear, instead, is that humans will make do with poorly made musical machines. We should not ignore the knowledge of centuries of music theory just because we have shiny new data science tools.</p>
<p>The authors of this new paper come from a university (Indiana) with one of the largest music schools in the US, but they all worked in the Department of Informatics. While they thank some members of the music school for discussions, the sophisticated statistical analysis in this article is not matched by a depth of music theory.</p>
<h2>More than decoration</h2>
<p>Seventh chords are not interchangeable with major and minor chords. They have a particular musical function and occur at different places in a phrase, just as adjectives have a different function from nouns. The authors claim their approach of using the words of vocal music as a key to its emotional content is novel, but this is not the case. One of the most influential books on music and emotion in its day, The Language of Music by Derek Cooke (1959), used exactly that approach. Alas for modern universities, where researchers’ universes seem to have been shrunken to their own particular disciplines.</p>
<p>We should beware the lazy assumption that words carry the true meaning of a song and music and the rest are just feelings, to be applied like cake decorations. Music has its own elements and structures, and speaks in many ways. The experience of music is <a href="http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/music-seeing-and-feeling-with-the-ears(a73a2f00-7c6b-4613-8f70-80969aa97358).html">so much more</a> than just its sounds.</p>
<p>Quantitative studies have huge potential to help understand these processes, but they need to treat the music in the light of what we know about it as music. After all, the meaning of the music of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah seems clear. If only the same could be said about the words.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87459/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Marsden has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and is editor of the Journal of New Music Research.</span></em></p>
New research claims to have found a link between types of chords and the lyrics they are typically paired with.
Alan Marsden, Senior Lecturer in Music, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/76187
2017-04-21T10:30:35Z
2017-04-21T10:30:35Z
Purple Reign: the sublime mystery of Prince
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165915/original/file-20170419-2392-140onma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/budapest-hungary-aug-9-rock-pop-89857048">Northfoto/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A year on from his death and Prince remains firmly in the public consciousness as an iconic force in the world. Ever since the news that he was found dead at his Paisley Park estate of an <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36436767">accidental drug overdose</a> aged just 57, the music world, fans and public alike have sought to mark his contribution both to music and wider culture. </p>
<p>Prince once <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/feb/19/urban.popandrock">told the Guardian</a>:
“What’s missing from pop music is danger. There’s no excitement and mystery.” Reflecting on his death and the public reaction and media coverage since April 2016, this may well be key to his iconic status. Perhaps he provided just that which he said was missing. He gave us danger, mystery and excitement in a way no other artist did. </p>
<p>And in a culture where oversharing is standard, Prince remained an elusive star. It appeared that few people really knew him. He was reluctant to discuss anything but music with the media. He didn’t allow interviewers to record him and responded in ways that tended towards the cryptic, which many found frustrating.</p>
<p>As someone who has admired his career for decades, it is also his ability to access the sublime that was so captivating. To transcend boundaries throughout his career that cemented his status in life and perhaps even more so in death. Once <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/a-final-visit-with-prince-rolling-stones-lost-cover-story-20160502">describing himself</a> as “music” itself, Prince was the embodiment of being oneself and expressing that through music.</p>
<h2>Sublime</h2>
<p>The concept of the sublime – the quality of greatness or grandeur that inspires awe and wonder – emerged in the 17th century. The emotions it inspires have been a source of inspiration for artists and writers ever since. While not easily applied to many figures in contemporary popular culture, this term is fitting for an artist as prolific as Prince. </p>
<p>First and foremost, this was evident through his musical output. A virtuoso musician, Prince was adept at revealing the elegance in many genres of music. He presented exquisite melodies and lyrics wrapped up in an ornate and often dramatic package. His 2007 Super Bowl halftime show – widely considered to the best of any artist – exemplifies his performance style.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Prince’s Super Bowl show.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His performance aesthetic was unlike anyone else’s and he pioneered an approach that has been much copied but never rivalled. Prince was bold, unapologetic and mesmerising. His approach was not to self-censor but to celebrate his preoccupation with sex – in songs like Cream and Sexy MF – and let the public decide whether or not they liked it.</p>
<p>Another aspect of Prince’s sublimity was evident in the way he displayed a distinct disregard for boundaries. His refusal to accept limits or preconceived ideas surrounding genre, race or gender was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/21/prince-broke-expectations-black-american-men-musical-genius-performances">evident</a> in almost every part of his work. In so much of his musical output, race and gender struggles were front and centre.</p>
<p>Prince transcended gender norms in ways that had rarely been seen in mainstream music. He played with racial, sexual and gender signifiers in such a bold way and rejected black patriarchal stereotypes and cliches.</p>
<p>His sensual style left a subversive mark upon popular culture and certainly one that expanded expressions of gender and eroticism for both performers and the consumers of his image and music far beyond the conventional. He was <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/04/23/prince-gender-masculinity-femininity_n_9760080.html">both macho and feminine</a> and embraced gender ambiguity. There are many examples where this is evident, not least the cover for Prince’s 1988 Lovesexy album in which he poses nude.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166259/original/file-20170421-12655-1r87476.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166259/original/file-20170421-12655-1r87476.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166259/original/file-20170421-12655-1r87476.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166259/original/file-20170421-12655-1r87476.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166259/original/file-20170421-12655-1r87476.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166259/original/file-20170421-12655-1r87476.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166259/original/file-20170421-12655-1r87476.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prince’s 1988 Lovesexy album.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/emsef/27043295701/in/photolist-axPoQ-GokyYB-drgp57-29pNU-drfDdk-dodTuN-qvPiWy-2BDy6X-pydE8G-2JPwNG-vDVDD-2JKcWn-Fy7Efz-drfCUH-vThrG-DeN9p-HcHXCZ">Matt Sephton/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Time magazine <a href="http://entertainment.time.com/2012/04/20/top-10-controversial-album-covers/slide/prince-lovesexy/">declared it</a> “One of the most controversial album covers of all time”. Not only does Prince present himself naked but he incorporates conventionally feminine iconography. Flowers burst into bloom all around him, his arm covers his chest and he gazes demurely into the distance. </p>
<p>Then, in 1993, he changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol that fused the male and female symbols together.</p>
<p>Prince was a <a href="http://www.independent.ie/style/celebrity/celebrity-news/mentor-prince-a-champion-for-women-singer-janelle-monae-35442094.html">champion of women</a>. He worked with many female musicians and engineers throughout his career. He produced and mentored numerous female groups and wrote songs that became hits for female pop stars, including Chaka Khan, Sinéad O’Connor, Sheena Easton, and the Bangles. </p>
<p>His rebellion against music industry straight-jacketing was one of the defining elements of his artistry. Just after turning 18, Prince signed a six-figure deal with Warner Bros. The contract stated that Prince would produce his own albums, starting his career with a highly unusual degree of artistic control. </p>
<p>In the mid-1980s, after the multimedia success of Purple Rain, he convinced Warner Bros to help him launch the Paisley Park Records label from his Minneapolis estate. But by the 1990s, he was appearing in public with the word “slave” on his cheek as a symbol of his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/10/history-prince-contractual-controversy-warner-paisley-park#img-1">dispute with the record company</a>.</p>
<p>It is rare that the term sublime can be used to truly describe an artist. But Prince was so brilliant and impossibly prolific that – whether loved or despised – it is hard to argue against it. He offered us new ways of seeing ourselves and those around us through his life and his music. And for that, he will remain forever sublime.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76187/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kirsty Fairclough works for University of Salford. Purple Reign: An interdisciplinary conference on the life and legacy of Prince is a three-day international academic conference hosted by the School of Arts and Media at the University of Salford and the Department of Recording Industry, Middle Tennessee State University, USA. The conference, taking place between 24th-26th May will provide fresh perspectives on the creative and commercial dimensions of Prince’s career, re-examining the meanings of his work in the context of his unexpected death.</span></em></p>
A year after Prince’s death, fans the world over are still coming to terms with the loss of an uncompromising musical and cultural visionary.
Kirsty Fairclough, Senior Lecturer in Media and Performance, University of Salford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/67017
2016-10-13T15:51:56Z
2016-10-13T15:51:56Z
Why Bob Dylan deserves his Nobel prize in literature
<p>To the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/live/2016/oct/13/nobel-prize-in-literature-2016-liveblog?page=with:block-57ff87ebe4b0160123895641#liveblog-navigation">surprise</a> of many, Bob Dylan has become the first singer-songwriter to win the Nobel prize in literature.</p>
<p>As the news broke, I was in the middle of teaching James Joyce to some undergraduates – an author who did not win the Nobel, but is often considered a pinnacle of high literature. Many wouldn’t look to compare these two artists, not least <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonpinter/status/786525603495280640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">those already protesting</a> that Dylan’s win cheapens the award. But in many ways, they’re alike. I’m thrilled. Dylan’s win has been a slow train coming.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"786543014134976513"}"></div></p>
<p>Meanwhile, Dylan will have been gearing up for another gig – much as he has been doing for more than half a century. On his Nobel-winning night he’s set to play Las Vegas, so it’s good to hear that he’s won a prize based on the reasonable judgement of a committee of high-minded enlightened experts and not just on the throw of the dice. </p>
<p>In terms of stamina alone, he’s a worthy winner but – more than that – it is the quality and the generosity of the achievement that is a pleasure to recognise. It’s great for his millions of fans around the world, old and young, great for the prize and great for the idea that popular music and serious literature aren’t necessarily so different after all.</p>
<p>The world of Dylan’s most distinctive lyrics is probably more Las Vegas than it is Stockholm – his songs are more often populated with gamblers than writers and academics. But his stature as the poet of rock and roll has never really been much in doubt. The significant presence of literary culture in what Variety magazine once mocked as the “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=i25JXXi1E4MC&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=%E2%80%9Cdeliberately+iggerunt%E2%80%9D+dylan&source=bl&ots=AzCc1pp5-P&sig=Yww5xcYd8us9fGSngWi_lmS1jkA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_pMq5jdjPAhUrJsAKHUy1A0IQ6AEIIzAC#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Cdeliberately%20iggerunt%E2%80%9D%20dylan&f=false">deliberately iggerunt</a>” vernacular language of his songs has increasingly been revealed. </p>
<p>The seriousness of the literary as well as musical achievement has gradually gained more and more respect and leading academic critics, such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2003/sep/14/music">Christopher Ricks</a>, have been keen to recognise and to try to account for it. His autobiographical <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/oct/16/highereducation.biography">Chronicles</a> are packed with references to and anecdotes about writers.</p>
<p>References and anecdotes are also something that filled Joyce’s pages. Curiously, Goddard Lieberson, president of Columbia Records at the time Dylan was beginning his recording career, gave him a first-edition copy of Joyce’s masterwork Ulysses. Dylan professed that “he couldn’t make hide nor hair of it”. He wanted the poet Archibald MacLeish to explain it to him but didn’t get around to asking in the end. </p>
<p>Readers of Joyce as well as Dylan might recognise that as just the kind of thing that happens to Joyce’s hero Leopold Bloom. Ulysses is full of snatches of songs and music – and if it had been written a few years later Bob Dylan would have been in there for sure.</p>
<p>What a lucky man to own a first edition of such a famous text – now one of the most prized and valuable of all collectable rare and vintage books (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jun/04/ulysses-sells-record-price">one sold in 2009 for £275,000</a>) as well as one that is most valued by serious literary critics and readers all over the world. Not a bad insurance policy just in case the recording career didn’t take off.</p>
<p>But of course it did take off – and how. It’s hard to imagine a more prominent living figure in American culture – perhaps even world culture – than Bob Dylan, or one whose work combines a more richly poetic and surreal artistry in its vision of the contemporary world, a more iconoclastic sense of social justice, more notes of personal intimacy or such a dry and acute sense of humour. There is nobody better capable of provoking his huge and amazingly loyal audience with new challenges, at the same time as endearing himself to them all the more. </p>
<p>I hope the buskers and street singers in the subways and on the street corners around the world dust off their favourite Dylan standards and sing them out loud. It’s hard to imagine that there’s anyone with or without a guitar or harmonica who hasn’t tried to strum some Dylan chords or mimic that unmistakeable voice at some point in their lives – just to try to answer that great Dylan anthem question: “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxLMr784l0Q">How does it feel?</a>”</p>
<p>How does it feel for Dylan to win the Nobel? Let’s hope he tells us in the acceptance speech – or in song.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67017/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
To the chagrin of many, Bob Dylan has become the first singer-songwriter to win a Nobel Prize. But this James Joyce expert is fully in support.
Richard Brown, Reader in Modern Literature, University of Leeds
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/64221
2016-09-06T01:12:19Z
2016-09-06T01:12:19Z
In another newly discovered song, Woody Guthrie continues his assault on ‘Old Man Trump’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136471/original/image-20160902-20238-njq1m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Woody Guthrie's tenancy in Fred Trump's Beach Haven apartment complex coincided with a diagnosis of Huntington's disease.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Woody_Guthrie_2.jpg">Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2016, <a href="https://theconversation.com/woody-guthrie-old-man-trump-and-a-real-estate-empires-racist-foundations-53026">I wrote about</a> a cache of bitter writings by Woody Guthrie that I had discovered while conducting research for a book on the balladeer. </p>
<p>The invectives were directed against a man Guthrie had dubbed his “worst enemy”: Fred C. Trump, the landlord of the Beach Haven apartment complex in Brooklyn, where the Guthrie family lived from 1950 to 1952. Guthrie especially loathed the housing project’s de facto color line. (“Beach Haven looks like heaven / Where no black ones come to roam! / No, no no! Old Man Trump! Old Beach Haven ain’t my home!”) </p>
<p>Later that year, Judy Bell – for 50 years the indefatigable custodian of Guthrie’s songs at TRO-Essex music publishers – told me she had found in her files a typewritten lyric sheet of Guthrie’s. Yet another broadside fired at Donald Trump’s father, the discovery comes on the heels of an in-depth <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/us/politics/donald-trump-housing-race.html">New York Times article</a> that details the “long history of racial bias” at the properties developed and owned by Trump Management. </p>
<h2>‘Trump made a tramp out of me’</h2>
<p>Like so many memorable folk songs, Guthrie’s seven-verse diatribe is unashamedly simple, repetitive and formulaic. It describes the songwriter’s outrage over the exploitative rents charged at a publicly funded housing project meant for war veterans like himself:</p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code> Mister Trump made a tramp out of me;
Mister Trump has made a tramp out of me;
Paid him alla my bonds and savin's
To move into his Beach Haven;
Yes, Trump has made a tramp out of me.
</code></pre>
<p></p><p></p>
<p>Guthrie was spot on about Fred Trump’s profiteering. He may have been <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/23/ike-didn-t-like-trump-s-dad-at-all.html">shy about the details</a>: the millions Trump earned from rental payments; his squirreling away five percent of Beach Haven’s development cost; the US$3.7 million worth of borrowed, unnecessary Federal building funds that had been earmarked for construction. But Guthrie instinctively knew that a raw deal was being played out at Beach Haven.</p>
<p>His song reflects, too, what the popular music scholar Edward Comentale <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TuQnSAQGXwoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=comentale+sweet+air&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiinZGu0vfOAhXJK8AKHdBhBTYQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=comentale%20sweet%20air&f=false">has called</a> Guthrie’s “rambing, funny streak”: a highly self-conscious and stylized rhetoric characterized by “an embrace of poverty and even dereliction in opposition to the structures of pride and power.”</p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code> Well, well, Trump, you made a tramp out of me;
Well, well, Trump, you made a tramp out of me;
You charge me so much it just ain't human,
I've got to try to live with president Truman;
Yess, Trump, you made a tramp out of me.
</code></pre>
<p></p><p></p>
<p>Finally, it conveys something much more sobering. It offers a glimpse into the mind of a man who had received a chilling diagnosis from doctors at Brooklyn State Hospital on September 3, 1952, while still living at Beach Haven: “PSYCHOSIS ASSOCIATED WITH ORGANIC CHANGES IN THE NERVOUS SYSTEM WITH HUNTINGTON’S CHOREA.” </p>
<p>At last there was an explanation for what had been a pattern of frightening and disorienting behavior in Guthrie: constant dizziness, which he and others had been mistaking for alcoholism; sudden, uncharacteristic outbursts of verbal and physical violence; a heightened, often embarrassing sexual disinhibition; and the gradual twisting and warping of his writings – what his <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0UDEjlAETAcC&dq=Joe%20Klein%20Woody%20Guthrie&source=gbs_book_other_versions">biographer Joe Klein calls</a> a “linguistic anarchy” that “extended even to his address (Beach Haven became ‘Bitch Heaven’ in ‘New Jerk Titty’).” </p>
<p>The Beach Haven period, which had proved so hopeful at its outset (with more living space for the family, some modest royalties for Guthrie’s songwriting, and an opportunity for his wife Marjorie to open a school of modern dance), ended after two years with the breakup of Guthrie’s marriage and alternating episodes of hospitalization, incarceration and drifting.</p>
<h2>Beach Haven: A Jim Crow town</h2>
<p>Clearly, it was not Fred Trump who had “made a tramp” out of Guthrie. Yet equally clearly, Guthrie came to associate the name “Trump” with dispossession.</p>
<p>Even as he was being dispossessed of his own neurological and expressive faculties, he wrote from “Witchy Haven” to his close friend, activist and Klan infiltrator Stetson Kennedy, of “Mr Old Man Trump” and “his little pack of pets” preventing him from doing “one single ounce of work to nail or to build or to fix up the joint.” </p>
<p>And he wrote of something even worse: Fred Trump’s “color line.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“In addition to not being able to enjoy one single day of normal or natural life in Mr Trumps project of buildings here on acct of about ninety and nine clauses in his damnable old tenant’s contract, I find out that I’m dwelling in the deadly center of a jimcrow town where no negroid families yet are allowed to move in and to live freelike.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Guthrie lamented that he and his wife were forced to raise their children “under the skullyboned stink and dank of racial hate, jimmycrack Krow.”</p>
<p>Hence Guthrie’s parting shot at his landlord:</p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code> Humm humm, Trump, you made a tramp out of me;
Hummm, humm, Trump, you made a tramp out of me;
You robbed my wife and robbed my kids,
Made me stay drunk and to hit the skids;
Yepsir, Trump, you made a tramp out of me.
</code></pre>
<p></p> <p></p>
<p>In late September of 1952, Guthrie hit the road alone, to California, partly to come to terms with the reality of his diagnosis. Marjorie was left to apply to Trump’s office with a request to suspend their lease. After receiving no reply, she wrote to Trump’s Beach Haven agent on December 4, 1952: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“My husband after months of hospitalization and examination was declared incurable and is suffering from a fatal disease known as Huntingtons Chorea. We have three small children and since I now know that I alone will be responsible for them I feel it would be impossible for me to continue living in my apartment whose rental now becomes quite a hardship…. I believe I should be out within a week.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To date, the archives have yielded no evidence of a reply, sympathetic or otherwise. Soon Marjorie and her three children – Arlo, Joady and Nora – left Beach Haven and moved to Howard Beach, Queens. </p>
<h2>Guthrie’s lyrics resonate today</h2>
<p>It is not surprising that Guthrie’s Beach Haven writings should have attracted so much attention in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Some historical clarification is now in order. Journalist David Cay Johnston, for instance, writes in his <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=olZcDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=johnston+making+donald+trump&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjr0_jZ0vfOAhVsLcAKHVxwCakQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=johnston%20making%20donald%20trump&f=false">new book</a> “The Making of Donald Trump” that Guthrie “set his thoughts about Trump’s rental policies to a song he titled ‘Old Man Trump.’” </p>
<p>In fact, Guthrie never wrote a song called “Old Man Trump.” Johnston used the title because it was a condition of the copyright license granted by the Guthrie family. Meanwhile, the song of that name <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jun/30/old-man-trump-tom-morello-ani-difranco-woody-guthrie">published and recorded</a> by Ryan Harvey, Tom Morello and Ani DiFranco is an amalgamation crafted by Harvey of verse fragments drawn from three separate archival sources (<a href="https://theconversation.com/woody-guthrie-old-man-trump-and-a-real-estate-empires-racist-foundations-53026">first published in The Conversation in 2016</a>). Nor did Guthrie use the phrase “Trump’s tower,” as Harvey and his colleagues sing it; Harvey has explained it was his decision “to throw in a present tense reference.”</p>
<p>Guthrie’s Beach Haven writings have emerged at a time when his publishers, TRO-Essex, in partnership with the Woody Guthrie estate, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/business/media/happy-birthday-is-free-at-last-how-about-we-shall-overcome.html?_r=0">are battling over the copyright</a> to Guthrie’s most celebrated anthem, “This Land Is Your Land.” </p>
<p>As Nora Guthrie has explained, “Our control of this song has nothing to do with financial gain…. It has to do with protecting it from Donald Trump, protecting it from the Ku Klux Klan, protecting it from all the evil forces out there.” </p>
<p>Trump has a healthy track record in appropriating unauthorized songs for his campaign, <a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/rolling-stones-and-five-other-artists-who-want-trump-stop-using-their-music">much to their composers’ outrage</a>. But looking beyond the campaign: If the Beach Haven writings are anything to go by, should we ever hear “This Land Is Your Land” pumped into the elevators of Trump Tower or in the clubhouses of Trump’s golf courses, there is no scientific instrument that could measure the velocity of Woody Guthrie spinning in his grave.</p>
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<p><em>In addition to all Woody Guthrie and Marjorie Guthrie correspondence and untitled writings copyrighted by Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc., I gratefully acknowledge permission to quote from the following prose and lyric writings (all words by Woody Guthrie, © copyright Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc., all rights reserved, used by permission): “Beach Haven Ain’t My Home,” “Racial Hate at Beach Haven” and “Old Man Trump.” “Trump Made a Tramp Out of Me”: words by Woody Guthrie, © copyright WGP/TRO – Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. and Ludlow Music, Inc. (administered by Ludlow Music, Inc.), all rights reserved, used by permission. Special thanks to Judy Bell at TRO-Essex and Kate Blalack at the Woody Guthrie Archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64221/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Will Kaufman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
‘Trump made a tramp out of me,’ Guthrie lamented, denouncing his landlord who barred black families and pocketed federal funds.
Will Kaufman, Professor of American Literature and Culture, University of Central Lancashire
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.