Ethnic and Cultural Identity in Music and Song Lyrics [1 ed.] 9781443896207, 9781443895668

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Ethnic and Cultural Identity in Music and Song Lyrics

Ethnic and Cultural Identity in Music and Song Lyrics Edited by

Victor Kennedy and Michelle Gadpaille

Ethnic and Cultural Identity in Music and Song Lyrics Edited by Victor Kennedy and Michelle Gadpaille This book first published 2017 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2017 by Victor Kennedy, Michelle Gadpaille and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-9566-0 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9566-8



TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements .................................................................................. viii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Victor Kennedy and Michelle Gadpaille Chapter One ............................................................................................... 10 From Mod to Punk: Establishing and Challenging Notions of Britishness Maximilian Feldner Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 31 How Pop Music Celebrates the Life and Culture of Northern England Carla Fusco Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 42 ‘In Between Worlds’: The Intricate Articulation of Irishness in The Pogues’ Music Saša Vekiü Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 64 The Joyous Inebriation: Drinking and Conviviality in Poetry and Songs Wojciech Klepuszewski Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 77 Americanisation versus Cockney Stylisation in Amy Winehouse’s Singing Accent Monika Konert-Panek Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 95 Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Musical Hamilton and Early Feminism: Rapping Gender Equality Jerneja Planinšek Žlof

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Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 107 The World Sings “Hallelujah” Katie J. Peterson and Paul Lindholdt Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 118 Styrian in Slovenian Popular Music Mihaela Koletnik and Melita Zemljak Jontes Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 126 Dialectal Imagery in Murske balade in romance (Ballads and Romances of the Pomurje Region) Mihaela Koletnik and Alenka Valh Lopert Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 141 Expressing Ethnic and Cultural Identity through Music and Song Lyrics: The Case of Slovenian Americans and Canadians Nada Šabec Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 160 Magnifico: Slovenia’s Musical Satirist Victor Kennedy and Agata Križan Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 187 Ideological Influences on the Reception of Elvis Presley and The Beatles in Slovenia Janko Trupej Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 209 Davies’ “Orchestra” in the Celestial Dance with Slovene Culture Urša Marinšek and Tomaž Oniþ Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 228 Li Po’s Essentially Chinese Poetry J. Gill Holland Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 235 Ci as the Origin of Chinese Pop Music Zhirong Yu

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Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 241 Internet Meme Songs in China and the “Diaosi” Identity of Youth Culture Cao Zhou Contributors ............................................................................................. 249 Index ........................................................................................................ 254



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editors would like to thank all of the contributors for their insights into the varied perspectives on the relationship between identity and songs and music. We would also like to thank the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Maribor, Professor Božidar Kante, for his help and encouragement with our project, and our colleagues Katja Plemenitaš, Kirsten Hempkin, Simon Zupan, Zmago Pavliþiþ and Andrej Naterer, as well as Mojca Krevel from the University of Ljubljana, for their advice and suggestions. We would also like to thank Marko Bencak for his assistance in formatting the manuscript, and Amy Kennedy for the cover photograph.

INTRODUCTION VICTOR KENNEDY AND MICHELLE GADPAILLE

This book is the third in a series of interdisciplinary studies of the relation between words and music, following Words and Music (Kennedy and Gadpaille 2013) and Symphony and Song (Kennedy and Gadpaille 2016). Each chapter of this book discusses aspects of ethnic and cultural identity that are reflected in poetry, songs and song lyrics. The authors are scholars from around the world who have contributed their expertise in a variety of fields to our most comprehensive survey of world music yet. These varied scholarly studies are unified by their common address of an issue that could appear simple on the surface: songs reflect, project and store people’s concepts of their national and ethnic identity. Moreover, folk song and popular lyrics do this as effectively as more formal carriers of normative collective identity such as anthems. The complexity of the issue becomes evident when one realises the multiplicity of the factors at play: lyrics, musical score, performer, performance, audience, language, paratext and, above all, the ethnic national contextual arena in which these factors combine. Add to this the nuanced elements of irony, burlesque, parody, satire and political commentary, and a folk song or top ten hit can yield incisive insight into the self and social identity-construction of the public who consume and, in one sense, co-create these songs. The first five chapters explore British identity expressed through and shaped by songs. British-ness may be a historically constructed identity, but its constitution remains crucial to current knowledge of culture and politics. Maximilian Feldner argues that Britishness today can be characterized by pop music, more specifically, by a tradition of British pop music that originated in the 1960s. The music of bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks, and their international success, served as a new source of pride and identification after the disintegration of the British Empire, and British pop music has become both an important cultural asset and an integral part of the British national imagination. Feldner outlines the importance of the “British Invasion” of the 1960s, and British punk of the late 1970s, a style that represents a continuation of and

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Introduction

reaction to the musical developments of the 60s. While 60s British bands were mainly white and male, their music borrowed extensively from Black American musicians. Punk, on the other hand, included groups often marginalized in pop music and society at large. It allowed and enabled women to actively take part in a field mostly reserved for men, and established strong ties with black music styles, such as ska and reggae. Yet, although punk represents an approach that more accurately reflected British society at the time than most other forms of pop, this inclusive tendency is elided in the current understanding of British pop music. References to British pop music often reflect a conservative vision of a glorified and mythologized national past that ignores the transnational and subcultural genealogy of pop music. Another study that reveals nuances in the monolith of British popular identity is Carla Fusco’s “How Pop Music Celebrates the Life and Culture of Northern England,” which begins with the premise that modernity supposed Great Britain to be characterised by a monolithic culture in which standardisation and homogenisation were the key words of an imaginary visualisation of the nation. On the contrary, globalisation has not diminished the importance of regional and local culture. The social impact of the latter is fundamental, and its importance has in fact been growing. According to Fusco, the rise of Scottish and Welsh nationalism is evidence of the urgency to find in regionalism a source of identification. Pop culture and pop music can help to outline the typical features of this search for identity. “Northernness” in this context, for instance, can be associated with the hard physical labour connected with the North’s industrial history. Many singers have chosen to narrate the roots of that local identity, revealing some lesser-known aspects of its tradition. For example, Mark Knopfler’s song “Why Aye Man” makes use of a typical expression of Geordie English and speaks about the migration of British workers to Germany in search of better living conditions. Through a close analysis of selected songs, Fusco explores many aspects of the culture of the northern region of England. Moving to another element in the ethnic mosaic of the British Isles, Saša Vekiü’s “In Between Worlds: the Intricate Articulation of Irishness in The Pogues’ Music” performs an analysis of text and intertext in music, based on contemporary theory of popular music, cultural studies, and Irish studies, largely through the concepts and observations of Ruth Adams, Sean Campbell, Simon Frith, Stuart Hall, Josh Kun, Keith Negus, Noel McLaughlin, Martin McLoone and Gerry Smyth. Although punk could be considered the antithesis of (Irish) folk music, the strands of these musical genres and their different symbols, meanings, stories and ideas are woven

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into a cohesive, dynamic and provocative whole in the songs of The Pogues. Nevertheless, the relations between The Pogues and prevailing cultural, social, and political trends and viewpoints in both the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland have been complex and variable over the last three decades; the band's idiosyncratic style and display of cosmopolitan Irishness often attracted hostility from the media and folk musicians in both countries. The front cover of their second album, Rum, Sodomy and The Lash (1980), based on Théodore Géricault’s painting The Raft of the Medusa (1819), as Noel McLaughlin and Martin McLoone write, “depicts the members of the band out at sea, ‘in between worlds,’ looking for land”; thus, the sleeve art of this album offers a potent symbol of the everyday life of second-generation Irish people in the U.K., or, more precisely, the Irish experience in London, as evidenced by the lyrics of the songs on the Pogues’ LPs. Vekiü identifies the contexts from which The Pogues emerged, and examines the Irish and London references, cultural space and identity in The Pogues’ music and lyrics. Drink as a common factor in British popular culture becomes the focus of Wojciech Klepuszewski’s “The Joyous Inebriation: Drinking and Conviviality in Poetry and Songs,” which begins with the premise that in many cases, drink is intertwined with everyday reality to such an extent that it has become a prominent part of the cultural heritage, often a peculiar cultural landmark of the British Isles, especially Scotland and Ireland, where drink is an inherent part of the culture. Klepuszewski analyses historical British drinking songs and finds that, while Irish and Scottish drinking-songs are primarily whisky-induced, English songs tend to focus on beer. Klepuszewski concludes that the predominant mood of traditional drinking-songs is one of joyous merrymaking, devoid of any serious reflection concerning the pitfalls of drink consumption. Drinking songs enact a continuity of social identification that exists outside and beyond any statistics about liver disease or the dangers of drink driving, and thus demonstrates the power of such lyrics and their performance to stratify identity patterns in an ethnically varied context. A further complication in British popular music comes from the role of accent and trans-Atlantic marketing in creating subtle identity-slippage in the contemporary context. Monika Konert-Panek’s “Americanisation versus Cockney Stylisation in Amy Winehouse’s Singing Accent” focuses on style-shifting in British pop singing. The use of American pronunciation had been popular among British vocalists since the 1950s, but Americanisation became less noticeable with the arrival of new wave and punk rock in the 1970s. The two main tendencies in the singing accent, Americanisation on the one hand, and the use of some working

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Introduction

class features on the other, mingled to create a conflict of identities. Since that time, changing trends in popular music singing styles have been observed, and Konert-Panek’s analysis illustrates selected features of contemporary pop singing using Amy Winehouse’s accent as an example. The focus is on Americanisation in Winehouse’s jazz and soul singing style as a result of the American roots of these musical genres, and the influence of the London working class accent on Winehouse’s style. Her spoken accent is used for comparison, (on the basis of selected interviews), with her singing accent based on two studio albums, Frank (2003) and Back to Black (2006). The results on both albums correlate with changing musical styles and Winehouse’s growing popularity during her short career. The next two chapters discuss identity in North American music, the first turning to the quintessential American musical genre: the musical. Jerneja Planinšek Žlof’s “Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Musical Hamilton and Early Feminism: Rapping Gender Equality” examines Miranda’s view of the necessity and beauty of multicultural diversity and the celebration of equality. Hamilton’s main characters, the founding fathers, their families, friends, and their enemies, address social, racial, economic, gender and other aspects of inequality. The cast is ethnically and racially diverse, which conveys Miranda’s conceit that Alexander Hamilton is an embodiment of hip-hop. Miranda, in various interviews, explains that Hamilton, like stereotypical hip-hop performers, started his career as a penniless and illegitimate child immigrant who worked his way up to greatness. Hamilton’s eloquence, which is often stressed in the musical, is a metaphor for words’ ability to make a difference—something that is also true of hip-hop. The central female characters, the Shuyler sisters, especially Angelica, are presented as early women’s rights defenders. Angelica, an intelligent, charismatic member of the elite, criticizes the exclusion of women from the social sphere and from the text of the Declaration of Independence, which asserts that all men are born equal. She negotiates the now widely accepted female role in society on the eve of the American Revolution. Planinšek Zlof focuses on her attempts to challenge hegemonic notions of femininity. Miranda breaks down gender biased binaries that prohibit females from occupying the male dominated social sphere. Nonetheless, Miranda empowers his female characters, giving them a strong voice and an important message to convey which is, sadly, often merely voiced without being translated into action and meaningful social contributions, other than those existing on a familial level.

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The second North American perspective focuses on the Canadian singersongwriter, Leonard Cohen. Katie J. Peterson and Paul Lindholdt’s “The World Sings ‘Hallelujah” is an analysis of Cohen’s hit song “Hallelujah.” Everyone has heard “Hallelujah”: from Leonard Cohen’s original version (1984), to John Cale’s classic rendition (1991), to Jeff Buckley’s iconic cover (1994), to Rufus Wainwright’s soulful interpretation (2001), to the latest of more than 600 covers posted on YouTube. Peterson and Lindholdt recount the tale of how this song came to be, why it took fifteen years to become a worldwide phenomenon, and some of the reasons it continues to capture the hearts and ears of audiences. Cohen’s masterful blend of the sensual and the spiritual, coupled with his unfiltered honesty about life, love and faith, make “Hallelujah” more than just another song about heartbreak. His biblical allusions, linking his own experiences to those of David and Samson, and his thoughtful integration of literary devices set this song apart. Are these reasons enough to justify the song’s enduring popularity? Is there more to the story? Cohen and his music occupy a special place in any consideration of music as a reflection of ethnonational identity, speaking as he does from a complicated position as a Montreal Jew who lived in the USA and Greece and found a wide audience in Europe, while exploring several of the world’s religions; he was ordained in 1996 as a Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk. The song’s biographer Alan Light, in The Holy or the Broken (Light 2012), dubs Cohen a “Jewish Buddhist” (185). Cohen interrogates our assumptions about identity and can be seen as representing a new, post-national identity, one that is a-centric in a world that assumes singular positionality. It is precisely this trans-cultural aspect of his poetic lyrics that created the fertile reproduction of the “Hallelujah” lyrics that Peterson and Lindholdt analyse. Turning to European identity, in particular its deep reservoir of folk culture, five chapters explore various aspects of Slovenian ethnic and cultural identity in songs and song lyrics. One of the primary components of Slovenian identity is the language. Slovene is a Slavic language and relatively young on the world’s linguistic stage, but nevertheless a prized marker of this small nation’s identity, and especially authentic in the continuity of regional variants. Two chapters focus on analysis of songs written using different regional Slovenian dialects. Mihaela Koletnik and Melita Zemljak Jontes’s “Styrian in Slovenian Popular Music” focuses on the use of non-standard Slovenian elements in Slovenian popular music, based on an analysis of selected Styrian popular music bands. In general, dialect prose and lyrical poetry have lately become more common in various kinds of media and in popular culture.

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Their analysis is based on phonetic, morphological and lexical analysis of written and sung language. The lyrics in pop music, which are sensitive to musical expression such as rhythm, present a fairly accurate version of spoken dialect. The most evident Styrian dialectal characteristics appear in the lyrics of the group Mi2, mostly on the phonetic and lexical levels including colloquial or lower colloquially coloured vocabulary, as well as pejorative and vulgar vocabulary. The popular band Orlek use many distinctive dialectal lexical characteristic loanwords adopted into the Slovenian language, largely from German. In comparison, the popular band Nude’s lyrics show almost no non-standard Slovenian characteristics. Mihaela Koletnik and Alenka Valh Lopert’s “Dialectal Imagery in Murske balade in romance (Ballads and Romances of the Pomurje Region)” performs a linguistic analysis of a number of songs written by contemporary popular songwriters for a festival in the north-eastern region of Slovenia. Koletnik and Valh Lopert focus on the use of the Pannonian Prekmurje and Prlekija dialectal features of songs written by the musicians, lyricists and writers Feri Lainšþek, Vlado Žabot, Milan Vincetiþ, Dušan Šarotar, Štefan Kardoš, Marko Koþar, Vlado Kreslin and Vlado Poredoš. Performed by the Murska Banda instrumental ensemble and local vocalists, fourteen new romantic ballads were especially written for the Murske balade in romance (Ballads and Romances of Pomurje Region) music and literary project as part of the 2012 Maribor European Capital of Culture. The premiere took place on September 2012 at The Festival of Murske balade in romance (Ballads and Romances of Pomurje Region Festival) in Murska Sobota, Slovenia. Their key argument is that in Slovenia, as elsewhere in Europe, dialects have enjoyed a recent resurgence in use and acceptability. Even so trans-European a project as the Capital of Culture initiative can thus promote linguistic and cultural continuity on a regional basis. Working between Europe and America, Nada Šabec’s “Expressing Ethnic and Cultural Identity through Music and Song Lyrics: the Case of Slovenian Americans and Canadians” shows how songs can both reflect and preserve ethnic and cultural identity in expatriate Slovenian communities. Šabec draws on the immigrant experience of Slovenians and their descendants in the United States and Canada, specifically Cleveland, Ohio and Vancouver, British Columbia. Respondents from several Slovenian communities were asked about the role of music in their lives in order to determine the value they attribute to music in terms of maintaining their ethnic and cultural identity. In addition to exploring the social, ethnic and cultural aspects of music, Šabec also analyzed its linguistic aspects, in particular song lyrics, focusing on both their structure

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and their message, paying particular attention to those lyrics that are written/sung partly in English and partly in Slovenian. In addition to the code switching and borrowing featured in such lyrics, she examined the influence of English on Slovenian vocabulary and syntax when the lyrics were written and sung exclusively in Slovenian. As regards the message, she examined the songs’ themes, comparing them to those in similar genres in Slovenia. Her analysis focuses on the lyrics and songs themselves as well as on the immigrants’ attitudes toward them, the aim of which is to determine to what extent their music and lyrics are still reminiscent of the homeland and how much they have absorbed from the new environment. Diasporic identity-formation can thus occur at a juncture between old and new musical cultures. Focusing on expatriates from a different perspective, Victor Kennedy and Agata Križan discuss the music of Magnifico, the musical persona of popular Slovenian singer and songwriter Robert Pešut in “Magnifico: Slovenia’s Musical Satirist.” Magnifico is a slightly sinister comic character who embodies the þefur, the southern immigrant who threatens the identity and culture held dear by most ethnic Slovenes. Magnifico’s songs and videos satirize the fear of foreigners with his exaggeratedly tasteless costumes and settings, his misspelling and mispronunciation of both Slovene and English, and his juxtaposition of traditional Slovene and Western music with Southern Turbofolk and gypsy music elements. This contribution addresses the ubiquitous phenomenon of migration, not out of, but within Europe, and shows how it results in radical performances that empower the margin to critique the perceived centre. Another cross-cultural perspective comes from Janko Trupej, whose chapter “Ideological Influences on the Reception of Elvis Presley and The Beatles in Slovenia” takes a socio-political approach to the effect of “world” music on local culture. Western rock music had a long history of suppression in socialist/communist states, and it played a role in subverting the system in several countries of the Eastern Bloc. The situation was somewhat different in Slovenia, which was part of socialist Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1991; after the Tito-Stalin split in 1948, the socialist regime became less hostile to Western influences, including rock music. When Elvis Presley appeared on the scene in the mid-1950s, Slovenia was closer to the West than was the case when The Beatles shook up the world in the mid-1960s; by that time Yugoslavia had co-founded the Non-Aligned Movement. Trupej focuses on investigating the extent to which the socio-political situation influenced the reception of these rock artists in Slovenian state-controlled periodicals. He compares the initial reception of Elvis Presley and The Beatles to that in later decades, when

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they were already considered legends, and contrasts their status during the socialist era with their reception after Slovenia declared independence and began to move closer to the West. Urša Marinšek and Tomaž Oniþ’s “Davies’ ‘Orchestra’ in the Celestial Dance with Slovene Culture” rounds out this section, dealing with literary adaptations of and parallels between English and Slovene serious and popular literature. Starting with the trope of “Celestial Music” at the heart of Davies’ Elizabethan poem, Marinšek and Oniþ perform a stylistic analysis to trace the concept in modern Slovene popular songs starting with the 1962 hit “Zemlja pleše” (Eng. “The Earth is Dancing”), and demonstrate that this has become a common metaphor in Slovenian popular culture. To complement this largely Euro-American perspective, we include three chapters that turn east to explore reflections of ethnic and cultural identity in ancient and modern Chinese poetry and songs. Gill Holland, professor emeritus from Davidson College, North Carolina, presents the perspective of an American literary scholar on eighth-century Chinese poet Li Po in “Li Po’s Essentially Chinese Poetry.” Holland’s focus is primarily on the structure and imagery of the poems, their poetic effect, and strategies of translation that allow non-Chinese speakers a way of approaching their subtlety and power. Zhirong Yu’s “Ci as the Origin of Chinese Pop Music” analyses the songs of Liu Yong (987-1053), a poet of the ancient Song Dynasty, who transformed the popular song form Ci into an accepted and serious poetic art form. Ci is written in variable line-length formal types, and the number of words and sentences is not fixed; Ci can also be called “long-short sentence.” Ci consists of lyric and musical components, including the music for instruments and tune examples for choosing words. Different tunes or music are called “Ci Pai” (“Tune Title”), except in a very few cases; creating a Ci means writing a lyric according to a given Ci Pai. Yu argues that Liu’s significance lies in his introduction of a new realism in the expression of emotion, a much freer use of colloquial language than previously seen, and various stylistic and prosodic innovations that remain influential in Chinese music today. Cao Zhou’s “Internet Meme Songs in China and the ‘Diaosi’ Identity of Youth Culture” brings our short survey of Chinese music up to the present day. She selects one of the most controversial Internet meme songs, “My Skateboard Shoes,” to show the identity of diaosi as a subculture in modern China. Like the þefur of Slovenia, diaosi are a marginalized group on the outskirts of mainstream Chinese society. Zhou demonstrates that the unmusicality of and the contradiction between

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ridiculousness and sincerity in the song are a precise expression of diaosi culture, which is why it enjoys such sweeping popularity in China. The contributors to this volume come from many countries around the world, and from many different fields of expertise; each presents a distinct viewpoint on the topic of ethnic and cultural identity in songs, and each viewpoint complements the others. Each chapter shows, in a novel way, how songs not only express, but are instrumental in creating, identity. From ancient Chinese poetry and songs, to traditional British drinking songs, to modern rap, hip-hop, pop and folk music from all over the world, we will see how people everywhere use music and song to express their personal identities and their sense of belonging to a larger whole.

References Kennedy, Victor, and Michelle Gadpaille. 2013. Words and Music. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Kennedy, Victor, and Michelle Gadpaille. 2016. Symphony and Song: the Intersection of Words and Music. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Light, Alan. 2012. The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of 'Hallelujah.' 1st Atria Books hardcover ed. New York: Atria Books.



CHAPTER ONE FROM MOD TO PUNK: ESTABLISHING AND CHALLENGING NOTIONS OF BRITISHNESS MAXIMILIAN FELDNER

The opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games offered an excellent opportunity for the United Kingdom to present a vision of how it wanted to be seen by the world. The show started with a video consisting of a long tracking shot along the River Thames into London towards the Olympic Stadium where numerous actors, dancers and volunteers staged the transition from rural pastoral to industrialised England. Later, the show focused on cultural achievements, with references to John Milton’s Paradise Lost, J. K. Rowling reading from Peter Pan and Kenneth Branagh reciting Shakespeare. One of the dancing scenes involved thirtytwo women with flying umbrellas playing Mary Poppins, Monty Python’s Eric Idle made an appearance and Mr. Bean’s antics accompanied the London Symphony Orchestra’s rendition of Vangelis’s score for Chariots of Fire. One of the highlights involved the Queen and James Bond jumping from a helicopter into the arena, both the helicopter and the parachutes adorned with the Union Jack. Celebrating Britain’s popular culture, the proceedings included an extended sequence of dance routines performed to a medley of Britain’s most recognizable pop songs including “She Loves You,” “(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction,” “My Boy Lollipop,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Starman,” “Pretty Vacant,” “Going Underground,” “Blue Monday,” “Relax,” “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” “Born Slippy .NUXX” and “Song 2.” Finally, Pink Floyd’s “Eclipse” formed the soundtrack for the concluding fireworks, before Paul McCartney took to the stage to perform the Beatles hit “Hey Jude.” A large number of other British pop musicians were also featured during the opening and closing ceremonies, including The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Queen, Led Zeppelin, the Sex Pistols, The Jam,

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New Order, The Spice Girls, Amy Winehouse and Muse, with live performances by The Who, Ray Davies of The Kinks, Oasis’s Liam Gallagher, Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs. Britain celebrating itself by prominently including these bands indicates the importance of pop music for conceptions of British identity both at home and abroad. Pop acts such as The Beatles, The Who and the Sex Pistols are presented to the world as belonging to the same rank of iconic Britishness as the Queen, James Bond and the Union Jack. By the late 20th century, pop music had become an important component of British identity. The music of bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks, originating in the 1960s, and their international success served as a new source of pride and identification after the disintegration of the British Empire. In the 1990s, buzzwords like “Britpop” and “Cool Britannia” came to mark the recognition of British pop music as an important cultural asset and an integral part of the British national imagination. Pop as a concept is notoriously fuzzy and hard to define because it encompasses a broad spectrum of diverse musical styles, as well as attitudes and ideas about it. On a very basic level, one can differentiate between two understandings of pop, an inclusive and an exclusive one (cf. Frith 2001, 94-5). In the first understanding, pop as a field comprises all varieties of popular music, such as rock, hip hop, soul, disco, country and reggae, while in the second pop is itself a variety of popular music. In the second sense, more negatively defined, “pop becomes not an inclusive category but a residual one: it is what’s left when all the other forms of popular music are stripped away” (Frith 2001, 95). Preferring the inclusive view, the particular variety of pop that I will focus on is the music of predominantly male guitar bands whose line-up usually consists of drums, bass, rhythm and lead guitars, and who play music that is typically referred to as “rock.” For my purposes, therefore, British pop music refers to the tradition of guitar-based rock music from Britain. Starting in the early-to-mid 1960s with bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Who, this tradition has dominated the British music scene, and has since evolved in a more or less straight line. Bands such as the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Jam are representative of this tradition in the seventies; The Smiths, The Cure and The Stone Roses in the eighties; Blur, Oasis and Pulp in the nineties and The Libertines, Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs in the first decade of the 21st century.1

 1

British rock music took other directions as well, especially as the field diversified in the late 1960s. Very schematically, one might distinguish, for example, between

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This tradition has strongly contributed to conceptions of British identity and to the British national imaginary. According to Benedict Anderson, a nation is an imagined community because, despite the fact that its members can never know all the other members, they still feel a bond with them, “a deep, horizontal comradeship” (Anderson 2006, 6). This imagined connection is based on “a sense of continuity, shared memories, and a sense of common destiny of a given unit of population which has had common experiences and cultural attributes” (Smith 1990, 179). Cultural identity in this sense is not essential, stable and true, but rather “a ‘production’ which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside representation” (Hall 1993, 392). In other words, a national imaginary in terms of a collective identity is created in the various fields of representation, such as literature, the news media and popular culture. Pop music can also be a relevant medium of a collective identity, as it “constructs our sense of identity through the direct experiences it offers of the body, time and sociability, experiences which enable us to place ourselves in imaginative cultural narratives” (Frith 1996, 122). British pop music is thus not only part of national and cultural British identities but has also vitally contributed to the meaning of Britishness in the second half of the 20th century. Viol argues “that a good deal of British pop music is, in fact, permeated with national discourse(s)” and that pop is an important site “where national identity is negotiated and (re)constructed” (Viol 2000, 82). Focusing on “the twinned totems of white British pop: mod and punk” (Savage 1996, 413), I will first outline British pop of the sixties and its successes in the cultural arena that account for this period’s reputation as the heyday of pop music, a reputation that is best captured by the terms “British Invasion” and “Swinging London.” The subculture of the mods and the song “Waterloo Sunset” (1967) by The Kinks, a quintessentially “English” band, illustrate the close connections between national identity and pop established during that period. Second, I will consider British punk of the late 1970s, which is a style that represents a continuation of and reaction to the musical developments of the 1960s. In addition, punk is a response to changed socio-political circumstances, reflecting a general discontent with the economic situation but also the multiculturality of an increasingly diverse British society. Based on an analysis of “London Calling” (1979) by The Clash, one of the central British punk bands, I will

 the three traditions started by Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin/Deep Purple and David Bowie/T-Rex, which turned into psychedelic/progressive rock, hard rock and later heavy metal, and glam rock, respectively.

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trace the changes in style, habitus and content of pop music to show that, while mod articulates a critical but ultimately affirmative stance, punk’s attitude is characterized by hostility towards Britishness. This stance, however, has not prevented punk from being adopted as part of the national cultural heritage, adding to the curious situation that rock, a musical culture that is associated with “rebellion in musical form, distorted guitars, aggressive drumming, and bad attitude” (Keightley 2001, 109), has become an official bearer of national identity.

Mod and the Golden Age of British Pop By the early 1960s, England had lost not only most of its colonies but also much of its political influence and dominance in the world. While the British Empire had been at its territorial peak right after World War I, in the wake of the Suez Crisis and after widespread efforts towards decolonisation (India gained independence in 1947, and most of Britain’s colonies in Africa followed within the next fifteen years), British power had been considerably diminished by the sixties. Richard Weight notes that “the 1960s, the end of Empire and the decline of the industry, together with increasing secularisation and the diminishing role of the monarchy, had eroded the economic and cultural framework of British national identity that had existed since Victorian times” (Weight 2013, 316). If England was no longer the political centre of the world, based on the cultural achievements during that period, it could at least imagine itself the cultural centre of the world. In a sense, national pride was shifted towards the cultural sphere. The former imperialist aspirations still resonated in expressions such as the “British Invasion,” commonly used to describe the “conquest” of the United States by British bands, who, after the “Beatlemania” of 1964, dominated the American charts for a while. The decade produced most of the greatest British bands and artists, including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Who. In addition, several of the artists who would celebrate their major successes in the 1970s, such as David Bowie, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, also started their careers in the 1960s. The 1960s were an especially fertile moment in pop history, a time characterized by innovation and major changes in the production of music. Every new Beatles album, for example, was more advanced than the previous one, both stylistically and technically. Artists discovered the studio as a means not only of recording but also of composing their music. Better equipment refined and augmented the possibilities of expression and allowed for the creation of increasingly complex songs. Pop started to

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Chapter One

be recognized as an art form that had to be taken seriously, which was expressed in the ambitious and complex albums that emerged in the second half of the sixties. In addition, technological developments and new means of distribution made it possible to reach wider audiences than ever before. These audiences existed because of the changed demographic and sociological circumstances of the post-war years, including the baby boom and years of unprecedented growth and wealth. The result was a significant increase in the numbers of teenagers and the amount of money they had to spend, making them an attractive target group as consumers. Weight describes this confluence of trends within the developed world in the age of mass democracy after 1945: the baby boom, mass affluence, advances in media and communication technologies, wider access to higher education, civil rights for women and ethnic minorities, and a liberalisation of sexual mores. These changes, which took place in a relatively short space of time, made young people more numerous than before; they also made them richer, more connected to each other, more sceptical of the status quo and freer to indulge and articulate their desires and tastes. (Weight 2013, 15)

In addition to audiences being more liberal and better educated, what enabled the emergence of a certain pop sensibility were feelings of boredom and restlessness: “Despite the advances of the new Britain, many young people still felt trapped and marginalized; they weren’t exactly angry, but were bored and confused and they wanted something to happen” (Bracewell 2009, 70). Pop music channelled or absorbed these teenagers’ desires to escape conformity and served as an outlet for the conflicting emotions of frustration and excitement, infatuation and sadness. Value was also placed on pop music because it could aid in the search for self-knowledge, providing “a kind of map of a changing society just as it maps our own lives, helping give emotional shape to our memories of childhood, friendship, love affairs, life changes” (Frith 2001, 106). Adolescents reacted to the music, whose authenticity seemed heightened by the fact that during the period, pop musicians began to write and perform their own songs. Much of the era’s brilliance is captured in the term “Swinging London,” which denotes London as a cultural centre leading in music, art, fashion and cinema. Smith argues that a national consciousness is founded in the notion of a common past that represents the glorious origins of the nation: To create the nation [its members] must be taught who they are, where they came from and whither they are going. […] Old religious sages and saints can now be turned into national heroes, ancient chronicles and epics

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become examples of the creative national genius, while great ages of achievement in the community’s past are presented as the nation’s ‘golden age’ of pristine purity and nobility. (Smith 1990, 184)

Applying this notion to pop, the national heroes are The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks, the defining bands of the 1960s, the decade that forms the golden age of British pop, and the songs and albums of these bands express the creative national genius and achievement. In the 1990s, British pop was officially codified as a central national symbol. Damon Albarn claimed that There was a time when pop music wouldn’t have been able to define what being English was all about, but that’s changed now. If you draw a line from The Kinks in the Sixties, through The Jam [in the 70s] and The Smiths [in the 80s], to Blur in the Nineties, it would define this thing called Englishness as well as anything. (Damon Albarn, quoted in Weight 2013, 336)

A statement like this might not be particularly surprising in its grandiosity, coming from the singer of Blur, a band he locates in the very tradition he advocates. What is telling, however, is that he identifies his art as an expression of national identity, especially considering that rock music has usually been defined by its rebelliousness and outsider status. Even more surprising is that Albarn’s statement is not far removed from the claim made in 1994 by Labour Party leader Tony Blair that “Rock and roll is not just an important part of our culture, it’s an important part of our way of life” (Tony Blair, quoted in Weight 2013, 334). On his way to becoming Prime Minister, Blair courted pop artists, such as the hugely popular band Oasis, and proclaimed the slogan of “Cool Britannia,” using pop in the attempt to make nationalism seem sexy and cool.2 “Cool Britannia” was fuelled by a revival of sixties pop by bands such as Oasis, Blur and Suede. Conspicuously subsumed under the genre rubric of “Britpop,” these bands demonstrated the importance of pop music to British identity, as they tapped into the nostalgia for that era and contributed to its romanticisation: “Britpop was the most patriotic youth culture to emerge in Britain since the 1960s and was one of the few popular expressions of Britishness at a time when Scotland and England were becoming more politically divided than at any time since the eighteenth century” (Weight 2013, 316).

 2

One of the key movies of the decade is Trainspotting (1996), directed by Danny Boyle, who would later become the creative director of the London 2012 opening ceremony.

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Chapter One

The international success of British bands and the developments in music are two factors that help explain how the 1960s emerged as the most prominent era of the British pop consciousness. A third factor is the striking style of the mods that became the defining look of the period. The mod subculture most centrally influenced the image of Swinging London and is at the same time the prime emblem of Britishness in pop music: Mod was a uniquely British hybrid of American, European and AfroCaribbean styles in music, fashion and design, forming the DNA of British youth culture from the late 1950s to the late 1990s. Started in London by a highly elitist and self-regarding group of aspirant individuals, Mod was transformed via the mass media into a national youth movement that appealed to people from all social backgrounds and shaped the physical environment of many more who never belonged to it. (Weight 2013, 387)

Cobbled together from diverse influences, mod is a distinctly British style, defining for many “what it [has] meant to be young and British in the postimperial age” (Weight 2013, 47). The mods defined the fashion style of the mid-sixties and with their slick Italian suits and colourful clothing provided a response to the greyness and drabness of post-war Britain. As its members invested their money in clothes, motor scooters and music, mod is also a form of consumerism. However, its ideal is not random consumption for consumption’s sake, but conspicuous consumption, where their highly selective taste and style allowed mods coming from working-class backgrounds to accrue symbolic capital. As a subculture, the mod style provided a source of identity to young Britons who differed from common contemporary conceptions of Britishness. Since it “offered escape from and protest against the orthodoxy of English culture” (Bracewell 2009, 73), it also challenged the dominant values and styles of the time. Mod possessed “subversive potential as a threat to the older assurances of class and gender-based hierarchies and traditions” (Weight 2013, 392) and expressed a reaction against adolescent conformity. The mods’ combination of anger and sensitivity was “vividly articulated by rhythm and blues, soul, or early psychedelia” and provided them with “a version of manhood which blended melancholy, anger, and a quest for sincerity with what it actually meant to be young and male in modern Britain” (Bracewell 2009, 78). With their anthems, “My Generation” (1965) and “The Kids are Alright” (1966), The Who provided a soundtrack for disaffected mod youth. Besides music and fashion, another way in which mods proved subversive was in their recontextualization of core British symbols such as the Union Jack and the Royal Air Force roundel. A classic example of this

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practice is The Who wrapping themselves in the Union Jack or wearing Union Jack blazers on album covers. Even though nowadays the Union Jack can be found in all kinds of contexts, at the time the misappropriation of the flag was seen as an affront, as “the British flag was reconfigured from a symbol of state denoting order, tradition and conquest, into a fashion icon of post-imperial Britain” (Weight 2013, 131). But the meaning of the flag’s reconfiguration was already ambiguous at the time, indicating both the attempt to undermine the symbolism of the dominant culture as well as the mods’ identification with British culture. Weight argues that mods wore the flag “with two aims in mind: to affront the British Establishment and to proclaim the fact that they were still proudly and distinctively British” (Weight 2013, 132). Michael Bracewell asserts that the “flag had been perhaps the ultimate icon of English pop’s ambivalence towards Englishness” (Bracewell 2009, 225). This ambivalence partly helps to explain how British pop, originally rooted in subversive counterculture, could so seamlessly be adopted to signify Britishness decades later. By the 1990s, when British imagery played a prominent role in Britpop, with the Union Jack prominently displayed on the guitar of Oasis’s Liam Gallagher, or repurposed as Spice Girl Geri Halliwell’s tight dress, the ambivalence had vanished. The recontextualizations of the flag were less the subversive acts of their predecessors than simple fashion statements and unironic demonstrations of affiliation with the British nation. The Kinks are one of the most important and influential British bands of the sixties. Strongly associated with Britishness, they provided many of the cues for the Britpop generation. Merging musical influences from rhythm & blues, folk and music halls, they established their own distinct style and sound, which would strongly influence later generations of British musicians. Their reputation as the most English band of their time rests especially on three albums released in the second half of the 1960s that portray post-World War II Britain. Something Else (1967), The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968) and Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969) are albums inspired by English lifestyles. They celebrate London as well as village life in rural England, pay sardonic homage to Queen Victoria,3 and investigate British identities after the end of the Empire. Ray Davies, the singer and main songwriter of the band, made a name for himself as an attentive observer

 3

The song “Victoria,” for instance, opens with the lines, “Long ago, life was clean/sex was bad and obscene/and the rich were so mean/stately homes for the Lords/croquet lawns, village greens/Victoria was my queen.”

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Chapter One

of English life, writing songs rich in social commentary, most notably in “Sunny Afternoon” (1966), a satirical song dealing with the British tax system, “Dead End Street” (1966), an analysis of the British class system and “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” (1966), which lovingly mocks the fashionistas of mid-sixties London. Instead of adopting a US-American accent like many other pop singers at the time, Davies consciously sang with an English accent, sometimes even mimicking an aristocratic accent: “I didn’t want to sound American. I was very conscious of sounding English” (Davies, quoted in Weight 2013, 95). In typical mod fashion, the band’s name stands in an ambiguous position towards Britishness. With the play on the word “king,” it expresses a certain closeness to the monarchy, one of the most central institutions of Britishness, while being “kinks,” i.e. weird and twisted, but not necessarily with the sexual associations attached to the term today, marks them as outsiders. If The Kinks are one of the most quintessentially “English” bands, their song “Waterloo Sunset” (1967) is one of the songs in which British pop truly came into its own.4 Musically, it is defined by a simple song structure played in 4/4 time. At a little more than three minutes in length, the song consists of three verses, framed by an intro of the bass playing on a descending scale and an outro, on which piano, guitar and vocal melody are on a rising scale. It generally exudes a positive atmosphere, with its relaxed tempo, the steadily strumming acoustic guitar, the soft, bluesy bass and the simple and gentle percussion consisting of hi-hat, snare and bass drum. As is usually the case in pop songs, it is to a large degree carried by the singer’s voice. Ray Davies, whose vocal melody is doubled by an electric guitar, together with the background vocal harmonies (consisting of soft “uhuuhs” and “shalalas”), evokes a positive mood. The generally positive and relaxed atmosphere of the music is supported and confirmed in the lyrics, which are about the lyrical persona watching the London sunset, considering the river and thinking about the people who are getting ready for a night out. In the opening line, “Dirty old river, must you keep rolling, flowing into the night,” the river’s steadiness is musically imitated by the constant strumming of the acoustic guitar throughout the song, which indicates the stability and security experienced by the lyrical persona. Outside, the hustle and bustle of a Friday night is getting underway as people return from work and start to go out: “people so busy,” “taxi lights,” “millions of people swarming like

 4

The song was released as a single in May 1967 and then on the album Something Else by The Kinks (1967). Ray Davies also performed it live at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

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flies ‘round Waterloo underground.” Nevertheless, the lyrical persona feels safe and comfortable at home, feeling lazy and satisfied to “look at the world from my window.” Inside, the dizzying activity and the chilly evening air do not disturb the pleasure of gazing at the fine sunset. Among the masses of people are Terry and Julie, who meet at “Waterloo Station, every Friday night,” signifying that they are identifiable individual people in the crowds. 5 The city is not depicted as an urban abyss where the individual disappears in the uniform masses. At the same time, the lyrical persona, although alone, does not feel the alienating loneliness often associated with urban life. The sunset and the largely anonymous crowds are there for company so “I don’t need no friends.” The references in the lyrics clearly make it an English song. The “Waterloo” in the song’s title and lyrics places the song’s action in Central London, which is confirmed and specified with the reference to “Waterloo Station” and “Waterloo underground.” Waterloo and the River Thames, serve as metonyms for London, which is depicted in a positive light. It provides “millions of people” with housing, work and entertainment and still is a source of stability, security and predictability; the river keeps rolling and Terry and Julie meet every Friday night. Looking at the river is a positive experience, making the lyrical persona feel safe: “I don’t feel afraid.” The claim that “As long as I gaze on Waterloo Sunset, I am in paradise” is understandable if one imagines the magnificence of the London cityscape as it is bathed in golden hour light. The river, dirty and old, further alludes to industrialisation and tradition, two aspects often associated with England, while Waterloo Station, one of England’s busiest train stations, is also a metaphor for connectedness to the world beyond the limits of London, which allows the lyrical persona to “look at the world from my window.” In later songs, such as “Village Green,” The Kinks further pursue the celebration of England and Englishness, turning to the countryside. As the Village Green Preservation Society, they evoke the pastoral life of the village that is “out in the country far from all the soot and noise of the city,” and allude to the green hills that are a recurring trope of English national discourse” (Viol 2000, 85). The song wallows in memories of the “village green,” which has become a museum invaded by American tourists, and of the lyrical persona’s first love, Daisy, whom he left to seek his fortune in the world. He imagines that he will return one day, to

 5

The names were likely inspired by the English actors Terence Stamp and Julie Christie, two of the central faces of mid-sixties Britain, who played the main couple in the 1967 adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd.

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Chapter One

reminisce with her over a cup of tea (and what could be more British than a cup of tea?) about the village green. Whether the nostalgia and conservatism of the song are sincere, or, as so often in Kinks songs, infused by a certain tongue-in-cheek attitude, the song is remarkable in its thorough activation of elements typically associated with Britishness. As a result, The Kinks vitally contributed to the golden age of British pop, and make understandable why it is closely associated with Britishness. Several other central bands of the period also proudly exhibited features of Britishness. The Beatles, for example, celebrated the English music hall tradition with their Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, or paid homage to their native city of Liverpool in songs like “Penny Lane.” Mod bands like The Who and Small Faces similarly emphasized their Britishness in their style of dress, their accents or the subject matter of their songs. However, pop music history did not proceed in a straight line from the 1960s to the 1990s, and the transfer from the generation of Swinging London to their successors in Britpop was not entirely straightforward. One of the main ruptures that occurred along the way was caused by punk, where pop music challenged the unqualified equation of pop and Britishness. Although these challenges have since been recuperated, they still render somewhat ironic the important position of British pop in the British imaginary.

Punk: A Challenge to Hegemonic Notions of Britishness If, in “Waterloo Sunset,” The Kinks depict London as a bustling but finally idyllic place, another song about London, released twelve years later, presents the city in a fundamentally different way. The Clash’s “London Calling” (1979), from the band’s London Calling album, is a tense, angry and loud song that envisions the destruction of London. Like The Kinks’ song, it has a simple structure but is faster, louder and more aggressive, which is emphasised by staccato chords played on distorted guitars, driving drums, a dominant reggae bass, and the singer’s barked singing. The menacing, riotous and disturbing soundscape is intensified by erratic guitar howls, and high-pitched cries and screams that might represent howling, laughter or war cries. During the bridge the song collapses for a moment, before the guitar plays a short, hard solo. The song’s soundscape thus effectively evokes an atmosphere that supports the bleak message of the lyrics, which are captivating in their apocalyptic imagery. The song’s title is taken from the wartime broadcasts of the BBC World Service, whose station identification “This is London calling…”

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aimed to bring news to occupied countries during World War II. Originally a beacon of hope, London is itself under attack in the song. “War is declared” and London is on the brink of catastrophe, as the chorus piles up disaster scenarios, evoking an ice age, global warming, nuclear meltdown and the flooding of the city: “The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in/meltdown expected, the wheat is growin’ thin/engines stop running, but I have no fear/‘cause London is drowning and I, I live by the river.” 6 London is about to be destroyed by not just one disaster but several, happening at the same time. If the city were somehow to weather all of them, the lyrics indicate other imminent problems, such as power cuts as the engines stop running, and food shortages on account of the wheat growing thin. The idea of an apocalyptic future is intensified by the fact that the final chorus is set after the catastrophe has already happened, with the lyrical persona claiming that “I was there, too” and that “some of it was true!” Thus, the destruction and violence are not just possible but inevitable, having already happened by the song’s end.7 Again, the River Thames plays a prominent role in the song, serving as an indicator of the setting and as a metonym for London. In contrast to “Waterloo Sunset,” it is not a benign presence conveying peace and stability, but a symbol of destruction threatening to drown the city. Punk chronicler John Savage notes that “The Clash began as a classic Mod group: angry, smart, mediated, pop. They speeded up the heavily chorded, stuttering sound of The Who and The Kinks and added new variations” (Savage 1992, 232). But even though The Clash may follow The Kinks in a direct traditional line, “London Calling” has very little in common with “Waterloo Sunset,” aside from being a song about London. The Kinks’ depiction of London was informed by the optimistic mood and positive image of Swinging London as the cultural centre of the world. Similarly, “London Calling” can be understood as a product of its time, of an atmosphere that had significantly soured. It was released during a period of decline, marked by high unemployment, rising crime rates, racial tensions and riots. “By the summer of 1977, unemployment was up to 1.6 million, 6 per cent of the workforce; the public service cuts demanded by the IMF began to bite, and the polarizations of the time found their expression in street violence” (Savage 1992, 480). Social life seemed to be disintegrating, as strikes and the continuing terrorism of the IRA

 6

The mention of meltdown is probably a response to the partial nuclear meltdown at the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania in March 1979, a few months before the song was released. 7 In this sense, the song harkens back to T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1921), which similarly tells about a post-apocalyptic London destroyed by the rising Thames.

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Chapter One

additionally contributed to the fragile social order. One reaction to the culmination of these tendencies in the “Winter of Discontent” of 1978-79 was the rise of Margaret Thatcher, who promised more social stability. After her election in 1979, her name became connected to the transformation of Great Britain in favour of neoliberalism, privatisation, deregulation and deindustrialisation, as well as the disempowerment of the unions and the dismantling of the welfare state. Another reaction to the socio-political situation of the seventies was the emergence of the punk movement. It served as an outlet for the angry, confused, frustrated and alienated youth suffering from the country’s economic decline and lack of opportunities. Together with the Sex Pistols, another decidedly English band (cf. Adams 2008, 469), The Clash appeared as one of the prototypical British punk bands of the late 1970s. Especially with their first album, The Clash, they decisively contributed to the style, sound and mythology of punk. The music, short, simple and angry bursts of distorted guitars, was supposed to be a return to the roots of rock music, overcoming the overwrought and musically and conceptually ambitious songs of mid-seventies progressive rock. Punk was seen as a rejuvenation, a renewal of the energies of rock music that appeared to have been lost in the previous years. The name of The Clash, unlike the playful band name of The Kinks, encapsulates much of punk’s philosophy, signifying a loud, hard impact that points to the many collisions between the police and demonstrators, for example, and thus reflects the socio-political conflicts of the time. The cover of their first album looks like a picture torn from a magazine, in the DIY (do it yourself) aesthetic of punk’s bricolage style. The band members stare angrily into the camera, while their cropped hair and torn leather and jeans clothes are a far cry from the band outfits that were dominant in rock in the mid-seventies, such as the long hair and extravagant, colourful clothes worn by bands such as Led Zeppelin, Yes, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. The famous album cover of their third album, London Calling, explicitly refers to Elvis Presley’s first album. If Elvis’s album marks the beginning of rock music, The Clash cover appears to allude to the end of rock music. The downward movement of Paul Simonon smashing his bass on stage is the antithesis to Elvis’s lifted guitar. London Calling represented a diversification of the punk style, at a time when the first wave of punk was already over. Nevertheless, the music and lyrics of “London Calling” capture much of the time’s punk ethos. Depicting London as a place of violence and brutality, it expresses the negativity of the punk movement, with the destruction of the city as a metaphor for punk’s nihilism and “no future” credo. The promises of the golden sixties are exposed as an empty

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sham. The attack on the hollow optimism generated by 1960s pop culture is captured in the line, “Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust.” Instead, the England of the late 1970s is a dystopia ruled by police brutality: “see we ain't got no swing/'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing.” Where mod and Britpop represent an ultimately affirmative adoption of Britishness, punk is characterized by its negation. Punk’s attack on Britishness is best expressed by the Sex Pistols, whose songs, “Anarchy in the UK” (1976) and “God Save the Queen” (1977), are two of the most definitive punk statements capturing the mood of the time. The first song calls for anarchy and depicts the situation in Britain as one of civil war, while the second is an attack on the monarchy. Equating the Queen with a fascist regime, the Sex Pistols portray Britishness as an ideology, “England’s dreaming” of its former glories, that masks the fact that “There’s no future.” Like other subcultures, punk is a site of resistance and of subversion. It emphasised amateurism and self-made, DIY aesthetics with implicit and explicit criticisms of consumer society. Punk’s challenge to Britishness was also achieved by “style as intentional communication” (Hebdige 1979, 100). The punk style is notable for bricolage, namely the combination and redefinition of different elements. It is a style that has been described as “a degraded uniform” (Savage 1992, 374), assembling “elements drawn from the history of youth culture, sexual fetish wear, urban decay and extremist politics” (Savage 1992, 230). Where the mods recontextualized the Union Jack and other British symbols, the punks went further, destroying these symbols, incorporating the ripped flag into their “uniform” or portraying the Queen with a safety pin through her lip. However, it did not take long for punk to be incorporated into the dominant cultural frame through commodification and redefinition (cf. Hebdige 1979, 94). Punk is now celebrated as a defining moment in British pop history and is thus no less mythologized and romanticized than other pop genres, representing a major part of the British cultural heritage. In addition to advocating conceptions of liberty and freedom based in anarchy, and openly attacking British values of cleanliness, order and manners, punk represented challenges to the dominant social order and its norms in other ways as well. “Punk very often ignored and transgressed the gender, sexual, class, racial, and aesthetic norms of mainstream society; it created a safe space in which individual expression and diversity could be given free reign” (Adams 2008, 477). As a result, it provided an opening for women into rock, a musical genre that had been, and still is, dominated by men, a gender bias that is also inscribed in the assumptions surrounding it:

24

Chapter One An important part of rock’s taste war against the mass mainstream is conducted in gendered terms, so that ‘soft,’ ‘sentimental,’ or ‘pretty’ become synonyms for insignificance, terms of dismissal, while ‘hard,’ ‘tough,’ or ‘muscular’ become descriptions of high praise for popular music.” (Keightley 2001, 117)

Even before punk, pop had hinted at more inclusive gender approaches. Mod had “made men more sexually ambiguous, both in appearance and attitude” (Weight 2013, 72), and mod bands such as The Who and The Kinks had toyed with the transgression of gender boundaries in songs such as “I’m a Boy” and “Lola.” A few years later, the most striking element of the stars of early 1970s glam rock, such as David Bowie or Mark Bolan, was their androgyny and blurring of sexual orientation and identity. Punk enabled women to participate as musicians themselves, at least to a certain degree. Even though, like any other rock style, punk has been male dominated, its DIY attitude undermined this bias as it gave women the confidence to actively take part and contribute to the music. The music journalist Lucy Toothpaste states that “Boy bands were getting up on stage who couldn’t play a note, so it was easy for girls who couldn’t play a note to get up on stage as well. […] Punk made women feel they could compete on equal terms to men” (Toothpaste, quoted in Savage 1992, 418). As a result, early British punk also produced a number of important female punk bands, including X-Ray Spex, The Slits and Siouxie and the Banshees, who often used their lyrics to criticize sexism, prescribed gender roles, and the permanent commodification of women as spectacle in pop culture. In “Oh Bondage Up Yours” (1977), for instance, X-Ray Spex address sado-masochistic sexual practices as a metaphor for women’s imprisonment; in “Identity” (1978) they process a female identity crisis in the face of consumerism, and in “Typical Girl” (1979) The Slits lampoon gender attributions. Yet, the lasting impact of this inclusion should not be overestimated. For one, female-led bands are usually not counted among the first rank of punk; for another, the space for female punk and rock artists has remained limited. Aside from the USAmerican riot grrrl movement, and British artists like PJ Harvey or bands like Savages, women still form an exception in rock music. Although punk’s political stance had originally been characterized by nihilism and cynicism, its members soon became politically active in a positive sense, not restricting themselves to the rejection of the dominant political system but aiming to improve it. The movement where pop most obviously joined forces with political activism was Red Wedge, a collective led by various musicians such as Billy Bragg, The Jam’s Paul Weller and The Specials’ Jerry Dammers, who unsuccessfully sought to

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prevent Thatcher’s re-election in 1987. Punk’s political aspirations had their origins in Rock Against Racism, where, in a series of concerts, punk bands performed to protest the openly racist rhetoric and violence that increasingly swept the country in the second half of the 1970s, exacerbated by economic decline, scarcity of jobs, and general frustration.8 Arguably more influential than its political activism was punk’s inclusion of minorities in cultural terms, by engaging with the music of the black immigrants from the Caribbean islands: reggae and ska. The Clash in particular started early on to incorporate reggae elements into their sound. They merged punk and reggae, adopting reggae’s heavy and dominant bass sound and syncopated staccato guitar chords. Thematically, some of their lyrics are also concerned with intercultural contact. “White Man in Hammersmith Palais,” for example, is about the singer’s experience of visiting a reggae concert, where he is the only white person present.9 Their approach towards black music styles is not always free of mythologizing. Reggae and dub songs are expected to be political articulation of struggle, while ignoring the fact that, as varieties of pop, they are highly mediated and too complex to serve a single purpose (cf. Savage 1992, 488). The Clash recognized and addressed this discrepancy in “White Man in Hammersmith Palais,” where the singer is surprised to find that the concert he attends is primarily about entertainment, while he was expecting political messages and insurgent music, in other words, “roots rock rebel.”10 However, punk’s involvement with black Caribbean music styles went further than in The Clash’s highly influential fusion. Two Tone, a British ska revival band in the late 1970s, actually represented something of a positive utopia, a musical style demonstrating the possibility of a truly

 8

On the other hand, musical forms such as punk and ska were also adopted by the skinheads, against whose racism, white supremacy and right-wing attitudes Rock Against Racism was to a large degree directed. In contrast to the punks, skinhead subculture demonstrated an affirmative stance towards Britishness, pursuing the symbolic recovery of working class identity and reviving working class clothing styles, attitudes and behaviours (cf. Hebdige 1979, 56-57). 9 Bob Marley returned the favour in “Punky Reggae Party” (1977), where he sings about having a punky reggae party with the British bands The Jam, The Dammed, The Clash and Dr. Feelgood. 10 The discrepancy is most pronounced in The Clash’s “White Riot,” where they wish for a riot of their own. In the song, they assign the more violent forms of protest to black men, who “gotta lot of problems, but they don’t mind throwing a brick,” while “white people go to school where they teach you to be thick.” Wellintentioned though it may be, it is nevertheless problematic because of its essentialist attributions.

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transcultural society. With the musical merging of ska and punk styles, ethnically mixed bands like The Specials, and the consistent visual style of a black and white colour scheme, “Two Tone established that a multiracial society was here to stay” (Weight 2013, 291). Even though the band itself was short-lived, Weight argues that “Two Tone had a long-term legacy,” as it set a precedent in Britain for public, multiracial socialising among people from a variety of class backgrounds. Crucially, these interactions were connected more to youthful hedonism than to political discourses or workplace encounters; and they rose above the subterranean, nocturnal world of sex and drugs that had characterised similar interactions in previous generations. (Weight 2013, 290)

With its inclusion of black music styles, punk formulated a transcultural conception of society that much better reflected the multicultural composition of British society than most other views of what constitutes Britishness in the late 20th century. On the other hand, British pop music had been influenced by black music styles at least since World War II. The influx of immigrants from the British colonies in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean “helped Britain develop its own, distinctively hybrid, youth culture” (Weight 2013, 27). British pop is an eclectic combination of diverse music styles, including skiffle, Anglo-Celtic folk and music hall, as well as American country, folk and bluegrass, and the African American styles of blues, R&B, rock and roll, gospel and later soul. British musicians borrowed heavily from these forms. The first three Rolling Stones albums, for example, consist almost entirely of cover versions of songs by African American musicians, such as Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and Otis Redding. The only exceptions are three original songs each on the first two albums and four on the third. But even an original composition like “Tell Me (You're Coming Back)” from the debut album sounds like a reworking of The Drifters’ “Dance with Me.” It is only from their fourth album, Aftermath (1966), that The Rolling Stones started recording and releasing predominantly their own songs. The Beatles similarly filled their early albums with covers. Š‡”‡ –Š‡ ‘ŽŽ‹‰ –‘‡• •ƒ™ –Š‡•‡Ž˜‡• ’”‡†‘‹ƒ–Ž› ƒ• ƒ „Ž—‡•„ƒ†ǡŠ‡‡ƒ–Ž‡•†”‡™ˆ”‘‘–‘™ƒ†”‘…ƒ†”‘ŽŽǤOf their first four albums released in England, three contain six covers and eight original compositions each, while only the third, A Hard Day’s Night (1964), consists exclusively of original compositions. This means that on their first albums there are eighteen covers, ranging from African American girl groups like The Shirelles and The Marvelettes, to rock and

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27

roll from Chuck Berry and Little Richard, and rhythm and blues from The Cookies and Roy Lee Johnson. Most other British bands of the time also started their careers with the imitation of blues, rock and roll and R&B songs. They imbued these styles with a certain pop attitude and appeal that many of the figureheads behind British pop had acquired at the English art schools. As a result, most of the musical influences on British pop are anything but British in origin. Instead, the bands of the “British Invasion,” The Beatles, followed by The Dave Clark Five, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Animals, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Who, reimported to the United States the music previously adopted from there. In Just Around Midnight, a recent study of “how rock and roll music–a genre rooted in African American traditions, and many of whose earliest stars were black–came to be understood as the natural province of whites” (Hamilton 2016, 3), Jack Hamilton presents an illuminating discussion of the intricate transatlantic relationship between American and British music artists that is simplistically referred to as the “British Invasion.” He points out, for example, that vital exchange had already taken place in the years before the Beatles arrived in the United States, as American acts toured in Britain: “the British Invasion myth obscures the avenues of exchange that existed in these early years between British musicians and their American, and especially African American counterparts” (Hamilton 2016, 94-95). Also, he shows that the relationship between The Beatles and Motown was a more complex and vibrant one than is usually acknowledged. It productively spanned the sixties, which makes Motown more than just a precursory influence on The Beatles. It also indicates Motown as a relevant and current force in that cultural moment and counters the prevailing notion of black music as primordial, of the past, and merely foundational for rock (cf. Hamilton 2016, 128). The mutual influence between American and British acts renders even more problematic the fact that during the “British Invasion,” “female and African-American performers experienced massive career setbacks, as white, male British bands” dominated the American charts (Keightley 2001, 117). However, this domination made it easy to elide the profound influence of African American music styles on British pop of the sixties, an influence the bands themselves proudly affirmed. Drawing an image of the British bands from that period as innovators and originators of a completely new musical form made it possible for this music to become celebrated as cultural heritage in Britain. In times of Brexit and the reorientation of European countries towards the nation state and nationalism, notions of national identity have

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Chapter One

increasingly come to the fore. The question of what constitutes Britishness and British identities in the 21st century is therefore a relevant one. As I have argued, one major way in which Britishness is constituted today is via its pop music, and more specifically, the tradition of guitar-based rock music that goes back to the early 1960s when bands such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks emerged. That this music style and the related subculture of the mods have been incorporated into British selfrepresentations is not particularly surprising, considering that its exponents expressed a certain affinity with Britishness and its imagery. As can be seen in the example of The Kinks, references to Britishness can be found on various levels of expression, from the lyrics, the music, the performing and singing style, to the band’s attitude, clothes and their subcultural context. While the 1960s offer themselves as a source of pride, it is less obvious that the punk movement of a decade later should have similarly come to be canonized and to signify Britishness. Punk, which started as a rebellion against the dominant social order of Britain in the 1970s and as a reaction to the idealization of the past, has itself become an idealized past in its own right. One of punk’s main achievements was the way it included groups often marginalized in pop music and society at large. It allowed and enabled women to actively take part in a field mostly reserved for men, and established strong ties with black music styles. Yet, although Punk represents an approach that more accurately reflected British society at the time than most other forms of pop, this inclusive tendency is elided in current understandings of British pop music. Instead, regarding British pop from the 1960s as the foundational moment of pop music makes possible a view of it as predominantly white and male. References to British pop music often reflect a conservative vision of a glorified and mythologized national past that ignores the transnational and subcultural genealogy of pop music. What is celebrated instead as a national music style is “a synthesis of white styles with any black influence bled out” (Savage 1996, 414), a form of pop music that has stagnated and ossified, representing a poor copy of its ideals in the sixties and seventies. This is even more obvious considering that the most innovative, forward-looking and ground-breaking forms of music today, spearheaded by female artists and performers,11 are once again transgressing national, sexual and stylistic borders.

 11

Including, most notably, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Lady Gaga and M.I.A.

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Discography The Clash. “White Riot.” The Clash. CBS Records. 1977 —. 1977. “White Man in Hammersmith Palais.” The Clash. CBS Records. —. 1979. “London Calling.” London Calling. CBS Records. The Kinks. 1967. “Waterloo Sunset.” Something Else by The Kinks. Pye. —. 1968. “Village Green.” The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. Pye. —. 1969. “Victoria.” Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire). Pye. Sex Pistols. 1977. “God Save the Queen.” Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols. Virgin Records.

References Adams, Ruth. 2008. “The Englishness of English Punk: Sex Pistols, Subcultures, and Nostalgia.” Popular Music and Society 31 (4), 469– 488. Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism [1983]. London; New York: Verso. Bracewell, Michael. 2009. England is Mine [1997]. London: Flamingo. Frith, Simon. 1996. “Music and Identity.” In Questions of Cultural Identity, edited by Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, 106-127. London: Sage Publications Ltd. —. 2001. “Pop Music.” In The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock, edited by Simon Frith, Will Straw and John Street, 93-108. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hall, Stuart. 1993. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” In Colonial Discourse and Post-colonial Theory, edited by Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman, 392-403. Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Hamilton, Jack. 2016. Just Around Midnight. Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination. Cambridge; London: Harvard University Press. Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture. The Meaning of Style. London; New York: Methuen. Keightley, Keir. 2001. “Reconsidering Rock.” In The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock, edited by Simon Frith, Will Straw and John Street, 109-142. New York: Cambridge University Press. Reynolds, Simon. 2011. Retromania. Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past. London: Faber and Faber. Savage, Jon. 1992. England’s Dreaming. Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

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—. 1996. Time Travel. Pop, Media and Sexuality 1976-96. London: Chatto & Windus. Smith, Anthony D. 1990. “Towards a Global Culture?” In Global Culture. Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity, edited by Mike Featherstone, 171-192. London; Newbury Park: Sage Publications. Viol, Claus Ulrich. 2000. “A Crack in the Union Jack? National Identity in British Popular Music.” In Youth Identities. Teens and Twens in British Culture, edited by Gerd Stratmann, Merle Tönnies and Claus-Ulrich Viol, 81-106. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter. Weight, Richard. 2013. Mod. From Bebop to Britpop, Britain’s Biggest Youth Movement. London: Vintage Books.





CHAPTER TWO HOW POP MUSIC CELEBRATES THE LIFE AND CULTURE OF NORTHERN ENGLAND CARLA FUSCO

Global vs Local The publication, in 1957, of Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy still represents an important synthesis of the eternal debate on the negative consequences of mass culture for folk culture. An earlier essential contribution to this issue by Adorno and Horkheimer dates back to 1944 and highlights the danger in standardising culture: The entertainments manufacturers know that their products will be consumed with alertness even when the consumer is distraught, for each of them is a model of the huge economic machinery which has always sustained the masses, whether at work or at leisure–which is akin to work. The culture industry as a whole has molded men as a type unfailingly reproduced in every product. All the agents of this process... take good care that the simple reproduction of this mental state is not nuanced or extended in any way.

However, unlike Adorno, Hoggart contrasted the idea that “the masses excluded from culture” (1938, 292) were incapable of finding their own expressive dimension. Modernity and Post-modernity have strenuously urged the necessity to create a monolithic culture and erode local peculiarities. Indeed, terms like “regional” and “local” have assumed a negative connotation bearing a diminishing meaning. They imply something that has been considered inferior or residual compared to the dominant culture. The attempt to annihilate all those heterogeneous aspects which had composed British identity is also an attempt to delete its past and its culture:

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Chapter Two England was many different places then. With the end (or at least drastic shrinking) of pot-making, mining, smelting, weaving, spinning, farming, fishing, engineering, church-going, and the settling over all of the great pax consumia, it is hard now to see it. (Jack 2003, xx)

More precisely, it is the working class identity that is in danger of extinction. In the name of globalisation, the trend has been to sacrifice local uniqueness for the creation of new internationalism. However, the confrontation between globalisation and regionalism surprisingly turns out to be a failure for the former. Today we are indeed facing a countertendency, which consists in the proud revival of local culture. This growing feeling of belonging to a specific territory and to all it concerns has involved many other aspects of social life. The reassertion of a territorial identity, apparently lost forever, has also undergone some constitutional reforms. In 1997, for instance, during Tony Blair’s premiership, the creation of the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales represented the last steps in the devolution process. Nevertheless, the strenuous reappropriation of nationalism has, more recently, led to an extreme affirmation of populism; Nigel Farage’s UKIP is a prime example, in that sense, as well as the eventual Brexit. Another substantial turn towards the revaluation of regionalism concerns the current use of the English language by the media. The posh accent spoken by BBC announcers was until some decades ago the best way to approach a correct pronunciation known as “Received Pronunciation” (Crystal 2010, 27). Today, instead, even the most wellknown journalists and broadcasters make use of regional accents, revealing the wide variation in accents, dialects and slang officially displaying the dynamic coexistence of many “Englishes” (Storry and Childs 2003) against the supposed existence of one single, homogeneous language. It is especially through music that the multifarious aspects of English identity emerge and show the strength of its cultural background. Pop music, in particular, accompanied 20th-century British history by mirroring society better than any other phenomenon and recording its varied moods.

Northernness The individualization of the above mentioned dichotomy between global and local allows the start of another binary opposition such as between the capital city, London in the South, and the large cities of the North, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Sheffield, in order to

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outline two distinct environments. The latter are not simply physical places but evocative spaces of a past world which still persists in the memories of those who care to keep it alive. For this reason, Northernness has become a metaphor for a wider discourse regarding the industrialization of those areas where, historically, there was evidence of the mass migration of peasants from the countryside to factories, resulting in the rise of the working class. Each city became identified with the production and trade of local goods by the communities of people who lived there throughout the years. The story of Northernness has been told from various perspectives, but it has always centered on the same leitmotif, nostalgia. Nostalgia is the key word in understanding the sense of loss that people felt in the 19th century when they witnessed the denaturalisation of the northern landscape by industry. Nostalgia and a sense of loss were again apparent between the 70s and 80s of the 20th century when heavy industry effectively ceased to exist. Northern England has therefore been the source of inspiration for many waves of song writers. A traditional testimony to the feelings that connected people with the history of their land is “The Dalesman’s Litany.” The song is the lament of a poor Yorkshire worker (a “dalesman,” literally a country villager) who was forced by capitalist industrialisation to migrate to the city: It’s hard when fowks can’t find their wark Wheer they’ve bin bred an’ born; I were young I awlus thowt I’d bide ‘mong t’ roots an’ corn. I’ve bin forced to work i’ towns, So here’s my litany: Frae Hull, an’ Halifax, an’ Hell, Gooid Lord, deliver me!

Then to work hard and for peanuts all his life: “I’ve wrowt I’ Leeds an’ Huthersfel,” “An’ addled honest brass,” “I’ve sammed up coals i’ Barnsley pits, Wi’ muck up to my knee: Frae Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham” and finally, as an old man, to return to die in his home town, now abandoned, in an unreal landscape marked by the huge hills of processed coal debris and besieged by the moor: But now, when all wer childer’s fligged, To t’ coontry we’ve coom back. There’s fotty mile o’ heathery moor Twix’ us an’ t’ coal-pit slack. And when I sit ower t’ fire at neet,

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Chapter Two I laugh an’ shout wi’ glee: Frae Bradforth, Leeds, an Huthersfel’, Frae Hull, an’ Halifax, an’ Hell, T’ gooid Lord’s delivered me!

The invocation to God reiterated at the end of each of the six stanzas represents a feature typical of litany. The latter belongs to the liturgical music genre and usually consists of a series of intents followed by an incisive ensemble invocation. This litany, composed by Dave Keddie, has been part of the oral tradition of Yorkshire for a long time. At the end of the 19th century the litany was included in a collection of songs gathered and edited by Frederic William Moorman, a professor of English literature at Leeds University, who was also the president of the Yorkshire Dialect Society. The book, entitled Songs of the Ridings, was published in 1918, but translated into Standard English only in 1968 in the volume Folk Songs of Old England.

The Punk Revolution Northern England appeared in the British music scene again between the late 70s and the 80s to embody an ideal background in which to express social malcontent and disillusion. The two decades were characterised by economic uncertainty, political disagreement and an increasing level of unemployment which led to serious riots against the Establishment by the proletariat. Amidst that uneasy climate, an extraordinary proliferation of bands arose, providing their audience with a unique insight into the socio-political context. Punk, together with its other affiliated movements, Ska, Two Tone and New Wave, turned out to be the most effective medium through which to investigate and understand the reasons behind the social uproar of that time. The Punk aesthetic is rooted in an opposition to the perceived pomposity of rock bands like Pink Floyd; the Punk song style was easy and direct, predominantly based on vocality and on an obsessive use of drums. Punk bands’ popularity grew, thanks to the spread of “fanzines” (magazines written by fans) such as Sideburns, which helped musicians like The Clash, The Dammed or the Sex Pistols to become legends. The powerful overflow of their rebellious feelings and the harshness of their lyrics against the government transformed the leaders of those bands into the spokesmen of the angry working class.

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Although there is still controversy about Punk’s political orientation, 1 there is no doubt that many Punk songs had a single target: Margaret Thatcher. There is quite a number of anti-Thatcher songs: “Ronnie & Mags” (NOFX), “Maggie” (Chaos UK), “Listen Margaret” (Toxic Waste), “Margaret Thatcher How Does It Feel to be The Mother of a Thousand Dead” (Crass) “Kick Out the Tories” (Newton Neurotics), “Miss Maggie” (Renaud), “Thatcher’s Fortress” (The Varukers), “No Fuckin’ War” (Thatcher on Acid), “I’m In Love With Margaret Thatcher” (Notsensibles); some of them bear outrageous titles: “Thatcher Fucked the Kids” (Frank Turner), “Maggie You Cunt, Maggie from Horror Epics” (both by The Exploited) and “Maggie Maggie Maggie– Out Out Out” (The Larks). Anarchy and chaos were the possible answers to pessimism about the future, as Malcolm McLaren, the Sex Pistols’ creator, once said: the establishment notion of ‘bad’ finally needed to be redefined. The notion of ‘good’ meant to me things that I felt I just absolutely wanted to destroy... When I discovered the kids had the same anger—that they would wear black—it was perfect. I thought they could never stop me dreaming, and help me never return to what I was terrified of, normality... I only felt good when those people said it was bad. The characters Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious exposed that anger and kept me in step with everything that I felt from a very early age and allowed me to continue to stay horrible. (1990)

Paradoxically, nihilism about future prospects and unemployment figures, which were at their worst since World War II, brought people to reconsider nostalgically the industrial world that was once so much hated. In this respect, Ruth Adams quotes Richard Weight: It is in times of danger, either from without or from within, that we become deeply conscious of our heritage... within this word there mingle varied and passionate streams of ancient pride and patriotism, of a heroism in the times past, of a nostalgia too for what we think of as a happier world that we have lost. (471)

 1

“Punk was to cross the rubicon of style from which there could be no retreat. Some punks went so far as to valorize anything mainstream society disliked, including rape and death camps; some punks slid into fascism” (Clark 2003, p.3); “instances of fascist or racist symbolism and lyrics, as well as flirtation or even outright affiliation between punk groups and racist organizations, predominantly the National Front (NF) (Moliterno 2012, 1).

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Further on, Adams comments: while the ‘blank generation’ was visibly disenchanted by the model of nationhood offered by the Establishment, punk provided a quasi-nation, a sense of identity and belonging... Punk could be argued to be a reframing of national identity in the image of (certain elements of) the working classes, rather than that of the ruling classes, of the (post-)industrial city rather the pastoral fantasy of the countryside. In this, punk is again perhaps indicative of broader trends within national heritage.... (2008, 475-6)

Up Here in the North of England The title of this section is borrowed from a song by the Icicle Works that was released in 1987, and which sarcastically refers to a political episode of that time involving two politicians, Townsend and Turin, opposing Liverpool Militant Council in an anti-heroin campaign: And the party-pooping left wing Wouldn’t play the Tories game, The southerners don’t like us Who can blame ‘em seems we’re always in the spotlight;

This is just one of several examples of how a northern town functions as a backdrop in a story song. Two other songs can serve as examples to interpret the isotopy of Northernness from two opposite perspectives: “Ghost Town” (1981) by The Specials and “It’s Grim Up North” (1991) by the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (the JAMs). The former, unlike “The Dalesman’s Litany,” in which the narrator scrupulously indicates the many places of his existential journey, is characterised by a total lack of toponyms. The absence of precise geographical places expands the meaning of the song to convey the message that any northern town has lost its identity: “This town (town) is coming like a ghost town/All the clubs have been closed down.” It doesn’t matter what place it is, since it is like any other place of the north; the ghost town turns out to be a symbol of that alienation created by unemployment, as implied in the second line, which provokes violence: “Bands won’t play no more/Too much fighting on the dance floor.” Riots are an expression of social frustration, to which the narrator rhetorically opposes the recollection of a past when industry gave work and dignity to a community of people: “Do you remember the good old days before the ghost town.” This constitutes an open accusation against the government, which neglects the young, highlights the poor relation:

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no job, no entertainment, given that a former boomtown is now a ghost town: “Government leaving the youth on the shelf.” The paralysis of the place is underlined by its zombie-like movement forward, which intensifies its spectral atmosphere, despite the use of the action-verb “to come” in the present continuous tense. A synthesiser creates the fading effect, which lets the resulting sound combine words with music. “It’s Grim up North” is also centred on urban decay, but it approaches the theme by making a long list of northern towns, a list which constitutes the only lyrics of the song: Bolton, Barnsley, Nelson, Colne, Burnley…

Instead of anonymity, the stylistic device of this second song is to trace a detailed map of the north and show the vastness of the territory. The roll call of big (e.g. Leeds and Manchester) and small (e.g. Glossop and Ilkley Moor) towns has the same effect as memorial inscriptions on a tombstone. The title borrows an idiomatic expression used by the southern English to relate to the north in which the adjective grim works as a metonymy for bleakness: “It’s grim up North.” The black and white video of the song hits the mark, showing the frontman singing under pouring rain in an indefinite urban context. The industrial techno sound is reminiscent of a steam whistle, but at the end there slowly appears in red lettering the slogan: “the north will rise again,” a quotation from William Blake. The final message unexpectedly makes the resurrection possible. Such stories behind stories reveal the implicit presence of northern cities as epitomes of human despair. External space is intended as an extension of the human soul caught in a moment of discomfort. Social and individual unease mirror each other to narrate moments of being. This is the case with “Life in a Northern Town” (1984) by Dream Academy. The song is thought to be a tribute to the English songwriter Nick Drake, who died of an overdose of antidepressants after having suffered from depression for a long time: You could see it written in his eyes As the train pulled out of sight Bye-bye Ah hey ma ma ma Life in a northern town.

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Many musicians of that period belonged to the category of “the damned” whose lives were indissolubly interwoven with their art. A legendary example in that sense was Ian Curtis, leader of the English band Joy Division. His song “Inside the Line” (one of the tracks from the album Warsaw, written between 1977 and 1980, but released only in 1994) is a merciless portrait of Manchester perceived as a claustrophobic place in which the lyric persona feels imprisoned. The claustrophobic dimension is a typical feature of Ian Curtis’s poetics (Di Marco 2008, 34), a sort of harbinger of his tragic death. It deals with the eternal, sad refrain of youth: the surrounding community with its expectations (“Everything I do—they’re always trying to crowd me/I can’t even seem to find the room to move/Watching every move I make”); the sense of oppression towards the place where one lives, with no way to escape from the daily apnea: “Shackled up in fantasy/Hoping for some time to breathe/Suffocation comes too easy/I just want some time to breathe.” It is both an individual and a collective condition. This sense of suffocation doesn’t derive from a real lack of space; Manchester was actually suffering a significant demographic decrease in those years of economic crisis. It is indeed the empty space that paradoxically provokes psychological compression and pushes life towards the margins. As a result, the total lack of future prospects and the excessive control of institutions compel the young to stay inside the line, on a dead end track.

͒Mark Knopfler’s “Look Back in Anger” Much later, Northern England is again the protagonist in Mark Knopfler’s song “Why Aye Man.” In 2002, the former leader of Dire Straits composed this song, which is a passionate tribute to those old days. The title of the song is in Geordie English, the variant spoken in the North East, more precisely in a large area more commonly called Tyneside. A Geordie also indicates a citizen from Newcastle. The title translation is: yes, of course, man. This narrative song is characterised by folk-rock sonorities which are much less raw compared to those of Punk, yet the song lyrics aren’t so. The song describes a slice of northern life almost unknown outside English borders, providing new insights into the events of those years, specifically, the out-migration of English workers. Many people left England for Germany in search of jobs and better living conditions. The lyrics evoke the Thatcher era; “Maggie” is mentioned twice, since people blamed the Prime Minister’s decisions for creating their failure, after the closing of mines and factories: “We had the back of

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Maggie’s hand/Times were tough in Geordieland.” Despite all that, workers’ spirits are high when, ironically, they think of the chance to earn money, drink German beer and eat tarts: “Economic refugees/On the run to Germany,” “There’s plenty deutschmarks here to earn/And German tarts are wunderschön/German beer is chemical-free/Germany’s alreet with me.” The ballad concludes with hints of homesickness for the River Tyne, nostalgia along with anger reconfirmed as the feelings that best define a period that is still alive in the geographical places and in the memory of many English people: “Sometimes I miss my river Tyne/But you’re my pretty fraulein/Tonight we’ll drink the old town dry/Keep wor spirit levels high.” Knopfler confessed that he drew inspiration for his song from “The Spirit Level” by Séamus Heaney (Nannini and Ronconi 2003, 88), and the question of English workers’ migration to Germany became widespread in England thanks to a sit-com entitled Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, which played on television from 1983 until 2004. Like Knopfler’s song, the TV series tells the adventures of a group of English workers in Düsseldorf. Memories of those hard times were vividly revived on the day of Margaret Thatcher’s death. Street manifestations of jubilee were evidence of a still open wound, even when the North had proudly risen again.

Hitting the North There are many other popular songs that are entirely or partly related to the cultural identity of the North of England. These songs complete the flow of stories, anecdotes, feelings and sensations which form the idea of regional culture or “provincialism” and also explain why the people of Northern England have so much to say. “Stanlow” by OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark), released in 1981, celebrates the unexpected beauty of an oil refinery situated near Manchester. The installation stands as a landmark which marks the rhythm of daily life of the people who work there. The incipit of the song is particularly suggestive, as the sound reproduces the incessant noise of working machines. Everything that results is hypnotic and magical: It’s our belief eternally This field remains Stanlow No heart or head or mind No season could erase

Chapter Two

40 We set you down To care for us Stanlow.

In 1984, The Bangles sang: “I'm going down to Liverpool to do nothing”; the tune is cheerful, but the content of the song is yet another complaint against the uneasy social environment. The role of the landscape is also fundamental in “Suffer Little Children” (1984) by The Smiths, a song which reports the true story of a murder on Saddleworth Moors, not far from Manchester. “Hit the North” by The Fall (1988) is a further example of a protest song against the establishment: Hit the North Manacled to the city, manacled to the city /. . . / Those useless MPs Savages Hit the North (manacled to the system).

The list can continue with The Charlatans’ “Spronston Green” (1990) the setting for a sad love story. Sheffield is the protagonist of three very different songs: “Sheffield Sex-City” (1992), “Coles Corner” (2005) and “Sheffield Shanty” (2006) which speak respectively about female sexual fantasies while reading a section of the children’s novel The Secret Garden, the most popular meeting place in the Yorkshire city, and the faithful chronicle of a flood. Northernness as narrated in this wide variety of songs can be seen as both the projection of a place in the mind which includes many cultural nuances, and as the pieces of a large puzzle which instead of simply defining the borders of a landscape, show the charm of its nonconformity.

References Adams, Ruth. 2008. “The Englishness of English Punk: Sex Pistols, Subculture, and Nostalgia.” In Popular Music and Society. Vol. 31, no. 4, 469-488. Adorno, Theodore W. 1938. “On the Fetish-character in Music and the Regression of Listening.” In Essays on Music, edited by R. Leppert. 2002. London, University of California, 288-317.

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Adorno, Theodor W. and Max Horkheimer. 1944. “The Culture Industry as Mass Deception.” In Dialectic of Enlightenment. Social Sciences Association. 1972. New York: Herder & Herder. Clark, Dylan. 2003. “The Death and Life of Punk, the Last Subculture.” In The Post-Subcultures Reader, edited by David Muggleton and Rupert Weinzierl. Oxford: Berg, 223-238. Crystal, David. 2010. “Language Developments in British English.” In Modern British Culture, edited by Michael Higgins, Clarissa Smith and John Storey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 26-41. Di Marco, Marco. 2008. Joy Division. Broken Heart Romance. Roma: Arcana Edizioni. Hoggart, Richard. 1957. The Uses of Literacy. London: Chatto & Windus. Jack, Ian. 2003. “Blurring the Line.” In The Guardian Review (25th October) xx. Muggleton, David and Rupert Weinzierl, eds. 2003. The Post-Subcultures Reader. Oxford: Berg. McLaren, Malcom. 1990. “Punk and History.” In Discourses: Conversations in Postmodern Art and Culture. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. Moliterno, A. G. 2012. “What Riot? Punk Rock Politics, Fascism, and Rock Against Racism.” Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse, 4 (01). Nannini, Giulio and Mauro Ronconi. 2003. Le canzoni dei Dire Straits. Milano: Editori Riuniti. Nieri, David. 2005. “Mark Knopfler–The Long Highway.” In Buscadero, 38-43. Storry, Mike and Peter Childs, eds. (1997) 2013 (fourth edition). British Cultural Identities. London and New York: Routledge. Weight, Richard. 2003. Patriots: National Identity in Britain 1940-2000. London: Pan Macmillan.



CHAPTER THREE ‘IN BETWEEN WORLDS’: THE INTRICATE ARTICULATION OF IRISHNESS IN THE POGUES’ MUSIC SAŠA VEKIû

Although Punk can be considered the antithesis of (Irish) folk music, the strands of these musical genres, and their varied symbols, meanings, stories and ideas, are woven into a cohesive, dynamic and provocative whole in the songs of The Pogues. Nevertheless, the relations between The Pogues and prevailing cultural, social, and political trends and viewpoints in both the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland have often been complex and variable; in the band’s first years, their idiosyncratic style and display of cosmopolitan Irishness frequently attracted hostility from the media and conservative folk musicians in both countries. The Pogues crossed cultural borders in their unconventional approach to both Punk and Irish folk music—although certain elements of pop, rock, jazz, or zydeco, Spanish, and Arabic musical styles also influenced their sensibility and songwriting process—giving rise to questions regarding the links between music, place and identity. The front cover of their second album Rum, Sodomy and The Lash (1980), based on Théodore Géricault’s painting The Raft of the Medusa (1819), as Noel McLaughlin and Martin McLoone write, “depicts the members of the band out at sea, ‘in between worlds,’ looking for land” (McLaughlin and McLoone 2000, 191); thus, it can be asserted that the sleeve art of this album offers a potent metaphor for (Irish) migrations, itinerancy, and the shared hardships of emigrants, or the everyday life of second-generation Irish people in the U.K., and, more precisely, the Irish experience in London, as evidenced by the lyrics of the songs on The Pogues’ LPs. The Pogues formed their hybrid identity in London, a city which represents a palimpsest of various multicultural structures; its

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eclectic space can be seen as a “contact zone,”1 and this multifarious city of fluid identity and great ethnic and cultural diversity has been a specific social, political and cultural labyrinth which certainly influenced the band’s attitudes and style. In an analysis of The Pogues’ music and fluid cultural identity, and the context from which they emerged, it is worth noting that, according to Stuart Hall, “cultural identities... undergo constant transformation. Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialised past, they are subject to the continuous ‘play’ of history, culture and power” (Hall 1990, 225). Also, in his examination of the relationship of popular music and history, Keith Negus writes that “certain noises, words and images… confront writings and beliefs about history in which specific barriers have been erected and boundaries drawn” (Negus 2010, 138). Many Pogues songs focus on the aspects of both political tensions, and the boundaries they created, in Irish history and the (consequent) complexities of the modern London social milieu. The Pogues made their live debut as Pogue Mahone 2 on 4 October 1982 at the iconic music venue the Pindar of Wakefield3 in King’s Cross4 in north London, where a considerable Irish community developed.5 In his comment on the multicultural milieu, Irish enclaves in London, and music played at the time, The Pogues’ founder, lead singer and chief songwriter Shane MacGowan said:

 1

This term was introduced by Mary Louise Pratt to describe “social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination…” (Pratt 1992, 4). 2 This is an anglicisation of the Irish phrase Póg mo thóin (‘kiss my arse’). The members of the band shortened the original name to The Pogues after the BBC realised the meaning of the title in Irish (Rogan 1998). Also, according to James Fearnley, Spider Stacy suggested this name, which was actually a quotation from James Joyce’s Ulysses (Stacy memorised a short passage from the book) (Fearnley 2012, 53). The numerous literary references in The Pogues’ songs are not the subject of the analysis in this paper. 3 It is now known as The Water Rats. 4 See Clerk, Pogue Mahone: The Story of The Pogues, 58. 5 As Gráinne O’Keeffe-Vigneron reminds us, “Brent, Camden, Islington, Haringey and Hammersmith and Fulham started to become Irish enclaves as more and more Irish immigrants arrived to participate in the post-war reconstruction boom. These immigrants were young, the typical age was between 20 and 25 […] Being young, and finding themselves alone for the first time in a large urban agglomeration, the need for them to identify with each other was strong. Sean O’Faolain was even once quoted as saying that even: ‘when a person left Ireland, even to escape numbing poverty or smotheringly oppressive society, they left with the tentacles of the place knotted around their heart’” (O’Keeffe-Vigneron 2008, 182).

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Chapter Three Even if you’re not from an Irish background you’re going to hear a lot of Irish music if you knock around certain parts of London... Half the pubs in North London in the Sixties and Seventies had a lot of Irish records on the juke-box, and at least half the pubs in London must be Irish-run. So you had blacks, Italians, English and Irish in there and there would be Irish music playing along with soul and rock’n'roll. It’s a real melting pot, especially in North London, of musical types.” (Dwyer 1987)

MacGowan, an active participant in the British punk scene in the late 1970s, initially recruited Andrew Ranken (drums) and Cáit O’Riordan (bass), the musicians of Irish origin, and Spider Stacy (tin whistle), Jem Finer (banjo), James Fearnley (accordion), the musicians of English descent; two Irish-born musicians, Philip Chevron 6 (guitar) and Terry Woods (bouzouki, mandolin, cittern) joined The Pogues in 1985, and the band’s English “roadie,” Darryl Hunt replaced O’Riordan as a bass player in 1986 (their instrumentation was based on both an Irish traditional sound and punk rock). Shane MacGowan was born in Pembury, Kent, in 1957, but he spent his early childhood in county Tipperary, Ireland, with his Irish-born parents. According to his mother, Therese MacGowan, “every weekend, and sometimes in the middle of the week,” traditional Irish music was performed in their house—MacGowan describes this period as “happy times”—and “it had tremendous influence on him… he absorbed all that… traditional Irish music and singing and dancing through his pores when he was at a very formative age” (MacGowan 1997).7 In his article “My Family Values,” MacGowan writes: It was always an open house–people would come around at all hours and there would be dancing and card-playing and boozing and singing. It was like living in a pub. I was smoking and drinking and gambling before I could talk… I used to learn a song a day from my mother's family, so I built up a huge repertoire. Mostly Irish songs. I gave my first performance when I was three. They put me up on the kitchen table to sing and the song went down very well. I did public performances regularly after that. (MacGowan 2013)8

 6

Philip Chevron was one of the most influential figures of punk in Ireland. It is worth noting here that, according to Gerry Smyth, “The role assigned to music during the formative years of childhood and adolescence establishes a set of implicit psychological benchmarks which determine in large part the subject’s ability to relate to music throughout the remainder of his or her life” (Smyth 2004, 8). 8 “Shane MacGowan: My Family Values,” The Guardian, 20 December 2013. 7

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MacGowan was six years old when his parents made the decision to move to England, “seeking, in effect, a prosperity and future that couldn’t be found at home” (Merrick 2001, 7-8). The MacGowans could not easily adapt to the new surroundings, and the transition was particularly disturbing for Shane: “We moved all the time… I never settled down. In my head it was a complete scramble. Completely confused. I didn’t know what I was doing there” (Rogan 1998). Referring to his traumatic school days and the time when he lost his Irish accent, MacGowan emphasised that “his Irish accent was “kicked” out of him as a schoolboy in England” (Mamrak 2011, 6).9 Also, as Joe Merrick writes, “experiencing difficulties of his own, Shane’s father sought an emotional connection with his homeland via a rapidly expanding collection of LPs, full of traditional Irish Ceilidh… music. Yet his greatest affection was reserved for The Dubliners… Drawn to what he heard, Shane was soon sitting alongside his father, humming along to the sounds emanating from the record player” (Merrick 2001, 9). Irish traditional music (moved from its local context) quite often created a space that the migrant Irish, thinking about their (new) identity and social belonging, could claim; it also signified collective (nostalgic) memories and evoked (idyllic) homeland places; it was sometimes an open system (in a pluralistic environment) that could articulate the experiences of immigrants in a new social and cultural milieu; most importantly, it played (and still plays) a crucial role in connecting members of the Irish community.10 Stan Brennan, the first manager of The Pogues and the producer of the band’s first album Red Roses For Me (1984), explains how the band attracted a lot of attention from the second-generation Irish in England: “They’d heard The Dubliners, they’d heard Willie Clancy and loved it, although they were too embarrassed to play this sort of music at parties with their mates. But they also loved punk, and they got the Pogue



9 “Audibility is the prime marker of Irishness in England, confirming the assimilationist assumption about the second generation…. However, as this extract demonstrates, children can ‘experience’ the hostilities that may be generated in their parents’ everyday encounters” (Hickman et al. 2005, 169). 10 As Gerry Smyth notes, “It was during the nineteenth century that music began to perform important sociopolitical functions in Irish life, both at home and amongst the diaspora. Music was both a private, affective action and a public, social ritual whereby the subject could ‘act out’ his or her Irish identity, secure in the knowledge that each individual musical act—be it a composition or a performance or simply listening to a piece of music—was in some way part of an age-old, ongoing tradition, a tradition which confirmed (and, with each new act, reconfirmed) the validity of both the individual and the nation” (Smyth 2004, 5).

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Mahone synthesis very quickly” (Clerk 2009, Ch. 8). Initially, punk represented an alternative heterogeneous space of marginalised (sub)cultural groups or alienated, angst-ridden young people challenging the dominant social systems, rigid beliefs, jingoism, the pop and rock music establishment and, importantly, articulating working-class experience in Great Britain. Ruth Adams argues that “punk opened the eyes and sympathies of many young people to musical and ethnic cultures which they may have otherwise remained unaware of [and] it created a safe space in which individual expression and diversity could be given free rein (Adams 2008, 477-478).11 John Lydon, the British punk movement’s most prominent figure in the late 1970s, openly expressed his Irishness,12 which was, actually, his specific, localised (London-based) Irish identity, in several interviews.13 Carol Clerk notes that “Shane admired the Irishness he came to see in Rotten as well [sic] his capacity for exaggeration and his superiority as a performer and a lyricist. The Pistols, and early punk, provided MacGowan with an environment in which he felt alive and at



11 For instance, English punk’s acceptance of West Indian culture has been well documented. Also, in 1978 and 1979, many punk musicians played Rock Against Racism concerts in England (The Clash, X-Ray Spex, The Ruts and Sham 69, to name but a few); a British film director Gurinder Chadha describes the 1978 event in Victoria Park in London “as an incredibly emotional moment”; she says: “for the first time I felt that I was surrounded by people who were on my side. That was the first time I thought that something had changed in Britain forever” (in Sarfraz Manzur’s “The Year Rock Found Power to Unite,” The Guardian, 20 April 2008). Furthermore, in 1980, Alien Kulture, the punk band whose members were children of Pakistani immigrants was formed in South London. 12 However, “The Sex Pistols, and the cultural phenomena that they created, generated, and inspired, were decidedly English” (Adams 2008, 469). 13 Sean Campbell quotes Lydon’s words in an interview with Melody Maker in 1977: “‘I’m Irish’ he explained, ‘and if they [the National Front] took over I’d be on the next boat back. I believe you should be allowed to live where you want, when you want and how you want’” (Campbell 2011, 63). Furthermore, in an interview with The Irish Times in 2010, Lydon said: “I didn’t ask to move out of Ireland. I’m an Irish citizen. I travel on an Irish passport” (Boyd 2010). Nevertheless, in his autobiography Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (1994), Lydon emphasised that he is a Londoner, and gave a different perspective on his identity: “I was brought up a Londoner. That’s the place that educated me, but every year we’d go to Ireland, where my father and mother were born, for six- or eight-week holidays. That would be it. Ireland is not my kind of place to be. It’s all right when you want to get drunk. You wake up, and there’s nothing to do. That’s not very purposeful. I could never be willful on a farm… My Irish half provided my sense of devilry. Like Oscar Wilde, my philosophy became, Just do it, see what you can cause (Lydon 2014, 9).

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home” (Clerk 2009, Ch. 1). Certainly, it was the punk movement that gave MacGowan “a sense of belonging.”14 He became “a minor celebrity on the London punk scene” (Rogan, 2016); at the time he created his own punk fanzine called Bondage, and was the lead singer in The Nipple Erectors (The Nips).15 Also, MacGowan used the pseudonym Shane O’Hooligan, which “conveyed a certain conception of Irishness” (Campbell 2011, 64); however, at concerts, he often wore a Union Jack suit (the national flag of the U.K., as the potent symbol of the state, was appropriated and recontextualised in punk) which could symbolise his belonging to a crosscultural space. According to Clerk, in 1977, MacGowan would spend a lot of time in The Cambridge, a traditional pub in Cambridge Circus, London, one of the favourite places among early punks, “airing his thoughts about music and politics and current affairs with a gathering of friends…. Those who drank with him in The Cambridge remember someone who was forthright in his views and unassailably proud of his Irish background (Clerk 2009, Ch. 1). Adams reminds us that “punk very often ignored and transgressed the gender, sexual, class, racial, and aesthetic norms of mainstream society” (Adams 2008, 477); thus, it was a necessary subcultural space where MacGowan could articulate his feelings and vociferously express his Irishness, which was, in 1970s and 1980s Britain, during the IRA’s bombing campaign in England, a highly provocative (punk) attitude.16 Cáit O’Riordan recounts her experience in those years: “You didn’t know how to articulate what your life was like… growing up London-Irish in the 1970s, having this funny name and parents who had this funny accent, with bombs going off” (Campbell 2011, 71). Dee O’Mahony, then a student at St Martin’s School of Art, recalls the period thus: I was Irish and that’s one of the reasons I kind of stuck out. It was not hip to be Irish at that stage... I was very conscious, in London, of keeping my

 14

Sean O’Hagan in The Great Hunger: The Life and Songs of Shane MacGowan, BBC 2, 4 October 1997. 15 Shanne Bradley formed The Nipple Erectors in 1976. The name of the band was shortened to The Nips, so as to avoid media censorship. Also, The Millwall Chainsaws was one of MacGowan’s early bands, and one of the members was Spider Stacy with whom MacGowan would form The New Republicans, a band with a wide repertoire of Irish rebel songs. 16 “Paddy bashing” (attacking and intimidating Irish immigrants) was common at the time. MacGowan was frequently physically assaulted; James Fearnley recalls some of the incidents: “Shane just says what’s on his mind, and that’s fantastic, that’s really great, but it’s going to get him in trouble because some people take umbrage and they kick him around like a rag doll” (Clerk 2009, Ch. 8).

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Chapter Three head down due to the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign in the seventies. I remember being very conscious of my accent, and I lost it fairly quickly. So here was this mad bunch ranting about Irish history and music, and it was the first time I’d met people who weren’t afraid to talk about what it was to be Irish in London and to talk about Irish culture. That’s one big thing I remember about Shane–his focused sense of what it was to be Irish. (Clerk 2009, Ch. 1)

Considering the specific contexts from which MacGowan emerged, stating his London-Irish identity was highly significant; that was not merely a challenge to the stereotypical ethnic classifications of the dominant English ethos, or extreme and aggressive politics at the time, but his claim to a necessary part of the complex, multilayered and fluid social space in London (which included confrontation with its prevalent prejudices and views). Furthermore, as Sean Campbell notes in ‘Irish Blood English Heart’ Second-Generation Irish Musicians in England, “The ‘London’ evoked by The Pogues… surpassed the simple binary of the English-Irish interface…. This is not to suggest, however, that the English capital that was staged by The Pogues was a naively multicultural utopia, for while this imagined metropolis was explicitly multi-ethnic, it was equally multiracist” (Campbell 2011, 88). The Pogues’ conception of Irishness quite often made explicit and courageous (political) statements (against hatred, injustice and anti-Irish stereotypes). Anti-Irish sentiment17 was rife in England during the conflict

 17

More about the history of anti-Irish sentiment can be found in Mary Hickman’s Religion, Class and Identity (1995). Also, Sean Campbell, in ‘Irish Blood, English Heart’ Second-generation Irish Musicians in England, writes about English prejudice against the Irish, the stereotypes associated with Irish people, and “Irish Jokes,” “ideas of Irish obtuseness,” and “pernicious Irish caricatures that emerged in the British music press” (Campbell 2011, 20-21). Furthermore, James Fearnley (a member of The Pogues) writes in his autobiography Here Comes Everybody: The Story of The Pogues: “My English upbringing resulted in my regarding them as, at best, figures of fun or, at worst, in the climate of the Troubles, agents of death and destruction. The little experience of Irish people I had, had come from working on building sites with men my father called ‘navvies,’ whom he dismissed as feckless, universally stupid and, more often than not, drunk. Otherwise, what I knew about the Irish and Ireland had come mostly from books. At school I’d read Wilde, Shaw, Beckett and Yeats and had struggled with the fact that the former two weren’t English” (Fearnley 2012, 111). Also, John Lydon depicts his London childhood experience in his autobiography Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (Plexus 2003) thus: When I was very young and going to school, I remember bricks thrown at me by English parents. To get to the Catholic school you had to

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in Northern Ireland and the IRA mainland bombing campaign which hit London from 1973 onwards. The IRA took its bombing campaign to the streets of other British cities as well; for instance, the IRA carried out one of its deadliest terrorist attacks on 21 November 1974, when twenty-one people were killed in a pub bombing in Birmingham. In the immediate aftermath of the bombings the Irish were subjected to discrimination and harassment, and many “forms of prejudice… conflated IRA actions with Irish ethnicity (Campbell 2011, 20).18 The media backlash against the Irish that followed did nothing to encourage the open expression of an Irish identity nor did the introduction of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) following the bombings whose indiscriminate use created many problems for Irish citizens in England. The Irish community felt it was under “public surveillance” by both the police and the indigenous population and was constructed as a “suspect community.” (O’Keeffe-Vigneron 2008, 184)

Six people of Irish descent were arrested and, in 1975, wrongly convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the Birmingham terror act. Also, in the same year, three men from Northern Ireland and an Englishwoman were wrongly convicted of carrying out the IRA bombing of a Guildford pub in 1974 (the explosions killed five people and injured scores more). The Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six were released in 1989 and 1991, respectively, after a long campaign had been conducted on their behalf, and after the Court of Appeal had overturned the convictions, citing police mishandling of the evidence.19 The Pogues’ song “Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six,” included on the 1988 album If I Should Fall from Grace with God, focuses on the theme of the Troubles20—the first part “Streets of Sorrow” is about someone leaving Northern Ireland during the conflict—and a story about victims of

 go through a predominantly Protestant area. That was most unpleasant. It would always be done on a quick run” (Lydon 2003, 12). 18 Tim Pat Coogan writes in Wherever Green Is Worn: The Story of the Irish Diaspora about the tense atmosphere “that affected the Irish community in the wake of this atrocity. Birmingham had already been experiencing marked anti-Irish prejudice for a decade before. The large influx of the Irish emigrants during the 1950s had led to tensions, and sociologists had commented on the bad impression created in some English minds by the Irish as early as 1967” (Coogan 2001 195). 19 A group known as “the Maguire Seven” were also convicted in relation to the Guildford bombings; their convictions were quashed in July 1990. 20 The ethno-nationalist armed conflict in Northern Ireland during the late twentieth century is known as the Troubles.

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miscarriages of justice (The Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six). The first part of “Streets of Sorrow,” about a person leaving Northern Ireland during the conflict,21 was written and sung by Terry Woods; the unnamed person in this part of the song—who represents people on both sides traumatised by the conflict—lives in distress and suffers misery: “I've lived through terror/And in the darkened streets the pain”; he feels that the situation is hopeless and decides to leave his city torn apart by the endless violence and bloodshed: “No I'll not return to feel more sorrow, Nor to see more young men slain.” The slow tempo and melancholic rendition of “Streets of Sorrow,” which can be perceived as an opening prelude or introduction to the second part depicting the incidents in England—makes a dramatic contrast to the fast tempo of “Birmingham Six,” the second part of the song, written and sung by MacGowan. His stirring, energetic vocal performance and political, denunciatory lyrics convey resentment and anger: “A curse on the judges, the coppers and screws/Who tortured the innocent, wrongly accused/For the price of promotion/And justice to sell.” In his article “The Pogues: ‘We expected censure from the beginning’,” James Fearnley writes that “the song was hard-hitting, musically and lyrically, and made no bones about declaring that those convicted of the 1974 pub bombings had been ‘picked up and tortured and framed’ and were still in prison ‘for being Irish in the wrong place and at the wrong time’” 22 (Fearnley 2013). Although this is a song with a political dimension, or an Irish protest song, Fearnley asserts that “it wasn’t so much a political statement as the artistic expression of a political statement (Clerk 2009, Ch. 22). Also, in an interview with The Irish Post, Fearnley says “we weren’t espousing anything up until Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six…. At that point it became important to espouse something and even then it was about individuals rather than a political statement” (Purden 2013). Nevertheless, the song “Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six” was banned by the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA); as Fearnley explains, the IBA “claimed that the lyrics could ‘incite terrorism’” (Fearnley 2013). According to John Street, “The story of censorship is not, for the most part (if ever) the story of images or words that offended, but of the political interests that articulate and respond to the ‘offence’” (Street 2012, 12); therefore, it can be asserted that The Pogues’ “Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six” narrativises the



21 Northern Ireland is not directly mentioned in the song. Fearnley explains in his autobiography Here Comes Everybody that Woods wrote “Streets of Sorrow” “from the point of view of someone leaving Northern Ireland during the Troubles” (Fearnley 2012, 296). 22 Fearnley quotes a line from this song here.

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political interests, the atmosphere of conflict and tragic events, and the experiences of Irish people in politically difficult circumstances in Britain at the time. Furthermore, although the song has a political aspect, and the musical genre the band chose, a distinctive and curious amalgam of Irish folk music and English punk, was often perceived as politically provocative, The Pogues were in a space between politically opposing sides, socially polarized spheres, and the binary oppositions reinforcing ethnic stereotypes. As Spider Stacy confirms in an interview “the first thing to say is that just because you sing Irish songs, that doesn't mean you have to side with one particular set of extremists” (McIlheney 2017). The theme of emigration, or the immigrant experience story, is present on all The Pogues’ albums (of course, there are political connotations to this theme, within certain historical and social contexts). London, the city that shaped the identity of The Pogues, has always been a major destination for migrants. Kevin Robins describes London as “the city beyond the nation”: London provides a vast space—bigger in some senses than the nation—in which cultures can be differently imagined and conceived—and differently imagined and conceived by all who are engaged with its reality. And it is a space, consequently, in which the relation between diversity of cultures might be reimagined and reconceived on a more complex basis. (Robins 2005, 491)

The Pogues reimagined their Irish identity in London’s vast, intricate urban multicultural space, to which they belonged, creating a unique dialogue between the past and the present. Darryl Hunt explains that “Shane got a lot of his influence, obviously, from Ireland but also from the multi-culturalism of London…. We were part of what was happening in London, but we were also observers”; also, Jem Finer describes The Pogues as “a London band whose influences are from living in London but who have got this element of an Irish experience, although not exclusively so. Shane’s songs are the songs of a displaced person, not the songs of a native of a place” (Clerk 2009, Ch. 7). The opening track of their debut album Red Roses For Me (1984), “Transmetropolitan” is not only a personal map of the capital but also a statement about having a LondonIrish identity and belonging to this particular complex urban culture which can be so often unwelcoming (“This town has done us dirty/This town has bled us dry/We’ve been here for a long time/And we’ll be here ‘til we die”); also, the band’s punk attitude expressed in the original lyrics

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announces the intention to confront the Establishment (or part of it) 23 which so often marginalised (ethnic) minorities: Whitehall (a reference to the British government), GLC (the Greater London Council representing local government, 24 and the BBC (the national broadcaster): “There’s lechers up in Whitehall/And queers in the GLC/And when we’ve done those bastards in/We’ll storm the BBC.”25 The song refers not only to the boroughs, areas and places26 with the highest populations of Irish people, Hammersmith and Camden, but also to Brixton in Lambeth with a large community of Afro-Caribbean descent and to some particularly significant and interesting places in London’s social and cultural history: “Going transmetropolitan/From the dear old streets of King's Cross/To the doors of the ICA… From Brixton's lovely boulevards/To Hammersmith's sightly shores/… From Surrey Docks to Somers Town/With a KMRIA27/… From Arlington House with a 2 bob bit.” It is noteworthy that the Institute of Contemporary Arts (the ICA in the song) 28 was often dedicated to the promotion of new live acts; for example, it presented The Clash in 1976, and MacGowan was at this concert (he was known as Shane O’Hooligan at the time), when his earlobe was cut, which attracted the attention of the journalists who made the sensationalist headline in NME (“Cannibalism at

 23

As McLoone reminds us, punk “was itself part of a broader and deeper movement of dissatisfaction with the political and cultural establishment (McLoone 2004, 31). 24 The Greater London Council was the local government administrative body from 1965 to 1986. “Council made the historic step of including the Irish in minority ethnic community funding initiatives in 1984” (Bronwen 2016, 132). 25 In “The Pogues: ‘We Expected Censure from the Beginning’,” Fearnley writes that this part of the song and all the profanities were expunged: “the memory came back to me of recording Shane’s vocal with alternative lyrics, from which had been removed the least controversy. The words “piss,” “whores,” “queers,” “poofs,” “bastards,” “bloody” and “shite”–and even “spew”–were exchanged for euphemisms in this alternate version. All brand names were expunged. A vow to “start on the EEC” replaced the original lyrics’ threat that we would “storm the BBC” (Fearnley, 2013). 26 The Pogues reference Arlington House in the song, a hostel for homeless men in Camden. It was opened in 1905, and it has been a home for many emigrant Irish. Also, there is a reference to Surrey Docks where many dockers of Irish ancestry worked in the 19th and 20th centuries (the area was redeveloped for residential housing during the 1980s and early 1990s). 27 A very short section in James Joyce's Ulysses is entitled KMRIA—an acronym for “Kiss My Royal Irish Arse.” 28 The Institute of Contemporary Arts—cultural and artistic centre—was founded in 1946. It became known for its innovative exhibitions; also, it is the venue for independent and world cinema and live music.

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Clash Gig”); thus the ICA is an important place in MacGowan’s memory map of London created in this song (also, the ICA was the organiser of the New Year concert of The Pogues on the 31st December 1984). Furthermore, in “Transmetropolitan,” there is a reference to Arlington House, a hostel for homeless men in Camden; it was opened in 1905, and it has been a home for many emigrant Irish 29 —it provided low-cost housing for Irish workers (especially those working in the post-war reconstruction of London)—and to Surrey Docks where many dockers of Irish ancestry worked in the 19th and 20th centuries.30 Different aspects of Soho, the city’s historic multidimensional centre (also a unique heterotopic space)31—an entertainment district known for its sex-related business,32 and multicultural area with many dynamic meeting places where personal space can be recontextualised—are referenced in “Transmetropolitan” in which MacGowan mentions “Soho sex-shop dreams” (he worked in a record shop near the area) and “Rainy Night in Soho” (1986) in which this part of the city, as a setting for a story about love and the end of a relationship, has a different character: “I took shelter from a shower/And I stepped into your arms/On a rainy night in Soho/The wind was whistling all its charms.” The emotional and imaginative mappings in some of the songs with a London setting have certain psychogeographical elements; for example, both the poetic lyrics and music in “Lullaby of London” (this is also a ballad with strands of Irish folk music) can be the carriers of a sense of place, reflecting emotional overtones of the London urban environment: “As I walked down by the riverside/One evening in the spring/Heard a long gone song/From days gone by/Blown in on the great North wind/… As I walked on with a heavy heart/Then a stone danced on the tide/And the song went on/Though the lights were gone/And the North wind gently sighed.” The catalogue of The Pogues’ London songs offers personal narratives about different perspectives of the city, romance, wandering through the streets (“I like to walk in the summer breeze/Down Dalling Road by the dead old trees/And drink with my friends/In the Hammersmith Broadway” 33 ), bibulousness, pubs 34 —for example, the

 29

The Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh stayed in the house in the 1930s; Brendan Behan also resided for a time at Arlington House. 30 This area was redeveloped for residential housing during the 1980s and early 1990s. 31 Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia describes spaces that have more layers of meaning. Foucault elaborated this concept in his text “Of Other Spaces” in Diacritics, Vol. 16, No. 1. (Spring 1986), 22-27. 32 Also, Soho has undergone considerable gentrification. 33 In “The Dark Streets of London” (1984).

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Euston Tavern is mentioned in “The Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn” (1985), the Kardomah in “London Girl” (1986), and the Scottish Stores in “Transmetropolitan”—or everyday (difficult) experiences on the often rainy streets of London (“Dear dirty London in the pouring rain” 35); some central city areas are mapped and the plight of a young immigrant in the big city is depicted in the narrative of “The Old Main Drag”: “When I first came to London I was only sixteen/With a fiver in my pocket and my ole dancing bag/I went down to the dilly to check out the scene/But I soon ended up upon the old main drag/… One evening as I was lying down by Leicester Square/I was picked up by the coppers and kicked in the balls/Between the metal doors at Vine Street I was beaten and mauled”; in “NW3”36 (the title denotes a north London postal-code area), MacGowan focuses on changing fortunes, disappointment, vulnerability, and finally the return to Ireland of an Irish immigrant (which could in fact reflect MacGowan’s desire to live in Ireland) 37 : “Now I’m spent of love and rage/And I’m going home again/Never did nobody wrong/Never earned a decent wage/… the years they went by quickly/Now I swear I won’t return here/Where each day just bring me closer/To the final misery.” Throughout its history, Ireland has been a country of considerable emigration, and apart from Great Britain, the main destinations of choice for many were the United States, Canada and Australia. “The majority of Irish emigrants who left in the nineteenth century and in the early part of the twentieth century went to North America” (Quinn 2010). According to Irial Glynn, “From 1815 to the start of the Great Irish Famine (18461852), between 800,000 and one million Irish sailed for North America with roughly half settling in Canada and the other half in the United States,” and the number of those who emigrated to America during the Great Famine reached 1.8 million; “The emigration of so many during the Famine led to the establishment of huge Irish communities abroad…. These vast networks helped to facilitate millions of more Irish to emigrate in the decades following the Famine” (Glynn 2012). The Irish-American experience was quite often difficult at first. The Irish were stereotyped as alcoholics and were seen as pugnacious, ignorant, illiterate or angry (the newspapers often expressed antipathy to Irish people); according to



34 Gráinne O’Keeffe-Vigneron notes that social life of many Irish emigrants was “centred on pubs and dance halls”; “It was a place where they could socialise with their own nationality. Many Irish men frequented the pubs in Camden town” (O’Keeffe-Vigneron 2008, 182). 35 In “Sea Shanty” (1984). 36 The first recording of the song is from October 1987. 37 At the present time MacGowan resides in Ireland.

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Marion R. Casey, “The Irish were the lowest tier, above only AfricanAmericans, according to 19th century racial thought. More spoke English as the century wore on, but their pronunciation immediately marked them as ‘other.’ Most were Catholic, a minority religion that was perceived as both exotic and potentially subversive” (Casey 2012). Many Irish traditional songs exemplify major themes of Irish immigration: The Great Famine, poverty, displacement, acute nostalgia, prejudice, finding work, hope and loss 38 , to name but a few. Grace Toland argues that “When people left Ireland, they were singing and thinking about it because the songs were a way of self-expression for ordinary people. The Pogues are just as much an example of this resonance as any nineteenth-century song” (Carroll, 2016). Not only did The Pogues perform their rousing and vibrant renditions of traditional Irish songs about emigration from Ireland to the United States—for instance “Muirshin Durkin,”39 or “The Leaving Liverpool”— but recorded original songs, notably “Fairytale of New York” (1987), “Thousands are Sailing” (1988) and “USA” (1989), evoking the different American experiences of Irish emigrants in recent history, and expressing both a sense of loss and sense of hopefulness. “Fairytale of New York,” by Shane MacGowan and Jem Finer (named after J.P. Donleavy’s 1973 novel A Fairy Tale of New York), featuring Kirsty MacColl on vocals, is set in New York, the city with the largest Irish born population in the United States throughout the nineteenth century and into the 1990s.40 The image of an Irish drunk and his memories in the song is used to create elements of nostalgia for time past, and a sense of failure and escapism offered by alcohol; the story begins with the reverie of an Irish immigrant spending Christmas Eve in a “drunk tank”; he hears the Irish drinking song “The Rare Old Mountain Dew,” which evokes his nostalgic reminiscences, and begins to think about the past, unfulfilled hopes, missed opportunities, love and the song’s female character: “It was Christmas Eve babe/In the drunk tank/An old man said to me, won’t see another one/And then he sang a song/The Rare Old Mountain Dew/I turned my face away/And

 38

In “Leaving and Being Left Behind: Immigration as a Theme in Irish Music,” Alexandra McKeever reminds us that, “Those who emigrated were often never seen again by their families. It became common for families to hold an “American wake” for those about to leave, for once they left they were unlikely to return. At these gatherings, families and communities could say a final goodbye” (McKeever 2015). 39 The narrator in the song—an Irish emigrant—goes to America during the California Gold Rush (1848-1858). 40 In Marion R. Casey’s text “Irish” (Encyclopedia of New York City).

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dreamed about you/… They've got cars big as bars/They’ve got rivers of gold/But the wind goes right through you/It’s no place for the old.” The image of the NYPD (New York Police Department) choir singing “Galway Bay” in the song is used to develop the Irish-American setting and an air of festivity—there was a belief that the police department in New York was dominated by The Irish41—although, contrary to the lyrics, the NYPD did not have a choir but an Irish pipe and drums band (Pipes and Drums of the Emerald Society); the uplifting instrumentation of the main part of “Fairytale of New York” (in the style of an Irish folk song)— the producer Steve Lillywhite completed “Fairytale of New York” using a horns and strings section and a harp played by Siobhan Sheahan— contrasts with the opening piano theme with a slow tempo influenced by Ennio Morricone’s score for Once Upon a Time in America. “Fairytale of New York” had a special relevance in the 1980s, considering that Ireland experienced economic hardship and consequently another wave of mass emigration at the time. Furthermore, New York as an immigrant destination and a city of opportunity, and a long journey across the ocean into a possibly precarious life in America, are referenced in Philip Chevron’s song “Thousands are Sailing”: “Thousands are sailing/Across the western ocean/To a land of opportunity/That some of them will never see/… In Manhattan's desert twilight/In the death of afternoon/We stepped hand in hand on Broadway/Like the first man on the moon.” The song refers to the Irish emigration during the 1980s, and Chevron explained that he wanted to make “a connection between the past and the present”; “The song wrote itself because it became an obvious parallel [with the exodus in the mid1800s due to the potato famine]. The heart-sickness in ‘Thousands Are Sailing’ is not so much about missing home as about the alienation of being somewhere else, that sense of not belonging anywhere” (Clerk 2009, ch. 21). The references to loneliness and social isolation that migrants experience so often, and John F. Kennedy42 (JFK in the song), Brendan

 41

More about climbing the occupational and social ladder by the Irish in the United States can be found in: “Immigration…Irish: Joining the Workforce” (The Library of Congress). 42 America’s first Irish-Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, has been an important figure in Irish immigrant communities as an example of the success in achieving the “American Dream.” The front cover of the Pogues’ album Red Roses for Me (the title is the reference to Sean O’Casey’s play) shows the members of the band sitting in front of a picture of John F. Kennedy. Also, Brendan Behan (from a working-class family committed to Irish republicanism) was a celebrated personality in New York—his second play Hostage had a great success off Broadway—and it was his favourite city. The Pogues recorded “The Auld

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Behan, and the Irish folk song “The Blackbird” also indicate the narrator’s Irish (emigrant) identity: “Then we raised a glass to JFK/And a dozen more besides/When I got back to my empty room/I suppose I must have cried/… And “The Blackbird” broke the silence/As you whistled it so sweet/… And in Brendan Behan’s footsteps/I danced up and down the street.” Noel McLaughlin and Martin McLoone observe that “The Pogues address the Irish emigrant through song narratives that offer an ‘inbetweenness’. Within this there is a critique, through parody, of national stereotypes…. However, while blatant Irish stereotypes are certainly present, these are rearticulated in interesting ways”: In music and performance, the nostalgic associations are wrenched out of their context both by the irreverent way that folk forms are played (and played with) and in the lyrical associations that are attached to them. The Pogues parody and interrogate aspects of Irishness in complex and confusing ways, and to see in them only a lack of positive stereotyping is to miss the point. What is interesting about them is the full range of characterisation present–drunken Paddies, sentimental Paddies, homesick Paddies, pathetic and nostalgic Paddies in tandem with representations of an Ireland collapsing under the weight of tradition and economic peripherality. (McLaughlin and McLoone 2000, 191)

MacGowan, as the main singer and songwriter, embodied these stereotypical characters, 43 thus exploring and revealing not only certain aspects of Irish social and cultural history, or perceptions of Irish identity, but also subversive and transgressive features of the carnivalesque44 (in the Irish context), which so often set the atmosphere of the band’s live performances, challenging rigid cultural norms and values at the same time. Nuala O’Connor argues that “the band’s belligerent interpretations and anarchic performances of traditional songs served as an ‘antidote to

 Triangle” —an Irish prison song from Behan’s play The Quare Fellow (1954)—on their album Red Roses for Me. 43 MacGowan’s alcoholism, or excessive celebration of drinking (often associated with sociability and conviviality), is another ethnic stereotype (a “drunken Paddy” character) which marked The Pogues’ distinctive style, and identity, and led to numerous problems which resulted in his parting company with The Pogues in 1991. 44 According to Mikhail Bakhtin, carnivalesque “marked the suspension of all hierarchical rank, privileges, norms, and prohibitions” (Bakhtin 1984, 10).

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the stultification of folk music by purists’.” 45 During the 1980s, The Pogues met with frequent hostility and negative criticism from both the media and some Irish traditional musicians. For example, in September 1985, the band were guests on the “BP Fallon Orchestra,” on RTÉ Radio 2. The interview was a hostile and argumentative meeting between the band and the audience of music journalists, traditional Irish musicians and radio listeners, and the band’s Irishness was the theme of heated debate.46 As Fearnley writes, an Irish concertina player, Noel Hill, tried to describe The Pogues as “charlatans and bastardisers of Irish music” (Fearnley 2012, 187).47 The vehement criticisms and impassioned debates concerning national identity and The Pogues’ music in the 1980s, and the nationalistic and conservative folk musicians’ strong aversion to the band, which was deemed to be inauthentic (from the nationalistic perspective, nontraditional musical forms were regarded as un-Irish, especially if the musicians were second-generation Irish coming from Great Britain,48 the former colonial ruler), reflected insularity and the notion of a homogenized Irish cultural identity—strict and oversimplified definitions of Irish music as well—and misunderstanding of second-generation Irish people. According to McLaughlin and McLoone, “The problem with narrow definitions of music and nationality is that they may limit the range of music and performance possibilities by closing off options and alternatives” (McLaughlin and McLoone 2000, 192). As Campbell notes, The Pogues’ “synthesis of both the ‘English’ and ‘Irish’ aspects of second-generation life” and the band’s “forays into ‘ethnic’ sounds, not least zydeco (“London Girl”), Spanish (“A Pistol For Paddy Garcia,” “Fiesta”), Arabic (“Turkish Song of the Damned”) and jazz (“Metropolis”) exemplify the concept of audiotopia” (Campbell 2011, 59, 87), which certainly opens “options and alternatives.” Informed by Foucault’s concept of “heterotopia,” Josh Kun developed this idea in Audiotopia: Music, Race and America (2005), defining audiotopia as “the



45 Nuala O’Connor’s opinion quoted in McLaughlin and McLoone’s “Hybridity and National Musics: the Case of Irish Rock Music” (2000, 191). 46 In this interview, Spider Stacy tried to explain the hybrid identity of the band: “We’ve never tried to be a traditional Irish band.... We’re a fusion of lots of different things” (RTÉ Archives, “The Pogues on the BP Fallon Orchestra 1985”). 47 The Pogues’ jig “Planxty Noel Hill” is dedicated to Hill. 48 “Plastic Paddy” is a pejorative term (coined in the 1980s) for members of the Irish diaspora who are perceived as inauthentic; more about this theme can be found in Marc Scully’s “‘Plastic and Proud’?: Discourses of Authenticity among the second-generation Irish in England.”

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space within and produced by a musical element that offers the listener and/or the musician new maps for re-imagining the present social world.” It is also, as Kun emphasises, a musical space of difference, where contradictions and conflicts do not cancel each other out but coexist and live through each other… audiotopias can also be understood as identificatory “contact zones,” in that they are both sonic and social spaces where disparate identity-formations, cultures, and geographies historically kept and mapped separately are allowed to interact with each other… (Kun 2005, intr.)

In his reference to the sleeve art for The Pogues’ album Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, Campbell explains that “Despite this graphically implied quest for terra firma… MacGowan was keen to distance himself from territorialized conceptions of identity” (Campbell 2011, 83). The Pogues have gone beyond the borders of narrowly defined Irish (musical) culture and national identity49 extending the range of their music and articulating various ideas and values of cultural freedom; they simultaneously reflect Irish cultural heritage, transcend the limits, barriers and divisions that the national culture and (turbulent) history can create, and convey their messages, ideas, and musical aesthetics not only to the Irish diaspora but to culturally diverse audiences in many countries.50 The Pogues’ songs recreate the character of London, New York, Ireland, or other places, and different notions of belonging as well; these songs can simultaneously reflect and shape multicultural and national space (its historical context as well) and its various identities; some of these songs reflect aspects of MacGowan’s emigrant experience and sentiment, and the world of (reimagined) Ireland of his childhood.51

 49

According to McLaughlin and McLoone “The problem with narrow definitions of music and nationality is that they may limit the range of music and performance possibilities by closing off options and alternatives” (McLaughlin and McLoone 2000, 192). 50 Simon Frith asserts in his analysis of the relationship between music and identity that “what makes music special—what makes it special for identity—is that it defines a space without boundaries…. Music is thus the cultural form best able both to cross borders—sounds carry across fences and walls and oceans, across classes, races and nations—and to define places” (Frith 1996, 125). 51 The lyrics of “The Broad Majestic Shannon” (1988) focus on the images and locations in county Tipperary where MacGowan spent his early childhood: “Blowing up the road to Glenaveigh/I sat for a while at the cross at Finnoe/Where young lovers would meet when the flowers were in bloom/Heard the men coming home from the fair at Shinrone/Their hearts in Tipperary wherever they go.”

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The Pogues’ music can certainly reveal the unique transcultural space characterised by movement, difference, and interaction, and the (constant) quest for identity; it creates various meanings of (well-known, or new) vast social and cultural spaces. The heterogeneousness of Irish nationalmusical articulations as evidenced by The Pogues’ lyrics, music, tone, performances, attitudes, or their artistic redefining of national culture as an intricate and dynamic whole, reflect their experience of liminality, different versions of Irishness (or fluid Irish identities) and cosmopolitan imaginary.

Discography The Pogues. 1984. “Transmetropolitan.” Red Roses For Me. Stiff. —. 1984. “Dark Streets of London.” Red Roses For Me. Stiff. —. 1984. “Sea Shanty.” Red Roses For Me. Stiff. —. 1985. “The Old Main Drag.” Rum, Sodomy and The Lash. Stiff. —. 1986. “Rainy Night in Soho.” Poguetry in Motion. Stiff. —. 1988. “Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six.” If I Should Fall from Grace with God. Stiff Records. —. 1988. “Lullaby of London.” If I Should Fall from Grace with God. Stiff Records. —. 1988. “Fairytale of New York.” If I Should Fall from Grace with God. Stiff Records. —. 1988 “Thousands are Sailing.” If I Should Fall from Grace with God. Stiff Records. —. 1988. “The Broad Majestic Shannon.” If I Should Fall from Grace with God. Stiff Records. —. 2008. “NW3.” Just Look Them Straight in the Eye and Say… PogueMahone!! The Pogues Box Set. Rhino.

References Adams, Ruth. 2008. “The Englishness of English Punk: Sex Pistols, Subcultures, and Nostalgia.” Popular Music and Society Vol. 31, no. 4, 469–488. Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1984. Rabelais and His World, translated by Hélène Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

 Fearnley reminds us that the melody of “The Broad Majestic Shannon” (in the middle eight) is based upon a sixteenth-century harp tune, “Tabhair Dom Do Lámh” (“Give Me Your Hand”) (Fearnley 2012, 212).

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Boyd, Brian. August 31, 2010. “The Making of a Rotten Public Image.” The Irish Times. Accessed February 10, 2017. http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/2.681/the-making-of-arotten-public-image-1.644769. Campbell, Sean. 2011. Irish Blood, English Heart: Second Generation Irish Musicians in England. Cork: Cork University Press. Carroll, Jim. November 26, 2016. “Why the Song of the Emigrant Still Strikes a Chord Today.” The Irish Times. Accessed 1 March 2017. http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/why-the-song-of-theemigrant-still-strikes-a-chord-today-1.2870491 Casey, Marion R. November 16, 2012. “How Waves of Irish Became Americans.” New York Times. Accessed March 5, 2017. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/11/15/how-immigrantscome-to-be-seen-as-americans/how-waves-of-irish-became-americans. —. “Irish.” The Encyclopedia of New York City. Accessed 20 March 2017. http://www.virtualny.cuny.edu/EncyNYC/Irish.html. Clerk, Carol. 2009. Pogue Mahone Kiss My Arse: The Story of The Pogues. London: Omnibus Press. Kindle Edition. Coogan, Tim Pat. 2001. Wherever Green Is Worn: The Story of the Irish Diaspora. New York: Palgrave. Dwyer, Michael. “Mack The Mouth.” The Sunday Tribune, 2 August 1987. Accessed January 11 2017. http://shanemacgowan.com/press/mac-the-mouth-2/. Fearnley, James. 2012. Here Comes Everybody. London: Faber and Faber Ltd. Kindle Edition. —. 2013. “The Pogues: ‘We Expected Censure from the Beginning’.” The Guardian 23 October 2013. Accessed 27 January 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/oct/23/poguesira-broadcast-ban-25th-anniversary. Frith, Simon. 2003. “Music and Identity.” In Questions of Cultural Identity, edited by Stuart Hall and Paul Du Gay, 108-127. London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: SAGE Publications. Glynn, Irial, 2012. “Irish Emigration History.” Accessed 1 March 2017. http://www.ucc.ie/en/emigre/history/. Hall, Stuart. 1990. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” In Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, edited by Jonathan Rutherford, 222237. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Hickman, Mary J. 1995. Religion, Class and Identity: The State, the Catholic Church, and the Education of the Irish in Britain. Aldershot, Hants, England: Avebury. Kun, Josh. 2005. Audiotopia: Music, Race and America, Berkeley and Los

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Angeles, California: University of California Press. Kindle Edition. Lydon, John, with Keith and Kent Zimmerman. 2003. Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs. London: Plexus Publishing Limited. MacGowan, Shane. December 20, 2013. “My Family Values.” The Guardian, Accessed 3 March 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/dec/20/shanemacgowan-musician-my- family-values. MacGowan, Therese. October 4, 1997. The Great Hunger: The Life and Songs of Shane MacGowan, directed by Mike Connolly, BBC 2. McIlheney, Barry. N.d. “Celtic Swingers.” Melody Maker. Accessed February 26, 2017. http://www.pogues.com/Print/MelodyMaker/Celtics.html. McKeever, Alexandra. October 7, 2015. “Leaving and Being Left Behind: Immigration as a Theme in Irish Music.” Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Talk Story: Culture in Motion. Accessed March 1, 2017. http://www.folklife.si.edu/talkstory/2015/leaving-and-being-leftbehind-immigration-as-a-theme-in-irish-music/. McLaughlin, Noel and Martin McLoone. 2000. “Hybridity and National Musics: The Case of Irish Rock Music.” Popular Music, Vol. 19, no. 2, 181-199. McLoone, Martin. 2004. “Punk Music in Northern Ireland: The Political Power of ‘What Might Have Been’.” Irish Studies Review, Vol. 12, no. 1. Mamrak, Robert. 2011. Rake at the Gates of Hell: Shane MacGowan in Context. Charleston: Pin Oak Bottom Press. Manzur, Sarfraz. 2008. “The Year Rock Found Power to Unite,” The Guardian, 20 April. Accessed 10 February 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/apr/20/popandrock.race. Merrick, Joe. 2001. London Irish Punk: Life and Music… Shane MacGowan. London: Omnibus Press. Negus, Keith. 2010. Popular Music Theory: An Introduction. Cambridge/Malden: Polity Press. O’Hagan, Sean. The Great Hunger: The Life and Songs of Shane MacGowan, directed by Mike Connolly BBC 2, 4 October 1997. O'Keeffe-Vigneron, Gráinne. 2008. “Celebrating Irishness in London.” In Marie-Claire Considère-Charon, Philippe Laplace, Michel Savaric. The Irish Celebrating Festive and Tragic Overtones, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 180-191. Pratt, Mary Louise. 2003. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London/New York: Routledge.

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Purden, Richard. December 16, 2013. “Rum, Sodomy and a Loss—The Pogues on Their Christmas Return.” The Irish Post. Accessed 1 March 2017. http://irishpost.co.uk/rum-sodomy-loss-pogues-christmas-return/. Quinn, Emma. 2010. “Country Profile: Ireland.” Focus Migration. Accessed 1 March 2017. http://focus-migration.hwwi.de/Ireland.6269.0.html?&L=1. Robins, Kevin. 2005. “To London: The City beyond Nation.” In British Cultural Studies: Geography, Nationality, Identity, edited by David Morley and Kevin Robins, 473-493. Rogan, Johnny. 1998. “Rebel Yell.” The Irish Post, September 26. Accessed 11 January 2017. http://shanemacgowan.com/press/rebel-yell/. RTÉ Archives. N.d. “The Pogues on the BP Fallon Orchestra 1985.” Accessed 5 March 2017. http://www.rte.ie/archives/2015/0820/722482-the-pogues-rumsodomy-the-lash/. Scully, Marc. 2009. “‘Plastic and Proud’?: Discourses of Authenticity among the second-generation Irish in England.” In Psychology & Society, Vol. 2 (2), 124 Ǧ 135. Smyth, Gerry. 2004. “The Isle is Full of Noises: Music in Contemporary Ireland.” Irish Studies Review, Vol. 12, no. 1, 3-10. Street, John. 2012. Music and Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. Walter, Bronwen. 2016. “Migrants and Descendants: Multi-Generations of the Irish in London in the 21st Century.” In London the Promised Land Revisited: The Changing Face of the London Migrant Landscape in the Early 21st Century, edited by Anne J. Kershen, 127-145. London/New York: Routledge.



CHAPTER FOUR THE JOYOUS INEBRIATION: DRINKING AND CONVIVIALITY IN POETRY AND SONGS WOJCIECH KLEPUSZEWSKI

Among the broad range of literary works representing different genres and sub-genres, there is poetry written not only to be read, but also to be sung. Traditional songs, folk songs or ballads, they all belong to the realm of poetry, and they render, or even translate a multitude of themes, some of which reflect cultural intricacies. Thus, any discussion on cultural identity naturally invites at least a cursory examination of traditional songs, which are usually quite strongly ingrained in the cultural background, both regional and national, and reflect what might be called an ethnographic landscape. One such theme, quite common in literature generally, is drink-focused, and in this particular context represents what Rachel Black labels as “the genre of drinking songs” (2010, 78). In many cultures, particularly representing the Western tradition, drink has been an inseparable part of the cultural frame, deriving from the whole wine civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome, developed further in France, Spain and various other geographic zones; the Germanic or Czech brewing cultures; and the high-proof traditions of distillates, particularly culture-bound in Scotland and Ireland, where whisky, or whiskey, as would be the more correct spelling in Ireland, is “the water of life” (uisge beatha/uisce beatha). In many cases, drink is intertwined with everyday reality to such an extent that it has become a prominent part of the cultural heritage, often a salient cultural landmark. The backgrounds that are certainly drink-related are those of the British Isles, especially Scotland and Ireland, where drink is an inherent part of the culture, and not just because of the local traditions of whisky distilling. The drinking poems and songs of the British Isles can generally be distinguished by their air of festivity, a stock feature which inspired

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John Struthers, the editor of The Harp of Caledonia (1821), to include a whole chapter called “Convivial Songs” (1821b, 255-284) in his collection. Following the premise that drink is “a cultural artefact that can tell us about society” (Black 2010, xiii), this chapter is an attempt to highlight and address the concept of conviviality in drinking-songs, and the manner in which these songs reflect certain aspects of cultural identity. There are numerous publications that provide examples of drinking songs/poems, often in the form of songbooks, most of which include both the lyrics and the music, such as The Irish Pub Songbook (1993), edited by John Loesburg, or the four volumes of The Very Best Irish Songs and Ballads (1999), edited by Pat Conway, with their “Caledonian” equivalent, also in four volumes, The Very Best Scottish Songs and Ballads (2008), compiled by Waltons Publishing. The majority of published material with poems or songs written in the British Isles concerns Ireland and Scotland, though there is also a body of publications recording the English songs and ballads. More problematic is the case of the Welsh legacy in this department, if only because of the language, which is a natural barrier. The Irish and Scottish songs, even though often written in the regional linguistic variety, are comprehensible to anyone with a knowledge of the English language, which, unfortunately, is not the case with the Welsh songs. Regional specificity is one issue; the other is the time frame. Traditional songs in the British Isles had their heyday of interest in the 18th and 19th centuries, and this applies both to the songs written in the preceding centuries, as well as to those which appeared at the time. As Taylor writes in her study, “[d]rinking permeates writing in England during the period 1780-1830, in songs of celebration, narrative poems, elegies for those who drank too much” (Taylor 1999, 5). This is what could have encouraged Francis Child to edit an impressive collection of eight volumes of English and Scottish Ballads (1860), of which he writes that they “have been compiled from the numerous collections of Ballads printed since the beginning of the last century” (1860, vii). Child does not refer to these collections en masse, but provides an extensive list of all that had been published prior to the publication of his collection (cf. 1860, xiiixxxi). A large body of poems and songs in the collections listed by Child are anonymous, many are written by lesser poets, but there are also examples of famous names, such as Coleridge, whom Taylor hails as the “inventor and singer of drinking-songs” (1999, 93), a firm token of acclaim, however debatable. What should be noted is that some of the collections acknowledged by Child are to an extent repetitive in their content, which is only natural, as the number of songs and poems in

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circulation is obviously limited, so it would not be surprising to find the same songs in different collections, even though occasionally in a variant version. The songs are often clustered in thematic chapters whose titles leave no doubt as to the subject matter they concern: “Drinking-Songs” (Ritson 1913b, 1-96), “Drinking Songs and Humorous Songs” (Kidson and Neal 1915, 62-64), or “Drinking-Songs, Convivial Songs” (Blackie 1889, 296-333). Although there are modern publications as well, it seems, in general, that since their prime in the 18th and 19th centuries, interest in drinking-songs has waned, or at best they have become part of a niche that is of interest to a limited audience. What might be called a blend of ‘spirits and high spirits’ in the drinking-songs of the British Isles, has a number of connecting traits, apart, of course, from the drink-theme as the common denominator. The first feature is the pure celebration of life as a fleeting moment to be celebrated: “Drinking-songs form a subset of songs of carpe diem, celebrating wine, women and song, a brief life and a merry one” (Taylor 1999, 95). This is exemplified in Robert Heath’s song “In Praise of Love and Wine,” which brings into focus the brevity of life and the transient moments of delight, moments that should be exploited to the full: “Life’s short and winged pleasures fly;/Who mourning live, do living die“ (Cunningham 1835b, 102). This epicurean approach to life follows the simple formula outlined, for instance, in “A Drinking Song” by Barry Cornwall, which invites the audience to “fill the night with mirth” and “soar into the world of pleasure” (Cunningham 1835b, 282). In the same vein, an anonymous song suggests blissful bacchanalian intoxication, the sole aim being to “be blyth and free” (Herd 1870, 94). Drink in such songs is a means of retaining the ephemeral present, an even better example being Thomas Jordan’s poem “The Epicure”: Let us drink and be merry, dance, joke, and rejoice, With claret and sherry, theorbo1 and voice! The changeable world to our joy is unjust, All treasure’s uncertain, then down with your dust: On frolics dispose your pounds, shillings and pence, For we shall be nothing in hundred years hence! (Hutchinson 1904, 78)

The carpe diem motif of the drinking-songs is, paradoxically, as much about immortality, the conquering of death by means of drunken oblivion. A line such as “[d]rinking souls can never die” (Ritson 1913b, 22) is

 1

The theorbo is a lute-like stringed musical instrument.

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reminiscent of the heroic ideal of Old English epics. Thus,“[j]olly mortals, fill your glasses” (Cunningham 1835b, 147), the opening line of “In Praise of Drink,” sounds like the bugle in a battle cry to defy mortality by submerging the self in drink-infused euphoria. This wrestling with mortality, as it were, can also be found in “Song in Praise of Ale”: Let’s drink it around; It keeps us from the grave Though it lays us on ground. (Herd 1870, 102)

Drinking-songs not only convey the delights offered by convivial inebriation, but often justify the act of drinking by expounding the reasons for the merrymaking, as in Norman Gale’s “A Drinking Song”: Here’s a cup to luck, Here’s a cup to folly! Here’s the butt to drench the slut, Pulling Melancholy! (Hutchinson 1904, 250)

Actually, melancholy is an affliction for which drinking-songs always have the ultimate remedy, typified by lines such as “banish despair in a mug, a mug!” (Hutchinson 1904, 82), or the following fragment of John Fletcher’s “Drinking Song”: “[d]rink today and drown all sorrow” (Hutchinson 1904, 27). The prerequisites for achieving this end can be, for instance, the personified “cheerful glass” (Hutchinson 1904, 152) and “cheering bowls” (Cunningham 1835b, 146), or, in Richard Sheridan’s song, a bottle which is no less than “the sun of our table” (Flanagan 1995, 106). Dispelling the melancholic aura is particularly relevant in the British climatic context; consequently, Robert Heath’s song “Drinking on A Rainy Day” seems most fitting here: Oh, ‘tis a rainy drinking day! Come let it pour: We’ll drink these clouds all day away. (Hutchinson 1904, 58)

Gloom and misery in drinking-songs are addressed and challenged in a jocular manner, a case in point being the anonymous “Drinking Song,” which praises drinking for its property of enhancing reality, in this case the reference being the female looks: Then who’d be grave, When wine can save The heaviest soul from sinking,

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Finally, as an imbibers’ anthem, a profession of faith outlining the modus operandi in the crusade to challenge downcast mood, there is a song titled “My Spirits are Mounting”: You ask why I drink and my reason is plain, To gild with bright colours life’s picture again, From the cold track of care my warm heart to remove. (Morris 1802, 2)

Another recurring feature of convivial drinking is the sense of fellowship, particularly what Taylor calls “an old culture of men in groups” (1999, 94); the male factor was certainly relevant in Scotland, where “[w]hisky has traditionally been a male drink” (Daiches 1990, 9). The recipe for jovial companionship consists of three basic ingredients, as outlined in Henry Carey’s song: “an honest old friend,” “a merry old song” and “a flask of old port” (Hutchinson 1904, 132), conviviality being of utmost importance here: “Now, come my boon companions/And let us jovial be” (Hutchinson 1904, 38). The additional feature of such drinking-songs is the boisterous mood, often an inseparable part of the revelry, as in “A Health to All GoodFellowes”: Be merry my hearts, and call for your quarts, and let no liquor go lacking, We have gold in store, we purpose to roar. (Bickerdyke 1889, 325)

The appeal of drinking camaraderie is transparent in the very title of “The Merry Fellows,” and reiterated in the last line of the song: “we’re all merry, merry here” (Hutchinson 1904, 103), the plural pronoun being essential here. Much as drinking-songs reveal a sense of companionship, or what Burke calls the “communitarian aspect” (2008, xii), this specific feature can be extended to feelings of national and cultural identity. John Blackie in the Introduction to his 1889 Scottish Song: Its Wealth, Wisdom, and Social Significance, refers to the “native atmosphere” (4) of Scottish songs, and even coins the term “Scottish Volkslied” (6), borrowing from the German a word which accentuates the national aspect. There are, of course, various ways of expressing it. In Ireland, for example, it would be what Croker refers to as “[m]erry-making in honour of St. Patrick” (1886,

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11). Otherwise, or drinkwise, it is expressed through attachment to, or even national pride in drink; it is readily observable that drinking-songs represent different parts of the British Isles. Thus, the chorus line of Charles Gray’s “Let Drunkards Sing” (Struthers 1821b, 266-267) praises Scottish malt whisky, to which all else, particularly continental beverages, is inferior: French brandy is but trash (shame fo’t!) Their foreign rum I downa prie; Gie me the sterling pith o’ maut, Aboon them a’ it bears the gree! (Struthers 1821b, 266)

By the same token, Irish songs eulogise whisky, as well as the national drinking prowess: The Germans do say they can drink the most, The French and Italians also do boast; Hibernia’s the country (for all their noise) For generous drinking and hearty boys. (Croker 1886, 85)

Similar tones can be traced in the English drinking-songs in reference to beer or ale, which Marchant calls “the National Beverage” (1888, 1), and which, again, is juxtaposed with foreign drink, illustrated with the French example in “A Glass of Old English Ale” by J. Caxton: They talk about their foreign wines–Champagne and bright Moselle, And think because they’re from abroad that we must like them well And of their wholesome qualities they tell a wondrous tale; But sour or sweet they cannot beat a glass of old English ale. (Maynard 1920, 119)

Ale’s high repute is even more decidedly articulated in David Garrick’s boastful song “The Beer-Drinking Britton”: Let us sing our own treasures, old England’s good cheer, The profits and pleasures of stout British beer; Your wine-tippling, dram-sipping fellows retreat, But your beer-drinking Britons can never be beat. (Ritson 1913b, 62)

What this particular song signals is that, while Irish and Scottish drinkingsongs are primarily whisky-induced, English songs tend to focus on beer. This fact is reflected in A Tankard of Ale: An Anthology of Drinking Songs (1920), edited by Theodore Maynard, which contains a plentiful supply of

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beer/ale-songs. Most are similar in tone, praising beer, as does the author of the “Ballad on Ale,” addressing it as a “blest potation!” (Maynard 1920, 110). Another paean to beer hails it “Glorious Beer” (121) in its title, and “English Ale” by William Ainsworth ends in glowing terms: “Ale, ale, fine old English ale, ale, ale/Fine old English ale be mine” (123). Apart from beer, English drinking-songs also take wine as a subject, something fairly rare in the collections of Irish and Scottish songs: It must nevertheless be admitted that the admirers of Anacreon will look in vain through the collection of Scots songs for a real Anacreontic, for an exquisite morsel written in the spirit of the Old Grecian, —the English volumes are full of such sweets, such delicate and choice effusions of the fancy. (Cunningham 1835a, xxxvi)

In Maynard’s anthology, despite the promise of the title, ale is not the exclusive theme of the collection, for there are several wine-songs, such as Abraham Cowley’s “Anacreontiques, No. 2” (76), Hugh Crompton’s “Bacchus” (79), or the anonymous “Drink! Drink! The Red, Red Wine” (98). The same applies to other collections partly focused on English drinking-songs, such as The Songs of England and Scotland (1835), edited by Peter Cunningham, which includes an interesting example of a boast about the infinite capacity for drink absorption, “A Bacchanalian Rant” by Henry Carey: Bacchus must now his power resign, I am the only god of wine; It is not fit the wretch should be In competitions set with me, Who can drink ten times more than he. ... Let other mortals vainly wear A tedious life in anxious care, Let the ambitious toil and think, Let states or empires swim or sink– My whole ambition is to drink. (Cunningham 1835b, 182)

Discussing the fusion of drinking and conviviality in songs written in Britain, Cunningham professes that “the Scotch have got the better of their Southern neighbours in this respect” (Cunningham 1835a, xxxv). In fact, this is very much in line with what Edward Ramsay defines as “convivial habits of Scottish social life” (1877, 34), habits which are perfectly mirrored in the Scottish drinking-songs. A century later, a similar

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observation is made by David Daiches in his collection titled A Wee Dram: Drinking Scenes from Scottish Literature (1990): Drinking in Scotland, whether of beer, whisky, rum or claret, is generally associated with scenes of conviviality. It took part in taverns, pubs, private houses and in the open air. It accompanied funerals as well as weddings. It was associated with a great variety of social rituals, of consolation as well as celebration, of companionship as well as parting. (1990, 11)

The poet who ought to be brought to the fore in this context is obviously the national bard, Robert Burns, whose many poems are in fact songs, and whose “Scotch Drink” is a much-anthologised example of Scottish devotion to this national manufacture: Let other Poets raise a fracas ‘Bout vines, an’ wines, an’ drunken Bacchus, An’ crabbed names an’ stories wrack us, An’ grate our lug; I sing the juice Scotch bear can mak us, In glass or jug. O thou, my Muse! Guid auld Scotch Drink. (Burns 2008, 98)

This accolade for whisky can be found in many Scottish songs, such as the traditional “Piper MacNeil” whose chorus extols the Highland variety: The whisky’s guid, aye the whisky’s grand, A wee drappie o’t’ll dae ye nae harm, An’ Ah only wish that in my airms Ah had a great big barrel o’Hielan whisky–o. (Laing 2014, 79)

Songs of this kind confirm the special status of whisky in Scotland, the drinking of which, according to John Blackie, assures “a potentiated life” (Blackie 1889, 296). This is a more humorous approach, but from the cultural point of view there are certain aspects that whisky seems to connote. Robert Laing, for example, notes that in many geographical contexts “whisky has become a byword for hospitality” (2014, 173). He also draws attention to the fact that whisky is often considered beneficial, particularly for its alleged curative capacity (75), to which many songs refer, including the closing lines of “The Hielan’ Hills”: “Hielan’ whisky is the thing, To mak a body strong” (83)

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Laing provides a further explication of this particular characteristic ascribed to whisky, supported by a more personal recollection: In Scotland a tremendous mythology has grown up about the medicinal property of whisky. Whisky toddy for colds, whisky for palsy, melancholy, ring worms, spots on the face. As ‘the cure for which there is no disease’, whisky has been the Scottish version of Prozac for hundreds of years. ... My old granny kept a bottle, purely for ‘medicinal purposes’. She took a drop when she was anxious, depressed, worried, tired or feeling out of sorts to name but a few of her frequent ailments. (75)

However, the predominant feature is the liveliness and conviviality that whisky evokes. John Struthers divides his collection into two volumes, consecutively focused on songs about love, and songs about whisky, both characterised by him as born out of the “fervour of passion” (1821a, xiv). This passion is even more transparent when vocalised, particularly by “the songsters of old” (Cunningham 1835a, viii), who were often as popular as the songs themselves. Robert Chambers in Traditions of Edinburgh (1868), in a chapter titled “Convivialia” (1868, 152-173) gives an example of one such songster: “One of the most notable jolly fellows of the last age was James Balfour, usually called Singing Jamie Balfour, on account of his fascinating qualities as a vocalist” (1868, 156). Chambers describes in detail the background to Balfour’s performances, a description revealing much about the convivial atmosphere that inspires drinking-songs: One of Balfour’s favourite haunts was a humble kind of tavern called Jenny Ha’s, opposite to Queensberry House, where, it is said, Gay had boosed during his short stay in Edinburgh, and to which it was customary for gentlemen to adjourn from dinner-parties, in order to indulge in claret from the butt, free from the usual domestic restraints. Jamie’s potations here were principally of what was called cappie ale–that is, ale in little wooden bowls–with wee thochts of brandy in it. But indeed no one could be less exclusive than he as to liquors. When he heard a bottle drawn in any house he happened to be in, and observed the cork to give an unusually smart report, he would call out: ‘Lassie gi’e me a glass o’ that;’ as knowing that whatever it was, it must be good of its kind. (1868, 157-158)

Much as Scottish drinking-songs are convivial in character and reflect various whisky-related cultural traits, so do their Irish counterparts. As Cunningham points out, “Ireland is on an equal footing with her sisterkingdoms in the department of Song-writing” (1835a, xxxvii). This applies especially to drinking-songs, whose focal point is usually whisky. An example here is Thomas Croker’s collection, The Popular Songs of Ireland

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(1886), with a whole chapter titled “Whisky” (66-105), which he designates as “the national spirit of Ireland” (66), and which is often referred to in songs as poteen, or poitín (illicit whisky): Oh, poteen, The nice poteen, The mellow. Mild, and rich poteen! (79)

Flanegan writes that the Irish drinking has for centuries been treated as “in some ways an heroic pastime” (1995, xi). What should be added here is that it always involves sociability, almost proverbial in the case of Ireland, and frequently expressed in the drinking-songs: I am a young fellow Who loves to be mellow, To drink and be merry is all my delight; I often get frisky, By tippling good whisky, With jovial companions from morning to night. (Croker 1886, 102-103)

What this song, like many others, conveys is the key cultural aspect of the relationship between the Irish and their “native” drink, namely the indigenous, almost innate sense of sociability: It is admitted that there are few better things in company than an Irish gentleman and a bottle of old whisky; most welcome are they both in society: good humour and cheerfulness are their associates. (Croker 1886, 68-69)

Drinking-songs often contain telling observations about the mental landscape, also in an anecdotal manner. A good example is Croker’s reflection on the affinity between drink and its typical Irish devotee, who, “as long as he has the price of ‘a glass’ in his pocket, is as light-hearted as a feather” (75), a reflection Croker supports with an example from song: Oh! Merry am I, ever jocund and gay, If for whisky in plenty my pocket can pay. (76)

Finally, one more feature of drinking-songs, not exclusively Irish, since similar examples can be found in Scottish or even English songs, is a feature which reflects and represents what Croker calls “reckless conviviality” (101): One night when I got frisky

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However, paradoxically, even songs that concede the perils of inebriation do not differ much stylistically from the general conviviality of drinking-songs. Theodore Maynard, comparing drinking-songs of the kind discussed above, observes that in general “modern drinking songs appear to have been written... in order to point a moral” (1920, 11), “modern” in this case being determined by the date of his publication. Maynard draws an interesting distinction between these and the old, convivial songs that can be found in all the collections published during the two centuries preceding the publication of his book: Those old drinking songs, in which the English language is happily rich, are in a different class. Among all their countless numbers there is no trace of such a thing as self-consciousness. They were not written to prove that beer ought to be consumed, but merely to celebrate the fact of its consumption. Shamefacedness or defence are entirely lacking in them. (14)

In other words, what Maynard underlines is that the predominant mood of traditional drinking-songs is one of joyous merrymaking, devoid of any serious reflection concerning the pitfalls of drink consumption. The revival of traditional songs and poetry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the resulting publications, provides a large body of material reflecting a certain cultural ambience of the period, at least in the thematic context discussed above. The poets, versifiers and lyricists may have had varying inspirations for their songs, such as the one suggested by John Day’s comment: “Gold, music, wine, tobacco and good cheer/Make poets soar aloft and sing out clear” (quoted in Hutchinson 1904, xxiii). Still, whether it is a case of drink-induced conviviality, particularly conducive for the creativity of bibulous poets, or, conversely, a case of conviviality inducing inebriation, seems of secondary importance, for the point here is that the drinking-songs, apart from offering the pure literary pleasure of appreciating poetry, chronicle, in a way, a variety of aspects pertaining to cultural identity in England, Scotland and Ireland. Often, these songs represent localities, a fact acknowledged by Croker in a

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chapter called “Local Songs” (1886, 119-319), which means that they reveal much about particular small communities, their customs and habits, one of which was certainly singing during “village merry-makings, alehouse gatherings, and during the long winter evenings which would have been dull indeed without the cheering influence of song” (Bickerdyke 1889, 294). Obviously, the substance and import of the drinking-songs cannot be considered as comparable to more serious sources, but the insight into the “cultures of drink and conviviality” (Brown 2004, 3) can provide a supplementary account of the general cultural background, or cultural identity.

References Bickerdyke, John. 1889. The Curiosities of Ale and Beer: An Entertaining History. London: Swan Sonnenschein. Black, Rachel, ed. 2010. Alcohol in Popular Culture: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood. Blackie, John Stuart. 1889. Scottish Song: Its Wealth, Wisdom, and Social Significance. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons. Brown, Cedric C. 2004. “Sons of Beer and Sons of Ben: Drink as a Social Marker in Seventeenth-Century England.” In Smyth, 3-20. Burke, Tim. 2008. “Introduction to The Collected Poems of Robert Burns.” In Burns, v-xiii. Burns, Robert. 2008. The Collected Poems of Robert Burns. Ware: Wordsworth. Chambers, Robert. 1868. Traditions of Edinburgh. Edinburgh; London: W. & R. Chambers. Child, Francis, James, ed. 1860. English and Scottish Ballads. Volumes 18. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Croker, Thomas Crofton, ed. 1886. The Popular Songs of Ireland. London: George Routledge and Sons. Cunningham, Peter, ed. 1835a. The Songs of England and Scotland. Vol. I. London: James Cochrane and Co. —. 1835b. The Songs of England and Scotland. Vol. II. London: James Cochrane and Co. Daiches, David, ed. 1990. A Wee Dram: Drinking Scenes from Scottish Literature. London: Andre Deutsch. Flanagan, Laurence, ed. 1995. Bottle, Draught and Keg: An Irish Drinking Anthology. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. Herd, David, ed. 1870. Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, Etc. Vol. 2. Edinburgh: William Paterson.

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Hutchinson, William, ed. 1904. Songs of the Vine with a Medley for Maltworms. London: A.H. Bullen. Kidson, Frank and Mary Neal. 1915. English Folk-Song and Dance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Laing, Robin, ed. 2014. The Whisky Muse: Scotch Whisky in Poem and Song. Edinburgh: Luath. Marchant, W.T., ed. 1888. In Praise of Ale; Or, Songs, Ballads, Epigrams & Anecdotes Relating to Beer, Malt, and Hops; with Some Curious Particulars Concerning Ale-Wives and Brewers, Drinking-Clubs and Customs. London: George Redway. Maynard, Theodore, ed. 1920. A Tankard of Ale: An Anthology of Drinking Songs. New York: Robert M. McBride. Morris, Charles, ed. 1802. Songs, Political and Convivial. London: T. Sutton. Ramsay, Edward Bannerman. 1877. Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character. New York: R. Worthington. Ritson, Joseph, ed. 1813a. A Select Collection of English Songs with Their Airs: And a Historical Essay on the Origin of National Song. Vol. I. London: F.C. and J. Rivington et al. —. 1813b. A Select Collection of English Songs with Their Airs: And A Historical Essay on the Origin of National Song. Vol. II. London: F.C. and J. Rivington et al. Smyth, Adam. 2004. A Pleasing Sinne: Drink and Conviviality in 17thCentury England. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. Struthers, John, ed. 1821a. The Harp of Caledonia: A Collection of Songs, Ancient and Modern. Vol. I. Glasgow: Khull, Blackie & Co. —. 1821b. The Harp of Caledonia: A Collection of Songs, Ancient and Modern. Vol. II. Glasgow: Khull, Blackie & Co. Taylor, Anya. 1999. Bacchus in Romantic England: Writers and Drink 1780-1830. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.



CHAPTER FIVE AMERICANISATION VERSUS COCKNEY STYLISATION IN AMY WINEHOUSE’S SINGING ACCENT MONIKA KONERT-PANEK

The style of speech frequently reflects the speaker’s social status, personality and attitudes to fashion or tradition. At the phonetic level, this may be expressed through the use of segmental or prosodic stylistic devices, as well as the choice of specific accents, with their concomitant stereotypical associations. This stylistic potential of English accents is used not only in the music industry but also in film; for example, the villains’ accent in American productions sometimes resembles the British variety, which may be related to associations with power, prestige or precision. Compared with speaking, singing accents are governed by different parameters which are the result of the significance of additional factors such as singability, preference for greater openness and sonority. As a result, a number of phonetic features may vanish relatively easily, especially when it comes to intonation patterns, rhythm or vowel length (Crystal 2014, loc. 2312-2316). Yet, this technical approach connected with the phonation demands involved in singing does not seem to account for all the peculiarities of accent selection and style-shifting, first analysed in detail by Peter Trudgill (1983).1 In his seminal work, Trudgill pointed out that, since the 1950s, British vocalists had been using six characteristic features of the American accent, as specified in (1). (1) a. flapping: [t] Æ [‫( ]ݐ‬better), b. the lack of the BATH-TRAP split: [‫ܤ‬:] Æ [æ] (can’t),

 1

Reprinted by Coupland and Jaworski (1997).

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c. rhoticity: ø Æ [r] in a non-prevocalic context (girl), d. monophthongisation: [aܼ] Æ [‫ܤ‬:] (my)2, e. vowel closing: [‫ ]ݞ‬Æ [ԥ] (love), f. vowel unrounding: [‫ ]ܥ‬Æ [‫( ]ܤ‬hot). Crucially, Americanisation was observed in vocalists’ singing accents, but not in their speech. In order to explain this phenomenon, Trudgill refers to the theory of linguistic modification (acts of identity) (Le Page 1969, Le Page 1980, Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985), first discarding both the theory of accommodation and the notion of appropriateness. According to the acts of identity theory, speakers modify their linguistic behaviour, since they want to “resemble as closely as possible those of the group or groups with which from time to time [they] wish to identify” (Trudgill 1983, 253). In the case of Amy Winehouse, among many others, the reason that British singers emulate the American accent is the fact that it is from the USA (the American South in particular) that most genres of 20th-century pop music originate. However, the modification is far from perfect, as it is subject to a number of constraints. Proper identification of the target group is essential (to emulate the southern American accent efficiently one should be aware of its non-rhoticity), as well as sufficient access to the group, the ability to state the phonological rules and to modify one’s accent in a consistent way. Last but not least, the potential influence of other motivations and pronunciation models may also play a significant role in the overall outcome. One of the aspects Trudgill analyses in detail is rhoticity in The Beatles’ accent. The ‘r’ score per album in the period between 1963 and 1971 decreases from almost 50% (on Please Please Me) to less than 5% (on Abbey Road). Trudgill points to a number of factors that might have contributed to the changing picture: musical genres and styles, the lyrics, as well as the band’s increasing popularity, especially in the USA, leading to changing patterns of cultural domination: “British pop music acquired a validity of its own, and this has been reflected in linguistic behaviour” (Trudgill 1983, 261). British singers “were trying less hard to sound American” (Trudgill 1983, 261).3

 2

The feature does not belong to the standard American English phonological system (General American); rather, it is to be associated with the southern variety of American English. 3 As Crystal states, “I recall Paul McCartney saying that the Beatles did experiment with singing in an American accent early on, but decided against it because it sounded ridiculous” (2014, loc. 2339-2340).

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In the 1970s, a new pronunciation model emerged, together with punk rock and new wave: the use of low-status, non-standard Cockney features became trendy (the covert prestige phenomenon). However, it was not the case of one model replacing another. Rather, the two motivations coexisted and interacted (though the proportions differed depending on the band’s style), leading to a conflict of identities or what might also be called a polyphonous identity (Barrett 1999). Since Trudgill’s analysis, other researchers have further emphasised the significance of the musical genre (for example, blues or jazz may be associated with stronger Americanisation compared with progressive rock or Britpop), the text or the overall context of a given song (Simpson 1999, Morrissey 2008). Both Beal (2009) and Gibson and Bell (2012) have pointed to the American accent as the default one in contemporary mainstream pop. Thus, it is the use of one’s local accent in singing that becomes truly meaningful, as it indexes an anti-commercial stance and greater authenticity. However, what seems to remain stable is the change itself: singing accent stylisation is dynamic; it is the scene of an ongoing conflict of identities caused by the interplay of influencing factors.

Analysis: Aims and Methodology My aim is to compare the speaking and singing accents of Amy Winehouse (1983-2011). The focus is on the degree of potential Americanisation, since jazz and soul singing styles seem to be prone to the phenomenon, on account of the American roots of these musical genres, as well as the presence of selected Cockney features, since the singer was born in London. The following features are taken into account (quantitatively or qualitatively): (2) a. features indexed as “American”: i. coda-r: ø (Br) Æ [r] (Am) in non-prevocalic contexts (girl, far) ii. the (lack of) BATH-TRAP split: [‫ܤ‬:] (Br) Æ [æ] (Am) before some fricative and nasal consonants (a non-systematic process)4 (can’t, pass) iii. the LOT vowel unrounding: [‫ ]ܥ‬Æ [‫( ]ܤ‬hot) iv. monophthongisation of the diphthong [aܼ]: [aܼ] Æ[‫ܤ‬:] (my)

 4

For details, see Wells (1982, 134-135).

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v. flapping: [t] Æ [‫ ]ݐ‬intervocalically before an unstressed vowel (better) b. features indexed as “American” or “Cockney”: i. yod-dropping: [j] Æ [ø] alveolar consonant_ [u] (new) The rule as stated above is standard in American English. It used to be present in Cockney, serving to distinguish this variant from RP. However, as Wells (1982, 330-331) points out, citing the results of studies conducted by Beaken (1971) and Bowyer (1973), though the process is still common after [n], the environments of [t] and [d] rather trigger yod-coalescence in contemporary Cockney (see also yod-coalescence in (2cv) below). c. features indexed as “Cockney”: i. dark l-vocalisation: [ܽ] Æ [‫ ]ݜ‬in non-prevocalic contexts (milk) ii. intervocalic t-glottalisation: [t] Æ [‫]ݦ‬/V_V (better) iii. the diphthong [eܼ] alteration: [eܼ] Æ [æܼ] (day) iv. h-dropping: [h] Æ ø prevocalically in stressed syllables (home) v. yod-coalescence: [tj], [dj], [sj], [zj] Æ [t‫]ݕ‬, [d‫]ݤ‬, [‫]ݕ‬, [‫( ]ݤ‬stupid) (see also yod-dropping in (2bi) above) Winehouse’s singing accent is compared, with regard to selected features, with her speech in order to evaluate the extent to which the observed differences show the stylisation effect used in singing only, and not belonging to her regular speech repertoire. The analysis is quantitative or qualitative and acoustic or auditory, depending on the specific feature. PRAAT software was used for the acoustic analysis of selected instances of the BATH and TRAP vowels (on the basis of isolated vocal tracks and interviews); while the remaining vowels and all consonants were coded auditorily, with the occasional use of Praat for confirmation. For the purpose of acoustic analysis, isolated vocal tracks were used, so that the instruments did not obscure vowel formants. Sound excerpts were annotated in PRAAT Textgrid files, and the values of F1 and F2 formants were measured at midpoints to avoid the coarticulation effect. The tokens that were excluded from the analysis because of problems with formant tracking were as follows: unstressed vowels with a schwa-like quality and layered vocal parts (unless the backing vocals were sufficiently quiet for the lead vocal formants to remain clear).

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My analysis of Winehouse’s singing accent is based on her studio albums Frank (2003), comprising 13 songs, 3501 words, and Back to Black (2006), comprising 11 songs, 2283 words. The acoustic analysis of selected instances was conducted on the basis of three isolated vocal tracks: “Back to Black,” “Me and Mr. Jones” and “Rehab.” The auditory and acoustic analysis of Winehouse’s spoken accent was conducted on the basis of the following interviews: (3) a. Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, March 19th, 2004; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFcG0pBhKPA (accessed on 30.12.2016); b. Looking back: Amy Winehouse talks with CNN, (with Doug Hyde), 2007; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUO31yMztxE (accessed on 30.12.2016); c. On the Couch with Amy Winehouse, (with Tim Chipping), 2006; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldYoSVO5K4Q (accessed on 30.12.2016). Additional data, necessary to confirm selected phenomena, comes from: (4) a. Amy. The Girl Behind the Name. 2015. Documentary film, directed by Asif Kapadia; b. Amy Winehouse Gets Real In This Vintage MTV Interview | MTV News; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4BhLnWnj8E (accessed on 30.12.2016); c. Lost but Not Forgotten—Amy Winehouse Interview Compilation (Part 5); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CprzYJBXGa8 (accessed on 30.12.2016).

Winehouse’s spoken accent On the basis of selected interviews, it is clear that Winehouse’s spoken accent is not Americanised. It contains salient standard British phonetic features, examples of which are given in (5).

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(5) a. non-rhoticity: Except I wasn't working, so I couldn't go and throw myself back into work5 ([r] Æ ø non-prevocalically) b. the presence of the BATH-TRAP split: If you think you can’t write, then you don’t write6 ([‫ܤ‬:]) The BATH and TRAP vowels were analysed acoustically, and the obtained mean formant F1 and F2 values confirm the auditory impression regarding their distinct qualities (see Tab. 1). Tab. 1. TRAP & BATH vowels: F1 and F2 mean values; acoustic analysis (Praat) based on selected interviews Mode speech speech

Vowel BATH TRAP

F1 735 797

F2 1200 1776

no. of tokens 9 15

A number of Cockney features may also be noticed in Winehouse’s speaking style, some examples of which are given in (6). (6) a. I’m very maternal (dark l-vocalisation: [ܽ] Æ [‫)]ݜ‬7 b. I was cute until the age of about 5, and then I got naughty; I was very naughty, very, very naughty (intervocalic t-glottalisation: [t] Æ [‫]ݦ‬/V_V) (only in the first instance of the word)8 c. Lyrically I sing like I would say something (the diphthong [eܼ] alteration: [eܼ] Æ [æܼ])9

 5

Looking back: Amy Winehouse talks with CNN, 2007, Doug Hyde; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUO31yMztxE (accessed on 30.12.2016). 6 On The Couch with Amy Winehouse, 2006, Tim Chipping; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldYoSVO5K4Q (accessed on 30.12.2016). 7 On The Couch with Amy Winehouse, 2006, Tim Chipping, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldYoSVO5K4Q; (accessed on 30.12.2016) 8 On The Couch with Amy Winehouse, 2006, Tim Chipping, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldYoSVO5K4Q; (accessed on 30.12.2016) 9 In Her Own Words—Amy Winehouse Interview Compilation (Part 1), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf8UVhSJLaY&feature=player_embedded; (accessed on 30.12.2016)

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d. My album's a kind of straight jazz, hip-hop, cross; there is no blues or folk (the diphthong [eܼ] alteration: [eܼ] Æ [æܼ]; dark l-vocalisation: [ܽ] Æ [‫)]ݜ‬10 e. It’s never that simple (dark l-vocalisation: [ܽ] Æ [‫)]ݜ‬11 f. And then Christmas day at my mum’s (the diphthong [eܼ] alteration: [eܼ] Æ [æܼ])12 g. I’ve done some really stupid things [t‫]ݕ‬13 The example in (g), as well as other instances of Winehouse’s pronunciation of the word stupid found in an additional set of interviews (see (4)), 14 confirm the presence of yod-coalescence rather than yoddropping after [t] or [d], which is typical of contemporary Cockney (see (2b) and (2c) above). Since there were no tokens of contexts allowing for the potential yod-dropping after [n] in the basic set of interviews (as specified in (3)), with respect to this phenomenon, I analysed the interviews which are part of the documentary Amy. The Girl Behind the Name (2015), directed by Kapadia. There are six tokens in the material, out of which [j] is dropped twice (new 10 min. 50 sec. and knew 21 min. 35 sec.) and pronounced four times (knew 37 min. 33 sec., knew 37 min. 40 sec., knew 1 h 40 min. 14 sec. and new 1 h 40 min. 19 sec.). This variability, as well as the coalescence process exemplified above, shows the shifts between standard British [j] and non-standard Cockney (see the descriptions of the respective rules in (2bi) and (2cv)), rather than Americanisation of her speech.

Winehouse’s Singing Accent Compared to her speaking style, a number of Americanisation instances may be observed in Winehouse’s singing accent. The examples of those features on which I elaborate further are given in (7).

 10

Friday Night with Jonathan Ross on March 19th, 2004, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFcG0pBhKPA; (accessed on 30.12.2016) 11 Friday Night with Jonathan Ross on March 19th, 2004, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFcG0pBhKPA; (accessed on 30.12.2016) 12 Lost but Not Forgotten—Amy Winehouse Interview Compilation (Part 5), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CprzYJBXGa8; (accessed on 30.12.2016) 13 On The Couch with Amy Winehouse, 2006, Tim Chipping, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldYoSVO5K4Q; (accessed on 30.12.2016) 14 Specifically in: Amy Winehouse Gets Real In This Vintage MTV Interview | MTV News; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4BhLnWnj8E; (accessed on 30.12.2016).

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(7) a. the lack of the BATH-TRAP split (‫ܤ‬: (Br) Æ æ (Am)) You can't sit down right, “Fuck Me Pumps” I can't even remember his name, “I Heard Love Is Blind” You'll never get my mind right like two ships passing in the night, “In My Bed” b. coda-r (ø (Br) Æ [r] (Am)) Is to be a footballer's wife, “Fuck Me Pumps” c. yod-dropping ([j] Æ [ø] alveolar consonant_ [u]); crucially, the phenomenon is present also after [t] and [d], confirming the Americanisation status of the process I’m sure our love together will endure a hurricane, “Moody’s Mood for Love” I cheated myself, like I knew I would, “You Know I'm No Good” Other Americanisation features are present in the analysed material (see (8)). (8) a. LOT vowel unrounding ([‫( ]ܥ‬Br) Æ [‫( ]ܤ‬Am)) I just wanna grip your body over mine, “Stronger than Me” b. monophthongisation of the diphthong [aܼ] ([aܼ] (Br) Æ [‫ܤ‬:] (Am)) Maybe if I get this down I'll get it off my mind, “You Send Me Flying” c. flapping ([t] (Br) Æ [‫( ]ݐ‬Am)) I feel like writing you a letter, “Take the Box” With regard to Winehouse’s debut album, Frank, the quantitative analysis of the features listed in (7) is presented below, together with the number of tokens (Figs. 1-3).

Amyy Winehouse’s Singing Accennt

Fig. 1. The (laack of) the BAT TH-TRAP splitt (Frank)

Fig. 2. Coda-rr (Frank)

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Fig. 3. Yod-ddropping (Frankk)

It is clear thhat, on her firrst album, the BATH-TRAP P split has beeen 100% Americaniseed. The Amerrican [r] scoree reaches 30% % of cases, while w yoddropping acccounts for alm most 75% of cases.15 Some Coockney featurres are also prresent on Frannk, examples of which are given in (9). (9) a. the diphthhong [eܼ] alteration: [eܼ] Æ [æܼ] I can't evven rememberr his name, “I Heard Love IIs Blind” And thenn I heard whatt you say, “Taake the Box” b. dark l-voccalisation: [ܽ] Æ [‫]ݜ‬ And anim mal aggressioon is my down nfall, “What Iss It about Men n?” c. h-droppinng: [h] Æ ø hoping yyou wouldn't be b there, “Tak ke the Box” A quantiitative analysiis of the seleccted features eexemplified in n (7) with respect to heer second albuum, Back to Black, is presennted below (Figs. 4-6).

 15

The set off available yod-dropping conttexts is limitedd in this case; more data w firmer concllusions. Yet, inn the general context of would be neccessary to draw staged perforrmance, and stuudio recordingss in particular, every instancee seems to acquire addedd significance: the artist had the possibilityy of re-recordin ng a given fragment, andd yet did not doo this.

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Fig. 4. The (laack of) the BAT TH-TRAP splitt (Back to Blackk)

Fig. 5. Coda-rr (Back to Black)

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Fig. 6. Yod-ddropping (Back to Black)

The (lack off) the BATH-T TRAP split is Americaniseed in all cases,, rhoticity increases to 43%, and all analysed tokeens exhibit yodd-dropping. Some instances of Coockney featurees may also bbe observed on n Back to Black (see (10)), althoughh they seem leess frequent, ccompared to Frank. F (10) dark l-vvocalisation: [ܽ] [ Æ [‫]ݜ‬ With hiss same old saffe bet, Back to Black My stom mach standing still, Some Unholy Un War Fig. 7 sshows the sett of three selected featurees on both albums a in comparison.. A surge in Americanisatio A on is noticeabble, as the pheenomenon increases whherever it couuld increase (coda-r ( and yyod-dropping). We can see 100% oof the American version of o the BATH H-TRAP splitt on both albums, whiile both the remaining r feattures are Ameericanised to a greater degree on Baack to Black.

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Fig. 7. Frankk vs. Back to Blaack: the comparrison of analyseed phonetic feattures

The lack of the BATH-TR RAP split is confirmed acouustically (see the mean values of F11 and F2 in Taab. 2) RAP & BAT TH vowels: F1 F and F2 m mean values; acoustic Table 2. TR analysis (Prraat) based on isolated voccal tracks Mode singing singing

Vowel BATHĺTRA AP TRAP

F1 F 829 8 834 8

F2 2224 2027

no. of token ns 7 19

Thus, accoustic analyssis confirms th he observatioon that in Win nehouse’s speech the B BATH-TRAP split is presen nt, with no traace of Americcanisation in this respeect. However, in her singing, the BATH vowel is very y close to the TRAP vvowel in both the sung and spoken versiions, which means m that there is no B BATH-TRAP split, and thee vowel qualityy is American nised (see Fig. 8 for a ccomparative overview). o

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Fig. 8. TRA AP & BATH vowels: v F1 an nd F2 mean vvalues; acoustic analysis (PRAAT) bassed on selected interviews vs. the t singing modde

Winehouuse’s singing accent exhibits some saalient Americcanisation features andd in some resppects, such as the lack of thhe BATH-TR RAP split, the process is already coomplete on heer debut album m. The remaiining two features are Americanisedd to a greater degree on heer second albu um (Back to Black). IIn order to acccount for th he phenomenoon of Americcanisation present in ssinging, as well w as for th he difference between thee albums, various influuencing factorrs need to be considered. c The lyriccal content (thhe field in functionalist term ms) on Frank and Back to Black is ssimilar: the prredominant th hemes revolvee around love and loss, addiction annd destructionn. The same applies to thhe global, tran nsatlantic context of the recordingg process: both albums w were released d by the Jamaican-Am merican recoord label Islaand, recordedd in both Brritish and American sttudios by botth British and d American prroducers. Wh hat makes the two albbums differennt, though, arre the musicaal genres rep presented. Winehouse’s singing acccent is slightly y closer to heer speech on the t debut album, and tthe genre reprresented is jazzz. Back to Blaack, on the otther hand, is closer to m mainstream poop, as the gen nre is r’n’b, annd the Americcanisation tendency beecomes stronnger. In some cases, Am mericanisation may be enhanced byy the origin of o a given song or the insspiration behin nd it: for

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instance, Winehouse’s “Me and Mr. Jones” was inspired by Billy Paul’s American soul classic “Me and Mrs. Jones.” Increasing popularity in this case turns out to be a factor operating in the opposite way compared to Trudgill’s account of the Beatles’ changing accent: it leads to greater Americanisation, rather than to a shift towards Britishness. It may also be useful to adopt the multimodal perspective and analyse some non-language dimensions of the problem. One of these is the visual aspect: the image a given performer tries to project. Winehouse adopted a vintage look, inspired by the retro pin-up style of the 1940s and 1950s; images of pin-up girls also appeared among her arm tattoos. Winehouse was also highly influenced by the 1960s American girl groups, such as The Ronettes, with their signature beehive hairstyle and Cleopatra makeup. In that context, adopting not only the visual characteristics of the American style, but also the linguistic ones may be seen as a consistent stylistic choice. Another significant non-language dimension to consider is the very singing mode and the preference for greater openness and sonority it entails. For instance, it may be noticed that the Cockney features that appear in Winehouse’s singing style seem to have greater potential for carrying the vocal. The diphthong alteration ([eܼ] Æ [æܼ]) is a change in the direction of greater openness, not to mention its salience, as Crystal (2014, loc. 1325-1326) puts it: “This is a famous sound, thanks largely to the way Professor Higgins trains Eliza Doolittle (in Pygmalion/My Fair Lady) to say ‘The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain’.” Greater sonority is also characteristic of other Cockney phenomena retained in the artist’s singing accent, such as l-vocalisation or h-dropping, while–in contrast–intervocalic t-glottalisation is observed in her speech rather than her singing. It should also be noticed that, apart from Cockney phonetic features in her performance, some grammatical phenomena associated with nonstandard, working class style are also present in Winehouse’s lyrics, as exemplified in (11). (11) a. double negation They don't do nothing for ya (…) And you didn't even get no taste, “Fuck Me Pumps” (Frank) Baby come here, don't have no fear, “Moody's Mood for Love” (Frank) There'll be none of him no more, “You Know I'm No Good” (Back to Black)

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Don't owe nothing, “Tears Dry on Their Own” (Back to Black) Don't make no difference if I end up alone, “Addicted” (Back to Black) b. demonstrative them Or them big ballers, “Fuck Me Pumps” (Frank) Plus one of all them girls you kiss, “Me and Mr. Jones” (Back to Black) The adherence to the non-standard, low-status style is also visible in the lexical sphere. Some of Winehouse‘s songs feature an interesting contrast: an elegant, traditional musical form is juxtaposed with straightforward, explicit lyrics, as in the final rhyme of the song “Addicted”: “It's got me addicted/does more than any dick did.” Through the use of non-standard linguistic features (phonetic, grammatical and lexical) Amy Winehouse projected the image of a girlnext door, as was noticed by Jonathan Ross in his 2004 interview with the artist: Jonathan Ross: So you’re managed by the company who look after S Club 7, used to look after the Spice Girls–Simon Fuller. Have they tried to mould you in any way, those people asked you to do things to change the way you look or speak or behave? Amy Winehouse: Um... yeah. One of them tried to mould me into big triangle shape and I went: “No.” No. You know, I got my own style. (…) And I wrote my own songs, and you know, if someone has so much of something already, there is very little you could add. Jonathan Ross: Yeah. You know what I like about you as well; is the way you sound so common. Because I’m common and you know (…), it’s so refreshing to hear someone who isn’t speaking like they have taken elocution lessons. Amy Winehouse: Yeah, they gave me elocution lessons, but they kind of…shhhJonathan Ross: They didn’t stick. Amy Winehouse: Off–off my back, yeah.16

 16

The source of the interview transcript: http://lybio.net/amy-winehouse-jonathanross-2004-i-heard-love-is-blind-interview/people/ (accessed on 20.12.2016). The source of the interview is given in (3a) above.

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In the musical context, the conflict of identities first described by Trudgill is still present; Winehouse used a variety of features: standard British, standard American, as well as non-standard Cockney. In this respect, she followed the Americanisation convention, but also added a local flavour. After all, Amy Winehouse was a London girl, as she herself emphasised, receiving the Grammy award: “This is for London, because Camden Town ain’t burning down.”

References Barrett, Rusty. 1999. “Indexing Polyphonous Identity in the Speech of African American Drag Queens.” In Reinventing Identities, edited by M. Bucholtz, A. C. Liang and L. A. Sutton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 313-331. Beaken, Michael Alan. 1971. A Study of Phonological Development in a Primary School Population of East London. Ph.D. dissertation, London: University College London. Beal, Joan C. 2009. “’You’re Not from New York City, You’re from Rotherham’: Dialect and Identity in British Indie Music.” Journal of English Linguistics, 37(3), 223-240. Boersma, Paul and David Weenink. 2015. Praat: Doing Phonetics by Computer [Computer program]. Version 5.4.17, http://www.praat.org/. Bowyer, Robert. 1973. A Study of Social Accents in a South London Suburb. MPhil Dissertation. Leeds: University of Leeds. Coupland, Nikolas and Adam Jaworski. 1997. Sociolinguistics. A Reader and a Coursebook. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave. Crystal, Ben and David Crystal. 2014. You Say Potato: A Book about Accents, Macmillan, Kindle electronic edition. Gibson, Andy and Alan Bell. 2012. “Popular Music Singing as Referee Design.” In Style-Shifting in Public. New Perspectives on Stylistic Variation, edited by J. M. Hernández-Campoy and J. A. CutillasEspinosa, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 139-164. Le Page, Robert B. 1968. “Problems of Description in Multilingual Communities,” Transactions of the Philological Society, 189-212. —. 1980. “Projection, Focussing, Diffusion,” York Papers in Linguistics, vol. 9, 7-32. Le Page Robert B. and Andrée Tabouret-Keller. 1985. Acts of Identity. Creole-Based Approaches to Language and Ethnicity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morrissey, Franz Andres. 2008. “Liverpool to Louisiana in One Lyrical Line: Style Choice in British Rock, Pop and Folk Singing.” In

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Standards and Norms in the English Language, edited by M. A. Locher and J. Strässler, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 195-220. Simpson, Paul. 1999. “Language, Culture and Identity: With (Another) Look at Accents in Pop and Rock Singing.” Multilingua, 18(4), 343367. Trudgill, Peter. 1983. “Acts of Conflicting Identity. The Sociolinguistics of British Pop-Song Pronunciation.” In On Dialect. Social and Geographical Perspectives, edited by Peter Trudgill, Oxford: Blackwell, 141-160. —. 1997. “The Social Differentiation of English in Norwich.” In Sociolinguistics. A Reader and a Coursebook, edited by Nikolas Coupland and Adam Jaworski. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave. 179184. Wells, John C. 1982. Accents of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.



CHAPTER SIX LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA’S MUSICAL HAMILTON AND EARLY FEMINISM: RAPPING GENDER EQUALITY JERNEJA PLANINŠEK ŽLOF

This study is based on my interest in current American theatre, especially the portrayal of dysfunctional familial relationships and gender issues in plays, as well as my admiration for musicals in general, and especially my most recent favourite, the 2015 blockbuster Hamilton: An American Musical, composed and written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Musicals and hip-hop may seem an odd couple, but as Miranda proved, more than once, 1 the marriage of the two genres can be a successful combination, financially and otherwise, creating an attractive medium for conveying positive messages. According to Raymond Knapp, the American musical has shown itself to be broadly adaptable, capable of addressing a wide variety of issues and themes, and ranging in its treatment of those themes from the bluntly obvious to the more subtly nuanced. (Knapp 2005, 282)

Music has the power to evoke deep emotion in listeners, so the idea of incorporating a positive message of change towards a more just society into music of any genre has appeal even beyond the entertainment it offers and the artistic merit it possesses. After interviewing over a hundred MCs,2 inquiring which topics they prefer writing about and how they rap, Paul Edwards argues in favour of this point of view:

 1

I am referring to Miranda's first Broadway hit In the Heights (2008). Edwards explains that rappers are called “MCs” (also emcees, lyricists, and artists), as in the phrase Master of Ceremonies (Edwards 2009, xii).

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Chapter Six A number of MCs like to focus on conscious content, content that is generally positive or calls for some sort of change or advancement. It often deals with political or social issues, or explores subjects such as relationships in ways that are insightful rather than exploitative. This kind of content can sometimes be difficult to write. (Edwards 2009, 14)

The content of Miranda’s Hamilton is insightful, complex and sensitive, dealing with a variety of important themes. In this chapter, I address the exclusion of women from the political and social sphere in the time around the American Revolution, which is masterfully interwoven into the fabric of the musical, by analyzing examples of female characters’ commentary on such practices in selected lines from Miranda’s musical. The inspiring story, memorable characters and superb performances make this musical an effective platform for fostering dialogue on numerous issues, both those insufficiently resolved and those often ignored. The musical has been highly praised for its originality and the important issues that it raises: equality of races, ethnicities, social classes and, above all, gender equality. In Hamilton, the songs and performances by the two powerful actresses and singers portraying Miranda’s main female characters, Eliza and Angelica, serve to question and assert their roles in the world. In so doing, they prompt the very question posed by Simone de Beauvoir in her influential exploration of inequality, The Second Sex: How will the fact of being women have affected our lives? What precise opportunities have been given us, and which ones have been denied? What destiny awaits our younger sisters, and in which direction should we point them? (Beauvoir 1994, 16)

Miranda explores the process of creation of the gender binary that has its basis in generations of people observing and assessing various practices and behaviour. Some people reject the social practices that have been normalized over time, such as women’s domestic role and lack of access to political and social participation; some strive to prevent the worst kind of participation in this process: non-participation through disdain, rejection or ignorance or indifference. In Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, a passage cautions against over-generalization and simplification of what it is or is not to be a woman. Butler acknowledges with indisputable logic that [i]t would be wrong to assume in advance that there is a category of “women” that simply needs to be filled in with various components of race, class, age, ethnicity and sexuality in order to become complete. The assumption of its essential incompleteness permits that category to serve as a permanent available site of contested meanings. The definitional

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incompleteness of the category might then serve as a normative ideal relieved of coercive force. (Butler 1990, 15)

Even though Miranda’s Hamilton predominantly features male characters, it introduces four female characters that add to the narrative, each in their respective way. One has to study this musical through the lens of the cultural and historical context of 18th-century Colonial America, while bearing in mind that female gender roles were strictly separated from the public sphere. The two female leads are introduced very differently. Angelica Schuyler is initially introduced as a witty flirt. These traits are somewhat, but not entirely, diminished after she is married. Eliza Schuyler, later Hamilton, is introduced as a woman in search of a man, and (after finding him) she excels as a stereotypical devoted and self-effacing wife and mother. As the characters of Angelica and Eliza develop through the trajectory of the musical, their gender roles evolve beyond their initial presentation. The other female characters are predominantly onedimensional; Peggy Schuyler, the 3rd Schuyler sister, seems to have an ornamental function and that of a backup singer; and Maria Reynolds (Jasmine Cephas Jones originated both roles) is the embodiment of a stereotypical seductress who tempts Hamilton into a fully-fledged political sex scandal that almost ruins his marriage. From the vast body of American musicals, I list examples of both the more traditional portrayals of women as well as examples from musicals that work towards countering feminine stereotypes. Depending on the experiences of the audiences, their age, their own gender identity issues, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, some musicals can be interpreted as both favourable in their attempt to break the stereotypical depictions of women in some of their characters, yet representing examples of stereotypical female characteristics in others. Examples of musicals that take the traditional view of women’s roles and develop their synopsis around the romance between the normative helpless and frail female character(s), and domineering men include 3 Grease (opened on Broadway in 1972), which teaches young women that they too will get their Danny if they change their appearance. In My Fair Lady (1956), the leading female character, Eliza Doolittle, is objectified and the success of transforming a flower girl into a lady is reduced to



3 I am aware that I am risking a severe critique for forming this somewhat problematic list, since we all perceive gender stereotypes in our own way, not considering various notions equally offensive–that is why I explain very briefly why I place a certain musical on either of the two sides, by stating how I perceive the notions I use as examples.

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acting as her rescuer’s slipper-fetching maid. South Pacific (1949) could be seen as a musical about sexually objectified nurses and overly masculine soldiers. The musical Oklahoma (1943) introduces a girl named Laurey who is primarily concerned with what people will say about her love life, and she dreams that two men (Curly and Jud) are fighting over her (Bordman 1992, 519). In The Sound of Music (1959), Liesl von Trapp, a teenage supporting character, is told that she needs a man who is older and wiser to tell her what to do. In the 1987 musical Les Misérables, a supporting female character, Éponine, otherwise presented as brave, is pitied and forlorn in “On My Own” on account of not being loved reciprocally while people are dying in street riots. On the other hand, there are musicals that do challenge traditional female stereotypes. In Fiddler on the Roof (1964), Tevye’s daughters, after initially singing about the necessity of finding a good man, refuse to follow the tradition of arranged marriage, and as Knapp observes, the issue comes down to the incomparability of feminine self-determination with the culturally reinforced expectation of masculine authority (Knapp 2005, 266). Funny Girl (1964), features the song “Don't Rain on My Parade” which is sung by the strong-willed Fanny, who fights male oppression by taking control of her life. Hairspray (2002) tackles a variety of issues. Some of its most prominent features seem to be the promotion of positive self-image and feeling good whatever size you wear. The King and I (1951), Wicked (2003) and Fun Home (2015) offer further examples of promoting the idea that the complexity of being a woman cannot be generalized. Uniform labelling of some of the female characters that are represented in these last three musicals is impossible; they may be opinionated, intelligent and influential, amongst other characteristics, like Anna Leonowens (King and I), uniquely different like Elphaba (Wicked), who decides to reject limitations imposed on her by others, or portrayed like Alison, a complex and interesting protagonist, who happens to be a lesbian, in Fun Home. Those well rounded, multi-dimensional female characters represented in musicals let women be as varied as real life women are. Lin-Manuel Miranda, an award winning author and a star of the Broadway hip-hop musical In the Heights (2008), read Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton (2004). After learning about the turbulent life of the first Treasury Secretary of the United States, he realized, as he points out in numerous interviews, as well as in his complete libretto of the musical, that it “had the makings of a great musical” (Miranda and McCarter 2016, 10-15).

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Although Alexander Hamilton, the charismatic protagonist of Miranda’s musical, was a patriot, a passionate and ambitious man, I will not focus on his hardships and achievements in this analysis. Instead, I focus on how Miranda positions and develops his female characters in the storyline of the musical. The performing artists, by uttering the lyrics of the musical, raise important issues and teach American history, which is at the same time familiar, yet innovatively conveyed. Miranda’s female characters, with their attractive appearance and fierce performance, resemble prominent hip-hop and R&B performers, who are constantly positioning themselves side by side with the male performers in the hip-hop community, working together, competing for prominence and pushing the boundaries. In a Rolling Stone interview with Miranda, writer Mark Binelli states that [s]ongs about Hamilton's complicated love life get more of a Destiny's Child treatment, and the rest of the score is expansive enough to include torchy show tunes, high-camp Brit pop and nods to hip-hop classics (from “The Message” to “Empire State of Mind” to “Lose Yourself”). (Binelli 2016)

Miranda’s female characters seem to be expressing a strong desire to be heard, respected and viewed as equal to and by their male counterparts. The beauty of multicultural diversity, the ethnic and racial diversity of the Hamilton cast, and the celebration of equality, are some of the outstanding attractions of the musical. Its main characters, the Founding Fathers, their families, friends and enemies address social, racial, economic, gender and other aspects of inequality. The audience had their first opportunity to hear what Miranda was creating in his brand-new musical at the White House Poetry Jam in 2009. They seemed amused4 when he introduced his number in the following way: I’m actually working on a hip-hop album–a concept album–about the life of someone who embodies hip-hop,” he said. “Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton.” (Miranda and McCarter 2016, 15)

Miranda explained that Hamilton, like many stereotypical hip-hop performers, started his life as a penniless and illegitimate immigrant child

 4

I am referring to the photograph of President and Mrs. Obama, both smiling, from “An Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word” (Miranda and McCarter 2016, 15). See also (You Tube: Lin Manuel Miranda performs Alexander Hamilton at The White House).

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and worked his way up to greatness (Miranda and McCarter 2016, 10-15). Hamilton’s eloquence, which is often stressed in the musical, is the metaphor for the “words’ ability to make a difference” (Lin-Manuel Miranda performs Alexander Hamilton at The White House video), which is true of hip-hop as well. The central female characters in the musical are Angelica and Eliza, two of the three Schuyler sisters. As historian and biographer Ron Chernow notes, their father, Phillip Schuyler “was counted among these Hudson river squires who presided over huge tracts of land and ruled state politics” (Chernow 2004, 134). Eliza Schuyler, the sister who marries Alexander Hamilton, is a central figure in the musical. She persists, most of the time, as a one-dimensional character, loving, kind, a devoted mother and an understanding wife–the embodiment of the ideal women’s role, adhering to the rules of the cult of domesticity. According to Chernow, Eliza was handsome, sensible, good natured and free from vanity or affectation. And since she was the daughter of one of New York’s wealthiest, most powerful men, Hamilton would not have to choose between love and money. (Chernow 2004, 134)

Many scholars have explored the roles of women of various social classes, ethnicities and backgrounds in male dominated society, both today and in the past. Miriam M. Johnson explains how patriarchal, male dominance was established with the rise of large, populous agricultural states. She notes that the system that emerged brought women for the first time under the direct control of fathers and husbands with few cross-cutting sources of support. Women as wives under this system were not social adults, and women’s lives were defined in terms of being a wife. Women’s mothering and women’s sexuality came to be seen as requiring protection by fathers and husbands. Protecting unmarried women’s virginity appears to go along with the idea of the domestication of women and the emphasis on radical dichotomy between the public and the private sphere. The private sphere is watched over and protected by men, and women are excluded from the public domain. (Johnson 1988, 239)

Eliza was in these respects an ideal wife for Alexander Hamilton, who was on the social climb, lacking in breeding and without means, compensating for his shortcomings with diligence, ambition and intelligence. According to Chernow, Eliza

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remains invisible in most biographies of her husband and was certainly the most self-effacing ‘founding-mother’ doing everything in her power to focus the spotlight exclusively on her husband... Short and pretty, she was utterly devoid of conceit and was to prove the ideal companion for Hamilton, lending a strong home foundation to his turbulent life. (Chernow 2004, 103)

Eliza was thus living through her husband and his individualism. This notion obviously had its merits in the potential liberation of a woman that followed, as Johnson explains, stating that individualism gained an especially strong hold in the United States... At first [it] applied mainly to men. Blackstone’s5 dictum that ‘husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband’ reflects the idea that husbands are the individuals, beholden to no one, and their wives live through them. But the individualism also opened up possibilities that women might be individuals too. (Johnson 1988, 232)

The change and newly gained individualism in Miranda’s Eliza, initiated by the actress Phillipa Soo, is seen when she utters the words and thus “removes herself from the narrative.” In the song “Burn,” she sings, calmly, while burning her correspondence with her husband after learning of his extramarital affair. Angelica intervenes prominently, proves her love for Eliza by taking her sister’s side instead of choosing to defend Hamilton, Angelica’s long-time confidant. When she is widowed6, Eliza devotes herself passionately to charity work, helping distressed women and children, particularly the orphans of New York. All these issues are addressed in the final song of the musical, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?”—thus granting Eliza the status of a founding mother. In the footnotes, Miranda explains why he included the line “I establish the first private orphanage in New York City” (Miranda and McCarter 2016, 281) in the closing number of the musical: ‘If this were a work of fiction, any screenwriting teacher would say, take it out, it’s too on the nose.” But Eliza’s true legacy is in the futures of those children. She was the director of this orphanage for 27 years. The orphanage still exists in the form of the Graham Windham organization. (Miranda and McCarter 2016, 281)

 5 6

Johnson refers to William Blackstone, a British jurist. After Hamilton is killed in a duel.

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Miranda’s Angelica Schuyler, Eliza’s older sister, is portrayed as an intelligent, charismatic member of the elite, critical of the exclusion of women from the social sphere. In “The Schuyler Sisters”–the song that celebrates life, pays homage to “the greatest city in the world,” i.e., New York, and introduces the Schuyler sisters, women of the upper class who enjoy strolling the streets of their great city, observing men at work. Angelica and her sisters express admiration of working men. The word work is repeated 41 times by the Schuyler sisters and company in this one song. This occurrence could be interpreted in at least two ways: either they wish to enter the social sphere of business and politics, where they are not welcome, or they are seeking eligible husbands who are prominent in this social, non-domestic sphere. Furthermore, Angelica claims that men find her either “intense or insane,” because she reads Thomas Paine7. She is aware of the important historic events that are taking place, and these fill her with excitement and frustration alike. She further addresses Aaron Burr 8 and the company, expressing her opinion by continuing rapping/quoting from the Declaration of Independence: ‘We hold these truths to be self evident That all men are created equal.’ (Miranda and McCarter 2016, 44)

She stresses the word men, which could be interpreted as her way of pointing out what is missing in the sentence, the word women, that absence being the main point of her critique of this historic document. The actress who originated the role of Angelica and performs on the Hamilton Soundtrack (Original Broadway Cast Recording), Renée Elise Goldsberry, enunciates in the form of a fast paced rapping style with a pleasant beat and melody supporting her. To describe the rapping style behind her powerful message, I must return to Kyle Adams, who distinguishes between the various types of articulation. He terms them as either “sharp” or “dull” consonant sounds and between the amount of staccato and legato articulations that encompass the extent to which individual phonemes are either separated or connected to one another within and between words9. From this basis, he derives four techniques of



7 In January 1776, an immigrant from England, Thomas Paine, had published a pamphlet, Common Sense, that sold 120,000 copies and advocated the independence of the United states in “savagely brilliant language” (Brogan 2001, 173). 8 Aaron Burr starts off as Hamilton's friend, becomes his rival and ends up killing him in a duel. 9 This is my very simplified summary of Adams' elaborate description.

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articulation, increasingly playful, angry, relaxed and authoritative (Adams 2015, 124-128). By using Adams’ terminology and the examples that he provides, I would characterize Angelica’s (Goldsberry’s), articulation style as “sharp” staccato, with cut off words, not the least relaxed, intense, and almost provocative. It could also be described as increasingly playful, bold, flirtatious and spirited. She re-negotiates the widely accepted female role in society on the eve of the American Revolution in an assertive, confident and rebellious tone. She continues: ‘And when I meet Thomas Jefferson... I’m ‘a compel him to include women in the sequel!’ (Miranda and McCarter 2016, 44)

Miranda’s own footnotes in the musical’s libretto add extra information to his lyrics: ‘She did of course, meet Jefferson in Paris and corresponded with him later in life. It kills me that I couldn’t fit that detail in the show–so here it is in this book.’ (Miranda and McCarter 2016, 44)

Angelica’s musical commentary on the chauvinistic writing of Thomas Jefferson recalls centuries of women poets and writers, quietly resisting relegation to silence. 10 Similarly, Angelica attempts, by voicing her arguments and stating clearly her demands for change, to challenge hegemonic notions of femininity that have been fuelled by stereotypical assumptions and discriminatory practices. She attempts to break down the gender biased binaries that push her into the confinement of her domestic realm and prohibit her from entering the male dominated social sphere. Angelica, who marries a rich man and spends most of her life in Europe with her prominent husband (Chernow 2004, 134) understands the world around her; she understands what is expected of her by her family and how to maintain the good life she has been living. Johnson notes that, “[w]omen’s fortunes depended on getting and keeping a man who was better off than they were, to ‘provide’ for them and their children” (Johnson 1988, 229). In doing exactly this, Angelica is in and of her time and cannot be judged from our 21st-century vantage point.

 10

Amongst other similar instances of brave and outspoken women, Joan Kelly points to “a laundress, Mary Collier, who had been taught to read by her parents composed a long poem, The Woman’s Labour (1739), to refute one Stephen Duck who wrote The Thresher’s Labour as if only men worked” (Kelly 1984, 77).

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Angelica bluntly voices that notion in Miranda’s song “Satisfied,” a wedding toast to Eliza and Alexander Hamilton, by singing, ‘My only job is to marry rich My father has no sons so I’m the one Who has to social climb for one.’ (Miranda and McCarter 2016, 82-83)

Miranda himself admits that he adapted the facts, conveniently forgetting that Angelica’s father did have sons, in order to add to the dramatic effect, in service of a larger point, as he claims in the footnotes: ‘Angelica is a world class intellect in a world that does not allow her to flex it’ (Miranda and McCarter 2016, 83). A more radical adaptation is to the world of hip-hop. Given the aggressiveness of the performers, the frequent use of derogatory expressions, either racist or sexist, along with language promoting violence or drugs, and above all the misogynistic notions that have been integral to the genre, hip-hop seems the antithesis to the world of social advocacy. In the real world of hip-hop, MCs, both male and female, do use derogatory language and even promote social practices that are unwanted or illegal. Nevertheless, there exists another side to rap, a side that promotes positive development. It is probably the same in many musical genres and the popular media in general. According to Edwards, many artists are aware of their powerful role in fostering new ideas and shaping opinions: Hip-hop’s popularity and global reach make it a very powerful medium with which to spread messages and influence people. As a result, a lot of artists feel that they carry a great responsibility for delivering a conscious content in their songs–they know they can have a major impact on the world, and they don’t want to squander the platform they’ve been given. (Edwards 2009, 14)

Lin-Manuel Miranda succeeded in what could have been thought impossible; he converted many viewers/listeners into hip-hop enthusiasts. Through strategic adaptation, Miranda empowers his female characters, by giving them strong voices and messages and the vivid platform of hip-hop from which to convey these. Miranda and his performers together create an Angelica who attempts to break down the gender biased binaries that prohibit females from occupying the male dominated social sphere. However, the cult of domesticity that Angelica stubbornly rejects remains strongly rooted in the fabric of the musical’s synopsis through the

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performances of other female characters, in a manner that remains true to the historicity of the material. The other main female character, Eliza, appears content in her role of loving wife and dedicated mother. Notwithstanding the limitations imposed on her by society, Eliza manages to contribute to the well-being of her community as the cofounder of the first private orphanage in New York City, thus entering the maledominated world that her sister so passionately, yet only verbally, contested.

References Adams, Kyle. 2015. “The Musical Analysis of Hip-hop.” In The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop, edited by Justin A. Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Beauvoir, Simone de. 2010. 1949. The Second Sex. Trans. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier. New York: Vintage Books. Binelli, Mark. June 1, 2016. Hamilton Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Rolling Stone Interview. Accessed 25.2.2017. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/hamilton-creator-linmanuel-miranda-the-rolling-stone-interview-20160601 Bordman, Gerald. 1992. The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2nd Ed. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brogan, Hugh. 2001. The Penguin History of the United States of America. 2nd Edition. London: Penguin Books. Butler, Judith P. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York, London: Routledge. Chernow, Ron. 2004. Alexander Hamilton. New York: Penguin Books. Edwards, Paul. 2009. How to Rap: The Art and Science of the Hip-Hop MC. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. Johnson, Miriam M. 1988. Strong Mothers, Weak Wives: The Search for Gender Equality. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California press. Kelly, Joan. 1984. Women, History and Theory. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Knapp, Raymond. 2005. The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Lin Manuel Miranda performs Alexander Hamilton at The White House. Accessed 25.2.2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8_ARd4oKiI&spfreload=.

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Miranda, Lin-Manuel, and Jeremy McCarter. 2016. Hamilton: The Revolution. London, UK: Little Brown. Miranda, Lin-Manuel. 2015. Hamilton: An American Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording). Atlantic Recording Corporation.



CHAPTER SEVEN THE WORLD SINGS “HALLELUJAH” KATIE J. PETERSON AND PAUL LINDHOLDT

I just come here to sing you these songs that have been inspired by something that, I hope, is deeper and bigger than myself.1 —Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen was one of the greatest songwriters of our time. Bono of U2 once said, “he reminded me of Keats, or, you know, Shelley” (I’m Your Man, 2006). He went on to say that Cohen “is our Shelley, our Byron.” Poet Allen Ginsberg once said, “Dylan blew everybody’s mind— except Leonard’s” (qtd. in Zollo 330). During his lifetime, Cohen wore the hats of poet, novelist, songwriter, performer, artist, and producer—often at the same time. He toured all over the world, and continued to perform into his late seventies (The Leonard Cohen Files). He produced thirteen studio albums, the latest of which, You Want It Darker, was released Oct. 31st, 2016, exactly one week before his death on Nov. 7th (Ibid.). According to a statement by his manager, Robert Kory, he died peacefully in his sleep after “a fall in the middle of the night.” He lived to be 82, having spent his life everywhere from his hometown in Montreal to Hydra in Greece. He also spent five years on a mountain learning the ways of Zen Buddhism, wrote two successful novels and ten books of poetry, fell in and out of love numerous times, and had two children, Adam and Lorca. However, his life wasn’t all “tea and oranges,” to quote his second most-famous song, “Suzanne”; he lost his father when he was only nine years old, started suffering from serious depression in college, and experimented with many drugs—even being hospitalized for an OD (Kubernik 2014, 1415, 26-27). He was a serial womanizer, leaving a string of relationships in his wake (Nadel 1996, 210). Yet, in the midst of all of this turmoil, “Hallelujah” was born.

 1

Addressing the crowd before singing “Hallelujah” at a 1988 concert.

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“Hallelujah” is a fascinating subject for analysis, and yet most of the biographies of Leonard Cohen dedicate only a few pages to it. This neglect is surprising, given the immense popularity of the song: more than 600 cover versions on YouTube in more than twenty-five languages. It has also become a standard for singing competitions worldwide, such as The XFactor, The Voice, the Got Talent and Idol franchises. When asked about the numerous covers of it, Cohen said, “it’s a nice song, but too many people sing it.” During the course of our research, we discovered several articles about “Hallelujah” and even an entire book about it, Alan Light’s The Holy and the Broken. However, we noticed important contexts for analysing the song that other writers had not addressed. There is, first, the biographical context in which the song was written. Strangely, not one of our sources connected the lyrics of “Hallelujah” to Cohen’s own life. Such neglect might be explicable because Cohen disliked it when critics read his songs biographically. However, since “Hallelujah” seems so personal, we feel it is time to go ahead and take the biographical plunge. Second, not one of the many articles and books we discovered on Leonard Cohen compared— or even mentioned—all six versions of “Hallelujah” that Cohen himself recorded. Comparing all six versions against Cohen’s own career, personal life, and growth as a performer furnishes insight into the author’s inspiration and intention when he released “Hallelujah” into the world. Third, a crucial piece of our analysis of “Hallelujah” is the lyrics. Oddly enough, none of the sources we found on “Hallelujah” looked at the lyrics in depth. If examined at all, they received a couple of lines of treatment here and there, or a stanza at most. We intend to analyse the lyrics from a literary perspective. Leonard Cohen was no ordinary songwriter. The song took him some five years to write. Most songwriters spend anywhere from a few minutes to a few weeks working on a song—the rest of the time on arrangements and recording. Coming from a literary background, Cohen allowed his songs to mature like fine wines. He was in no rush. Nor was “Hallelujah” the only song that took him years to fine-tune and perfect. “Treaty,” from You Want It Darker (2016), was fifteen years in the making. In a 1993 interview, he admitted that he had shelves of notebooks, each filled with verses to his songs that might never see the light of day. Bono said in the Cohen tribute concert film, I’m Your Man, that “most of us would be humbled by the things that he throws away” (2006). Cohen also said in an interview that he had to completely finish a verse before he could discard it.

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Because he began his artistic career as a poet, and continued to write and publish poetry his entire life, the lyrics of “Hallelujah” warrant the sort of regard that literary criticism brings to lyric poetry. Those lyrics bear up well beneath critical inquiry. The study of versification, known as prosody, may be applied to the lyrics of the song’s seven published verses (Light 2012, ix-xi). Those verses reveal the hand of a master craftsman at work in manipulating the shape of the meter and the rhyme. Such a topic is fertile ground for analysis. Author Alan Light did not discuss it, though, nor do any of the other hundreds of commentators we surveyed. Light, a former editor-in-chief for Spin magazine, was more interested in the interplay between the hundreds of cover versions of the song than in its inner workings. Cohen, though, practiced and prepared as a poet, proves worthy and deserving of poetic interpretation for his careful craft. In order to examine the lyrics to “Hallelujah,” we must first have a reliable copy of them. We first turned to Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs, a collection curated by Cohen and some of his closest friends. However, one only need look at the second line of “Hallelujah” as printed in this collection to realize that it is not perfectly accurate. The line reads, “that David played to please the Lord,” when in fact, Cohen sings “that David played and it pleased the Lord” in every one of his six recorded versions. There are more mistakes like this throughout Light’s commentary on Cohen’s canon, small mistakes though they may be. Since Light’s is the only published book containing the lyrics to “Hallelujah” that came from Cohen’s company directly, a book whose copy Cohen presumably saw, that version still holds value for literary analysis. Dissatisfied with the accuracy of these lyrics, we next turned to piano/vocal/guitar sheet music published by Cohen’s record label, Sony, to see if the lyrics would be more accurate. They were, but they still did not match any of the six recorded versions perfectly. We then took it upon ourselves to collate the “real” version of “Hallelujah”: one that was more complete and more accurate than existing versions. Thus, the following lyrics (and the order that the verses are in) became a passion-project. Our version of the lyrics below synthesizes nine sources: six recordings of “Hallelujah,” two sheet music versions, and the lyrics from Stranger Music. We determined which lyrics were the most accurate by averaging out the results based on 1) which variation of each line was sung/printed the most; 2) if there was a tie, we defaulted to the printed versions rather than the recordings, since the prosody interests us, and 3) if there was no majority for a line, i.e., all the versions of a line differed from one another, we went word-by-word and determined which word order was used most

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consistently. For verse order, we followed a similar process of majority. Here are the lyrics to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”: V1: I’ve heard there was a secret chord that David played, and it pleased the Lord but you don’t really care for music, do you? It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth the minor fall, the major lift; the baffled king composing Hallelujah! V2: Your faith was strong but ya needed proof. You saw her bathing on the roof; her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you. She tied you to a kitchen chair She broke your throne and she cut your hair, and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah! V3: Now maybe there’s a God above as for me, all, all I ever learned from love is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you. But it’s not a complaint that you hear tonight, It’s not some pilgrim who claims to have seen the light No, it’s a cold and it’s a very broken Hallelujah! V4: Baby, I been here before. I know this room, and I’ve walked this floor. I used to live alone before I knew you. And I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch, But listen, love; love is not some kinda vict’ry march No, it's a cold and it's a very broken Hallelujah! V5: You say I took the Name in vain; I don’t even know the name. But if I did, well, really, what’s it to you? There’s a blaze of light in every word; it doesn’t matter which you heard, the holy, or the broken Hallelujah! V6: There was a time ya let me know What's really goin’ on below Ah, but now you never show it to me, do you?

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I remember when I moved in you, And the holy dove, she was movin’ too And every single breath that we drew was Hallelujah! V7: I did my best, it wasn’t much. I couldn’t feel, so I learned to touch. I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you. And even though it all went wrong, I’ll stand right here before the Lord of Song With nothin’ on my tongue but Hallelujah!

In addition to analysing the lyrics, we also wanted to examine the musical choices that Cohen made in each arrangement. The table that follows is the result of that examination: Cohen’s “Hallelujah” Versions Side-by-Side Year Recorded Year Released Album

1984

1988

1993

2008

2009

2013

1984

1994

2016

2009

2010

2013

Various Positions

Cohen Live

Live in London

Songs from the Road

Live in Dublin

Length Type City

4:40 In-Studio New York

6:54 Live Austin

7:20 Live London

7:32 Live Indio

7:25 Live Dublin

Country

USA

USA

UK

USA

Ireland

Verse Order

V1 V2 V5 V7

V4 V6 V3 V7

Legendary FM Broadcasts 7:59 Live Kongresshaus Switzerland V4 V6 V3 V7

Time Sig. Tempo Key Instr.

12/8 56 bpm C Major - Drums - Guitar - Bass - Keys/ Synth

12/8 43 bpm Bb Major - Drums - Guitar - Bass - Organ

12/8 42 bpm A Major - Drums - Guitar - Bass - Organ

V1 V2 V3 V4 V6 V7 12/8 54 bpm C Major - Drums - Guitar - Bass - Organ - Sax

Solo Ending

N/A Fade Out

Guitar Rit.

Guitar Rit.

V1 V2 V3 V4 V6 V7 12/8 54 bpm C Major - Drums - Guitar - Bass - Organ - Mandolin Organ Rit.

V1 V2 V4 V5 V6 V7 12/8 55 bpm Bb Major - Drums - Guitar - Bass - Organ -Mandolin Organ Rit.

Organ Rit.

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Among the dozens or hundreds of extant verse forms that poets have used in all languages throughout the centuries, Cohen’s “Hallelujah” does not immediately match up with any other. Possibly it is a nonce form, one the singer originated to match a unique mood. These lines from the famous “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge match the meter: “So twice five miles of fertile ground/With walls and towers were girdled round;/And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills . . .” (ll. 6-8). However, not only are these lines aberrant lines within the Coleridge poem, they also end in a downward fall rather than in an upward lilt like Cohen’s song. Cohen follows a scheme of six-line verse stanzas known as sextets or sixains. The pattern of his rhyme and his meter is consistent throughout all seven stanzas. The lines rhyme AABCCB. In each stanza, the first and second lines of iambic tetrameter couplets rhyme (i.e., AA), as do the fourth and fifth lines (i.e., CC). The third and sixth lines of iambic pentameter likewise rhyme with each other (i.e., B and B). Remarkably, the rhyme of all fourteen pentameter lines in all seven stanzas is precisely the same: they all either rhyme with the title word hallelujah or repeat that word at the end of the stanza in the form of the single-word refrain of exultation. Such a rhyme is a type that we know as a feminine rhyme, the final syllable being unaccented or unstressed. If we take the four-syllable title word metrically, we see that it is two spondaic feet. The third syllable (lu) is the one most emphasized or stressed. The clever rhymes that Cohen invented to harmonize with the title word constitute a large part of the song’s lyric charm. They include “music, do you?” “overthrew you,” “what’s it to you?” “come to fool you,” “before I knew you,” “to me, do you?” and “who outdrew you.” The first of those seven rhyming phrases ends with the casual pronunciation “do ya?” in three of his six versions (1984, 1988, 1993). Indeed, it is the playful interchange between the devotional formality of the title word contrasting the vernacular informality of the rhyming phrases that so charms. There are also internal rhymes such as “drew the,” which deepen the language-music. If all art originates in conflict, sparks aplenty fly from this song. Streetsmart snarls counterpoint the title word of praise that concludes each stanza, particularly in the rhymes. The speaker is torn between reverential regard for the beloved and wounded reprisal. Notes of grief or regret also enter, as in the line “it all went wrong.” The interplay between the shorter (tetrameter, or four-beat) lines followed by the longer (pentameter, or five-beat) lines creates a build-up of tension followed by a welcome release achieved in the longer lines of

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each stanza. A number of commentators mentioned in Light’s book characterize such build-up and release as orgasmic. Indeed, form quite clearly follows function in the song. The dynamic form of the rhyme and meter, that is to say, follows the function of some of the most arresting and explicit diction. Stanza six, arguably a rueful backward glance toward some lost erotics, contains the lines, “There was a time you let me know/what’s really going on below,” followed by, “I remember when I moved in you.” Jeff Buckley, whose cover of “Hallelujah” has proven over the decades to be most enduring–more persistent, really, than the original recording– declared the song an homage to “’the hallelujah of the orgasm. It’s an ode to life and love’” (Light 2012, xi). Other musicians likewise note the song’s suggestive connection to sex. Strange, then, that critics have been so hesitant to connect the song to Cohen’s personal life. Our guess is that kindly sensitivity to his privacy has kept speculation in check. Since Leonard Cohen died in 2016, some probing might now take place without violating that privacy. Alan Light, the foremost biographer of the song, has capably compiled commentary from other musicians and spliced it to the songwriter’s life, but even he was hesitant in his 2012 book to personalize any motives behind its composition. Light did concede that the song “tormented [Cohen] for years” (xvi): a pointed disclosure that invites a biographical reading of the lyrics. A tormented artist, an enigmatic song, and a growing consensus on its sexuality all hint at a hidden context. Cohen acknowledged he had “started a journal chronicling my failures to address this obsessive concern with the melody’” (Light 2012, 4). Its lyrics obsessed him too, judging by the many discarded verses he wrote. Originally recorded in 1984, the song underwent a major revision and a rerecording first in 1988. Light acknowledged that “this edit foregrounded the pains of sex and romance, offering hope as a more defensive protection against defeat, a backstop to prevent us from giving in to despair” (40). The emotional waters of the song run deep, obsessively so. We believe a previously unexamined biographical basis of the song might go some way to explaining its artistic force. An arresting lyrical flourish in the song comes early. In the first sentence, third line, the speaker asks, “you don’t really care for music, do you?” In folk and pop songs, direct address is common enough. Two comparable songs share its accusatory tone. Those songs are “Lady Writer” by Dire Straits and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” by Bob Dylan. The lyrics of all three use the second-person point of view in a similarly snappish manner, and the circumstances of composition of all

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three songs bear close comparison. Dylan sings, in a song that foretells a breakup, “you just kinda wasted my precious time” (1963). Dylan’s song was written for the artist Suze Rotolo, who also appears on the cover of the album with him (McLellan, 2011). Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits bitterly addresses a woman who spurned him: “I know you never read a book” and “You couldn’t hardly write your name” (1979). According to journalist Fiona Gruber, “The lyrics of the 1979 Dire Straits song is about a breakup.” Cohen’s lyric is less acerbic, more vernacular and clever, than either of its predecessors. Part of the memorable ingenuity of the “Hallelujah” lyrics lies in their integration of irony. Deploying the vehicle of music, the poet indicts the addressee with a distaste for music. That tone of indictment or accusation evaporates after the first sentence. But because it opens the song, it adds a personal note that permeates the rest of the song. Coupled with the note of lamentation and nostalgia that informs the final verses, the erotic line “I remember when I moved in you” deepens the song’s intimate and private mood. Listeners might be forgiven if they feel like voyeurs invited to peep into the songwriter’s private life by a set of open blinds. Many pundits and fans characterize Cohen’s prime musical genre as “erotic despair,” and videographers have created dozens of steamy interpretations of work. His early song “Suzanne,” first published in 1966 as a poem, contains the line, risqué for the time, “you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.” The song was written for a dancer in Montreal, Suzanne Verdal, one of several women identified at various periods in his career as muses (Simmons 2012, 124-30). The lyrics are outright autobiography, Cohen and all his commentators claim that his relationship with the married Ms. Verdal was allegedly platonic. His affairs with a long list of women artists and celebrities who came later were far more publicly erotic. Not all his songs about love and lust strike notes of indictment or desperation, though; consider the country-inflected “Closing Time,” a song about what happens after the bar closes down for the night. The five-year journey to compose “Hallelujah” began at exactly the time his relationship with a second Suzanne was breaking up. That relationship resulted in two children, Adam and Lorca, born in 1972 and 1974. The woman was Suzanne Elrod, a painter from Miami. The two met in New York in 1969 when she was living with another man. Ten years later Leonard and Suzanne split, in 1979, the same year he began working on the song (Simmons 2012, 338). They were “together” for ten years. We put the word in scare quotes to highlight the shakiness of the relationship. Cohen was on the road and in the California monastery more often than he

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was in Montreal, Greece and Franklin, Tennessee, with his common-law wife Suzanne. At the same time, he was also often preoccupied with other women. The songwriter’s distaste for his marriage is well documented. Just after his son Adam was born, he wrote to himself, in an unpublished archival manuscript, “’Fuck this marriage [and] your dead bed night after night’” (Simmons 2012, 271). In the same manuscript, he resolved to “’study the hatred I have for her and how it is transmuted into desire by solitude and distance’.” Correlation must not be confused with causation, of course, but the twisted desire in this journal entry, coupled with the accusation implicit in the lyrics of “Hallelujah,” make his vexed relationship with the mother of his children a probable source of inspiration for the song. Few parents would be willing to indict a lover publicly when they knew the mutual children would be apt to chance upon that indictment. As a point of comparison, Cohen’s remorse about identifying Janis Joplin explicitly as the sex partner in “Chelsea Hotel #2” has by now become legendary. “Leonard expressed regret on several occasions later at having named Joplin as the fellatrix and muse of the song,” Simmons wrote (200). He could not risk the same mistake with Suzanne. In 1974, in the months before daughter Lorca was born, Cohen was recording New Skin for the Old Ceremony. He was on tour in Europe and the Middle East. He travelled to and lived in war zones in Israel and Ethiopia. In those travels, he was acting out political convictions, in part. But he was also “avoiding the war that awaited him at home with Suzanne” (Simmons 2012, 275). A month before Lorca was born, he returned to Montreal (Nadel 1996, 189). There, an interviewer asked him about marriage. He declared marriage to be a discipline of extreme severity. To really turn your back on all the other possibilities and all the other experiences of love, of passion, of ecstasy, and to determine to find it within one embrace is a high and righteous notion. Marriage today is the monastery; the monastery today is freedom’.” (281)

Such a paradox lies at the heart of his religious and his spiritual journeys alike. Five years after the interview, in 1979, Suzanne would leave him forever. That same year, he began the arduous process of composing “Hallelujah.” The confessional lyrics and matched melodic structure of the song “Hallelujah” point to a neglected source. We believe that source was his life with his common-law wife. What was perhaps an open secret among

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his biographers and critics while Leonard Cohen was still alive, writing, touring and reading, might now finally come to light. His ten-year marriage that resulted in two children must certainly have crept into his consciousness and songs. We believe that marriage helps explain the enduring allure of “Hallelujah,” the deep feelings that so clearly imbue it, and the enigmatic quality of the lyrics sung so sincerely by the many hundreds of performers who have covered it.

Discography Cohen, Leonard. “Hallelujah (Live April 17, 2009; Coachella Music Festival, Indio, California).” Songs from the Road (Live). Sony Music Entertainment, 2010. iTunes. —. “Hallelujah (Live).” Cohen Live. Sony Music Entertainment, 1994. iTunes. Recorded 1988. —. “Hallelujah (Live in Dublin).” Live in Dublin. Sony Music Entertainment, 2014. iTunes. Recorded 2013. —. “Hallelujah (Live).” Live in London, recorded 2008, Sony Music Entertainment, 2009. Recorded 2008. iTunes. —. “Hallelujah.” Various Positions. Produced by John Lissauer. Sony Music Entertainment, 1985. iTunes. Recorded 1984. —. “Hallelujah (Live 1993 FM Broadcast Remastered).” Legendary FM Broadcasts–Kongresshaus, Zurich 21st May 1993. Radioland, 2016. Dylan, Bob. “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Columbia Records, 1963. Knopfler, Mark. “Lady Writer.” Communique, Warner Bros. Records. 1979.

References Cohen, Leonard. 1997. “Leonard Cohen: Los Angeles, California, 1992.” By Paul Zollo. Songwriters on Songwriting. New York: Da Capo Press. —. 1994. Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs. New York: Vintage Books. —. 1984. “Hallelujah.” SheetMusicDirect.us. Accessed March 3, 2017. https://www.sheetmusicdirect.us/sheetmusic/song/1000019540/halleluj ah. —. 1988. “Hallelujah (Live Version).” SheetMusicDirect.us. Accessed March 3, 2017.

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https://www.sheetmusicdirect.us/sheetmusic/song/1000083514/halleluj ah-live-version. Footman, Tim. 2009. Hallelujah: A New Biography. New Malden, Surrey, UK: Chrome Dreams. Gruber, Fiona. 2013. “Melbourne Writers Festival.” Sydney Morning Herald. Aug. 17, 2013. Accessed 26 March 2017. http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/melbourne-writers-festival20130815-2ryy0.html I’m Your Man. 2006. DVD. Directed by Lian Lunson. Santa Monica, CA, USA: Lions Gate. Kory, Robert. 2016. “Details of Leonard Cohen’s Death from Robert Kory, President of RK Management and Manager of Leonard Cohen.” Cohencentric: Leonard Cohen Considered. Posted by Dr. H. Guy, Nov. 16, 2016. http://cohencentric.com/2016/11/16/statement-detailsleonard-cohens-death-robert-kory-president-rk-management-managerleonard-cohen/. Kubernik, Harvey. 2014. Leonard Cohen: Everybody Knows. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA: Backbeat Books. Light, Alan. 2012. The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah.” New York: Atria Books. Kindle. The Leonard Cohen Files. N.d. Accessed March 3, 2017. http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/. “Leonard Cohen–Hallelujah.” 2009. YouTube. Performance by Leonard Cohen. Uploaded by LeonardCohenVEVO. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q. Leibovitz, Liel. 2014. A Broken Hallelujah: Rock and Roll, Redemption, and the Life of Leonard Cohen. New York: Norton. Kindle. McLellan, Dennis. 2011. “Suze Rotolo Dies at 76: Bob Dylan’s Girlfriend Was on Iconic Album Cover.” Los Angeles Times March 1, 2011. Accessed 26 March 2017. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/01/local/la-me-suze-rotolo20110301 Nadel, Ira B. 1996. Various Positions. New York: Pantheon Books. Ratcliffe, Maurice. 2012. Leonard Cohen: The Music and the Mystique. London: Omnibus Press. Simmons, Sylvie. 2012. I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen. New York: HarperCollins.



CHAPTER EIGHT STYRIAN IN SLOVENIAN POPULAR MUSIC MIHAELA KOLETNIK AND MELITA ZEMLJAK JONTES

In the last twenty years, writers of Slovenian popular music have increasingly included dialectal features in their songs. This phenomenon can be explained in three ways: (1) as a counter-reaction to the globalization of society that impels individuals to embrace the local, to use their mother tongue, the dialect with which they most easily identify; (2) as an outcome of the Slovenian language having become the state language after the declaration of Slovenian independence, and (3) as the use of dialect for semantic marking in comparison to literary language. It should be noted that the dialect is never fully integrated into these songs, but is usually indicated by means of certain phonetic, morphological and lexical elements.

The Analysis We have chosen to focus on the use of songs that use the dialect of Styria, an area in the north-east of Slovenia, by three Styrian bands: Nude, Mi2 and Orlek. Although the bands originate from an area of Slovenia where a variety of Styrian dialects is used, they still show common dialectal characteristics, identified as mostly phonetic, morphological and lexical. The basis for the analysis comprises the bands’ lyrics from their edited albums before March 2014. All the selected popular music bands perform pop-rock music with thematically distinct lyrics: Nude, mostly love themes, Mi2, themes from everyday life and Orlek, themes from everyday life and the more or less recent history of the local mining area. Our analysis provides information on the use of non-standard Slovenian elements in popular music on phonological, morphological and lexical

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levels, based on several dictionaries of Slovenian standard language (Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika, Slovenski pravopis, Slovar novejšega besedja slovenskega jezika (SNBSJ), Slovar slovenskih frazemov), of Slovenian etymology in general (Slovenski etimološki slovar) and of German loanwords in the Slovenian language (Deutsche Lehnwörter im Slovenischen).1 Styrian dialects are spoken in a broad area of the central-eastern part of Slovenia bordered by the Upper Carniolan dialectal group on the west, the Carinthian dialectal group on the north, the Pannonian dialectal group on the north-east, the Lower Carniolan group on the south and the Croatian language to the east. The Styrian dialectal group (Zorko 1994, 333; 2009, 160) is present in the northern and southern area, and marked by the late new acute lengthening of yat /Č/, of /o/and /e/ in comparison to long yat /Č/, /o/ and /e/ in the northern area. None of the Styrian dialects use tonemic contrasts (the distinction between low and high, acute and circumflex intonation, is lost). All the Styrian dialects have a falling word intonation on long and short vowels, but some of them have nevertheless lost their quantity opposition, causing partial or complete lengthening of short vowels, thus sometimes also diphthongizing narrow /e/ and /o/ into [ie] and [uo]. The long /i/ and /u/ have diphthongized, and the long /a/ has become fairly or completely labialized and thus in some areas pronounced as standard broad /o/. The diphthongization of yat /Č/ to [e ] or [a ] is common to all the Styrian dialects, as is the diphthongization of long /o/ to [oዘ] or [aዘ]. Some dialects have undergone late monophthongization. All speakers of the Styrian dialects pronounce the long semi-vowel /ԥ/ and nasal vowel /Ċ/ as a narrow or broad variant of /e/. In the eastern area of the middle Styrian and the Kozjansko-Bizeljsko dialect, the vowel /ü/ instead of standard /u/ is commonly pronounced. Vowel reduction is more common in southern Styrian dialects, mostly in word endings, thus causing masculinization. The non-stressed /o/ is pronounced as a very narrow vowel. The syllabic /r/ is pronounced mostly with prior semi-vowel or non-labialized /a/. Syllabic /l/ is mostly pronounced as [oዘ] or [aዘ]. The following phenomena are typical of the consonant system (Logar 1993, 136–141): in front of the voiceless consonants or before the pause, /v/ shows a strong tendency to become /f/; the consonant cluster /šþ/ is mostly reduced to /š/; /Ĕ/ is mostly reduced to /j/ or undergoes the change

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ZRCola: The text was partly produced by using the input system ZRCola (http://ZRCola.zrc-sazu.si) created at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana (http://www.zrc-sazu.si) by Dr. Peter Weiss.

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to /jn/; /Ď/ is mostly reduced to /l/. The secondary /dl/ is usually reduced to /l/; the pronunciation of the hard /l/ especially in front of the vowels /u/, /o/ and /a/ is partly preserved; the prothetic /j/ can still be heard; voiced consonants (except /l, r, m, n, v, j/) in front of other voiceless consonants and before a pause usually become voiceless. According to Zinka Zorko (2009, 160–161), the southern area of the Styrian dialectal group has masculinized most of the neuter nouns, and the northern area has undergone feminization mostly of plural neuter nouns. There is a strong tendency towards the loss of dual, particularly in the feminine gender. Conjugation does not apply the rule of changing /o/ to /e/ after /c, þ, ž, š, j, dž/ (s kovaþom, mojo delo). The instrumental case of singular feminine nouns has the instrumental ending -oj: z ženoj “with wife,” which developed into -i or -o: z ženi, z ženo. The most common demonstrative pronoun is toti, teti, titi. Most frequently verbs undergo suffix conjugation; hence, the forms for first person dual are mostly date “you give” (pl.), vete “you know” (pl.), grete “you go” (pl.), rarely also vajste “you know” (pl.), grajste “you go” (pl.), instead of the standard daste, veste, greste.

Styrian Popular Music Bands Turning to the lyrics of songs written by three Styrian musical groups, we will establish to what degree their texts mirror the spoken Styrian dialect. All three bands originate from the region of the Styrian dialectal group: Nude from the regional colloquial language of Celje, Orlek from the dialect of Posavje and Mi2 from the middle Styrian dialect. All three bands began performing in the 1990s and have been writing their own lyrics and music from the start, offering their listeners a dialectal overtone, as well. Nude is a Slovenian pop-rock band established in 1993, currently with five members. During its existence, the band has recorded a number of hits as singles and seven CDs, five of them in the studio. The band has played more than a thousand concerts and has won numerous Slovenian music and other awards. Most of their lyrics are based on love themes but also explore other life problems. The lyrics offer the sensation of dialectal speech, but this perception is deceptive, since a literary variety of Standard Slovenian language is mostly used, sometimes intertwined with the regional colloquial language of Celje, the urban dialectal speech of the third largest city in Slovenia. Its most evident features are very rare, consisting mostly of the omission of short unstressed vowels, in their written form as graphic marks: R'd te ‘mam “I love you,” (as compared to

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the Standard “rad te imam”) and sometimes the extreme broadness of stressed /e/ and /o/, which is uncharacteristic of Standard Slovenian language: žezlo “sceptre” (sing.). Mi2 is a rock band established in 1995, originally with two members, but currently comprising five members who originate from the middle Styrian dialectal area (Rogatec, Šmarje pri Jelšah). The band has become very popular over the years, especially since 1999 when it released its second album of seven altogether. The lyrics deal with everyday topics of an everyman from the perspective of the band members, from love, to themes dealing with the political situation. Every CD includes lyrics sung both in non-standard Slovenian regional colloquial language and in the standard literary and colloquial variety. Over time, the band has shown a tendency to increase the number of lyrics using the standard Slovenian variety of language. Most of the lyrics available on their official web site are written by the band and do not include accentuation marks, information on quantity and quality of vowels, or marks for the omission of unstressed vowels and pronunciation of diphthongs, although all these are audible in the execution. Non-standard words are written as pronounced: tišler ĸ G. Tischler (SSl. mizar) “carpenter,” jes (SSl. jaz) “I.” The lyrics often contain loan words and vulgarisms. The band’s pronunciation of the non-standard lyrics is largely dialectal, taking vowels and consonants into consideration: mostly complete vocal reduction: al (SSl. ali) “or,” bla (SSl. bila) “I was” (F. Sing.), drgaþ (SSl. drugaþe) “on the other hand,” kak (SSl. kako) “how,” htela (SSl. hotela) “we wanted,” sn (SSl. sem) “I am,” tedn (SSl. teden) “week,” zmenla (SSl. zmenila) “agreed” (F. Sing.); pronunciation of the short stressed vowel /a/ as /e/: jes (SSl. jaz) “I”; there is no conjugation applying the rule of changing /o/ to /e/ after /c, þ, ž, š, j, dž/: s Fikijom (SSl. s Fikijem) “with Fiki”; the syllable /l/ is pronounced as /u/: vuna (SSl. volna) “wool”; consonant pronunciation which mostly differs in prepositional u and prefixal f (SSl. v): u toplice (SSl. v toplice) “to the spa,” fþasih (SSl. vþasih) “sometimes,” ftegnem (SSl. utegnem) “I manage to do in time,” bi ftopil (SSl. bi utopil) “would drown sb.,” ftrpne (SSl. otrpne) “he/she freezes”; pronunciation of /lj/ as [l]: lubezn (SSl. ljubezen) “love,” pospravlene (SSl. pospravljene) “cleared up”; pronunciation of /nj/ is maintained or pronounced as [j]: v živlenji (SSl. v življenju) “in life,” škrija (SSl. zmrzovalnik) “freezer”; reduction of final consonants: ka (SSl. kaj) “what.” In rare cases the dialectal diphthongs are also heard: fsje (SSl. vse) “all,” problejm (SSl. problem, težava) “problem,” skrbejlo (SSl. skrbelo) “worried.”

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In morphology, long and short infinitives are used: sma htela iti (SSl. sva hotela iti) “we wanted to go,” naroþiti (SSl. naroþiti) “to order,” se ga vliti (SSl. se ga vliti, se ga napiti) “to get drunk”; hoþeš bit (SSl. hoþeš biti) “you want to be.” The verb “to be,” first person dual, is always used as sma (SSl. sva). Verb endings -il, -el, -al are usually Styrian dialectal -o: je oceno (SSl. je ocenil) “he judged”; sn našo (SSl. sem našel) “I have found,” je prišo (SSl. je prišel) “he came”; sn delo (SSl. sem delal) “I have worked,” but not always: vzel mere (SSl. vzel mere) “he took measures,” narisal (SSl. narisal) “he drew,” zraþunal (SSl. izraþunal) “he calculated.” The ending -i in the dative and locative of singular masculine and originally neutral (masculinized) nouns developed from Standard -u: na Boþi (S. na Boþu) “on the hill of Boþ,” v živlenji (SSl. v življenju) “in life.” There is also use of colloquial diction or lower colloquially coloured vocabulary: ajmrþek (SSl. majhno vedro) “small bucket” ĸ G. Eimer, britof (SSl. pokopališþe) “cemetery” ĸ G. Friedhof, crkniti (SSl. umreti) “to die,” fajn (SSl. fino) “fine” ĸ G. Fein, kufer (SSl. kovþek) “suit-case” ĸ G. Koffer, lušten (SSl. þeden, ljubek) “pretty” ĸ MHG. lustec, lustic, matrati (SSl. truditi) “to make effort” ĸ G. martern, rugzak (SSl. nahrbtnik) “backpack” ĸ G. Rucksack, sekirati (SSl. vznemirjati) “to be upset” ĸ G. sekkieren, šajba (SSl. šipa) “pane” ĸ G. Scheibe, štrik (SSl. vrv) “rope” ĸ G. Strick, tenf (SSl. tolmun) “pool,” zastopiti (SSl. razumeti) “to understand,” also from English: emajl (SSl. e-pošta) ĸ E. “e-mail,” do fula (SSl. popolnoma) “completely”; pejorative vocabulary: majmun (SSl. opica) “monkey” ĸ Cro. majmun; vulgar vocabulary: fukniti (SSl. grdo vreþi; SNBSJ (fuck) odklonilen odnos do þesa) “to fuck, to be negative towards sth. or sbd.,” prdniti (SSl. izloþiti pline iz þrevesja) “to fart,” rigniti (SSl. spahniti se) “to burp,” scati (SSl. izpraznjevati seþni mehur) “to pee.” All these examples are indicative of the highly regional, colloquial nature of the lyrics of Mi2, which is further exemplified by the presence of German loanwords that have not been accepted into Standard Slovene, such as fajn (SSl. fino) “fine” ĸ G. Fein, luft (SSl. zrak) “air” ĸ G. Luft, pucati (SSl. þistiti) “to clean” ĸ G. putzen, pocartati (SSl. pretirano negovati, razvajati, ljubkovati) “to caress” ĸ G. zärtlich, rarely from Croatian: kao (SSl. kot) “as” ĸ Cro. kao, odmah (SSl. takoj) “right now” ĸ Cro. odmah. Occasionally, the lyrics of Mi2 contain slang expressions that are most often borrowed from foreign languages, such as folk “people” ĸ G. Volk, fajt (SSl. borba/bitka) ĸ E. fight, fotr “father” ĸ G. Vater, do fula (SSl. do polnega) ĸ E. “to the full,” plata “gramophone record” ĸ G. Schalplatte.

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Orlek is a band currently comprising nine members; it was established in 1998 and plays an original blend of rock and roll, a kind of folk punk rock polka. Its domicile is in Zagorje ob Savi, dialectologically speaking, the region of the Styrian dialect of Posavje (the speech of Zagorje and Trbovlje). The name of the band originates in the name of the hill at the edge of Zagorje, in the heart of the mining area. Their specialties are texts with social and humorous content, rich in many expressions typical of the hard work and life of a miner. Their music is a diverse instrumental ensemble, which, besides traditional rock instruments, also uses a brass section and an accordion, and places the band into the ethnic folk music category. The band has provided audiences with many successful performances at festivals in Slovenia as well as abroad. The band has so far issued nine CDs. The band's official web site presents lyrics written by the band members themselves. In the song lyrics and interpretation, a literary and partially colloquial variety of standard Slovenian is used, containing many German loan words and specific dialectal mining terminology, which gives the band populist appeal and creates an audible illusion of dialectal speech. The band's pronunciation of the non-standard lyrics is dialectal, mostly concerning complete vocal reduction. In central word position, the omission of unstressed vowels is usually marked: rož'ca (SSl. rožica) “flower,” rok'n'roll (SSl. rokenrol) “rock and roll,” sometimes also at word endings: tud” (SSl. tudi) “as well,” skoz” (SSl. skozi) “through,” although not consistently: spomlad (SSl. spomladi) “in spring.” The most distinctive dialectal lexical characteristic involves loanwords adopted by the Slovenian language, largely from German and not accepted in the standard Slovenian language: ajzenpon (SSl. železnica) “railways” ĸ G. Eisenbahn, britof (SSl. pokopališþe) “cemetery” ĸ G. Friedhof, cajg, cajk (SSl. orodje) “tools” ĸ G. Wergzeug, colnga (SSl. plaþa) “pay” ĸ G. Zahlung, faulast (SSl. len) “lazy” ĸ G. faul, ksiht (SSl. obraz) “face” ĸ G. Gesicht, kufer (SSl. kovþek) “suit-case” ĸ G. Koffer, luft (SSl. zrak) “air” ĸ G. Luft, matrati (SSl. truditi) “to make an effort” ĸ G. martern, mušter (SSl. vzorec) “sample” ĸ G. Muster, pauri (SSl. kmetje) “farmers” ĸ G. Bauer, penzijon (SSl. pokojnina) “pension” ĸ G. Pension, rajš (SSl. riž) “rice” ĸ G. Reis, rekelc (SSl. suknjiþ) “jacket” ĸ G. Rock, rugzak (SSl. nahrbtnik) “backpack” ĸ G. Rucksack, šajba (SSl. šipa) “pane” ĸ G. Scheibe, rarely also from English: fajt (SSl. borba/bitka) ĸ E. fight. Moreover, the band's official web site includes a mining glossary, containing terminology used by the local miners and passed from generation to generation. These terms originate largely in German terminology under the influence of the mine owners, the political

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system of the time and the names of the tools, which were imported along with the tools themselves. The web site does not provide the reader with information about the origin of the translations; thus, one can assume that the band members themselves translated the terminology into standard Slovenian. The glossary includes words such as ferdinst (SSl. plaþilni list) “pay” ĸ G. Verdienst, gverk (SSl. rudnik) “mine” ĸ G. Bergwerk, nohšiht (SSl. noþna izmena) “night shift” ĸ G. Nachtschicht, šafla (SSl. lopata) “shovel” ĸ G. Schaufel, štil (SSl. roþaj pri lopati) “handle for shovel” ĸ G. Stiel, vahtar (SSl. þuvaj) “watchman” ĸ G. Wächter, urmohar (SSl. urar) “watchmaker” ĸ G. Uhrmacher, ziherica (SSl. rudarska delavska svetilka) “safe lamp” ĸ G. sicher (SSl. gotov, varen; varna svetilka). This examination of the use of the non-standard Slovenian elements in a small selection of popular music has found a range of dialectal engagement among Styrian bands. The most evident Styrian dialectal characteristics appear in the lyrics of Mi2, mostly on the phonetic and lexical levels, and including colloquial or lower colloquially coloured vocabulary, occasionally even pejorative and vulgar vocabulary. The lyrics of Orlek feature the most distinctive dialectal lexical characteristics, with loanwords adopted into Slovene, largely from German. Orlek’s use of mining terms constitutes a clear example of a sub-cultural identity being expressed in dialect in popular music. In contrast, lyrics by Nude show almost no non-standard Slovenian characteristics.

Language and Other Abbreviations Cro.—Croatian, G.—German, SSl.—Standard Slovene, SNBSJ—Slovar novejšega besedja slovenskega jezika

References Helin, Irmeli. 2008. “Dialect Songs—Images of Our Time or a Way to Escape from Globalization?” In Dialect for All Seasons: Cultural Diversity as Tool and Directive for Dialect Researchers and Translators, edited by Irmeli Helin. Münster: Nodus Publikationen. 2105–2117. Keber, Janez. 2011. Slovar slovenskih frazemov. Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU. Koletnik, Mihaela. 2008. Panonsko lonþarsko in kmetijsko izrazje ter druge dialektološke razprave. Maribor: Mednarodna založba Oddelka za slovanske jezike in književnosti Filozofske fakultete. ––. 2008a. “The Prekmurje Dialect in Popular Music.” In Dialect for All Seasons: Cultural Diversity as Tool and Directive for Dialect

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Researchers and Translators, edited by Irmeli Helin. Münster: Nodus Publikationen. 219–226. Kukonen, Pirjo. 2004. “Dialects We Live By. Globality and Locality— Dialect as Locality. In Dialektübersetzung und Dialekte in Multimedia, edited by Irmeli Helin. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 11–20. Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika. 2008. http://bos.zrc-sazu.si/sskj.html. Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU, (2000). Snoj, Marko. 2003. Slovenski etimološki slovar. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga. Striedter Temps, Hildegard. 1963. Deutsche Lehnwörter im Slovenischen. Berlin: Osteuropa-Institut Berlin, Berlin-Dahlem. Slovar novejšega besedja slovenskega jezika (SNBSJ). Ljubljana: Založba ZRC SAZU, 2012. Slovenski pravopis. 2010. http://bos.zrc-sazu.si/sp2001.html. Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU, (2001). Toporišiþ, Jože. 2000. Slovenska slovnica. Maribor: Založba Obzorja. Zorko, Zinka. 1994. Samoglasniški sestavi v nareþnih bazah. Ljubljana: SSJLK, 325–343. ––. 2009. Nareþjeslovne razprave o koroških, štajerskih in panonskih govorih. Maribor: Mednarodna založba Oddelka za slovanske jezike in književnosti Filozofske fakultete.



CHAPTER NINE DIALECTAL IMAGERY IN MURSKE BALADE IN ROMANCE (BALLADS AND ROMANCES OF THE POMURJE REGION) MIHAELA KOLETNIK AND ALENKA VALH LOPERT

The use of dialects in the arts has been, in Slovenia as elsewhere in Europe, enjoying a resurgence in popularity. This tendency could be interpreted as a response to the processes of globalization and the influential spread of unified cultural and language practices, and is primarily based on a language’s need to preserve its identity by reacting against the supra-national language. Despite being primarily spoken forms of language and accordingly defined as social and non-literary in register, dialects have recently been increasingly used in written form. This holds particularly true in relation to the Prekmurje dialects typical of the region of that name in the far northeast of Slovenia near the Hungarian border. This chapter consists of two parts: a theoretical description of Slovene dialects in general, followed by some statements on popular culture, rounded off with a consideration of the language varieties used in popular culture and their rationale. The second section presents the results of an analysis of the Murske balade in romance (Ballads and Romances of the Pomurje Region), with a presentation of the basic phonological, morphological and lexical features of the Pannonian, Prekmurje and Prlekija dialects, drawing special attention to the Prlekija dialect and the Prekmurje dialect in the Murske balade in romance.

Slovene Dialects in General In discussing the Slovene language, we should point out that it occurs in several varieties: social, functional, transmissive, temporal/historical

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and quantitative. Our analysis deals with Slovene dialects and their social varieties, which can be divided into two sub-varieties: standard and nonstandard. The standard one serves as a means of communication throughout Slovenia; it plays a national and representative role. Standard Slovene is further classified into literary and colloquial varieties (the latter being a less formal variety of Standard Slovene). Even though Slovenia is a small country with only around two million inhabitants, non-standard Slovene is divided into seven dialectal groups: Pannonian, near the Hungarian border (this group will be presented in detail below); Carinthian, to the north, near the Austrian border; Lower Carniolan, south of the capital city, Ljubljana; Upper Carniolan, north of the capital city; Styrian, in the northeast of Slovenia; Littoral, to the west, near the Italian border; and the Rovte, west of the capital city, as well as into regional colloquial languages. These are a kind of “transdialect” made up of several geographical dialects, a kind of a social variety in between Standard Literary Slovene, on the one hand, and the dialects, on the other: Central Slovene (with its centre in Ljubljana), South Styrian (Celje), North Styrian (Maribor with an influence in the local towns of Ptuj and Ravne; a subvariant developed along the Mura River and is centred around Murska Sobota), Littoral (with variants around Nova Gorica, Trieste, Koper and Postojna) and possibly two more: Rovte (Škofja Loka) and Austrian Carinthian (Toporišiþ 2000, 13–21). We should point out here that, for the majority of Slovenes, dialect is the first or native language; we are born into it, while standard language is taught in schools to enable communication between speakers of various dialects. One interesting characteristic of Slovene is that it is the most dialectally heterogeneous in the Slavic language group (Logar 1993, 5). An improvement in the status of dialects in general has recently been noticed; dialect prose and lyrical poetry, in particular, are becoming increasingly common in various kinds of media and in popular culture. The lyrics in pop music, which have to be sensitive to musical expression such as rhythm, reproduce a fairly accurate imitation of spoken dialect, especially on the phonological, morphological and lexical levels.

Popular culture Storey (2009, 5) stresses that there are various ways to define popular culture; however, “[a]n obvious starting point in any attempt to define popular culture is to say that popular culture is simply culture that is widely favoured or well liked by many people” (Storey 2009, 5). Pop culture can also be defined as what culture is left over when we have decided what high culture is, including such domains as film and theatre,



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digital and print media, advertisements, sport and fashion (Stankoviþ 2002, 12). When comparing classical to pop music, it is said that in “the case of classical against pop music, it is always to show the banality of pop music and to say something about those who consume it” (Storey 2009, 55). The same author (8) offers a third definition of popular culture “as ‘mass culture.’ /…/ popular culture is a hopelessly commercial culture. It is mass produced for mass consumption. Its audience is a mass of nondiscriminating consumers,” and he concludes: “Culture may have become mass culture, but consumption has not become mass consumption” (69). One of the leading Slovene literary theoreticians, Matjaž Kmecl (1983, 262), believes that pop songs are among the most popular forms of lyrical poetry accessible to the masses. Although this form of lyrical poetry is often paired with simple melodies that cater to the tastes of an audience that is musically unsophisticated, it may nevertheless reach a considerable level of quality. He claims that many writers of pop songs are considered true poets, and lyrics by singer-songwriters are an important part of pop music. Some of the lyrics written in the Prekmurje and Prlekija dialects can be considered outstanding for linguistic complexity and cultural relevance.

Language Varieties in Popular Culture Raymond F. Betts (2009, 140-1) describes the United States, with its dominant economy and privileged position in technological production (computers, software, film and television programs) in combination with English as the language of international communication, as “the heartland of popular culture.” Furthermore he notes that most books are published in English “/…/ in order to reach a wider audience. /…/ [T]he preponderance of English in contemporary scientific and business discourse, to say nothing of the popular culture of music and film, makes facility in it something of a cultural imperative” (Betts 140). Betts (141) uses the well-known term “cultural imperialism” to denote the tendencies that “override national interests and divergent culture areas” and the penetration of Western culture into other cultural environments (142). Globalization and the tendency to replace national languages with a universal one (English) are also present in Slovenia. On the one hand, negative language assimilation could become a serious problem, while on the other, language—including standard language, idiolect, sociolect or dialects—plays a more and more crucial role in the shaping of national identity. Therefore, the dialectal consciousness of the dialect speaker is intensified by the use of dialects in the media, which is itself an index of

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the growing linguistic democracy and liberalization in the media. Dialects undoubtedly constitute the speech of the primary environment, the first or mother tongue. The following issues arise at this point: language as an expression of identity; language as a matter of prestige; the relation between standard and non-standard language; and the increasing usage of dialects even at public events, in public media (especially spoken), public political discourse, school, art (literature, music, film and theatre) and popular culture (Smole 2009, 559). Ivo Škariü (2000, 173) states that many speakers use their local language intentionally, as a reflection of their identities, and do not even want to use the standard variety. This habit can be widely recognised even among professional speakers such as professors, journalists and cultural workers, many of whom choose to employ their local speech instead. The same is established by Vera B. Merkujewa (2009, 243, 250), who ascertains that, although Standard German prevails in the mass media, dialect is being used even in “TV-series, theatre performance, songs, poems, ads, ” while “journalists, politicians, athletes, writers /.../ take their dialect with them when leaving their homeland” (243). This is manifested in a surge in the usage of dialect, with many speakers not only maintaining the dialect’s linguistic structure, but even consciously improving and cultivating it (Kenda Jež 2004, 263–276). Although many Slovene linguists speak about a conflation of dialects with standard language, or even about the disappearance of dialects because of the disappearance of rural culture, the study by Kenda Jež shows just the opposite. The main reasons could lie in the following functions of dialect which cannot always be achieved in standard language: functionality, distinctiveness, self-identification and nostalgia. Mirjana Nastran Ule concludes that all definitions of identity share an essential element: “identity is the process of social '(self-)instalment' of the subject itself” (2000, 95).

Murske balade in romance (Ballads and Romances of the Pomurje Region) We turn now to the use of the Pannonian Prekmurje and the Prlekija dialectal features of fourteen songs by the musicians, lyricists and writers Feri Lainšþek, Vlado Žabot, Milan Vincetiþ, Dušan Šarotar, Štefan Kardoš, Marko Koþar, Vlado Kreslin and Vlado Poredoš. These songs pay tribute to Pomurje, a region straddling the Mura River in northeast Slovenia, a land that their authors consider home and with which they feel closely connected. Performed by the Murska Banda instrumental ensemble



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and local vocalists, the fourteen romantic ballads were especially written for the Ballads and Romances of Pomurje Region music and literary project as part of the 2012 Maribor European Capital of Culture. Premiering in September 2012 at The Festival of Murske balade in romance (Ballads and Romances of the Pomurje Region Festival) in Murska Sobota, these ballads have since been released on CD. The project was planned by the songwriters, inspired by the tradition of Pannonian music, as a response to the processes of globalization and with the clear intent to preserve their identity. The way they chose to express identity was through their mother tongue, taught by their parents and absorbed from the environment, remaining in their consciousness from childhood as a means of expressing the deepest intimate experience, with dialect thus being much more appropriate than learned Standard language for such expression.

Phonetic and Morphological Features of Dialects of the Prekmurje and Prlekija Regions The dialects of the Prekmurje and Prlekija region are part of the Pannonian dialect group, along with the Haloze and Slovenske Gorice regional dialect. The dialects of the Pannonian dialect group do not have tonemic contrasts, but they do have quantitative contrasts; stressed vowels are long or short, whereas the unstressed ones are only short. In the Prekmurje and Prlekija dialect, long and short stressed syllables are possible in all syllables of polysyllabic words. The general Slovene stress shift (zlâto ĺ zlatô “gold,” Тko ĺ okô “eye,” dnjšà ĺ dúša “soul”) was carried out; the vowels e, o and Ω are stressed before previously short final stressed syllables (žèna “wife,” n͕̖ga “leg,” mègla “fog”)1; after tertiary shift, there are stressed vowels in open syllables in some cases (vΏja “ear’); vowels are stressed after removing stress from the short syllable, even in prefixes and prepositions (b͕̖gat “rich,” nàbrali “ (we, you, they) picked,” prìnas “here (at our place),” and vowels in word forms that are analogous in base are also stressed. The new circumflex in the suffixes -ec

 1

The material is written with marks for standard language—the acute (‫)ޗ‬, breve (‫)ޘ‬ and circumflex (ˆ ) mark the place of the accent, with the following additions: the acute marks the length and closeness of e and o; the breve marks the shortness and openness of e and o, while the circumflex marks the length and openness of e and o. The vowel role of l, n and r is marked with a circle underneath them; a half circle under i and u (i֒ , u֒ ) marks their consonant pronunciation, and the semivowel is marked as Ϸ.

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and -ek and the upper lengthened new acute in the suffix -je is preserved: Štuh̗́c, laḱ̗t “forearm”; korenj̗́ “carrots” (Pkm.), klaj̗́ “slaughter” (Prl.). The Prekmurje vowel vocal system is quite unified. Long vowels include i/ii֒ , üi֒ , uu֒ , ́, (ö), ͕, ei֒ , ou֒ , a and ‫܀‬, while the short vowels are i, ü, u, ́, (ö), ͕, e/ä, å and ‫܀‬. Vowels were also developed in a quite unified way. The Prekmurje dialect does not recognize the velar fricative x, as it was reduced – lápec “hlapec” “farmhand” or shifted into j in position between vowels or after a vowel before a pause – stŕ̖ja “roof,” práj “dust.” The final -m is replaced by -n - d̖́lan “ (I am) working,” tå̖ n “there,” while v loses voicing and shifts into f in position before a voiceless obstruent and at the end of the word before a pause – fkΏp “together,” záfca “rabbit,” rètkef “radish.” The final -l in a stressed position is pronounced as -u֒ – dáu֒ , and as -o in an unstressed position – prӑҒso “asked’; the palatal n' is preserved – njìva “field,” while the palatal l' became rigid – král “king,” v͕̖la “ox.” In position before final vowels and sometimes before e, the sonorant j is pronounced as d'/dž – d'jóu֒ kati/džóu֒ kati “to cry,” zèld’e/zèldže “cabbage,” while in position before front vowels and sometimes before ü, it is pronounced as d'/g – d'es/ges/ge “jaz” “I,” dogí “(she) breastfeeds,” 'günec “bull calf” – or k (in a position after a voiceless consonant) – lístke “leaves,” vlaskҽғ “hair.”2 The following consonant clusters have also changed: bn > vn – drou֒ vno “finely”; dn > gn – gnès “danes”; xþ > šþ – šþí “daughter”; kt > št – št͕̖ “who, what”; mn > ml – gΏmla “threshing floor”; mn > vn – vnóu֒ go “many, a lot (of)”; pt >ft – ftìþ “bird”; tl > kl – mèkla “broom”; tm > km – kmìca “darkness”; -vi- > -j-: ìlojca “clay.” The šþ cluster is preserved: píi֒ šþe “chick.” Unlike the Prekmurje dialect, the vowel system of the Prlekija dialect has no diphthongs, but only monophthongs. Long vowels include i, ü, u, ́, ͕, a/å and ‫܀‬,3 and short vowels are i, ü, u, ́, ͕, e, a and ‫܀‬. The consonant composition of the Prlekija dialect is similar to that of the Standard Slovene language. Dialectal shifts are as follows: nj > j – pŕ̗dji “the front one”; lj > l – ned̖́la “Sunday”; v > f in word-final morpheme and before voiceless obstruents – fsè “all,” pràf “right”; -m > -n – pr͕̖sin “please,” dìn “smoke”; pt > ft – ftìþ “bird”; hþ > šþ: nìšþe “no one”; dn, dl > gn, gl – gnès “today,” gĺ̗tva “chisel”; gd > g: ǵ̗ 'kje' “where,” xt > št – štèja 'hotel'

 2

In the Dolinsko subdialect, the sonorant j is pronounced as j in all positions. The Lower Prlekija dialect, which is spoken east of the Ormož-Ljutomer line, distinguishes between two long close es and os: the close e was developed from the constant long e, nasal n and semivowel; the really close e was developed from the Proto-Slavic yat; the close o represents the originally long a, while the really close o reflects the constant long o and nasal o. 3



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“wanted,” kt > št – št͕̗ “who, what.” The šþ cluster is preserved – g͕̗šþa “bushes.” Special features of the Prekmurje and Prlekija dialect morphology include the ending -i in the dative and locative singular of the masculine declension (brå̖ ti “brother,” pri brå̖ ti “next to … brother”; kov͕̗þi “blacksmith,” o kov͕̗þi “about the blacksmith”), lengthening of the base with -je is preserved in the plural – lasj̗́ “hair,” while the base before the ending -je is often lengthened with -ov- – zobóu֒ vge “teeth,” but only in the Prekmurje dialect. In the Prlekija dialect, the singular instrumental feminine ending is -oj – z rok͕̗ “with … hand,” and -ov – z må̖ terjof “with mother” in the Prekmurje dialect. The dual form is firmly preserved in all genders. The adjectival ending -i does not express definiteness; in addition to the soft adjectival declension (fsèga “all, everything”), the hard adjectival declension is also preserved (máloga “a bit”). In Prekmurje dialect, the present verb conjugation in first person dual preserves the suffix -va for masculine gender, and -ve for feminine gender, while in Prlekija dialect, the dual suffix -ma is to be heard – d̖́lava and d̖́lama “(we are) working.” The formation of iterative verbs with the present suffix -je is quite common – plaþΏvlen “(I am) paying,” ĺ̗þen “(I am) running,” and numerous archaisms are preserved among adverbs. The Prlekija dialect is the native speech of two of these authors: Vlado Žabot and Marko Koþevar. Vlado Žabot (born in 1958 in Šafarsko near Razkrižju) is one of the best-known contemporary Slovenian novelists. In 1996, he received the award of the Prešern fund for his novel Pastorala, which is the highest recognition by the Republic of Slovenia for achievement in the arts, and in 1997 he received the Kersnik award for novel of the year for Volþje noþi. In Murske balade in romance, Žabot introduced himself as a lyrical poet with three texts. In the self-expressive lyrical poems K ciganici, V belom snegi bela and Murska romanca, he moved closer to the Prlekija dialect on the phonetic, lexical and morphological levels. The accent, quality and quantity of sounds were not marked in the text; therefore, only a native speaker of Prlekija dialect can read them correctly on a prosodic level. The texts are written with dialectal monophthongs, among which the vowels stand out the most: o for the Proto-Slavic long a: dvo “dva” “two,” soma “sama” “alone,” storka “starka” “old woman,” u for the Proto-Slavic vocalic l: duga “dolga” “long,” suza “solza” “tear,” e for the Proto-Slavic semivowel: seje “sanje” “dream,” sneha “snaha” “daughter-in-law,” tenki “tanki” “(the) thin (one)” and i for the non-accented e, formed from yat: nasmijana “nasmejana” “smiling.” Žabot does not write the dialectal ü for the Proto-Slavic u. The following consonants are written dialectally: nj

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with j: sadovjok “sadovnjak” “orchard,” k joj “k njej” “to her,” lj with l: pole “polje” “field,” metul “metulj” “butterfly”; the dialectal shift tm > km: kmica “tema” “darkness” and pt > ft: ftiþ “ptiþ” “bird” as well as the prosthetic j: nejšo “našel” “(he) found” are also noticeable. The final –m, which generally changes into -n in dialect speech and the sonorant v that is pronounced as f in position before voiceless consonants or at the end of the word are preserved in writing by Žabot: e.g. tam “tam” “there,” z glasom “z glasom” “with voice”; v kmico “v temo” “into the darkness,” vse “vse” “all, everything,” prav “prav” “right.” The morphological patterns for declension and conjugation correlate with the dialectal forms; for example, the singular masculine locative ending -i is written: v snegi “in the snow,” v vetri “in the wind,” as well as the singular adjectival dative and locative feminine ending -oj: k mojoj mladoj, nasmijanoj (ciganici) “to my young, smiling (gypsy),” v mrzloj zimskoj (noþi) “in a cold winter’s (night),” the singular masculine adjectival genitive ending -oga: drugoga “the other one” and the locative ending -om: v belom (snegi) “in white (snow).” Repeating verbs also occur: poþivle “s/he is resting,” popevle “s/he sings,” the dialectal ending o for the masculine participle: nejšo “he found,” the dialectal conjunctive kak “as” and the adverb kdo “when.” In Žabot’s lexis we observe general Slovene lexemes intermixing with dialect lexemes, such as ciganica “gypsy,” gorica “vineyard,” pivnica “wine cellar,” žvegla “whistle,” and expressions that from the modern Standard Slovene standpoint are temporally marked intertwining with expressively marked ones, such as frleti “(expressive) swayingly lightly flying,” samoþa “(old-fashioned) solitude,” snežec “(expressive) diminutive for snow,” šlar “(old-fashioned) veil.” Marko Koþar (born 1958 in Murska Sobota), a humorist and renowned author of dialect lyrics, who spent his youth in the town of Križevci pri Ljutomeru, is another established poet from the Prlekija region. He is the author of 49 playfully mischievous songs gathered in three collections of poems written in dialect: Zeleni vrelec (1998), Kisla žüpa (2003) and Severno od Kolajnšþaka (2008). He also published a collection of Prlekija texts set to music—Venkraj (2008). For Murske balade in romance he contributed three lyrics: Zacügjeni pajzl, Tan zadi za Moto and Meja sen dedeka. Koþar’s generally unaccented dialect texts4 preserve all the characteristics of the Prlekija region phonetics, morphology and lexis. In comparison with



4 In the poem Meja sen dedeka, the acute marks the place of the accent in the lexemes kajér “boy,” ostóla “stayed” and vísoko “high.”



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Žabot’s confessional lyrical poems, Koþar’s texts are narrative and epic. They preserve the typical Prlekija monophthongal phonetic image, with the written phoneme ü for the Proto-Slavic u: Müra “the Mura river,” drügi “the other one,” tü “here,” with the written phoneme o for the long a: mo “has,” glova “head,” pijonec “drunk” and u for the vocalic l: dužen “indebted,” puno “full” and the phoneme e for the Proto-Slavic schwa: z meno “with me,” seje “dreams,” denen “to say, to put, to do,” the prosthetic v: vüra “time, hour,” vujša “escaped” and the vowel reduction: kelnarca “waiter,” palca “stick.” According to the dialectal pronunciation, the palatal nj is written as j: za jin “behind him,” zacügjeni “not fully mature” or n: prelüknani “perforated;” the palatal lj is written as l: posprovleni “tidy,” poprovla “is repairing;” the final -m as -n: tan “there,” za Cvenon “after Cven;” the notation of the final -v or a v preceding an unvoiced consonant, however, is unsettled—either it is written as v or, according to the dialectal pronunciation, as f: vþosih “sometimes,” v šumo “into the forest”; fküpe “together,” f kupici “in the glass.” In morphology the locative singular masculine form ends with -i: na Cveni “on Cven,” k šanki “to the bar,” the masculine participle ends with a/-ja: potegna “he pulled,” bija “he was.” Hard adjective declension and dialectal pronouns, such as niše “no one,” što “who,” the long infinitive: voziti “to drive,” skoþiti “to jump” and the form nega “is not” for the negated subject are retained. Among the adverbs and particles, there are some archaisms: rano “early,” sigdar “always,” dere “when”; ve “because.” In the combination of directional adverbs and verbs, calques occur, such as doj zvezati “tie down.” In addition to the Pannonian-Slovene lexemes, such as cecki “breasts,” kupica “a glass,” kušati “to taste,” nogaþa “leg (chair/table leg),” scati “to relieve yourself,” svaja “quarrel, disagreement,” šajtrav “a tottering, staggering (person),” there are also numerous Germanisms: bremza “brake”ĸ from G. Bremse, cajt “time”ĸ from G. Zeit, cug “train” ĸ from G. Zug, fajn “fine, nice” ĸ from G. fein, flaša “bottle”ĸ from G. Flasche, herbija “inheritance”ĸ from MHG. erben “to inherit,” kufer “suitcase”ĸ from G. Koffer, kurblati “to start the engine” ĸ from G. kurbeln, pajzl “a rundown, sordid tavern” ĸ from Aust. G. Beis(e)l, pasati “to suit, to be beneficial, pleasant” ĸ from G. passen, rukzak “backpack”ĸ from G. Rucksack, šank “bar” ĸ from G. Schank, šker “tools”ĸ OHG. giskirri, MHG. geschirre, šminka “lipstick” ĸ from G. Schminke “make-up,” špegel “mirror’ĸ from G. Spiegel, špula “bobbin, reel, spindle”ĸ MHG. spuole or from G. Spule “bobbin, reel,” švoh “weak” ĸ from G. schwach, troštati “to comfort”ĸ from G. trösten, ziher

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“certainly” ĸ from G. sicher. Romance loanwords are rare, such as blanja “plank”ĸ Ist. Rom. or Fri. from Dalm. Rom. *plana, biljard “a game of pool”ĸ from G. Billard from Fr. billard, þiki “cigarettes” ĸ from Aust. G. Tschick “cigarette butts” or from It. cica “cigarette butts” from Fr. chique “stub.” Usually they enter the Pannonian region via the German language. The authors of the Prekmurje texts in Murske balade in romance are Feri Lainšþek, Milan Vincetiþ, Dušan Šarotar, Štefan Kardoš, Vlado Kreslin and Vlado Poredoš. The Prekmurje Dialect is not their sole linguistic form of expression, but they recognise it as part of their identity and they acknowledge the dialect’s broader sociolinguistic and cultural value in the area just across the Slovene border, especially in the Porabje linguistic and cultural area (Hungary). Feri Lainšþek (born 1959 in Dolenci on Goriþko) is considered one of the best modern Slovene writers, known as a lyric writer who collaborates with many Slovene singers and pop groups; he is also a screenwriter and author of screenplays. He writes lyrical and epic songs as well as drama for adults and young people. Most of his works are written in Standard Slovene. Some, however, were written in dialect and later translated into Standard Slovene. He has been honoured with numerous awards and recognitions for his literary work, among which are the Kajuh Prize for the novel Raza (1986), the Kresnik Prize (1992 and 2007) for the best Slovene novel of the year (Namesto koga roža cveti, Muriša), the Prešeren Foundation Prize for the novel Ko jo je megla prinesla (1995) and the Veþernica Prize (2001) for the best young adult text (Mislice). He received several awards as author of lyrics at the Dialectal Song Festival and the award for best scriptwriter (2008) for the film Hit poletja. For the album Murske balade in romance he contributed three poems, one of them written in the Prlekija dialect. Milan Vincetiþ (born 1957 in Murska Sobota) is a poet and writer, a qualified specialist in Slovene studies, who also writes radio plays, book reviews and essays. For the collection of poems Lakmus, he received the Prešeren Foundation Prize (2005) and the literary award ýaša nesmrtnosti for ten years of poetic achievement (2007). Dušan Šarotar (born 1968 in Murska Sobota) is a writer, poet, publicist, scriptwriter and the editor of the student publishing house Študentska Založba, as well as the editor of the newspaper AirBeletrina. In 2007 he was nominated for the Kresnik Prize for his novel Biljard v Dobrayu. The novel was the basis for the film Biljard v Dobrayu directed by Maja Weiss. Štefan Kardoš (born 1966) is a writer and a teacher at the bilingual school in Lendava. His novel Rizling polka was awarded the Kresnik Prize for the best novel in 2008.



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Vlado Kreslin (born 1953 in Beltinci) is one of the most popular Slovene singers and text writers and is considered a symbol of Slovene ethno rock. He managed to connect folk and ethno traditions to popular music, while maintaining the right balance between folk, pop and quality. This gave rise to a completely new attitude of Slovenes toward folk music. It began in 1991 with his first album Namesto koga roža cveti, which represents a fusion of the author’s message and traditional Prekmurje folk songs. In the production of this album he worked with the Beltinška banda (founded in 1938), a legendary folk group from his native village. The best known albums are Spominþice (1992) and Najlepša leta našega življenja (1993). Not only is Vlado Kreslin the most popular Slovene singer, he is also a poet and the author of three collections of poems: Vriskanje in jok, Kreslin’s rock lyric book (2002), Venci—Povest o Beltinški bandi (2006) and Pojezije (2009), a collection of poems—a few of which were set to music and became familiar songs. Vlado Poredoš (born 1958 in Beltinci) is a musician, singer, author and the frontman of the musical group Orlek. He moved from his native village of Beltinci to the Zasavje region. He thinks of himself as a person from Prekmurje, Zasavje and Beltinci, and Zagorje. His music is a mixture of rock, polka, ethno, pop and punk music, hence everything that came to be through centuries of musical creativity, but spiced with his own style—the Poredoš style. The texts of the Prekmurje authors in Murske balade in romance are generally unaccented: the vowels do not have diacritic marks, neither for the place of accent nor the quality or quantity. Merely a few lexemes in five poems are marked with an acute, indicating the place of accent, such as pá “again,” pojás “belt,” poštíja “road.” In all the Prekmurje texts the dialectal diphthong ej is written for the Proto-Slavic constantly long jat, such as brejg “hill,” slejpi “blind,” srejdi “in the middle,” zvejzde “stars.” Also, ou is written for the constantly long o and the nasal І: bilou “was,” moust “bridge,” tou “this,” the dialectal ü for the u of old-acute stress: þüden “strange,” vüpan “I hope,” tüdi “also,” the dialectal ö for the vowels e and u following the labial v: vö “out,” vöra “hour” and the dialectal u for the Proto-Slavic vocalic l: dugo “long,” skuza “tear,” sunce “sun.” With the digraphs ij and üj the Proto-Slavic constantly long i and u are written. In the Prekmurje language they became diphthongs: oþij “eyes,” tij “you,” vijdijo “they see’; þüjdna “strange,” düjša “soul.” The grapheme a is used for writing the Proto-Slavic long a, remaining open in dialect, and the a of old-acute stress, mostly labialised in the Prekmurje language. The grapheme e is used for writing the Proto-Slavic schwa: den “day,” gene “to touch, to move,” lehko “can” as well as the tautosyllabic i preceding an r: mer “peace,” vert “garden.” Lainšþek and Šarotar use it to some extent

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for writing the unstressed i, which in the Prekmurje dialect is pronounced less tensely in the word-final morpheme and somewhat lower than the stressed i: na lanenon prte “on the linen tablecloth,” v þarnome gvanti “in a black dress.” The grapheme i is used for writing the dialectal unstressed i, which developed from the unstressed u or jat: lidij “people,” zbidij “wake up”; lipou “beautiful.” Consonants are mostly written according to the dialectal pronunciation: the sonorant j preceding the front vowels as g: ge “I,” gemle “takes,” preceding the last vowels, however, as d: goloubdji “of a pigeon, pigeonlike.” In Kreslin’s and Poredoš’s texts it is mostly written in the tongue of their native village of Beltinci, i. e. as j: jes “I.” In the Prekmurje language the consonant x in the word-initial and word-final morpheme is reduced and is written accordingly: odin “I am walking,” ladi “to cool’; vþasi “sometimes.” The palatal nj is preserved and written with nj: ogenj “fire,” njega “him,” whereas the palatal lj is hardened and written with l as pronounced: najbole “best,” nad Ženavlami “above Ženavlje.” The m at the end of the word is consistently written with an -n: tan “there,” znan “I know,” the final -v or v preceding an unvoiced consonant, however, is only once written according to the dialectal pronunciation, i. e. as f: krf “blood;” apart from that, it is written with -v as in Standard Slovene: vse “everything, all,” vküper “together,” v parki “in the park.” There are also the following consonant changes in the text: kt > št (šteri, što “who’), tm > km (kmica “darkness”), pt > ft (ftiþ “bird”), hþ > šþ < þ (þer “daughter”), the transitive j is also written (najšla “(she) found”). The morphological patterns for declension, conjugation and comparison follow dialectal forms. In the dative and locative of masculine nouns, the ending -i resulted through-u from -ü: ob tejli “by the side of my body,” v ognji “in the fire,” and in locative in the unstressed position yat ending -ej: v srcej “in heart” is retained. The place of the accent in words with mixed stressed type is shown by diphthongs: kraj vodej “by the water.” Final -l in the masculine participle is written as pronounced as -o/u: skrijvo “was hiding,” biu “was,” dau “gave.” Hard adjective declension is retained: staromi “to the old,” mladoga “young one;” the adjectival dative and locative feminine ending is –oj; the adjectival base in the dual is lengthened with -va: lejpiva “beautiful,” maliva “small.” In the verb conjugation of the first-person dual ending, -va is preserved (sva skrivala “we were hiding”); the thematic e in the ending, added to the verb to express person, is stressed: teþej “runs,” gemlej “takes.” The negative article nej is balanced with the auxiliary verb biti in the stressed position: nejso “they are not”; otherwise, it is put in second position: sta nej (znala) “they did not know.” Among the adverbs, particles and



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conjunctions, numerous pannonisms are noticeable: esig “I am,” ge “where,” naoupak “wrong,” nindrik “nowhere,” pa “again,” prle “before,” sigdar “always,” zajtra “in the morning”; šþe “more”; ar “because.” In the lexis, Pannonian-Slovene words are predominant, i. e. broditi “to think,” deca “children,” dvor “yard,” füþka “whistles,” gizdavica “a haughty, vain woman,” krf “blood,” kunec “thread,” ljubav “love,” pojás “belt,” poštija “road,” sto “table,” vrabli “sparrow,” znati “to know.” Some Germanisms are also present, predominantly those borrowed during the Middle High German era (until the 13th century), i. e. farba “colour” ĸ MHG. varwe, gvant “best clothes” ĸ MHG. gewant, plac “place, area” ĸ MHG. pla(t)z or G. Platz, tören “church belfry” ĸ MHG. turn “tower,” there are few borrowings, i. e. krugla “sphere” ĸ G. Kugel, krumpli “potato” ĸ CG. gruntpirn, grumper, krumpir, SG. grundbir, vert “master” ĸ G. Wirt. From the contact Hungarian language, only one lexeme is borrowed: lanec “chain” ĸ Hun. lánc. In Murske balade in romance, Feri Lainšþek is another author of a text written in the Prlekija dialect. The humorous song Nej za vüha “It is not for the ears” retains the characteristic Prlekija stress and phonetic image, dialectal verb-form and morphological patterns and the predominant Pannonian lexicon, for example, guþijo “they speak,” stirati “to shoo, to chase away,” znati “to know,” and a rare Germanism can be noticed: gvišna “finished” ĸ MHG. gewis, nucan “I need’ĸ MHG. nuz. Deviation from the Prlekija phonetic system in the direction toward Lainšþek’s native Prekmurje dialect is shown by writing the diphthong ej in the negative article ne—nej and by writing nj for the palatal nj, which is generally pronounced as j—njemi in the Prlekija dialect. In one of the stanzas, Lainšþek further defines the generational and geographical affiliation of the poetic subject—which is expressed in the Ljubljana dialect, a regional colloquial language that has an air of elitism and prestige, on account of its being central Slovene. In the text, the elements of colloquialism are shown through strong complete vowel decline, marked by apostrophe s’: “(you) are,” bod’ “(you) be,” sam’ “just,” wordfinal element -u instead of -l in the masculine participle: podiru “(he) knocked down,” þekiru “(he) was checking,” interrogative pronoun kva “what,” the vowel e instead of the vowel a before j: dej “give” and the sonorant e before the unvoiced vowel: u krizi “in crisis” are written as pronounced, and there are slangisms, borrowed from a foreign linguistic environment in the text: (biti na) izi “easy” ĸ Eng. easy, þekiru “to check” ĸ Eng. to check. All 14 texts in Ballads and Romances of the Pomurje Region closely imitate the dialects of the Prlekija or Prekmurje regions on the phonetic,

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morphological and lexical levels. The texts are written with a dialect vocal system and are not generally stressed; therefore, only native speakers of the dialect can read them in the correct prosodic manner. Analysis of these songs, expressing dreams and hope, fear and love, mourning for lost human closeness, home, memories of the deceased, misfortune in loneliness–points to the original dialectal possibilities of expression that are close to the thoughts and emotions of people from Pomurje. During a period of revitalisation of dialects in the Slovene cultural area, these authors have shown that dialects can exist as “cultivated speech,” and as Just claims, as wholly persuasive forms of poetic address.

Language Abbreviations Aust.—Austrian, CG.—Carinthian German, Dalm.—Dalmatian, Eng.— English, Fr.—French, Fri.—Friulian, G.—German, Hun.—Hungarian, It.—Italian, Ist. Rom.—Istrian Romance, MHG.—Middle High German, OHG.—Old High German, Pkm.—Prekmurje dialect, Prl.—Prlekija dialect, SG.—Styrian German.

References Betts, Raymond F. 2004. A History of Popular Culture: More of Everything, Faster and Brighter. Available in pdf: http://bookzz.org/book/859259/d465dc (Accessed August 5th 2014.) Just, Franci. Izdelano v literarnem laboratoriju Ferija Lainšþka po postopku duhovno-pesniške arheologije. Accessed 29. 7. 2014 at: www.docstoc.com/docs/158456875/lainek__franci_just_narena_knjiev nost. Kenda Jež, Karmen. 2004. Nareþje kot jezikovnozvrstna kategorija v sodobnem jezikoslovju. In Aktualizacija jezikovnozvrstne teorije na Slovenskem: þlenitev jezikovne resniþnosti, edited by Erika Kržišnik. Obdobja 22. Metode in zvrsti. Ljubljana: Center za slovenšþino kot drugi/tuji jezik pri Oddelku za slovenistiko Filozofske fakultete. 263– 276. Kmecl, Matjaž. 1983. Mala literarna teorija. Ljubljana: Univerzum. Koletnik, Mihaela. 2008. Panonsko lonþarsko in kmetijsko izrazje ter druge dialektološke razprave. Maribor: Filozofska fakulteta, Mednarodna založba Oddelka za slovanske jezike in književnosti. (Zora, 60). ––. 2008. “The Prekmurje Dialect in Popular Music.” In Dialect for All Seasons: Cultural Diversity as Tool and Directive for Dialect



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Researchers and Translators, edited by Irmeli Helin. Münster: Nodus Publikationen, 219–226. Koletnik, Mihaela, Valh Lopert, Alenka. 2013. Nareþje v medijih. In Slovenski jezik v stiku evropskega podonavskega in alpskega prostora, edited by Marko Jesenšek. Maribor: Mednarodna založba Oddelka za slovanske jezike in književnosti. (Zora, 93). Lainšþek, Feri, Žabot, Vlado, Šuklar, Slavko, eds. 2012. Murske balade in romance. Murska Sobota: ARGO, društvo za humanistiþna vprašanja. Logar, Tine. 1993. Slovenska nareþja. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga. Merkujewa, Vera B. 2009. Dialekt in den Medien. Mundart und Medien. Hrsg. U. Kanz, A. Wildfeuer, L. Zehetner. Regensburg: Vulpes. (Band 16). 243, 250. Nastran Ule, Mirjana. 2000. Sodobne identitete: v vrtincu diskurzov. Ljubljana: Znanstveno središþe. POPULAR Culture [2014]. Available: http://culturalpolitics.net/popular_culture. (Accessed August 5th 2014.) Smole, Vera. 2009. Pomen in vloga (slovenskih) nareþij danes. Slovenska nareþja med sistemom in rabo. Obdobja 26–Metode in zvrsti, edited by Vera Smole. Ljubljana: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete. 557– 563. Stankoviþ, Peter. 2002. Kulturne študije: pregled zgodovine, teorij in metod. Cooltura. Uvod v kulturne študije, edited by A. Debeljak and P. Stankoviþ. Ljubljana: Študentska založba. 11–71. Storey, John. 2009. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. An Introduction. 5th Ed. London: Pearson Longman. Available in pdf: http://bookzz.org/s/?q=Cultural+Theory+and+Popular+Culture&e=1&t =0 (Accessed August 5th 2014.) Škariü, Ivo. 2000. Temeljci suvremenog govorništva. Zagreb. Zagreb: Školska knjiga. Toporišiþ, Jože. 2000. Slovenska slovnica. Maribor: Založba Obzorja. Valh Lopert, Alenka, Zorko, Zinka. 2013. Skladnja v panonski nareþni skupini. In Dialektološki razgledi, edited by Peter Weiss. (Jezikoslovni zapiski, 19, 2013, no. 2). Ljubljana: Založba ZRC. Zorko, Zinka. 2005. Prekmursko nareþje med Muro in Rabo na vseh jezikovnih ravninah primerjalno z današnjim nadnareþnim prekmurskim knjižnim jezikom. In Prekmurska nareþna slovstvena ustvarjalnost, edited by Jože Vugrinec. Murska Sobota: Ustanova dr. Šiftarjeva fundacija Petanjci.



CHAPTER TEN EXPRESSING ETHNIC AND CULTURAL IDENTITY THROUGH MUSIC AND SONG LYRICS: THE CASE OF SLOVENIAN AMERICANS AND CANADIANS NADA ŠABEC

We can only fully appreciate the role that music plays in immigrant communities through the understanding of immigration as a very complex process which constitutes a life-altering event for individuals who leave their homeland in order to settle in a new country. There may be a number of reasons for taking this step, from economic, to political and personal; however, the decision to emigrate is never easy, as it entails not only the courage and skills necessary to adjust to the customs and demands of the new environment, but in most cases also an intense feeling of having left behind things familiar and people loved. The transition therefore is anything but simple and has important implications for the immigrants’ sense of identity. The extent to which they feel accepted in the new country and how strong their bond is to their old homeland are just two of the issues that arise with regard to the changed circumstances of their new existence. The way individuals as well as entire immigrant communities adapt to the new environment is largely shaped by their response to these and other related issues. It goes without saying that adaptation is crucial for survival; how and how completely it happens, however, may vary. The acculturation theory (Berry 1990), for instance, distinguishes between four alternative acculturation strategies available to minorities when they come into contact with a majority population and their culture: integration, assimilation, separation and marginalization. The last two are among the less successful ones, as these result in the minority’s accepting more or

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less total isolation along with a deprivileged status (in separation, no features of the majority culture are accepted, and only the original minority culture is valued; in marginalization, neither the majority nor the minority can offer a satisfactory identity, which in the domain of language, for instance, results in the loss of the original language without the simultaneous sufficient acquisition of the dominant language). Assimilation is the opposite of separation and goes as far as giving up the original cultural features completely in favour of those of the majority, which is also not a good option. None of these three strategies applies to Slovenians, as will be seen in our discussion of music as one of the elements of their identity. What best describes their experience is integration, a process in which one works toward becoming an integral part of mainstream society, but at the same time maintains a degree of original cultural integrity. The strategy requires a considerable degree of adaptability on various levels, but seems to be the optimal choice, as it allows immigrants to accept the values necessary to pursuing their goal of improving their lives without having to give up the elements they perceive as essential to their original identity. My decades long research among Slovenian immigrants in the U.S. and Canada (Šabec 1995, 1997, 2006, 2011, 2014) shows that these elements are culture, language, music, ethnic food, traditions and religion. For the purpose of this discussion, however, I will single out music as an ethnic/cultural identification factor. I will then focus specifically on song lyrics, analyzing them in terms of themes and language use in order to draw some conclusions with regard to the ways in which they may or may not express ethnic and cultural identity.

Music as an Ethnic/cultural Identification Factor among Americans and Canadians of Slovenian Descent Music has held a special place in the lives of Slovenians ever since they settled in the New World. This has been confirmed for all of the American and Canadian communities that I have studied (Cleveland; Washington, D.C.; Toronto and Vancouver). In addition to observing the situation on the ground and interviewing participants in the study, I prepared a special questionnaire in which I tried to gauge their attitudes toward music, asking them specifically to rate the previously mentioned ethnic identification factors on a scale from least to most important. In most cases music ranked fairly high, often higher than language, and just below culture. Their answers with regard to their participation in cultural events, social functions, membership in ethnic organizations, accessing

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Slovenian media (radio, TV, the Internet) also revealed that music was attributed a very high value. For illustration purposes, I list a couple of their responses from my most recent study in Vancouver (Šabec 2011, 2014). Having lived in Canada for over 45 years, I still find comfort in singing folk songs that I learned as a child. Music for me is food for the soul, especially when I am emotionally vulnerable. Often a song reminds me of an event or brings up memories of a person, like that of my late father who taught me the songs and with whom I so often sang. I enjoy singing to my grandchildren and think it important for them to hear the tunes that connect us to our homeland. Music is the most immediate way to make this connection, to express the intangible and to transport us back to the land of our youth. The music and lyrics of Slovenian songs also give us a sense of identity and unity when we sing them at gatherings at our ethnic hall. They boost our national spirit and foster in us a sense of belonging.

* Moji spomini gredo v rahla otroška leta ko mi je moja mamo prepevala „Tam kjer Murke cveto” in “Gor þez izaro, gor þez travnico” kar je zbudilo v meni krepenenje po neþem kar smo Slovenci izgubili. Moja mami je bila pevsko zelo talentirana in izobražena in veþkrat je pela pri proslavah na Vrhniki. Posebno se spomnim ko je pela o “Nezakonski materi” —zopet zelo pretresljiva pesem. Glasba veže ljudi—se spomnim ko smo peli “Na juris.”

My memories are connected to my early childhood when my mother sang “Tam kjer Murke cveto” and “Gor þez izaro, gor þez travnico” to me, which awoke in me a longing for something we Slovenes have lost. My mother was a very talented trained singer and she often sang at ceremonies held in Vrhnika. I have particularly clear memories of her singing about “Nezakonska materi”—another very moving song. Music connects people—I remember when we sang “Na juris.”

Having gained an insight into the perception of music by some of the respondents and before moving on to the content and linguistic analysis of song lyrics, we need to provide a brief overview of the musical life of the immigrants from the beginning to the present. Doing so for all the communities under investigation would exceed the scope of this article, which is why I will focus primarily on Cleveland, since it is the North American city with the largest concentration of Slovenians and their descendants.



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The early immigrants who came to Cleveland at the turn of the 19th century lived in very close-knit communities and almost immediately upon arrival formed numerous ethnic organizations from fraternal benefit societies that served as insurance companies, but acted also as organizers of ethnic social and cultural events, to theatre groups, singing societies, church choirs and folk dance groups. Music, therefore, from the very beginning was at the core of their community life. Even though in later periods musicians of Slovenian descent contributed to the American music scene in very diverse music genres1, the main genre which has been present from the onset and which will be at the centre of our interest is polka music. Polka which, according to Valencic (1998), “has come to encompass waltzes /.../ and other ethnic dances,” was brought to the United States by European immigrants and eventually managed to capture a broad American audience. The first Slovenian polka bands emerged by the 1920s. They initially performed at ethnic events, in neighbourhood taverns and in Slovenian National Homes and Halls, but soon became commercially successful, as well. Records such as the Slovenian series with Cleveland artists were released, and by 1930 ethnic radio stations playing polka music became popular. This was possible because of the “Americanization” of the Slovenian polka through specific arrangements and instrumentation. The musician, composer and arranger who deserves most credit for this is William “Doc” Lausche. His “Cleveland, the Polka Town” became a polka classic, while Cleveland was labelled “America's Polka Capital,” and Slovenian-American or Cleveland-Style Polka with its distinctive melodic style became widely known, a special sub-genre of music different from, say, Polish or German polkas. Features of other music genres, such as classical music and early jazz were incorporated into traditional melodies and rhythms, producing a typical swing style. Other components, atypical of Slovenian folk music (e.g. odd rhythmic and textural dynamics, blue notes) were used. Various instruments were used to match the style: the “button-box” or diatonic accordion instead of chromatic accordion, saxophone, clarinet, drums, guitars and even “American” instruments such as the banjo. The music played and composed by Slovenian immigrants was therefore not a mere transfer from the old country, but rather a combination of old and new, of Slovenian and American. It was an original genre, which allowed the immigrants to express their identity in an authentic voice—an identity



1 E.g., the drummer of the popular rock group, “The Monkees,” Micky Dolenz, was of Slovenian descent.

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which was not black-and-white but rather more complex: Slovenian with elements of American. The Slovenian polka craze reached its peak with Frankie Yankovich,2 “America’s Polka King,”3 in the 1940s and 1950s, a period in which the nation entered into a polka frenzy.4 Polka suffered occasional setbacks for various reasons, such as the popularity of rock and roll in the early 1960s and of disco music in the 1980s, but has always bounced back. In the 1970s a real button-box mania spread beyond Cleveland, and a new phenomenon, polka mass, featuring polkas rewritten as hymns, was introduced. In 1996, there were over 100 polka bands in the area, plus button-box clubs, tamburitza ensembles, choruses, folk dancers, and brass bands…. The Cleveland-style Polka Hall of Fame opened in Euclid in 1986, with national membership and annual award ceremonies. Polka events were fewer, but musically strong and well-attended. New bands were being organized by the youngsters that were raised in the polka-charged 1970s, ensuring the continuation of this uniquely American musical form into the next century. (Valencic 1998)

Indeed, polka music continues to be highly appreciated in Cleveland and elsewhere in the United States and Canada, which is why it deserves a more thorough analysis. From the very beginning it played a cohesive role in the community, whereby all of its members could identify with this music, projecting their shared experiences onto it. It was a dynamic genre, performed primarily in bars and at events such as weddings and celebrations where everybody could join in. Against the backdrop of struggling to prove themselves in the new country, polka represented a bond with the old homeland and a feeling of having “roots.” With its unrelentingly upbeat, happy rhythms, polka could, of course, be easily dismissed as a simplistic form of entertainment at first

 2

Frank Yankovich released over 200 recordings in his career, sold over 30 million records, had two golden records 15 years before Frank Sinatra and won a Grammy award in 1985 for his album 70 Years of Hits (he was in fact the first winner in the Polka category). He also hosted radio and TV shows, was a guest on The Tonight Show and the like. In 2007, the city of Cleveland named a square after him. 3 Similar to the US, Canada has its own famous polka musician, Walter Ostanek. He has received thirteen nominations for Grammy Awards and won three. He is known as Canada’s Polka King. 4 Cilka Dolgan, a singer referred to later in this chapter, attributes polka’s popularity also to wartime, when polka gave people something to smile about at a time when that was much needed.



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sight. On closer examination, however, we see it as an expression of the immigrants’ resilience and optimism in the face of possible discrimination and negative stereotypes. Their music is proof of their creativity and their own culture, i.e. their “resistance to the melting pot, a refusal to disappear into mediated entertainment, a ‘no’ to monoculture, and an ongoing vernacular alternative to the sorts of fun manufactured by the culture industry” (Keil, Keil, and Blau 1992, 3) The fact that polka, especially among the first generation immigrants’ children and younger generations, developed in the direction of a hybrid form between the old and the new, has to be attributed precisely to this creativity on the part of the immigrants and their adaptability. Slovenian-American polka is an authentic genre, articulating a genuine diasporic experience, seeking a sense of identity in a multicultural society and, in doing so, reaching far beyond ethnic constraints. It is this wider dimension of incorporating elements of both heritage and modernity that allows polka music its continued existence.

Song Lyrics Given the communal character of polka music, it will be interesting to see what themes are featured in the song lyrics and whether a common thread can be identified. Throughout, I will try to determine what the individual themes and motifs tell us about the immigrants’ identity. I chose to analyze song lyrics written and/or sung by Cecilia (Cilka) Dolgan. She was trained in classical music at the Cleveland Institute of Music and sang with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra for over ten years (even at Carnegie Hall), but has devoted a large part of her life to heritage music and culture, singing with the Glasbena Matica Slovenian Singing Society and serving as the director of the Slovenian Children’s Chorus for 41 years. In an interview she mentioned that she had inherited the appreciation of music from her parents and that, during her childhood, it was always emphasized how important it was for her and her siblings “to give to a community, not just take from it.” She recorded eleven albums (some with very creative titles, playing with the Slovenian form of her name—Smooth as Cilka, Touch of Cilka, Polka Cilka-bration). She was the first producer and host of the Slovenian Night Radio Show for over ten years. She wrote the lyrics for numerous songs and many original polkas, six of which were inducted into the Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame as Greatest Hit Polka and/Waltz Hits.

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Themes and Motifs Some of the songs that I examined are translations of Slovenian folk songs or songs composed by Avsenik, Slak and other Slovenian music ensembles; some follow the original faithfully (or, as faithfully as possible), some are completely different, some are simply arranged to the familiar melody. The sample includes both polkas and waltzes, the former dealing with livelier themes, the latter with more sentimental ones. The themes and motifs vary, but may nevertheless be grouped into several categories with similar traits. Each will be commented on and illustrated by one or more typical examples.

Good Times Polka music is all about having a good time, partying and celebrating. It is perceived as life-affirming, and its lyrics frequently speak explicitly about joy, happiness and friendship. Toasts are also quite common, as seen in the following excerpt: Hold your glasses steady, don’t spill a drop Give a hearty cheer, drink another beer5 (“Don’t Let the Music Stop Polka”)

A typical example of a “good times” polka lyric is “Friends Polka,” an English translation of Avsenik’s Prijatelji, ostanimo prijatelji. Through all the years, through laughter, smiles and tears You could depend I was always your friend Gone are the days, we’ve gone our separate ways Time passes by, but we still remain friends I’ll be your friend until the end Just as we were in years gone by When we were young and riding high Friendships like ours will never die I’ll be your friend until the end When skies are gray or come what may Na zdravje!6 Cheers to you again. Good luck, my friend.

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Wine as a traditionally Slovenian drink is occasionally replaced by beer, which is more likely to be consumed in the US. 6 The Slovenian portions of the lyrics are written in italics.



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Home Another common theme has to do with home with its “seemingly infinite power to symbolize the whole range of nostalgic desires and values” (Shallcross 2002, 1). The chosen lyrics are a translation of another one of Avsenik’s creations and leave a powerful impression of nostalgia, beautiful memories and longing for the “old country.” An idealized image of Slovenia is not uncommon among the immigrants (especially older ones), who are torn between the old and the new homeland: Have you ever heard of a beautiful land called Slovenia, With her mountains and lakes and her rivers That lead to Ljubljana. Castles high on a hill watching over the blue Adriatic Friendly folks say hello as you walk down the streets so romantic Music reigns everywhere, happy songs fill the air, join the singing, Flowers bloom all around, meadows green that abound, Church bells ringing. Although years may go by, you will always remember Slovenia A feeling of friendship and warmth, a beautiful land. (“Beautiful Slovenia Waltz”/Tam kjer murke cveto)

Love and Romance Love and romance, as a frequent theme, is presented in a light-hearted, at times even sappy and/or vapid way. It is nevertheless important, since it depicts immigrants as human and sensitive, thus rejecting stereotypical images of them. My dearest one, na svidenje I can’t believe this is goodbye The love that we shared was sweet, You can’t deny You told me you cared for me Or did you lie? My dearest one, Na svidenje Forgive me please, if I must cry My love is forever yours And that is why Na svidenje, and not goodbye. (Na Svidenje)

The second example is an original, lively and frivolous polka with lyrics written in both Slovenian and English. A touch of humorous teasing

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underlines the previous point about the immigrants’ wittiness and sensitivity. Oh, come and dance the polka, you’ll see how good I’ll be Be careful how you pivot, my skirt’s too short for me. … O, pojdi z mano plesat, bos videl kako znam Ne smes prevec potrisat, ker kratko kitlo ‘mam (“Short Skirt Polka”)

The third example is a modified version of a Slovenian song about a deer. The lyrics sing about a pretty girl, while the setting is no longer Slovenian, but local, American. I want to go back home to Pennsylvania. I know a pretty girl in my hometown. I’ve traveled from New York to California And now it’s time to settle down. I’ll take her for a walk before the sunrise, And watch the deer come into view. Beneath the Pennsylvania hills and blue skies, I’ll tell her I’m in love with her. (“Back Home to Pennsylvania”/Mala srnica)

Humour As we have seen, not all the lyrics are serious; some are funny and witty, such as the ones about ethnic food and the American lifestyle. Not only are the lyrics proof of the immigrants’ familiarity with ethnic cuisine, they also show their sense of humour. A sense of humour and the ability to laugh (at oneself) are signs of intelligence and very precious as they help us gain perspective on challenging situations and survive through tough times. I used to be a junk food junkie, snacking on the sly. I gobbled hot dogs, hamburgers, and greasy French fries. I gave up pretzels, chips and gooey chocolate pies. How come? Here’s the reason why. ýevapþiþi7 and slivovitz and little piggies roasting on the spits,

 7

Strictly speaking, þevapþiþi is not an original Slovenian dish, but recent generations, just like their peers in Slovenia, have adopted it as one of their own and treat it as part of their ethnic heritage. This may be due to multiculturalism or simply indifference.



150

Chapter Ten Cebula, hot paprika, I like žgance and polenta. (“ýevapþiþi and Slivovitz Polka”)

Ethnic/polka History Among the more interesting lyrics are those about real places and people from the local environment. The sample song praises the Slovenian tavern in Cleveland and its owner, thus documenting the facts about it for future generations. There are others that memorialize important individuals (e.g. musicians), places, local institutions and even events, which shows how aware the community is of its own worth and place in history. The second song is about memories, the longing to be taken home again, where home is Euclid, a Cleveland suburb. The third glorifies the Polka Hall of Fame, a landmark of ethnic pride. In Cleveland, Ohio, we have a great gostilna, With good food, dance and drinks. A bit of old Slovenia. Frank Sterle is your host and bands from coast to coast. Come join us in a toast, at Slovenian Country House. Sing trala la la la la, and oom pah, oom, pah, pah. (“Slovenian Country House Polka”) I remember streetcars stopping with a screech, Riding to the end of the line at Euclid Beach. We danced in the ballroom on Lake Erie’s shore. Crystal stars above and stardust on the floor. Sentimental polka do you remember when? Sentimental polka take me home again. (“Sentimental Polka”) We sing and we play, we’re here to make your day In Euclid, Ohio, at the Polka Hall of Fame. (Smo pevci in godci)

Pride in Ethnic Identity The polkas presented in this section represent a most interesting phenomenon. Cilka Dolgan, who wrote both the music and the lyrics about young, second-generation Slovenian Americans, is herself a member of this generation and speaks from her own experience. She mentions explicitly the pride in being of Slovenian descent, which makes this song a kind of anthem and endows it with special value. We do not need to look for any hidden messages interpreting these lyrics; the message is clear and so is the identity of young Slovenian Americans. They are Americans, but

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their parents came from Slovenia; their roots are therefore Slovenian, and they love and respect their heritage. Mlad smo Amerikance, prijatelji in dobri znanci. Zato veselo pojemo, Slovensko pesem ljubimo. Ti dra la rom pom pom, ti dra la rom pom pom. Ti dra la tra la la la rom pom pom. Naši starši so potekli, iz Slovenskega rodu. Kot otrokom so nam rekli Slovenec bodi brez sramu. Ti dra la rom pom pom… We are proud to be Slovenian, children of the U.S.A. We love to sing a happy song, and with our friends We sing along. Ti dra la rom pom pom … We’re the youngest generation of American Slovenes8 To keep on singing is our pledge, and carry on Our heritage. Ti dra la rom pom pom … (“Mladi Amerikanci/Young Slovenians”)

Spirituality (Polka Mass) Finally, a very special type of polka needs to be mentioned, the Polka Mass. In Polka Mass composition, one of two processes usually occurs: either the lyrics of polka pieces are modified to reflect the spiritual context, or a new polka-style piece of music is produced to accompany the text. The dynamic and lively nature of polka encourages the congregation to worship more vigorously and draws members of the local community into the church, as they are familiar with both the music and lyrics incorporated into the mass. Compared to the highly traditional and at times stifling religious services in the “old country,” Polka Mass strikes me as original, fresh and vibrant. By praying to the Lord through polka music and lyrics, the congregation demonstrates that they see God as an integral part of their daily lives. They feel that they can turn to Him via polka as part of the heritage that they cherish and which they perceive as an important part of their identity. Polka as a genuine expression of their spirituality allows for a more sincere, trusting and also joyful relationship with God. Insofar as it represents an alternative but popular approach to worship, Polka Mass can be seen as having a positive impact on the preservation of ethnic heritage.



8 The terms Slovene and Slovenian are both correct and may be used interchangeably.



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An example of how the Polka Mass looks and sounds is the entrance hymn “We Are Brothers/We Are Christians,” with lyrics written to the melody of Slak’s polka Hej, prijatelj. We are brothers, we stand together Lord, won’t you come be with us On the mountains and in the valleys We praise you Lord for all to see Oh la! Oh lee oh! We sing and praise your holy name Oh la! Oh lee oh! Forgive our sins, forget our blame Oh la! Oh lee oh! Please take our troubles for today. (“We Are Brothers/We Are Christians”)

Hej, prijatelj is often sung outside the church context and has the following English lyrics: Hej, prijatelj! Means my buddy. Won’t you come and drink with me. At the Tavern in the Valley, That’s the place where we will be. Hola hodijo, we’ll sing and drink And have some fun. Hola hodijo, there’s wine and song For everyone. Hola hodijo, forget your troubles For today (Hej, prijatelj!)

To sum up, the analysis of themes and motifs shows a number of similarities with those found in the folk songs produced in Slovenia. The sentiment is frequently the same, and the cultural bond with the old country is reflected in most cases, yet new elements from the American context are frequently added, and the result is a somewhat specific style and tone.

Linguistic Analysis Song lyrics which are either translations from Slovenian or written anew appear in several forms: they may be written entirely in English, or may contain an occasional Slovenian word, or mixed Slovenian and English lines, or may even be written in both Slovenian and English versions. For obvious reasons, my main interest lies in the Slovenian parts

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of the lyrics. Since long-term maintenance of the mother tongue in a dominant English-speaking environment represents a huge challenge, it is indeed most impressive that Slovenians born in the U.S. were able to produce in Slovenian. Most Slovenian lyrics are written in Standard Slovenian and in principle do not deviate much from the language used in Slovenia. There are some cases, however, where we can detect the influence of English in grammar as well as in spelling, punctuation and capitalization. In grammar, we observe the occasional incorrect use of inflections (e.g. zgance 9 instead of žganci 10 ), whereas in orthography, some words are spelled close to the way they are pronounced (e.g. zmiraj instead of zmeraj; zmano instead of z mano). Ko boš prišel, zmeraj prinesi mi rože Pa naj bo Maj, naj bo sanjavi Septembr Vse jasne dni, vse dolge ure jesenske. Zmiraj naj bo tvoj šopek rož pred menoj. (Prinesi mi rože/“Roses of Love”)

E is also replaced by i in the word potrisat, but the reason for this is not clear. It may be attributed also to the dialect, or to the author’s deliberate use of a vernacular. This can also be observed in the use of some archaic words such as kitla instead of the currently used krilo. Ne smes preveþ potrisat, ker kratko kitlo ‘mam (“Short Skirt Polka”)

Since this song tends to have dialectal elements and even archaic words such as kitla instead of krilo, it is possible that the i in potrisat can be attributed to the author’s deliberate use of a vernacular. Occasional insertions of Slovenian words or the alternation of Slovenian and English lines constitute examples of code switching. It is interesting to see which words are typically used in Slovenian: these are either geographical names (e.g. Ljubljana), greetings (e.g. Na svidenje), words with uniquely Slovenian connotation (e.g. gostilna), the vocabulary of toasting (e.g. živio), and words with special emphasis (e.g. prijatelj). These words are still part of the speakers’ active (or at least passive) vocabulary, even though they may no longer be competent in Slovenian. Here’s to you, živio, živio Slovenci Živio Slovenci, Drink a toast to the host.

 9

ž,š,þ are occasionally spelt as z,s,c, which may be for technical reasons. An ethnic dish made of buckwheat or corn–a common dish in Slovenian homes.

10



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Chapter Ten Živio Slovenci, živio Slovenci, Here’s to you. (Živio, Slovenci)

In general, we can notice a high degree of language sophistication. An example of this occurs in the lyrics My Dearest One, Nasvidenje, where a distinction is made between nasvidenje and good bye. Both are greetings– the former promising a future meeting, the latter farewell for good: My dearest one, Nasvidenje Forgive me please, if I must cry My love is forever yours And that is why Na svidenje, and not goodbye. (Nasvidenje)

Yet another example can be seen in the lyrics which are written in several languages: In English, we say “Mister,” in Spain, they say “Senor,” In German, it’s “ich liebe,” Italians say “amor,” The English say “good morning,” At night, “Bon nuit” in France. Slovenians say “Te ljubim,” when speaking of romance. (“Love Makes a Difference”)

Finally, I should point out the varying spelling of interjections in choruses. These are for the most part the same as in Slovenian, but their spelling is often English. e.g. yoo hey; horn go oom-pah, ta-ra-ra; the boys are singing trala.la-la; a polka waltz, a yoo-hoo-hoo; hola drija drija drom; živio Slovenci, hip hip hooray, you-hey we’re with you all the way.

Polka has come a long way since its beginnings. It succeeded in breaking out of its purely ethnic context and became accepted in a multicultural one, managing to do so by modernizing its sound, but without betraying its original identity. In the words of Ann Gunkel (2004), “polka is a modern urban style that enables traditional cultures to persist.” The dilemma of preserving cultural heritage, on the one hand, and appealing to broader audiences, on the other, seems to have been resolved. Through its dynamic and adaptable nature, the musicians were able to instil enthusiasm for the genre into the younger generations, as well as to enrich the mainstream culture of the United States. It is inevitable, of course, that with younger generations the Slovenian language is bound to

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be progressively replaced by English, but the fundamental message remains recognizably Slovenian American. Music therefore offers a powerful outlet for expressing both ethnic and cultural identity in the diaspora. It is an authentic voice that may be more or less transparent (e.g. in song lyrics) or very subtle; in all cases, however, it is the product of a certain time and place. Naturally, we must also take into account the emergent global dynamics and assume that polka music will continue to be renewed, changed and further hybridized accordingly. Perhaps Cilka summed it up best by saying that understanding one’s roots is a matter of identity. I will thus conclude by quoting her words, “With the world shrinking and with global connections and because of greater communication capabilities, children can get a feeling for what it is like in other parts of the world, including the part that their parents and grandparents came from. It is not just stories of “the old country” any more. There is much greater understanding of the rest of the world. It is nice to know where you come from–but it is important, too.”

Acknowledgments I would like to thank Cilka Dolgan and Joe Valencic, a historian and President of the National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame and Museum, for providing valuable information in the writing of this article. Cilka’s help is especially appreciated, as she allowed me access to her collection of songs lyrics.

Discography Cecilia Valencic Dolgan Recordings Cecilia Sings in Polkatown USA, 1969. Delta International Records, D-7006-LPS Cecilia Valencic and the Almars Side A I Won’t Get Married Polka (Ne Bom Se Možila) (Folk Song) Beautiful Slovenia Waltz (Tam Kjer Murke Cveto) V. & S. Avsenik-C. Valencic-Dolgan) Coffee Break Polka (December-Margraffe) Roses of Love Waltz (Prinesi Mi Rože) (B. Kovaþiþ, G. Strniša-C. Valencic-Dolgan) Toy Soldier Polka (Soldaški Boben) (Folk Song-C. Valencic, arr.) My Homeland Waltz (Moja Dežela) (B. Kovaþiþ-G. Strniša)



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Side B Somewhere My Love (M. Jarre) Joey’s Polka (J. Valencic) Be Happy Waltz (Kaj Ne Bila Bi Vesela) (Folk Song) Moonbeam Polka (D. Sodja-A. Markic) Girl in the Garden (Dekle Na Vrtu Zelenem Sedi) (Folk Song) Three to the Left Polka (Na Levo Tri, Na Desno Tri) (Folk Song-C. Valencic Dolgan) Music Box Polkas, 1970. Delta International Records, D-7014-LPS, Cecilia and the Almars Side A Music Box Polkas (C. Valencic) Everybody Dance (Pri Jožovcu) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Valencic Dolgan) Where are the Flowers? (Minili Sta Že Leti Dve) (L. Slak-C. Valencic Dolgan) Happski Polka (D. Sodja-C. Valencic) Here’s To You (Živijo, Slovenci) (Folk Song-C. Valencic Dolgan) Tonight (Nocoj) (B. Kovaþiþ-C. Valencic Dolgan) Side B Will You Ever Love Me? (Al’ Me Boš Kaj Rada ‘Mela?) (Folk Song) Cingel Congel Polka (Bod’ Moja) (Folk Song) Singing Shepherd (Pastirþek) (Folk Song) Chalet Polka (D. Sodja-C. Valencic) Tavern in the Valley (Ej, Prijatelj) (L. Slak-C. Valencic Dolgan) Goodbye My Love (Na Svidenje) (B. Kovaþiþ-C. Valencic Dolgan) 45-rpm, Sidro Records, SR-106, 1971 Who’s Who Polka (C. Valencic Dolgan, words & music) Darling Who Will Ever Love You (Dekle Kdo Bo Tebe Troštal) (Folk Song-C. Valencic) Breakthrough. 1972. Cilka and the Second Generation, Sidro Records, SR-1007. Side A Breakthrough (Hiš’ca Ob Cest’ Stoji) (Folk Song, K. Novak, Arr.) I’ll Wait for You (ýakala Bom) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Valencic Dolgan) Mama Listens (Mati) (B. Kovaþiþ-C. Valencic Dolgan) He Left Me Behind (Tam Gori Za Našo Vasjo) (Folk Song-C. Valencic) Twilight of Our Lives (Zabuþale Gore) (Folk Song-C. Valencic) Side B

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Ev’ry Night (Vsak Veþer) (M. Dovžan-C. Valencic) Now I Know (Zdaj Vem) (I. Zorman-C. Valencic) In a Garden (Tam U Dolu) (Folk Song) Polka Nova (Pod Poncami) (B. Kovaþiþ-C. Valencic) Come Away with Me (Pojdi Z Menoj) (M. Dovžan-C. Valencic) Smooth As Cilka. 1974Sidro Reords, SR-1008-LPS Cecilia “Cilka” Dolgan Side A Wedding Day Polka (K. Novak-C. Dolgan) Love Is Caring (Moja Ljubezen) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) Zeke and Charlie Polka (Words & Music C. Dolgan) Adio Waltz (Adijo, Pa Zdrava Ostani) (Folk Song) Triglav Polka (Triglav) (L. Slak-C. Dolgan) Mother’s Waltz (Mami, Oj, Mami) (T. Kmetec-C. Dolgan) Side B Happy Accordion (Glas Harmonike) (L. Slak-C. Dolgan) Short Skirt Polka (Pojdi Zmano Plesat) (Folk Song-R. Dolgan) Na Svidenje (Till We Meet Again) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) Polka Dance (Words & Music C. Dolgan) Promises of Springtime (Cvetje Kakor Lani) (F. Korbar-C. Dolgan) Iron Mike Polka (J. Pecon-L. Trebar-R. Dolgan) A Touch of Cilka. 1981. Sidro Records, SR-1007-LPS Side A Come Back Waltz (ýe Prideš Nazaj) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) Mediterranean Medley Slovenia Waltz (Slovenija) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) Annie’s Song (My Darling Ann, J. Kostrak-C. Dolgan-K. Novak) Tonight (Nocoj, Pa, Oh, Nocoj) (Folk Song) Sail On Side B One Love (Eno Rož’co Ljubim) (Folk Song) Slovenia, Goodbye (Goodbye, Amerika) (L. Slak-C. Dolgan) Quiet Valley (V Dolini Tihi) (L. Slak) Wine Medley (Venþek Vinske Pesmi) (Folk Songs) Save the Last Dance (Ne Prižigaj Luþi) (L. Slak-C. Dolgan Slovenian Country House Polka (Words & music C. Dolgan)



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45 rpm, Sidro Records, SR110, 1984, Cilka and the Sumrada Brothers Friends Polka and Olympic Farewell (Prijatelji, Ostanimo Prijatelji (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) Slovenian Melodies with Love. 1997. Sidro Records, SR-115-CD Cilka and Matt Grdadolnik Mountain Echo (Odmev s Triglava) (V. & S. Avsenik-M. Stare) High Above the Clouds (Visoko Nad Oblaki) (L. Slak-F. Požek) Yodeler’s Waltz (M. Grdadolnik) Please Don’t Lie (Kaj Mi Lažeš) (B. Kovaþiþ-L. Svetek-C. Dolgan) Kamnik Polka (A. Blumauer) Hometown Waltz (Tam Kjer Je Naš Dom) (V. & S. Avsenik) Woodland Waltz (Gozdovi Meseþini) (V. & S. Avsenik-E. Budau) Happy Polka (Vesela Polka) (M. Grdadolnik) Slovenian Medley (Venþek Narodne Pesmi) (Folk Songs) Old Time Polka (Stara Polka) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) Somewhere My Love (Daleþ Nekje Moja Ljubezen (M. Jarre-F. Gorenšek) Anniversary Song (A. Jolson-S. Chaplin) A Polka Cilka-bration. 2003. ISM-2003-CD, Cilka and Fred Ziwich and the International Sound Machine It’s Great to be a Happy Polka Band (Lepo Je Biti Muzikant) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) Don’t Let the Music Stop (Te Pa Tikou Redi) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) Look of Love (Z Mano Se Ozri) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) Home Sweet Home (Najlepše Je Doma) (V. & S. Avsenik) We’re on a Binge Again (Mi Spet Ga Žingamo) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) Friends Polka (Prijatelji, Ostanimo Prijatelji) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) Colorado Waltz (Gozdovi v Meseþini) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) Wedding Day Polka (Veselje, radost, Sreþo Vam Želimo) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) I’ll Wait for You (ýakala Bom) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan Oh, Daddy Dear (Veþer Na Robleku) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) European Waltz (Tam Daleþ Preko Morja) (V. & S. Avsenik) Slovenian Lesson Polka (Poleti, Pozimi) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) On the Bridge Waltz (Na Mostu) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan) Love Makes a Difference (Kako Bi Jo Spoznal) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan/L. Leopold) Terry Polka (Rezka) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan When the Meadow Blooms Again (Resje Že Cvete) (V. & S. Avsenik)

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The Wind Song (Veter Nosi Pesem Mojo) (V. & S. Avsenik-C. Dolgan)

References Berry, John W. 1990. “Psychology of Acculturation in Nebraska.” In Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, Vol. 37: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, edited by J.J. Bremen. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 201-235. Gunkel, Ann Hetzel. 2004. “The Polka Alternative: Polka as Counterhegemonic Ethnic Practice.” Popular Music and Society 27.4, 407-427. Keil, Charles, Angelika V. Keil, and Dick Blau. 1992. Polka Happiness. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Plut, Silva. (ed.) 2008. 50 let slovenskega društva Vancouver/50 years of the Slovenian Society Vancouver 1958–2008. Vancouver, B.C., Canada, Slovensko društvo Vancouver/Slovenian Society Vancouver. Shallcross, Bozena. 2002. “Home Truths: Toward a Definition of the Polish Home.” In Framing the Polish Home, edited by B. Shallcross. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Šabec, Nada. 1995. Half pa pu: The Language of Slovene Americans. Ljubljana: Studia Humanitatis (new revised version from 2013 available at http://www.ruslica.si/v2/default.asp?kaj=1&id=211) —. 1997. “Slovene–English Language Contact in the USA.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 124: Sociolinguistics of Slovenian, 129-183. —. 2006. “Language, Society and Culture: Slovene in Contact with English.” In Slovensko jezikoslovje danes/Slovene Linguistics Today (Slavistiþna revija, year 54, special issue), 703-718. —. 2011. “Slovene-English Language Contact: Teaching and Learning Slovene as a Mother Tongue in the U.S.A. and Canada.” In Slovenski jezik v stiku: sodobne usmeritve veþjeziþnega in manjšinskega izobraževanja (Uporabno jezikoslovje), edited by S. Novak-Lukanoviþ and V. Mikoliþ. Ljubljana, Društvo za uporabno jezikoslovje, 190-203. —. 2014. “Language Choice and Language Attitudes in Immigration: The Case of Vancouver Slovene Community.” In Slovenski jezik na stiþišþu kultur, edited by Marko Jesenšek. Maribor: Mednarodna založba. Oddelka za slovanske jezike in književnosti (ZORA), 220-229. Thernston, Stephen. 1980. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Valencic, Joseph. 1998. The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. http://ech.case.edu/cgi/article.pl?id=P13.





CHAPTER ELEVEN MAGNIFICO: SLOVENIA’S MUSICAL SATIRIST VICTOR KENNEDY AND AGATA KRIŽAN1

Robert Pešut is a well-known Slovenian singer/songwriter whose style combines disco, Balkan, funk and electronic music with musical and cultural satire. Both his songs and his stage persona, Magnifico, incorporate many of the negative stereotypes used in Slovenian society to marginalize and exclude southerners from the former Yugoslavia, including bad taste embodied by flashy clothes, materialism, and poor pronunciation of the language.2 As a character, Magnifico embodies the figure of the þefur, a pejorative term used by Slovenes that can be roughly translated as “southern scum”;3 Pešut uses Magnifico in much the same way that Sasha Baron Cohen uses his persona Borat, to entice his interlocutors into revealing their prejudices. Pešut has expanded the appeal of his satire to a wider European audience by recording songs with English lyrics, including incorrect spelling and pronunciation roughly equivalent to those of his Slovene song lyrics; his adaptation has worked well, resulting in international hits from Serbia to Germany. In this chapter we will discuss how Pešut uses techniques of adaptation and parody to show how the ongoing transformation of Slovenia from a Balkan to a western country, from a Republic of the former Yugoslavia to a member of the European Union, has resulted in a clash of cultures that inhibits the rights of subgroups in society, promotes racism and injustice, and threatens the progressive structure of the European project from the

 1

All translations from Slovene into English in this chapter are by Agata Križan, unless otherwise noted. 2 Before independence in 1991, Slovenia was the northernmost republic in Yugoslavia. Slovenia was the first of the former Yugoslavian republics to join the European Union. Many Slovenes consider their national identity to be European, and resent identification with the Balkan states to the south, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Albania. 3 See Goran Vojnoviü’s novel ýefurji raus (Vojnoviü 2012).

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inside. Pešut’s songs use a combination of Slovene and English lyrics, musical, sound and visual imagery and metaphor to create a unified yet incongruous musical satire of a dark aspect of Slovenian society. Among Pešut’s international hits is “Land of Champions,” a parody of the traditional British/American folk/blues song “House of the Rising Sun.” “Land of Champions” changes the setting of the song from New Orleans to Yugoslavia, which, in the imagery of the song lyrics and accompanying video, has been turned from a thriving community into a surreal cultural wasteland by loss of national identity and external cultural pressures. His other songs explore different aspects of Yugoslavia’s ethnic and cultural divisions: “Kdo je þefur? (“Who is a Southerner?”) reveals the prejudice expressed by many Northerners against disadvantaged Southerners; “Hir Ay Cam, Hir Ay Go” and “Giv Mi Mani” parody the social stereotypes underlying these prejudices; “Zum” explores racial prejudice against Romani people by comparing them to Native North Americans–the word “gypsies” is substituted for “Indians” in a parody of “Ten Little Indians”; finally, “Samo Ljubezen” (“Only Love”) is a standard love lyric, but in the context of its production, the Slovenian entry in the 2002 Eurovision contest, where it was performed by Sestre, a trio of transvestites, the song became a satire that resulted in international controversy. Musical satire has a long and varied history. The genre has widespread appeal; perhaps the best-known contemporary American musical satirist is Weird Al Yankovic, who parodies a range of popular songs; 4 others include Hayseed Dixie (2001) and Dread Zeppelin (1990), who began their careers parodying AC/DC and Led Zeppelin, and went on to give the treatment to other artists;5 English satirists include Monty Python alumnus Eric Idle, whose film The Rutles (Idle and Weis 1978) was a parody of The Beatles (Covach 1990); Canadians MacLean and MacLean parodied the songs of many pop artists (1980); 6 Victor Borge, Liberace, P.D.Q. Bach and The Canadian Brass perform parodies of classical music; eighteenth-century composer Joseph Haydn’s Surprise Symphony (1791)

 4

For example, Yankovic’s “Eat It” (1984) parodied Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” (1982), and “Like a Surgeon” (1985) parodied Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” (1984). 5 Hayseed Dixie began their career performing covers of AC/DC songs featuring unchanged lyrics accompanied by bluegrass style banjo and mandolin arrangements. Dread Zeppelin performed covers of Led Zeppelin song lyrics to a reggae rhythm, sung by a 300 lb (140 kg) Elvis impersonator named Tortelvis. 6 The MacLean Brothers’ “I’ve Seen Pubic Hair,” from the album MacLean and MacLean Take the “O” Out of Country (1980) is a parody of Geoff Mack’s 1962 country and Western hit “I’ve Been Everywhere.”



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burlesqued second-rate performers; other historical examples include John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728) (Berger 1936) and the political uses of parody in Weimar Germany (1919-1933) (Ringer 1975). Pešut’s work combines many of the features of these satirical models. His lyrics tend to be straightforward, but his delivery is ironic, from the accent in which he sings to the clothes he wears on stage, the musical elements in his arrangements, the settings, costumes, characters, and visual images and metaphors in his videos. All of these techniques and distancing strategies are elements of the postmodernist practice of parody described by Linda Hutcheon in A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-century Art Forms (Hutcheon 1985, 2005): What I mean by “parody” here… is not the ridiculing imitation of the standard theories and definitions that are rooted in eighteenth-century theories of wit. The collective weight of parodic practice suggests a redefinition of parody as repetition with critical distance that allows ironic signalling of difference at the very heart of similarity. (26)

It is this “repetition at a critical distance” that we see in Pešut’s songs and videos as he borrows elements from various western and eastern genres and uses incongruous juxtaposition to comment on modern Slovenian society, its practices and beliefs. In addition, Hutcheon believes that parody in our time invariably contains a political element: even the most self-conscious and parodic of contemporary works do not try to escape, but indeed foreground, the historical, social, ideological contexts in which they have existed and continue to exist. This is as true of music as of painting; it is as valid for literature as it is for architecture. (244)

This foregrounding in central to Pešut’s lyrics, music and visual imagery. Hutcheon’s widening of the definition of parody is useful in criticism of popular genres, particularly 21st-century “parasitic” genres, which piggyback onto already existing works by various techniques including sampling and juxtaposition of text, sonic, and visual imagery. Parody has traditionally been considered a subset of satire, but Hutcheon’s definition encompasses most of the functions generally ascribed to satire. Paul Simpson explains how satire simultaneously carries out aggressive, social, and intellectual functions of humour (Simpson



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2003, 3). 7 Pešut’s songs use all of these functions to make a serious statement, as we shall see. The political dimension of Pešut’s parody aims to reveal the hypocrisy in Slovenian, and by extension, Western society, which officially promotes and welcomes diversity, while in reality it condones and often even explicitly encourages bigotry and prejudice. Pešut is arguably in a privileged position because he is both a “þefur” (his father is Serbian) as well as Slovenian (on his maternal side). His background provides the capacity and the incentive to criticise Slovenian society and at the same time makes his parody even more powerful because he is poking fun at himself. The main elements of Pešut’s parody lie not in the lyrics of his songs, but in the presentation, including the musical accompaniment, so it will be useful to examine the theory of musical parody to better understand how he creates his desired effect. Andrey Denisov outlines the main elements of parody in music, among them transformation (comprising hyperbole, “deformation and agglutination”), context (or what he calls “extra-musical semantics”) and dissonance (incongruity), one variation of which he describes as “the simultaneous mismatch of extra-musical and musical levels on the content” (Denisov 2015, 63). He notes that “[I]n the 20th century, the authors used to get excited quite often by the idea of carnival inversion and the erosion of usual values and traditions” (Denisov 2015, 67); this erosion can occur equally to social, cultural and political, as well as to musical values and traditions. All of these incongruous elements are present in Pešut’s songs and videos, in the distance between the lyrics, the music that accompanies them, the visual imagery of Magnifico and the background images in his videos. Denisov goes on to point out that [T]he world of parody is conditional, as it implies a distancing between parody and its target. A recipient perceives it in the biased perspective, and compares the original and the parody versions. Their ‘mismatch’ creates both the effect of objective conditionality and semantic dynamics, incompleteness, and freedom of interpretation. (Denisov 2015, 68)

The conflict between content and presentation results in an undercutting effect that confirms the satiric intent: [P]arody forms the direct opposite of idealistic and mythologizing principles that along with parody constitute a significant plane of culture’s



7 Which he derives from Ziv’s five functions of humour: the aggressive, the sexual, the social, the defensive and the intellectual (Ziv 1988, 223).



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This conflict can be seen in the videos of “Zum Zum” and “Giv Mi Mani,” in which the polished professionalism of the production contrasts with the intentionally tasteless crudity of the visual imagery, which undercuts the mythologizing of ideals of Northern European ethnic purity and associated capitalist ideals of wealth and taste. John R. Covach notes that the more closely a parody recreates the style of the original, the more enjoyable the audience will find it (Covach 1990, 121). In his view, the essence of satire is the congruity/incongruity conflict: it is stylistic competencies which provide the mechanism for certain types of amused response in music. A stylistic competency is the ability of a listener to discern, in any single piece, those features which are normative within a particular style (group of pieces), and to discern those features which are non-normative or innovative.” (122-3)

Covach identifies this interplay between the listener’s memory of the original and the experience of the parody that elicits interest and enjoyment as musical intertextuality (144). Adaptation theory maintains that, curiously, the reader/listener need not have experienced the original to participate in the pleasure of an adaptation: a good adaptation projects a form of false recognition into the receiver’s memory.8 A common theme in Pešut’s songs is the portrayal of the duality of Otherness among Slovene residents whose ethnic origins are the southern Balkans, and of the way they are treated by ethnic Slovenes. This theme is expressed in part by his use of various musical styles, including Western popular music and elements of World music, including Gypsy, mariachi, Turbofolk, and even classical. Traditional Slovenian folk music, the kind played at weddings, birthday parties and municipal functions, is similar to Austrian Alpine music, played by bands including accordions (harmonica), tubas, vocal harmonies, and waltz and polka rhythms (Burton 2000). In

 8

It is also this closeness to the original that requires that satire be granted a special exemption from the standard provisions of international copyright law that characterize copying of an existing work without permission and without a valid artistic purpose (such as satire) as copyright infringement (See Appendix).



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recent years, however, a type of music with a southern influence called Turbofolk has become popular in Slovenia. Turbofolk is a mix of traditional Serbian music with dance rhythms. The World Heritage Encyclopedia describes Turbofolk as a “mix of scantily clad young women, lascivious stage movements and innocuous, accessible lyrics which proved to be the winning combination that launched many performing careers and ensured high ratings for plenty of television stations across Serbia” (2017). Uroš ývoro points out that this genre of music mixes East and West, and results in a type of music that is notable for its nationalist sentiments mixed together in a “culturally and politically pronounced mythology… mixed through the aesthetics and stylization of Western pop music” (ývoro 2014, 8). Pešut uses these incongruous elements, especially the visual ones, for ironic effect in his songs and videos. In a seminal essay on the relationship between music and the presentation and creation of identity, Simon Frith says that “while music may be shaped by the people who first make and use it, as experience it has a life of its own” (Frith 1996, 109). Frith argues that music not only reflects people, it also shapes them; it creates an experience “that we can make sense of only by taking on a subjective and a collective identity” (109). Identity, he claims, “is not a thing but a process” (110). “Music seems to be a key to identity because it offers, so intensely, a sense of both self and others, of the subjective in the collective” (110). Making music, he argues, is a shared cultural activity, and the process of creating music is a way of creating identity. Frith supports his claim with references to many genres, including contemporary mainstream American music, black music, including jazz, blues and rap music, as well as the classical chamber music of the Yekkes, German-speaking Jews in Israel. Frith concludes that “Music constructs our sense of identity through the direct experiences it offers of the body, time and sociability, experiences which enable us to place ourselves in imaginative cultural narratives” (124). Pešut’s mix of musical styles reflects the combination of cultural conflicts and influences that define the identity of the þefur, and the amalgam of North and South, modern and traditional, acceptance and rejection that makes up the life of a “Southerner” in Slovenia. Pešut’s archetypal þefur, Magnifico, simultaneously speaks to southerners in Slovenia who suddenly found themselves strangers in their former homeland after independence in 1991, and to non-þefurji who can appreciate not only the wit and skill in his performances, but the parallels between þefurji in Slovenia and foreigners in other places. His use of world music motifs to accompany lyrics whose primary theme is the claim of non-ethnic Slovenes to their right to be part of Slovenian society is a



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striking contrast to traditional Slovenian folk music, the roots of which reflect, ironically, a broader pan-Alpine culture.

“Land of Champions” “Land of Champions” (2007) is a song about the breakup of Yugoslavia. The melody, structure and some of the lyrics are adapted from the traditional British/American folk/blues classic “House of the Rising Sun,” in particular, The Animals’ 1964 hit version. Pešut adds many musical and visual elements not found in the original song (and the Animals’ video) including mariachi trumpets, cowboys, gunfighters, Mexicans, even ninjas, to create a “world music” pastiche that satirizes the superficial cosmopolitanism of 21st century Europe. Hutcheon explains how postmodern art forms use parody to invert established norms: The (perhaps illusory but once perceived as firm and single) center of both historical and fictive narrative is dispersed. Margins and edges gain new value. The “ex-centric”–as both off-center and de-centered–gets attention. That which is “different” is valorized in opposition both to elitist, alienated “otherness” and also to the uniformizing impulse of mass culture. (Hutcheon 2005, 130)

Magnifico, the “poor boy” narrator, is just such a marginalized character, an outlaw who metamorphoses into a sheriff, bringing to a commentary on the destruction of Yugoslavian society the idealization of the “Wild West” that has been a major element of 20th century American revisionist history and culture. Pešut’s “Land of Champions” is a clear example of how European Postmodernism has absorbed the techniques and outlook of its American counterpart. Hutcheon continues: And in American postmodernism, the different comes to be defined in particularizing terms such as those of nationality, ethnicity, gender, race, and sexual orientation. Intertextual parody of canonical American and European classics is one mode of appropriating and reformulating–with significant change–the dominant white, male, middle-class, heterosexual, Eurocentric culture. It does not reject it, for it cannot. Postmodernism signals its dependence by its use of the canon, but reveals its rebellion through its ironic abuse of it. (Hutcheon 2005, 130)

Pešut created Magnifico precisely to critique the dominant white, male, middle-class, heterosexual, Northern European-leaning culture of



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Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia, since 1991 a new country formerly one of the associated republics of Yugoslavia. In order to distinguish their new national identity as both an independent country and at the same time a member state of the European Union, Slovenians tried to distance themselves from their historic, political and cultural association with the Balkans. Part of this involved patently illegal and unconstitutional administrative actions, such as the disenfranchisement of citizens of the former southern republics living in Slovenia by the simple expedient of confiscating their documents, an action that has become known as “the erasure.” 9 Partly it involved expressing biases and prejudices at a personal level. In a discussion of racism as a component of modern-day Slovenian nationalism and national identity, Veronika Bajt argues that old classifications based on “race” have been replaced by new ones of ethnicity and culture: “non-Europeans were no longer seen as fatally marked by their biologically determined physical characteristics, but were relegated to an inferior position by virtue of their different history, culture and presumed lower level of ‘social development’” (Bajt 2010, 198). Such “ethnic and cultural” discriminatory tactics are easier to hide, and therefore harder to oppose, than the racebased tactics they replaced, and they were used to justify the exclusion of a wide range of people who were not just Southerners but who were, for one reason or another, not considered to be “true Slovenes”: “the exclusionary attitude [was] adopted by Slovenia as a nation-state and the Slovenians as its “core nation” towards the Roma, Muslims and immigrants, as well as different marginalized minorities (e.g. members of the LGBT community, the disabled and so on)” (199). As a response to this widespread individual and institutional discrimination, Pešut boldly proclaimed in his music and in interviews,

 9

In February 1992, 25,761 people were erased from the register of permanent residents of the Republic of Slovenia by administrators following the independence of Slovenia from the former Yugoslavia in 1991. Many of them were from BosniaHerzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro and had moved to Slovenia to live and work, and had obtained valid documents, while others had been born in Slovenia: “The revocation of their permanent residence status was an illegal act motivated by their ethnic origin, or rather, their personal migration history” (Zorn 2010, 20). “Slovenian citizenship had been defined in terms of ethnicity rather than by taking into account the territorial principle; had the latter been the case, permanent residents would have automatically become Slovenian citizens rather than erased residents” (Bajt 2010, 199). By disenfranchising a large minority of the country’s inhabitants, officials of the Slovenian state acted in direct contravention to the ethical, moral and legal foundations of the European Union of which they were so eager to become a part.



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“Magnifico je peder, Magnifico je þefur” (Magnifico is a fag; Magnifico is a þefur) (Debeljak 2011). As a result, he is a controversial figure in Slovene pop culture, simultaneously idolized and despised. His widespread international success, however, has, to use one of Hutcheon’s favourite terms, valorized the margins of Slovenian culture. “Land of Champions” takes a canonical American folk song and adapts it to centre the margins of contemporary Central European culture. “House of the Rising Sun” is “a distinctly American song, and… its authors probably stretch across decades” (Shaer 2007). Ted Anthony traced its origins to the beginning of the 20th century, but a similar theme and story can be found in English songs as old as the 16th century (Anthony 2007). Pešut’s version uses a truncated set of lyrics that adapt the story and change the setting from New Orleans to Yugoslavia: There was a land, A land of Champions, A land called Jugoslavia And it’s been the ruin Of many a poor boys10 In God I know, I’m one Oh mother tell your children Not to do what I’ve done I’ve lost my soul Oh Glory Alleluja Down in Jugoslavia (2007)

While the lyrics are sparse, Pešut’s multimodal storytelling makes use of sound imagery in the arrangement, with Mariachi-style horns and a twangy electric guitar tone reminiscent of Hilton Valentine’s clean sound on The Animals’ 1964 recording, but owes even more to Vic Flick’s sound, style and phrasing on the James Bond film theme (first heard in the film Dr. No (1962)). In the music video, these sound motifs are reinforced by visual images and symbols. Mariachi trumpet players are featured throughout the threeminute video, set against a background of desert and giant Saguaro cactuses, and Magnifico appears dressed alternately as a sheriff and a gunslinger, complete with cowboy hat, tin star, and six-shooters, and a guitarslinger brandishing an iconically American Fender Telecaster. Interspersed with these images are silhouetted dancers. At one point in the video (2:12-2:17) the sheriff draws his guns and shoots at the camera, and

 10



Grammatical errors and misspellings are an intentional part of Magnifico’s style.

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red blood flows down from the top of the screen, a variation on the opening credits of the James Bond movies. From 2:58 to 3:13 the black silhouetted dancers are replaced by the white silhouettes of karate-kicking ninjas, another incongruous image from popular movies. This pastiche of verbal, visual and sonic images and tropes combines to construct an image of a land that has lost its identity after being overwhelmed by foreign cultural elements, resulting in a lawless noman’s-land, a Balkan version of the Wild West where brute force, corrupt authorities and assassins replace the traditional forms and institutions of social order. 11 It is also an evocation of another type of Southernness (Mexican) with all the attendant prejudices and stereotypes imported from American culture into European. The loss of national identity presented in the video reflects the breakdown of national identity that resulted from the years of civil war following the breakup of Yugoslavia after the Republic of Slovenia seceded from the federation in 1991. Nationalism rooted in ethnic and religious differences manifested itself in prejudice, discrimination, “ethnic cleansing” and genocide against groups who originated, or whose ancestors originated, in different regions of the former federation. Pešut, who was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia, but whose grandfather was from Serbia, crafted a musical and performing persona based on the ethnic slur þefur, a resident of Slovenia with origins in the south of the former Yugoslavia. The origin of the word is þifut, a pejorative term for “Jew.” The word þefur was used to describe Jews, Gypsies and Slavs in a derogatory manner in Nazi Germany (Julariü 2005, 40).12



11 Several years after the breakup of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Miloseviü's Serbia was pounded by NATO forces, notably American bombers. 12 The most widespread terms for denoting someone from ex-Yugoslavia among Slovenes include jugoviüi (“Southerners”), južnjaki, jugosi (“Yugos”), with varying (increasing) degrees of negativity. Other terms for addressing immigrants from ex-Yugoslavia include, þapci, bosanci, balkanci, taspodnji, bitja s pol strešice (“beings with half circumflex”) and jugoklateži (“yugotramps”) (Kuzmaniü 1999). Špela Kalþiþ defines the term as: The word is used to characterize Bosnian Serbo-Croatian-speaking migrants, irrespective of their origin or the Republic from which they came. In addition to the term “Bosnians,” my interlocutors explained the pejorative connotations of terms such as such as “southerners,” and in Jesenice, even “Swedes,” and from the nineties onwards also “þefurji”…. The word “þefur” in the Dictionary of Slovenian Literary Language was used for the first, and also the last, time in 1991, where it was used as a synonym for “southerners”: “File is a þrnola þefur. Liza called all southerners ýEFURJI...” (SSKJ 1991). Much speculation has arisen regarding the etymology of the word, which resembles the word þifut (Turkish Cuhut and Arabic



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The first immigration wave from Yugoslavia to Slovenia occurred after World War II, comprising those escaping mainly industrial areas destroyed during that period or harsh post-war conditions (Mežnariü 1986, 3). In the second half of the 70s, the immigrants mostly came from Bosnia and Herzegovina, moving to Slovenia for political or social reasons. After independence, many refugees, mainly from Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, fled to Slovenia to escape war and poverty. Most immigrants subsequently obtained Slovene citizenship. Some Slovenes considered those who immigrated to Slovenia from other Yugoslavian republics after World War II as southern neighbours who were willing to take the lower-paid jobs that most Slovenes did not want. As is the case with much nationalist rhetoric, there is a disjunction between two conflicting beliefs; one that immigrants needed to perform dirty jobs that nobody wanted; another, that they were stealing jobs from real citizens. Even today, these people are sometimes considered not as helpful workers but rather as competitors who occupy Slovenia’s space and steal work from the locals. Such prejudice was often formed on the basis of the immigrants’ inability or refusal to learn Slovene and engage with Slovene culture. Manual workers from the south often lived in what was a Slovenian equivalent of the ghetto (for example, the residential district of Fužine in Ljubljana, or in industrial towns like Jesenice or Velenje), which further complicated their integration. Another interesting phenomenon is that the category of “the southerner” comprises Serbians, Bosnians and Croatians. This is worth noting because members of the three ethnic groups, in particular after the Balkan wars, often refuse to mix. The dilemma of the þefur is the theme of Goran Vojnoviü’s novel ýefurji raus! (Southern Scum Go Home!) (Vojnoviü 2012). “ýefur” is defined at the beginning of the novel: Who is scum? Scum is a person who lives in the territory of a certain country, but does not belong to the ethnic majority there. In our case this refers to those who come from any place south or east of the river Kolpa. In most cases their descendents are also considered scum. In their physiognomy they differ from the majority population by their low forehead, thick joined-up eyebrows, high cheekbones and a strong lower

 Yahud—Jew). What these speculations fail to acknowledge, however, is that both the terms þifut and þifur in Slovenia obviously have a similar history and function: hurting others in the Slovenian area. Having knowledge of this context, it is easy to understand why the described etymological speculations so often appear in Slovenian media and among researchers (cf. Baskar 2003, 203; Kalþiþ 2005, 199).



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jaw. Their main behavioural characteristics are: they love an easy life, they swear, they like alcohol, women and football. They adore kitsch and gold jewellery. They are into martial arts and are frequently aggressive without any real reason. In most cases their period of acclimatisation is a lengthy one. (2)13

Pešut’s own explanation of the meaning of the term is similar, and lists the stereotypes he uses in his songs and videos: They differ in their physiognomy from the members of the majority population: typical þefurji have a low jaw, eyebrows which meet in the middle, emphasised cheek-bones and a stronger lower jaw. Their basic behavioural characteristics are: they love a comfortable life, swear, like alcohol, the gentler sex and football, adore kitsch and gold jewellery. They like fencing and are often aggressive without a real cause. Their acclimatization period is in most cases very long. (Kariþ 2010, 31)

This matches the description of Magnifico on Pešut’s record company web page: Magnifico is the [S]lovenian showman and quick-change artist Robert Pešut. He is glitzy and fascinating. As Magnifico he appears in the role of a badly shaven, flamboyantly dressed pimp from the 70s. Magnifico mixes funk, techno, twist, R&B and latino with turbofolk and [B]alkan rhythms. (Borkowsky) (reprinted from HR4 Portrait)

Pešut’s þefur is an outcast in his own homeland, an analogue of the Western outlaw in “Land of Champions.” The narrator in “The House of the Rising Sun” is an outcast, an outlaw who at the end of the song is returning home to go to prison: “I’m going back to New Orleans/to wear that ball and chain.” Pešut’s abridged version hints at this theme by way of its hypertextuality. 14 Magnifico’s multiple roles in the video as sheriff, outlaw, and gunslinger reflect the uncertainty of the þefur’s identity in contemporary Slovenian society. In this small breakaway republic, once a part of a larger federation, one’s official nationality, even if it has been established by many generations of residence, citizenship and official documents, takes second place to ethnic origin, no matter how remote.

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Vojnoviü even mentions Magnifico in ýefurji raus! See Genette (Genette et al. 1997).

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“Kdo je þefur?” (“Who is a Southerner?”) Although Pešut says that this song was not written to raise any social or identity issues but because the question “kdo je þefur?” (“who is a þefur”?) was frequently asked among Slovenes, the language in the lyrics and the imagery of the video offer themselves to a contradictory interpretation. The controversial and provocative song was released in 1996, five years after Slovenia had become officially independent from Yugoslavia after a 10-day war against the Yugoslavian army. To identify oneself as a Slovene was vitally important for Slovenes, especially in the first decade after independence. According to Benedict Anderson, the most frequent criteria for national identity are language, culture, religion, history and territory (Anderson 1998, 15). However, in Slovenia this brought with it an increased negative perception of people from the Balkans (former-Yugoslavian republics15). In general, anything associated with the Balkans was rejected outright or undermined, while anything considered “western” was highly appreciated. Many Slovenes acted on the belief that in order to define their own identity, it was necessary to exclude those who did not fit the criteria. According to Erving Goffman, stigma encompasses prejudices based on physical deformation, character flaws, on evidence such as imprisonment, alcoholism, homosexuality, joblessness, radical political belief, as well as on race, nationality and religious beliefs (Goffman 2008, 13). The negative reaction of some Slovenes towards people from other regions of the Balkans can be observed in comments from the Balkan internet conference: There are fewer and fewer Slovenes. There are more and more ýefurjev and Šiptarjev!16 … many Slovene children mean a bright future for our Slovene nation. If not, we will be forced to use Serbo-Croatian once again, because there will be more of them than us, and our beloved Slovenia theirs. (quoted in Dekleva and Razpotnik 2002, 27)

 15

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia consisted of six socialist republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia, and two independent autonomous republics: Vojvodina and Kosovo. All these former Yugoslavian countries are located on the Balkan Peninsula in South-eastern Europe. Former Yugoslavia was culturally, linguistically (Slovene, SerbianCroatian, Macedonian and Albanian) and religiously (Roman Catholics, Muslims, Serbian orthodox and Protestants) a heterogeneous country. 16 A derogatory term for Albanians.



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These are common themes among nationalist defenders of ethnic identity: the younger generation has been distracted by Western materialism from the more important focus on their ethnic identity; They (the outsiders) are prolific breeders who will soon outnumber Us; and they threaten that most central icon of our national identity, our language. The simple use of language in “Kdo je þefur?” is narrowed primarily to the repetition of the word “þefur” (“southerner”), combined with various uses of pronouns from the most personal, “jaz sem þefur” (“I am a southerner”), to direct address, “ti si þefur” (“you are a southerner”), and the third person reference, “on je þefur” (“he is a southerner”), to the inclusive plural use, addressing all southerners, including the singer himself, as “mi smo þefur” (“we are southerners”) and “vsi smo þefurji” (“we all are southerners”). By pairing all of these locutions with the existential process “biti” (“be”), which simply states and acknowledges the existence of southerners, a sense is created of gradually increasing fearful, almost panicky, feelings on the part of the natives towards southerners, which serves to parodically reveal the nonsense of prejudicial behaviour and attitudes. Negative feelings are additionally reinforced with the use of the question “kdo je þefur” (“who is a southerner”), immediately followed by the command “glej ga þefur” (“look at him—the Southerner”), which indirectly conveys an undermining attitude towards southerners via locating, recognising and revealing southerners and their identity. These intensifying fearful feelings are further reinforced by the frequently repeated command composed of the word þefurji, addressing southerners directly, and the German word “raus” (“out”). This command alludes to the Nazi persecution of Jews, Slavs, Romani, etc., and is an echo of the xenophobia still present throughout the world.17 As with Pešut’s other songs, visual images and symbols in the video reinforce and amplify the theme of the lyrics. In the video, the fearful atmosphere created in the lyrics is magnified by the imagery of the dark tunnel and Magnifico, who appears to be trapped in it. His facial expression (rapid eye movements from side to side), body movement (rocking gently towards the camera) and the repetition of the command “þefurji raus” create an impression of potential danger which he fearfully investigates. Additionally, the use of German can be understood as a turn in the modern political system, from socialist ex-Yugoslavia to capitalist western and northern Europe, including the increasingly powerful

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A similar satire was produced in Austria in 2002 with the title Ausländer raus! (Poet 2002).



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Germany.18 However, the video later offers an alternative interpretation. By climbing a staircase leading from the tunnel into the open, Magnifico frees himself, metaphorically revealing openly his identity as a southerner. On the basis of this scenario, Magnifico can be seen as a catalyst for fearful feelings which accumulate to transform into an attitude of encouragement for other southerners to fearlessly expose their identities. The help provided by another southerner to Magnifico as he flees the tunnel symbolizes the unpleasant but common feelings among southerners and the resulting solidarity among them. The need for public acknowledgement of the existence of southerners among native Slovenes is presented by two southerners practicing karate with their fists turned to the viewers. Their identity is portrayed symbolically by the clothes they wear, including sleeveless vests, heavy gold necklaces, and tracksuit trousers. Such an outfit is considered a sign of poor taste stereotypically attributed to southerners. The determination to show oneself is additionally supported with the shameless verbal and public acknowledgement of being a southerner, expressed via the profanity in the phrase “boli me kurac jaz sem þefur” (which can be roughly translated as “I don’t give a fuck, I’m a þefur”), which is used to convey a non-worried and non-bothered attitude.19 Even though the song was intended to be humorous, it provoked a negative reaction: nationally conscious Slovenes were offended, while many southerners did not perceive the song as amusing (Magnifico 2013).

“Hir Aj Kam Hir Aj Go” Other Magnifico songs develop this theme using similar techniques. “Hir Aj Kam Hir Aj Go” describes the travels of a worldly cosmopolitan; however, the paratext of the video provides an ironic counterpoint. The ostentatiously poor taste of Magnifico’s clothes, scantily clad girls dancing provocatively, the low-rent setting of a parking lot, and the tiny, packed swimming pool all reveal a lowbrow character desperately showing off; Magnifico’s exaggeratedly “Balkan” English accent and the bombastically



18 It can also be understood as an allusion to the German occupation of Yugoslavia from April 6th 1941 to May 15th 1945, during which approximately one million Yugoslavs died and many thousands were deported by the Wehrmacht. “On 18 October 1941 Heinrich Himmler issued a decree on the expulsion of Slovenes from the border regions along the Sava and Sotla rivers, which gave rise to mass deportations to camps in Germany and to Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia” (Bajc 2017). 19 In Serbo-Croatian the phrase is used to mean simply “I don’t care.”



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intrusive mariachi horns create a sophisticated parody, not just of the þefur, but of the society that insists on labelling him as such.20 Magnifico the þefur in “Hir Aj Kam Hir Aj Go” embodies the stereotypes that ethnic Slovenes use to characterize foreigners from the south.21 This is not a self-parody, however; it is closer to the technique used by Sasha Baron Cohen with his Borat character (Charles 2006) 22 who, like Magnifico, uses the persona of a naïve, gauche foreigner to trap his interlocutors into revealing their prejudices.

“Zum Zum” In “Zum Zum,” Pešut parodies the American nursery rhyme “One, Two, Three Little Indians,” counting up and then down “One little, two little, three little Gypsy boys….” In “Ten Little Indians,” the word “Indian” refers to a Native American. It is still often used in schools in the former Yugoslavia to teach children in English classes to learn to count. 23 Because of its political sensitivity, the word “Indians” is sometimes replaced with “teddy bears” or “soldier boys.” The song was originally adapted from the egregiously non-pc “comic” song “The Ten Little Niggers” (1868). Benedict Anderson explains that this song not only taught children to count down from ten but equally “villainized freed black males,” hence emphasising “the racial construction of the black population as ‘niggers’” (Anderson 1998). In North America today, both versions of the song are considered racist and demeaning. In Pešut’s version, Indians are replaced by “one little, two little, three little Gypsy boys,” who are presented as trumpeters in the video.24 The number of little Gypsy boys increases throughout the song by the addition of small images of trumpeters, implying that the rapidly-increasing population of Gypsy people is a threat to the Slovenes and the Slovene nation. The threat from dark-skinned Gypsies is further symbolized by a

 20

Similarly, in another song from the same album, “Giv Mi Mani,” he sings “I’m clever I’m not a fool/I learned English in the school.” 21 Other examples of this stereotype are present in the popular “Mujo and Haso” jokes, and the character “Fata” in TV Dober Dan (Anzelc 1999-2002). 22 Baron Cohen, who is Jewish, puts many anti-Semitic comments into Borat’s mouth. 23 It is still a staple of ESL instruction in primary schools throughout the region of former Yugoslavia (Vidoviü 2016). 24 The official term in Slovenia is Romani or Roma. Pešut’s use of the English “gypsy” captures the negative connotations of the word as it was once used by native English speakers.



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chess game, with several black figures chasing a white figure, the only one left in the game. The chase and resulting panic of the white figure are ironically illustrated by the increasing pace of filming. Moreover, the whole video is filmed in black and white, including the clothes the performers wear, symbolizing dualism in the world/space. The prevalence of Gypsy culture is reinforced in the video by the female Gypsy dancers and the melody played on the trumpet. Once the number of Gypsy boys reaches its peak with the numbers nine and ten, summarised as “so many,” the number starts to count down to zero, as the trumpeters disappear one after another from the screen. The music accompanying the song is Pešut’s trademark blend of gypsy-style and Western pop music. The video imagery is also a blend of Eastern and Western imagery, focusing on a contrast between Magnifico in a tuxedo, playing a Dean Flying V guitar and a saxophonist playing oriental melodies.25 Between 00:29 and 00:41 in the video, Magnifico in the centre panel is progressively squeezed out by saxophonists in the panels to either side, a metaphor for his Slovenian identity being supplanted by his þefur persona, and on another level, Slovenes being squeezed out of their own country by Southerners. Following this, the guitar solo is an adaptation of the main theme of Aram Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance”; in the context of the video, this is a sonic metaphor for sophistication and culture bracketed by the gypsy melodies of the saxophonists. Throughout the video, traditional and modern are intertwined with the traditional trumpet and modern electric guitar, producing Magnifico’s trademark 60s surf/James Bond guitar sounds, both instruments complementing each other to produce a cheerful melody. Towards the end of the video, the trumpeter and Magnifico seem to metaphorically compete with their instruments, ending in a tie. The intertwining, complementary and hence equal role of the contrast, implying the equal worth of the cultures, is additionally symbolized in the way both the traditional Gypsy female dancers and the modern dancers circle both Magnifico and the trumpeter.

“Giv Mi Mani” This song may be read as a critique of a money-oriented society in a general sense, but the Balkan/southerner theme common throughout

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The Dean guitar is a clone of the original Gibson Flying V, introduced in 1958, which was designed to look “futuristic” by making the guitar in the shape of a jet plane or a rocket.



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Pešut’s work is reflected in the broken English accent in the lyrics, as well as in the title of the song, which is written phonetically (as it is with “Hir Ai Kam Hir Ai Go”). At the beginning of the song, Magnifico claims to have learnt English in school, categorically denying the view that he is a fool with the emphatic “I’m not a fool,” despite speaking English with a thick accent. His limited grasp of the English language may be perceived as amusing. Additionally, his naiveté is signalled with other details. By declaring his affection for The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, he claims his good, or at least, westernized, taste in music. He possesses a TV, knows what is “cool,” and has style and rhythm. His life is filled with sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, which give him satisfaction and fulfilment. It is mainly the material things and glamorous lifestyle that define his identity. The delights of such a lifestyle are shown in the video with typically louche signifiers of wealth: drinking whiskey, owning an expensive car, wearing a white suit, shiny gold necklace and rings, playing poker and visiting casinos, and having many female companions in fur coats; the video also features a telephone, with a woman in the background lying on the sofa (possibly a sly reference to a “call girl”). The title of the song, “Giv Mi Mani,” grammatically constructed as a command, conveys directly the desire and yearning for easy financial success. The equation of material possessions and identity is particularly well captured in the phrase “all I need is what I am,” an interestingly coined phrase, making an allusion to The Beatles’ song “All You Need Is Love,” in which love is praised as the only valuable and fulfilling thing in the world. In Magnifico’s world, money is glorified instead.26 In this world, identity, no matter how vulgar, suffices.

“Halo gospodiþna” (“Hello, Miss”) In the opening of this song, a female voice continuously repeats the phrase “Magnifico je peder” (“Magnifico is a fag”). This crude evaluative judgement is occasionally coupled with the Serbian phrase majke mi (“believe me”; grammatically an imperative, this emphasises that the proposition is truthful or at least generally agreed to be highly credible. The locution itself is interpretively open, even though Pešut says that the song was written simply because it sounded good, after a female friend told him, “Magnifico, ti si peder” (“Magnifico, you’re a fag”), when he

 26

A similar kind of satire is seen in “All You Need Is Cash,” a parody of The Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love” from Eric Idle’s The Rutles (Idle and Weis 1978); both are a clear reaction to the inclusivity of the claim in The Beatles’ title.



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made some unspecified mistake (Debeljak 2011). The song nevertheless triggered discussions about homosexuality in Slovenia (Bulc 2012). The locution can also be interpreted as a phrase used by some women to refer to a type of affected male behaviour, which can be sensed in the main character’s correctly spoken Slovene and polite way of addressing the woman in the bar when asking for a light: “halo gospodiþna, sem rekel, a motim?” (“Hello Miss, I said, am I disturbing you?”), or as a phrase used by some women to refer to a man who has rejected her. The seductive and sexual appeal is indicated by a woman slowly licking a lollipop, while looking directly into the camera and singing “Magnifico je peder” (“Magnifico is a fag”). Magnifico seems familiar to the woman from television, but he denies this. Although the atmosphere in the bar, conveyed in the video by the attractive woman and several drinks, triggers lustful temptation for Magnifico (directly admitted in the lyrics), he resists temptation by informing the audience that he has a wife and children at home (signified in the video by the baby in the highchair), hence presenting himself as a loyal and responsible husband and father. In one of his numerous interviews, Pešut explained, “On my own I am a very moral man, although my norms are set up on my own.” While his job is mentioned (“zjutraj imam službo,” “I have to work in the morning”) in the lyrics, without any specific reference to the kind of job, apart from some references to television, the video indicates that he is a TV presenter. The use of the offensive word peder (“fag”) and the adapted video may be perceived as a provocative gesture towards the issue of homosexuality. In the video, homosexuality is suggested by images such as a male hairdresser washing a man’s hair, man wearing a short, shiny silver top, men dancing in a bar, a man exercising in a fitness studio, a male tennis trainer demonstrating a move by closely leaning on another man’s body, a close up shot of animal print male briefs, and a transvestite.27 Moreover, Magnifico’s affected behaviour and attitude are symbolised by drinking cocktails, wearing a shirt unbuttoned to the waist to reveal a hairy chest, exercising in a fitness studio, playing tennis in a designer-brand outfit, playing billiards, wearing a large gold ring on the little finger and a heavy gold necklace around his neck, and drinking champagne in a whirlpool. This accumulation of imagery mocks men who employ such “masculine” behaviour and symbolism to attract women. After a series of concerts in Ljubljana’s Cankarjev dom, Pešut responded to criticism that his music contributed to “the balkanisation of Slovene culture” by saying

 27



Reminiscent of the 1978 Village People hit “YMCA.”

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I don’t know if I should consider this praise or reproof. But if they say so I could say that I am glad, because I’m one of those who balkanises Slovene culture. Slovene culture is mainly under the Anglo-Saxon influence. I think that this does no harm to Slovenia, but it enriches it, it makes it more romantic, erotic. I can’t help. I am what I am. (Magnifico 2013)

An indication of this “balkanisation of Slovene culture” may be seen in the term þapci, designating ethnic Slovenes (in the Ljubljana region) who emulate the style of þefurji. This appears to be a Slovenian version of a universal phenomenon, as young people borrow elements of minority identity as a way of establishing their own identities in a reaction against the prevailing norms of their parents and other authority figures in society.28 It is apparent in the borrowings from Black American jazz music and culture by whites in the 1920s, and the borrowing of white American musicians and young people from Black blues music in the 1950s (see Elvis Presley’s version of Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog”), and British pop musicians in the 1960s, and the borrowings from Black American rap and hip-hop artists in the 1980s and 90s by white musicians such as Eminem, and as white North Americans appropriate the style of Black rappers or the dreadlocks of Rastafarians.29

“Samo Ljubezen” (“Only Love”) “Samo ljubezen” is a song written by Robert and Barbara Pešut and performed by the transvestite group Sestre at the 2002 Eurovision contest. The lyrics are those of a conventional love song, but the paratext of the performance caused an uproar of anti-LGBT protest in Slovenia. Like Pešut’s other videos, the performance created irony based on the incongruity of the juxtaposition of the words and the images.30 The debate raised issues not only of gender identity, but of ethnic identity as well. The widespread backlash among conservative Slovenes against the Eurovision

 28

Monika Konert-Panek explains this phenomenon as “covert prestige” (see Chapter Five in this volume). 29 Rejection of the prevailing ethic of society appears in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (Eliot 1922), which criticizes the sterility of Western capitalist materialist society in favour of the ethos of Eastern religions, at the time an uncommon embrace of the margins of Empire, and in light of modern-day British neonationalism, an interesting parallel to the questioning of values that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia. 30 Pešut released a version of the song on his 2008 album Magnifico Balcountry Quartet with a jazz-style accompaniment.



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performance prompted calls among European politicians to reconsider Slovenia’s accession to the EU.31 Magnifico has been characterized as self-parody, but his purpose in Pešut’s work goes much deeper. His stereotypical þefur reflects the racial and ethnic prejudices of audiences in his homeland. Unlike Sasha Baron Cohen’s Ali G, Bruno, and Borat, Magnifico the þefur does not rely on surprise and shock for his effect; his audience is aware of both sides of the satire, both the self-parody of a character who has come to terms with his status as a stranger in the land of his birth, and the satirical exposure of Slovenes 32 who recognize only ethnic, not national, identity. Unlike Borat’s victims, the þefur’s audience is in on the joke, whether they like the message or not. Magnifico is a controversial figure in Slovenia and Europe, criticized by those who don’t understand or appreciate his satire, highly acclaimed by those who do. His lyrics are straightforward and open to conflicting interpretation, augmented by the multiple layers of complementary musical and visual images and metaphors in his videos. In this way, Pešut’s work resembles the satire of Weird Al Yankovic, but it has a deeper political message; Yankovic’s are parodies of the music and performers, with some mild social and cultural satire, while Pešut’s satire provides his listeners with a further level of criticism that encompasses the historical and political.33 Another distinction is that Weird Al’s identity remains stable, undisrupted behind the satirical versions he writes and performs. Al’s audience is offered a stable base of agreed ethical and aesthetic norms from which to laugh at these songs, whereas Pešut offers no such stable base of identity for himself or his audience. Pešut draws attention to the deep ambivalence toward ethnic and cultural identity that is common throughout Europe today. On the one hand, many Slovenes welcomed inclusion into the European Union, anticipating financial benefits from the freedom to live, travel, study and work in neighbouring countries and the abolition of trade tariffs. On the



31 Similarly, Thomas Neuwirth’s winning 2014 Eurovision performance as the transvestite Conchita Wurst prompted conservative backlash in Austria, and an international celebration among LGBT rights supporters. 32 And by extension, audiences throughout Europe where Magnifico’s music has become popular. 33 Magnifico claims that he doesn’t want to make any political and social statements. He even says that he doesn’t seek to “raise people with his music” (Magnifico 2007). He only wants to have fun, another instance of parodic selffeminization, reminiscent of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” (1983).



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other, many, especially older people, feared and still fear the loss of their ethnic and cultural identities, the job security guaranteed by socialist societies, and many feel their language threatened by English and German cultural hegemony, as well as other external threats. These are the fears fuelling the resurgent nationalism that expresses itself in a desire to exclude foreigners, even, ironically, those who were once fellow-citizens of the same country, and results in a feeling of betrayal felt by those who are the object of this exclusion.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Katja Drnovšek for her review of Slovenian copyright law, Kristina Šrot for research assistance, and Simon Zupan for comments, suggestions and corrections.

Discography Dread Zeppelin. 1990. Un-Led-Ed. I.R.S. Gay, John. 1728. The Beggar’s Opera. Haydn, Joseph. 1791. Symphony 94 in G Major. Hayseed Dixie. 2001. A Hillbilly Tribute to AC/DC. Dualtone. Khachaturian, Aram. 1942. “Sabre Dance.” Gayane, Ballet in 4 Acts. MacLean, Gary and Blair MacLean. 1980. “I’ve Seen Pubic Hair.” MacLean & MacLean Suck Their Way to the Top/MacLean & MacLean Take the "O" Out of Country. Singing Dog Records. Morali, Jacques and Victor Willis. 1978. “YMCA.” Cruisin’. Casablanca. Norman, Monty. 1962. “James Bond Theme.” Dr. No. United Artists. Pešut, Barbara and Robert Pešut. 2008. “Samo ljubezen.” Magnifico Balcountry Quartet. Arih. Pešut, Robert. 2004. “Giv Mi Mani.” Export/Import. Sony. —. 2002. “Halo gospodiþna” (“Hello Miss”). Sexy Boy. Pop Records. —. 2004. “Hir Aj Kam Hir Aj Go.” Export/Import. Sony. —. 1995. “Kdo je þefur.” Kdo je þefur. Menart. —. 2007. “Land of Champions.” Grand Finale. Arih. —. 2007. “Zum Zum.” Grand Finale. Arih. Trad. 1964. “The House of the Rising Sun.” Single. Recorded by The Animals. Columbia Gramophone.



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Appendix—The Law of Parody Copyright enforcement and copyright violation are contentious issues everywhere, and Slovenia has its own distinctive problems.34 A parody is, by definition, a copy or an existing work. Internationally, parody is protected under the “fair use” section of U.S. Copyright Law (Sanders 1990-1991) (relevant since the American entertainment industry is the world’s biggest, and most other jurisdictions follow its rules), but satirists still must be careful of the extent to which, and the reasons why, they use source materials. The law protects copyright holders from unauthorized commercial duplication of their work, but parody is treated differently if it reproduces parts of a work for the purpose of making a commentary on it, whether artistic, political, or social. Under U.S. law, a parody is not protected if its primary aim is pornographic. One of the main considerations when courts of law decide whether to allow protection for a parody under dispute is whether the publication of the parody will have an adverse effect on the commercial value of the original. Courts are not inclined to provide protection for parodies used in advertising; in such cases, the person or corporation that wishes to make the parody must obtain a licence from the copyright holder. Although Weird Al Yankovic’s parodies, for example, are distinctively different from the originals, and could hardly be mistaken for them, just to be on the safe side, he obtains permission from the original creators before making his parody. The release of a Weird Al parody usually increases sales of the original, so that permission is normally given. Slovenian law is similar to American law, providing under Article 53 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act that “Transformation of a disclosed work is permissible… 3. if the work is transformed into a parody or caricature, provided this does not, or is not likely to, create confusion as to the source of the work....” “Zakon o avtorski in sorodnih pravicah” (Uradni list RS, št. 16/07–uradno preþišþeno besedilo, 68/08, 110/13, 56/15 in 63/16–ZKUASP), official translation: Copyright and Related Rights Act. Other relevant provisions state the following:

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SAZAS, the Slovenian counterpart of ASCAP and BMI, has been accused of taking in money for licensing fees and failing to pay out to artists, of failure to pay its employees, money laundering, drug trafficking, and avoiding prosecution (Predaniþ 2015, Felc 2015).



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Article 7: Transformations of copyright works (1) Translations, adaptations, arrangements, changes and other transformations of a pre-existing work or of other material, which are individual intellectual creations, shall be deemed independent works. (2) Rights of authors of pre-existing works must not be infringed by transformations mentioned in the foregoing paragraph. Article 19: Right to integrity of the work The author shall have the exclusive right to prohibit any distortion or any other tampering with his work, as well as any use of his work, if such tampering or use could be prejudicial to his person. These provisions of the copyright law comprise exceptions to the general criminal law provisions regarding theft of intellectual property: Violation of Moral Copyright Article 147 (1) Whoever publishes, presents, performs or transmits the work of another author under his own name or the name of a third person, or whoever gives permission for this to be done shall be punished by a fine or sentenced to imprisonment for not more than one year. (2) Whoever deforms, truncates or otherwise interferes with the content of the work of another person without his authorization shall be punished by a fine or sentenced to imprisonment for not more than six months. (3) The prosecution shall be initiated upon a complaint. However, until now, there have been no cases in the Slovenian courts involving parody; the court has ruled in one copyright case that the work was unlawfully deformed in some cases (a part of a photo was used for a Christmas card and the author objected–the written judgment doesn’t say how exactly it was used). None of these cases, however, had anything to do with parodies, so that until the subject is addressed by a court, for a parody, Article 53 applies, and it is allowed. However, there could be a case where the question were raised whether something can be considered a parody (which is allowed) or if it represents an unlawful tampering with the work. So far, there is no such case in the Slovenian case law database.35

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Thanks to Katja Drnovšek for this summary of Slovenian statute and case law.



CHAPTER TWELVE IDEOLOGICAL INFLUENCES ON THE RECEPTION OF ELVIS PRESLEY AND THE BEATLES IN SLOVENIA JANKO TRUPEJ

Censorship of rock music has a long history in the Western world (see Rutledge-Borger 2012) and even more so in the countries behind the Iron Curtain, where governments tried to suppress Western rock music, but were largely unsuccessful: rock music nevertheless gained a large following in the states of the Eastern Bloc (see Dobson 1994, 235; Cushman 1995, xi; Taylor 2006, 125-126; Zhuk 2013, 78).1 Matt Kibbe claims that socialist governments invariably try to ban rock and roll because in socialism one needs to conform, whereas this kind of music is

 1

For instance, in a 1959 article published in the Chicago Tribune, Elvis Presley was described as a symbol of resistance for youth behind the Iron Curtain; therefore, governments were reportedly trying to suppress his music (N.N. 1959a, 21). The Beatles’ records were forbidden to be sold officially in the Soviet Union but fetched high prices on the black market (Splichal 1974, 27; cf. Zhuk 2014, 119). In this context, Peter Barbariþ (1980, 59) declared that disco music was sufficiently conformist to be acceptable in the countries of the Eastern Bloc, whereas The Beatles were seen as subversive. Mitja ýretnik (1995, 9) later asserted that people actually laughed at the communist leaders who claimed that The Beatles were a deliberate provocation by the West and meant to undermine socialist values. After Gorbachev’s Glasnost reforms brought about a change in the acceptability of Western music in the Soviet Union, rock music reportedly began to play an important role in subverting the system: “Western music encouraged and nurtured the new sense of freedom and individuality that was growing at the time. It also served as a means of protest against the failed Soviet regime […] The sudden change in policy in regards to western music foreshadowed further reforms and the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union” (Lengyel 2014). Thomas Cushman went as far as stating that The Beatles were “arguably the most important foreign popular cultural influence in the history of Russia” (1995, 122).

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about being different—about individual expression (2016). Socialist sympathizers in the West also criticized rock music, although for different reasons; for instance, in the Socialist Standard (the newspaper of the Socialist Party of Great Britain), Stuart Harrad declared that [r]ock music is an extremely attractive means of social control for the ruling class. For besides being hugely profitable […] it serves as an effective mechanism whereby youth rebellion may be channelled away from establishment targets and in on itself. [...] [T]he rivalry in youth subculture between Punks and Teds and Mods and Rockers, is merely a smoke-screen obscuring the one real issue that faces young people—the choice between capitalism and socialism. (1985)

The situation with regard to the acceptance of rock music was somewhat different in socialist Yugoslavia; after the Tito-Stalin split in 1948, this federation remained outside the Eastern Bloc, and became less hostile to the West and its influences (see Pirjevec 2011, 299-308; Vuletic 2014b, 25-27); unlike in other socialist countries in Europe, rock music was tolerated and enjoyed substantial freedom of expression (Liotta 2001, 73), although Yugoslav musicians were expected to refrain from criticizing the regime (Vuletic 2014a, 579-580). Thus, by the late 1970s the local rock scene was booming: while some bands—for instance the most successful Yugoslav band of all time, Bijelo Dugme 2 —tried to present a pan-Yugoslav image, others identified as part of the punk movement and took a critical stance in their lyrics (Deviü 2016, 29-30). The regime began to be criticized even more openly after president Josip Broz Tito died in 1980, and Yugoslav society gradually became more liberalized (Vuletic 2014a, 580). This chapter will address the reception of Elvis Presley and The Beatles (the former being the best-selling solo artist and the latter the bestselling band of all time) in Slovenia, which formed part of Yugoslavia until declaring independence in 1991. When the “King” first appeared on the music scene in the mid-1950s, Yugoslavia was closer to the West than was the case when the “Fab Four” shook up the world in the mid-1960s; I will therefore focus on investigating the extent to which the socio-political situation influenced the reception of these artists in Slovenian state-

 2

Iva Pauker (2006, 75) said of Bijelo Dugme: “They were the first band to blend Western and local musical forms in Yugoslavia, and became arguably the biggest Yugoslav band of all time—it has been suggested more than once that they were the Yugoslav equivalent of the Beatles.”



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controlled journalism. 3 The initial reception of Elvis Presley and The Beatles in the socialist press will be compared to writing about them in newspapers published by Slovenians living beyond state borders, as well as to the reception in later decades, when these artists were already considered legends. Furthermore, their status during the socialist era will be contrasted with their reception after Slovenia declared independence and began to move closer to the West.4

The Slovenian Reception of Elvis Presley: Socialist Era In the decade after Elvis first appeared on the international music scene, the Slovenian response to his music was rather negative. Although articles sometimes mentioned that he was considered the “king of rock and roll” (e.g., N.N. 1956, 1106; N.N. 1957c, 8; N.N. 1958, 133; Ku. 1959, 10; N.N. 1959c, 16; N.N. 1963, 7), on other occasions he was described in pejorative terms, for instance as a majalec bokov [hip-shaker] 5 (N.N. 1957a, 651), a performer whose star was already fading (N.N. 1957b, 1011); kriþaþ6 [screamer] (N.N. 1959b, 6; N.N. 1960b, 27; N.N. 1961a, 10); tuleþa reva številka ena [roaring sissy number one] (N.N. 1960a, 2); and ameriška tuleþa škatla [American roaring box] (N.N. 1961b, 23). Writer Vitomil Zupan declared that popular music (Elvis’s, for instance) and serious music should be allowed to co-exist, since the former offered amusement while the latter was an artistic experience for the listeners (1962, 624). In a 1966 essay by Marijan Kozina (originally published in Naši razgledi and later re-published in the music magazine Glasbena mladina), both Elvis Presley and The Beatles were branded as “eczema” (1975, 6). P. Baloh stated that Elvis changed after his return from the army, which was evidenced by the fact that, instead of rock and roll songs,

 3

Although after Stalin’s death Yugoslavia’s relations with the Eastern Bloc began to improve, Yugoslavia remained a strategic partner of the Western Bloc (Schindler 1998, 92). However, the country soon began to move somewhat away from the West again and co-founded the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961 (see Pirjevec 2011, 308-320). 4 Altogether, the analysis encompassed nearly 3,000 individual issues of Slovenian serial publications (available in the Digital Library of Slovenia: www.dlib.si) in which either Elvis Presley or The Beatles was mentioned. 5 All quotations originally in Slovenian were translated into English by the author. 6 Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika [Dictionary of Standard Slovenian Language] defines the term kriþaþ as “kdor vsebinsko prazno govori, navadno z moþnim, rezkim glasom” [someone who talks with no substance, usually with a strong, shrill voice].



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he recorded an English version of the popular Italian song “Torna a Surriento,” which—at least according to Baloh—was more to the liking of “smart” Slovenians (1967, 2). However, the “King’s” post-1968 comeback was well received (see N.N. 1969c, 11-12; N.N. 1969d, 74-75; N.N. 1969e, 72; N.N. 1970a, 18). A 1972 article in Tednik claimed that Elvis had dominated the music scene in America and Europe for the previous 15 years and listed many of his achievements—some of them exaggerated: he had supposedly made around 200 music movies, recorded as many as 7,350 songs and sold 830,000,000 records (the article even went as far as claiming that in their heyday, The Beatles sold only a third of the records Elvis did); 7 furthermore, the anonymous author of this article claimed that Elvis gave much of his earnings away to charity and supported 40 orphanages across the United States (N.N. 1972a, 14). In a 1973 article announcing his upcoming European tour (which never materialized), Elvis was described as the most popular American singer and a role model for other extravagant singers (N.N. 1973, 19), while the following was written in an anonymous article published in Dolenjski list: .

Even before the youth of the world was wilding out to the sound of The Beatles and before popular music became a widespread mania, young people’s blood all across the world got hot to the rhythm of rock and roll. It almost completely died down after The Beatles arrived on the scene and has only been coming back to life in recent years. The most famous rock and roll star was definitely Elvis Presley, who was also extremely popular here in Slovenia. The fast rhythm of his songs could be heard every day on the radio, from record players and at every dance. The name Elvis Presley is so closely associated with rock and roll music that many people not only consider him the most successful and most popular rock and roll singer but even the very creator of this genre of popular music. (N.N. 1974, 32)

During the last years of his life, the discourse about Elvis again took a negative turn. A 1975 article in Dolenjski list claimed that Elvis was becoming more popular again but added that older people had heard his songs often enough (N.N. 1975, 35). After Elvis reportedly gifted six Cadillacs to complete strangers for Christmas, an anonymous author in Novi tednik declared that this singer was too rich and “well-fed,” and that he would have done better, if, for instance, he had spent all that money on food and sent it to Biafra (N.N. 1976, 20).8 A 1977 article entitled Kralj

 7

In 1972, two Elvis albums were listed among the most sought after records in Slovenia (N.N. 1972b, 13). 8 A reference to the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970.



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brez krone (“A King Without a Crown”) claimed that Elvis was undoubtedly a living rock and roll legend, but also that he was recording less than he used to, not performing as frequently as in the past, that his performances lacked the freshness they used to have, and that the “king of rock and roll” was consequently losing his crown (N.N. 1977, 20). Diverse opinions about Elvis and his legacy were expressed after his death. Ciril Klanjšþek mentioned him as one of those artists around whom a celebrity cult developed, who were still ever-present in the media and who were almost as popular in death as they had been in life (1978, 226). Peter Barbariþ declared that, when rock and roll arrived on the scene and went against traditional musical norms, artists like Elvis were perceived as perverse “wild men” (1981, 10), while Tibor Kneif stated that it had been amusing to look at a forty-year old Elvis shaking his hips in Las Vegas and reminding “older ladies” of their younger days (1987, 184). In an article about the history of rock and roll, an author under the pseudonym Podgana Džo claimed that rock and roll broke into the mainstream with “Rock around the Clock” by Bill Haley, who, however, had lacked the right look to become a rock and roll idol; Elvis did have the right look and thus became a sex symbol and the most successful rock and roll artist (1987a, 13).9 An article published in Dolenjski list claimed that Elvis still represented a goldmine; it further referred to a book written about sightings of the “King” after his supposed death (N.N. 1988, 9). When discussing Nick Cave’s music, Jure Potokar stated that he would like to see Cave become as big a star as his idol10 was, but was concerned that Cave would be inspired by what Elvis was doing towards the end of his career, which—according to the author of the article—was not worth imitating (1990, 27).

The Slovenian Reception of Elvis Presley: Post-socialist Era The opinions expressed about Elvis in the years after Slovenia declared independence were almost exclusively positive. Peter Barbariþ declared that Elvis was in a league of his own among the many white rock and roll performers and that his singing resembled that of black singers (1991b, 20), while Nina M. Sedlar went even further and claimed that Elvis had

 9

In the following issue of Glasbena mladina, the same writer referred to Elvis as the most important representative of the rockabilly genre (Džo 1987b, 12). 10 Nick Cave (1985) stated: “Elvis is my favourite singer. Well, he’s actually not my favourite singer. He’s my favourite performer….”



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created a new style of music which had its roots in black music (1992b, 20). Similarly, Matej Kranjc stated that the “King” left a huge mark on rock music: he credited Elvis with merging the country & western and rhythm & blues genres into rockabilly, which was soon to be renamed rock and roll. He further claimed that Elvis was the founder of this new genre and that without him many present-day bands would not have existed (1992, 22; cf. Barbariþ 1992, 14; Jemec 2015, 12). Furthermore, an author under the pseudonym Simona H2O lauded Elvis as one of the greatest popular music artists of all time (1995, 23); Roman Gustinþiþ stated that he greatly influenced music (1995, 8), while Branko Kostelnik claimed that the rock era actually started with Elvis (1997, 79). Matej Kranjc concluded an article marking the 20th anniversary of Elvis’s death by claiming that Elvis would almost certainly remain the “King” because nowadays there were only a few quality performers (1997, 38). Another article went even further, and referred to Elvis as the “most important and most influential individual of the rock and roll era, who decisively influenced the development of rock and roll, pop culture and, last but not least, the whole of modern society” (MIý 1997, 8). Similarly positive views of Elvis are being expressed in the new millennium. Gašper Kralj stated that, although Bill Haley and Little Richard appeared on the scene before Elvis, the latter was the one responsible for popularizing the rock and roll genre in Europe (2000, 434). Andrej ýernic claimed that the 1950s pop music scene was monopolized by Elvis Presley, while the 1960s belonged to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones (2003, 15). In another article, ýernic described the huge influence that Elvis had on American culture in the late 1950s and the early 1960s, and claimed that he became an icon not only because of his music but also because of his public image (2006, 16).11 Aleksander Cepuš declared that he almost never used the term “legend” to describe someone but made an exception when it came to Elvis and The Beatles (2014, 39). The “King’s” influence on Slovenian culture is quite visible. Mojca Kapus lamented the fact that nobody as influential as Elvis, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones had ever been born in Slovenia, and claimed that these artists changed the world and influenced the music to which Slovenians listened, their fashion sense, etc. (1992, 20). Many prominent Slovenian singers and songwriters cite Elvis as an influence. For instance, Aleksander Mežek, one of the most respected Slovenian folk singers,

 11

In an article published in the Slovenian Romani magazine entitled Romano Lil, Maja Jelenc (2011, 19) stated that Elvis had Romani ancestors—a claim which originally appeared in the Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month Magazine (Clark 2008).



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named him (along with The Shadows and The Beatles) as a major influence during his youth (Brglez 1997, 35); New Swing Quartet covered some Elvis songs in concert (Koršiþ 1999, 7; Dornik 2000, 11), while ethnologist and art historian Damjan Ovsec claimed that in primary school he knew how to play almost all of Elvis’s songs by heart, while in secondary school he had been most impressed by The Beatles (2001, 50). In 2002, Oto Pestner recorded an Elvis tribute album, which consisted of a CD with 15 cover songs and another CD with Slovenian adaptations of those songs, for which singer-songwriter Tomaž Domicelj translated/adapted the lyrics (Kranjc 2002, 38; N.N. 2002a, 31).12 Pestner was even designated as the “Slovenian Elvis” by Domicelj (qtd. in N.N. 2002b, 17), who was reportedly himself most influenced by Elvis, along with The Beatles and Bob Dylan (DOTS Records 2002, 24). The Slovenian band Rok’n’band was also very much influenced by Elvis; they even named one of their albums Elvis je živ [Elvis is Alive] (N.N. 2004, 19), performed Elvis tribute concerts honouring what would have been his 70th birthday and then released a live album entitled Tribute to Elvis. The entertainment program accompanying the 2013 Acrobatic Rock'n'Roll World Cup, held in Vrhnika, was Elvis themed (nþ 2013, 49), and in recent decades, several Elvis imitators have been active in Slovenia (S.M. 1999, 11; Špegel 2001, 30; Sem 2011, 17; Golob 2012, 27; N.N. 2014a, 24; N.N. 2014b, 28), which is perhaps the biggest testament to the “King’s” enduring popularity among Slovenians.

The Slovenian Reception of The Beatles: Socialist Era Initial reports about The Beatles in Slovenian serial publications in 1964 were far from flattering. For instance, the mass hysteria for which the British press coined the term Beatlemania was branded as primitivism (Megliþ 1964, 6); a rather patronising report about the band’s first visit to America implied that they needed to get their hair cut (N.N. 1964a, 12), while a news piece about an insurance company insuring the legs of actress Angie Dickinson for £350,000 but declining to insure The Beatles’ heads for £300,000 declared that her legs were probably smarter than their heads (N.N. 1964b, 12). Quotation marks were used when referring to The Beatles’ “singing” (Golþer 1964, 43), and the term kriþaþ [screamer] was used to describe them in an article about George Harrison’s alleged wish



12 An announcement of an Elvis tribute concert by Oto Pestner poses the question whether there is anyone in the world who has not heard of Elvis (N.N. 2003b, 13).



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to become a journalist (N.N. 1964c, 12). 13 However, perhaps the most disparaging opinion about Beatlemania can be found in the Catholic weekly Katoliški glas, published in the border town of Gorizia by Slovenians living in Italy: In the beginning, we were able to laugh at this phenomenon; today, we are not laughing anymore. The “damned quartet”—as it is referred to by some—causes more harm than many a thunderstorm. [...] These four cockroaches—as they have sometimes been branded—have caused a landslide that will not soon come to an end. The only explanation for this alarming phenomenon is the following: The Beatles bring out aspects of the human character that would otherwise remain undetected and would not even be permitted to exist in normal public life. Or would in other circumstances people be allowed to shout, scream at the top of their lungs, fight, trash everything around them, in short, literally go crazy? The Beatles are therefore merely a pretext for unleashing people’s urges, for people to somehow liberate themselves of all that they could not showcase as normal beings. [...] It suffices to listen to a single record of this quartet to discover that people are not going crazy because of the band’s performances but because, under the pretext of enthusiasm, they can let loose while paying no regard to social rules. How long will the thunderstorm of these four young men last? We can calmly answer that until the day when some new singer appears on the scene and is able to awaken in people the same and perhaps even stronger urges than The Beatles. Then these four will fade into the background because people will start to go crazy for their new idols. Normal people will certainly not grieve over them. (Zafred 1964, 3)

Negative comments about the band continued in the following years. For instance, a photograph in which The Beatles are dressed as soldiers was described as grotesque (N.N. 1965a, 12), and quotation marks were used when modern “music” was mentioned with reference to the “Fab Four” (Davidoviþ 1966, 7). Ciril Baškoviþ claimed that young people were not politically active enough and only interested in listening to The Beatles, watching westerns and playing soccer (1966, 6), while Melita Vovk-Štih warned against imitating such primitive role-models as The Beatles (1966, 5). Playwright Ernest Tiran reportedly branded the “Beatles culture” as intrusive (qtd. in Kumer 1966, 2), and their music was referred to as merely entertainment for the young and old, whereas intellectuals supposedly listened to Bob Dylan (Milišiþ 1966, 7). A Beatles-influenced band participating in the Sanremo Music Festival was branded as



13 The same term is later used in an article about the fiasco that ensued when The Beatles performed in the Philippines (N.N. 1966c, 4).



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distasteful and repulsive (N.N. 1966a, 1). Although in 1967 a schoolteacher claimed that Beatle haircuts were already passé (Vidmar 1967, 7), according to a report from that year, a Serbian student with such a haircut was insulted and had his hair forcibly cut in public while returning to his native village (N.N. 1967, 13). Writing from some historical distance, Alenka Barber-Keršovan stated that The Beatles were not an immediate success in Slovenia but entered the consciousness of the younger generation through the back door; the older generation then tried to suppress the band’s influence on youth culture, which led to generational conflict. Barber-Keršovan reported that even in the late 1960s there were still anti-Beatles gangs roaming Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana, looking for long-haired young people to beat up and possibly to cut off their hair. Furthermore, efforts to suppress The Beatles’ music were made by the educational system, and the band was either attacked or ignored by the mass media: until 1968 The Beatles had been seen on TV only twice, and the first licensed Beatles records were released in Yugoslavia only the previous year (1982, 11). It is not surprising that neutral or even positive writing about The Beatles from the mid-1960s was rare. For instance, there were reports of imported Beatles’ records selling out quickly (N.N. 1966b, 6; Vidic 1966, 9), and the following account of an American student growing three plants: one in complete silence, another to the tune of “discreet” music and the last to Beatles music—the article concluded by stating that it was no wonder that the third plant turned out to be the biggest and most beautiful of the three (N.N. 1965b, 11). Positive statements about the band began to appear in print more frequently in the late 1960s: The Beatles were described as “gifted” (N.N. 1968, 58); “special” (Volþiþ 1968, 13); “creative” (N.N. 1969a, 11); “renowned” (N.N. 1969b, 65), etc. Reports about The Beatles took a more positive turn after the band broke up in 1970. For instance, they were described as “immortal” (1970b, 11); Mirko Klarin (1971, 44) wrote that the trend of having long hair started by The Beatles became one of the symbols of a generational clash, while Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was referred to as the band’s most important and complex record (Kralj 1971, 13). J. Splichal claimed that the “Fab Four” set the tone for their generation and that the world revolved around them to some degree (1974, 27), while some nostalgia is evident in a 1975 article asserting that George Harrison’s solo albums could not surpass his achievements with his former band (N.N. 1975, 35). Miloš Bašin claimed that The Beatles still sounded fresh and that they would not soon be passé (1978, 17), while Ciril Klanjšþek deemed them “sacred cows” of a certain era (1978, 223). Great appreciation



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was reportedly shown for The Beatles’ songs performed by the cover band These Four in Ljubljana (Vovk 1979, 9). However, hostility towards The Beatles was still present in the Catholic newspaper Katoliški glas; this was especially evident from what was written after John Lennon was murdered in 1980: the mass hysteria that followed the shooting was severely criticized because it supposedly showed the shallowness of contemporary society, which mourned someone who took drugs, was reportedly influenced by Eastern mysticism and was against the war in Vietnam (N.N. 1980b, 2). An article published the following year in the Trieste-based Catholic newspaper Novi list claimed that the hysteria after Lennon’s death proved that many young and even some older people were trapped in a psychosis, since The Beatles’ music represented to them an escape from real life or even a substitute for real life (N.N. 1981, 3). 14 The following condemnation of The Beatles’ music from the same newspaper is even more severe: The essence of this music was sensual pleasure and nihilism: everything preventing people from fully satisfying their senses’ demand for pleasure must fall away. It was music but also to some extent a philosophy of life. It seemed—and also wanted to be—innocent, but it contributed to a nihilistic impulse getting the upper hand in the younger generation; no moral barriers whatsoever were acknowledged anymore—neither sexual nor in other aspects of life. With their music, The Beatles awakened the desire for drugs in young people, as one of the ways for satisfying their sensuality. The band themselves had multiple dealings with the police and courts because of their use and smuggling of drugs. [...] For them, life was and is: “Indulge in what you can!” and especially “Do not give up any kind of pleasure! This is the meaning of life!” [...] From the illusory world portrayed by The Beatles’ music came the killer, who with three revolver shots forever put an end to John Lennon’s illusions. Nihilism, even if it has a guitar in one hand and a flower in the other, is always a symbol of death. (N.N. 1980a, 1-2)

However, the overall reception of the band in socialist print took a more positive turn in the 1980s. For instance, in a review of two books about The Beatles translated by Tomaž Domicelj, the “Fab Four” were referred to as probably the most important pop group of all time (Bašin 1980, 18); Kaja Šivic reported that, although primary school students were primarily interested in punk music, they also listened to The Beatles

 14

Writer Mate Dolenc described his reaction to Lennon’s death: “I was shocked and stricken because of his death. [...] It was as if my twin brother had died. When John died, I began to grow old” (1984, 70).



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(1981, 3; cf. Kovaþ 1981, 23), while shortly after John Lennon’s death, Damjan Ovsec wrote: The Beatles captivated us unlike any other pop-art attraction. They were the lyrical accompaniment to the sixties. [...] They became a British national institution, an indicator of their era—everything was measured against them. [...] They were the dream-weavers of their generation. They introduced new aesthetics and surrealism in a culture that was previously saturated with kitsch, and thus unmasked it. (1981, 17)

The era in which The Beatles were active was referred to as the supreme era in rock music (N.N. 1987, 10); Podgana Džo credited them with being the first British group to become successful by writing their own songs (1987c, 17), and in a review of the Past Masters compilations, the claim was made that for most of their career, the band recorded pop songs but became serious artists towards the end of their existence (MaO 1989, 17). In a review of a remake of the album Let It Be by the Slovenian avant-garde band Laibach, Marko Crnkoviþ claimed that The Beatles were going through a revival, were being played everywhere and that those who did not know about them before were now listening to them, while previously dedicated listeners were now thinking about them (1989, 6). Furthermore, Miha Zadnikar claimed that the film Imagine: John Lennon moved audiences to tears (1989, 14) and in a different article that, after a particular screening of this film, the audience felt as if it had attended a friend’s funeral (Zadnikar 1990, 8). In December 1990, a series of nine articles by Lojze Javornik commemorating the 10th anniversary of John Lennon’s death appeared in the Delo newspaper; these addressed Lennon’s political activism and all the problems he encountered because of it,15 while in a lengthy article in Novi tednik, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles were compared, with the latter being described more favourably (N.N. 1991a, 7).

The Slovenian Reception of The Beatles: Post-socialist Era The analysis of reception after Slovenia declared independence in 1991 showed that critical opinions about The Beatles were expressed only occasionally. For instance, in a lengthy career retrospective published in Glasbena mladina, the author praised the band but also stated that they were not in a league of their own, despite the many opinions to this effect



15 Furthermore, a John Lennon tribute concert was held in the Slovenian cultural centre in Gorizia (N.N. 1991b, 4).



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(Barbariþ 1991a, 12). In the Catholic newspaper Katoliški glas, an announcement of the forthcoming Anthology compilation album claimed that it was merely a moneymaking scheme and that there was no morality behind it (jp 1995, 5). 16 Furthermore, in another Catholic publication entitled Bodi þlovek, Jure Vonþina claimed that The Beatles were one of the bands which put dark, morbid subliminal messages into their music and that they promoted drug use in some of their songs (2011, 3). However, from most articles a canonization of the band is evident. In 1992, an anonymous author in Novi tednik declared that The Beatles were a phenomenon both in the 1960s and presently (N.N. 1992, 20); in an article marking Paul McCartney’s 50th birthday, Nina M. Sedlar claimed that Beatlemania had lasted for decades (1992a, 20), while an article marking the 30th anniversary of The Beatles’ breakthrough single “Please Please Me” was entitled Veþni Beatlesi [Timeless Beatles] (Urbanija 1993, 8). Jure Potokar credited the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with ushering in the album format era in rock music and starting the psychedelic movement (1993, 174), while Andrej Ilc claimed that this album set new standards in studio recording and ushered in the 1970s along with the debut albums of The Doors and The Velvet Underground (1993, 181). It was reported that even Slovenian primary school students listened to The Beatles (Žagar 1994, 9), while a 1995 article in Naš glas claimed that The Beatles had been somewhat forgotten for a while but were in style again (Ika 1995, 12). A news piece about the release of Anthology addressed a supposed new Beatlemania across Europe (N.N. 1995, 19); Stane Špegel also spoke of Beatlemania after the release of The Beatles’ back catalogue on compact disc and of the first two volumes of Anthology (1996, 30), and again the following year after The Beatles were named the fifth most profitable music artists by Forbes magazine (Špegel 1997, 37). In an interview, writer Jani Virk stated that The Beatles had recorded some great songs that touched millions of people and were culturally significant (1999, 364). Similarly positive opinions about The Beatles are being expressed in the new millennium. Singer Alenka Pinteriþ, who titled her autobiography The Beatles, Tito in jaz [The Beatles, Tito and I], asserted that the band were revolutionaries—that they changed both her life and the world (MG 2006, 16); Andrej ýernic stated that from a contemporary perspective, Sgt. Pepper represented a musical revolution (2007, 15), while Maja Gutman credited The Beatles with being pioneers of the music video era (2008,

 16

Aleš Crniþ claimed that modern youth could hardly believe that the Catholic Church found fault with The Beatles (1998, 337).



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172). Furthermore, Peter Rustja claimed that the “Fab Four” forever changed the way music was perceived and experienced (2008, 10); Janko Bezjak even went so far as to declare that they had actually changed the world (2010, 19), while an anonymous 2012 article in Novi matajur stated that The Beatles’ music was linked to the Prague Spring (N.N. 2012b, 5). Articles sometimes also referred to Lennon’s social activism (N.N. 2003a, 18; Breznik 2007a, 24; Smrekar 2011, 18; Devetak 2012, 9) and McCartney’s animal rights activism (Breznik 2005, 18; STA 2008, 25).17 The Beatles’ influence can also be felt on the Slovenian concert scene. For, instance, the popular Slovenian rock band ýudežna polja toured with “The Beatles Show,” which was reportedly well-received (Papler 1991, 7), while a review of a concert marking the 40th anniversary of the formation of the band (attended by young and old alike) claimed that The Beatles remained unique because they had never tried to imitate anybody but were always seeking an original sound (VIP 2002, 19). In addition to extensively covering Elvis, Oto Pestner sang Beatles songs in concert (bš 2010, 10), while the 50th anniversary of the formation of The Beatles was celebrated with a performance of new arrangements of their songs by composer Gregor Strniša, which were performed by the theatre collective Paramundus (Beüiroviü 2010, 28). Furthermore, a concert of the tribute band The Beatles Revival was reportedly well-attended (Skok 2010, 21), and a review of this band’s concert claimed that The Beatles had made a lasting impact on music, youth culture and fashion (IK 2010, 15). Initially, the Slovenian reception of Elvis was rather negative, but took a more positive turn in the years after his 1968 comeback. However, during the last years of his life, both his music and public image were again criticized quite frequently, and diverse views about the quality of his body of work can also be found in Slovenian socialist print after he died. The “King’s” reception during recent decades is again quite different: opinions expressed about him and his music are almost uniformly positive. The initial response to The Beatles in socialist Slovenia was more negative than that of Elvis, and differed from the reception of the band in the countries of the Eastern Bloc. Although The Beatles were first seen as a symbol of generational clash and the authorities therefore tried to diminish their influence on Slovenian youth, the band was later embraced by the state-influenced socialist press and began to be canonized in the late 1960s and 1970s—long before it was even officially permitted to play Beatles

 17

From several articles published in the last decade, it is evident that Paul McCartney—unlike many of his peers from the 1960s—is still considered a relevant artist and not merely a nostalgia act (Breznik 2007b, 24; Bezjak 2009, 19; Bezjak 2011, 19; N.N. 2012a, 11; N.N. 2013, 11).



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records in the countries of the Eastern Bloc. Condemnations of The Beatles and their influence on culture were more severe in Slovenian Catholic newspapers published outside of Yugoslavia; this is true both for articles written in the 1960s and for later writing, for instance the reports on John Lennon’s death. Even in recent decades, the Slovenian Catholic press has sometimes been highly critical of The Beatles, whereas, in general, contemporary journalism suggests that the band enjoys great popularity across several generations of Slovenians. A comparison of the reception of the two music giants in Slovenian serial publications thus shows that, while both are held in the highest regard in present-day Slovenia, opinions expressed during the socialist era were somewhat different. The Beatles were perceived as a negative influence in the years after they first appeared and began to be canonized soon afterwards (except in select writings in the Slovenian Catholic press). In contrast, condemnations of Elvis were initially less frequent and severe than those of The Beatles, but he was more frequently criticized in the last two decades of the socialist era. The difference in these artists’ reception was probably influenced by several factors. When Elvis made his breakthrough, Yugoslavia was closer to the West than when Beatlemania started; furthermore, Elvis was less popular in Slovenia than The Beatles. He was thus seen as less of a negative influence on Slovenian youth. Moreover, towards the end of the 1960s, The Beatles (especially John Lennon) became increasingly socially conscious and critical of Western politics, while Elvis was perceived more as part of the establishment and less to the liking of the Slovenian socialist press. Perhaps this case study can serve as an impetus for further research on the reception and influence of Western music in Slovenia during the socialist period.

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Taylor, Karin. 2006. Let's Twist Again: Youth and Leisure in Socialist Bulgaria. Vienna/Berlin: Lit Verlag. Urbanija, Anamarija. 1993. “Veþni Beatlesi.” Delo, February 22, 1993, 8. Vidic, J. 1966. “Niso vsi le za twist in madison.” Delo, September 10, 1966, 9. Vidmar, Vladimir. 1967. “Zlatko Homoki.” Celjski tednik: glasilo Socialistiþne zveze delovnega ljudstva, September 7, 1967, 7. VIP. 2002. “Beatlesi zo zapustili zelo vidno sled.” Novi glas, March 28, 2002, 19. Virk, Jani. 1999. “Popoldne z Janijem Virkom.” Sodobnost 47, no. 5/6, 359-377. Volþiþ, Mitja. 1968. “Vodilno ime–Beatli.” Tedenska tribuna, February 21, 1968, 13. Vonþina, Jure. 2011. “Sporoþilnost glasbe.” Bodi þlovek, June 30, 2011, 3. Vovk, Drago. 1979. “‘Beatli’ so navdušili.” Dolenjski list, October 4, 1979, 9. Vovk-Štih, Melita. 1966. “Turizem in kultura.” Delo, August 5, 1966, 5. Vuletic, Dean. 2014a. “Popular Culture.” In The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism, edited by S.A. Smith, 571-584. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —. 2014b. “Swinging between East and West: Yugoslav Communism and the Dilemmas of Popular Music.” In Youth and Rock in the Soviet Bloc: Youth Cultures, Music, and the State in Russia and Eastern Europe, edited by William Jay Risch, 25-42. Lanham: Lexington Books. Zadnikar, Miha. 1989. “Glasba s funkcijo.” Glasbena mladina 19, no. 5, 14. —. 1990. “Solze za ustreljenega Lennona.” Delo, December 11, 1990, 8. Zafred, Miranda. 1964. “BEATLES—zadnji nesmisel našega þasa.” Katoliški glas, August 27, 1964, 3. Zupan, Vitomil. 1962. “O problematiki Slovenskega filma.” Naša sodobnost 10, no. 7, 624-631, 828-835. Zhuk, Sergei I. 2013. “’Cultural Wars’ in the Closed City of Soviet Ukraine, 1959-1982.” In Soviet Society in the Era of Late Socialism, 1964–1985, edited by Neringa Klumbyte and Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, 67-90. Lanham: Lexington Books. —. 2014. “Détente and Western Cultural Products in Soviet Ukraine during the 1970s.” In Youth and Rock in the Soviet Bloc: Youth Cultures, Music, and the State in Russia and Eastern Europe, edited by William Jay Risch, 117-152. Lanham: Lexington Books. Žagar, Mojca. 1994. “Via Italia.” Tednik, May 26, 1994, 9.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN DAVIES’ “ORCHESTRA” IN THE CELESTIAL DANCE WITH SLOVENE CULTURE URŠA MARINŠEK AND TOMAŽ ONIý

In the title of his canonical and popular Renaissance text “Orchestra or a Poeme of Dauncing,” Sir John Davies reveals one of the prevailing and recurring motifs of the poem, dancing and everything connected to this dynamic activity. Unsurprisingly, dance is a salient theme in this poem, since it had a visible social role in the society of the time. Moreover, dancing and the social events that included it represent an important aspect of aristocratic community life and a frequent pastime. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, dance was “a typical Elizabethan pleasure in the contemplation of the correspondence between the natural order and human activity” (1998). Davies cleverly introduces dancing through what could be interpreted as a frame story for his philosophical meditation on the orderly Renaissance universe, governed by dancing and powered by love. He reimagines the closure of the great classical epic of Ulysses, the king of Ithaca, by extending or adding a chapter, which he proclaims as “forgotten” or “missed” by its author, his great literary predecessor. Homer elaborates on the long travels and even presumed death of Ulysses, but he never mentions the events that Davies “discloses” in the frame story of “Orchestra”: All this he tells, but one thing he forgot, One thing most worthy his eternall song, But he was old, and blind, and saw it not /…/

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Chapter Thirteen The Courtly love he [Antinous, Penelope’s suitor] made unto the Queene, Homer forgot, as if it had not beene.1

Davies continues to establish that he happens to be familiar with a tiny incident at Ulysses’ court before the latter returns home: “One onely night’s discourse I can report.” Apart from acknowledging Homer and his work (“/…/ his braine /…/ Became the wellspring of all Poetry”), he carefully chooses his classical allusions to mythological figures, particularly gods. He introduces Jove (For Jove himselfe had so expresly willd), the highest ranking Roman god of Heaven and Earth, who later in the poem emerges as a salient link between the Universe and the Earth.2 Within this framework, which opens with a rhetorical question: “Where lives the man that never yet did heare/Of chast Penelope, Ulisses Queene?”, Davies introduces Antinous, one of Penelope’s suitors, who decides to persuade the relentless queen to dance with him: “And with faire maners wooed the Queene to dance.” He sees dancing as a prime movement, as well as the most natural one, created by love: “Love made them meete in a well-ordered daunce.” In this context, it is clear that dancing is a particular kind of courtship ritual. Sarah Thesiger points out that “[i]n the 16th century, dancing, as seen in literature, came to be connected with the idea of marriage, both as a symbol and as a social force” (1973, 280).3

The Poem of Dancing Even though dancing is directly announced and openly discussed in the poem, the first part of its title succeeds, at least to a certain extent, in hiding a variety of possible connotations of orchestra. Despite its obvious reference to music, orchestra in this poem is not merely an assemblage of musicians with musical instruments per se, even though this connotative meaning is closely related to the poem’s musical theme. It becomes apparent later in the text that the connotations of orchestra go beyond the

 1

In this excerpt as well as in all that follow, bold print has been added for emphasis. 2 Jove was originally considered a deity of time, lightning, thunder and light (Schmidt 1995, 179) and later promoted to Optimus Maximus, a deity responsible for the highest supreme power in the Roman state (Schmidt 1995, 118). 3 A glance into the animal kingdom, where such mating rituals are not infrequent, suggests that this notion is again close to the concept of nature being an instructor to man in terms of providing an example of a dancing ritual for a specific situation and purpose.



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instrumental ensemble, but they start to imply measure, organization, harmony and order, a perfectly orchestrated, systematic and all-encompassing structure. Another possible connotation reaches back to ancient Greek theatre, where orchestra meant a circular space intended for the chorus to perform (Pavis 1997, 510). This reading of the word and understanding of the concept is also applicable to Davies’ poem, since the concept and structure of most dances is cyclical, particularly that of the Galliard (Encyclopaedia Britannica), which is referred to in the poem; moreover, the poem itself implies a cyclical or circular structure. In addition to its other benefits and abilities, to dancing has been attributed the power of placing humanity in order, because humans are naturally disorderly and disoriented, which, according to Davies, is apparent in their not knowing the dancing form. While the universe, the five elements, flora and fauna—everything seems to be involved in this ceaseless flow of coordinated movement by their own accord, man is the only one who needs to be taught how to dance. Humanity is by its nature inclined to chaos, but it needs rules, and dancing provides these: If sence hath not yet taught you, learne of me A comely moderation and discreet, That your assemblies may well ordered be When my uniting power shall make you meet, With heav’nly tunes it shall be tempered sweet: And be the modell of the World’s great frame, And you Earth’s children, Dauncing shall it name. Dauncing (bright Lady) then began to be, When the first seeds whereof the world did spring The Fire, Ayre, Earth, and water did agree, By Love's perswasion, Nature's mighty King, To leave their first disordred combating; And in a daunce such measure to observe, As all the world their motion should preserve.

Fortunately, man aspires to be a dancer, looking into the orderly things in nature, so nature provides the inspiration and assumes the role of a teacher: What eye doth see the heav’n but doth admire When it the movings of the heav’ns doth see? My selfe, if I to heav’n may once aspire, If that be dauncing, will a Dauncer be: But as for this your frantick jollitie



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How it began, or whence you did it learne, I never could with reasons eye discerne.

Since Penelope remains steadfast and does not give in to Antinous’ invitation to dance, he tries to persuade her with the assertion that everything around her dances. His main argument is divided into three points and skilfully developed as the poem unfolds. First of all, dancing is present in the universe, where all celestial bodies dance. Secondly, society is prone to dancing in all its areas (particularly, since dancing organizes human society as a whole), and thirdly, dancing is present in an individual’s life. With these three interwoven layers, joined into a firm union of constantly moving elements, Davies depicts a metaphorical image of Elizabethan society, following the idea of Renaissance philosophy and order. The first of the three motifs is the dancing of the Universe. It emerges through a depiction of the planets and satellites, for example Mars and Venus, “entangled” in a dance, the Moon, which “daunceth” around the Earth “thirteene times /…/ every yeare,” and, in the following stanza, a traditional metaphorical image of the stars: First you see fixt in this huge mirrour blew Of trembling lights a number numberlesse, Fixt they are nam’d, but with a name untrue, For they are moved, and in a Daunce expresse That great long yeare, that doth containe no lesse Then threescore hundreds of those yeares in all Which the Sunne makes with his course naturall.

These images, particularly those referring to the planets, are strongly reminiscent of a scene from the 2011 Globe production of Doctor Faustus (2013, min 50:30–52:45) by Davies’ contemporary, Christopher Marlowe. Faustus, having just signed the contract with Mephistopheles, questions him about “divine astrology”: Mephistopheles



As are the elements, such are the spheres, Mutually folded in each other’s orb, And, Faustus, All jointly move upon one axletree, Whose terminine is term’d the world’s wide pole; Nor are the names of Saturn, Mars, or Jupiter Feign’d, but are erring stars. (Marlowe, Scene VI)

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While this conversation takes place, eight actors enter the stage, each holding in his/her hands a spherical model of one of the planets. They move around in a circle and simultaneously turn the spheres to represent the celestial planetary motion. As one may conclude from other aspects of the production, the director strives to recreate the overall Renaissance spirit as closely as possible; in this view such a mise-en-scène is more than appropriate considering the Renaissance fascination with astronomical issues. The second motif is the functioning of society on the cyclical principle; at first the unpredictable wheel of fortune, another typical Renaissance concept, sifts people: But why relate I every singular? Since all the world’s great fortunes and affaires Forward and backward rapt and whirled are, According to the musick of the spheares: And Chaunce her selfe, her nimble feete upbeares On a round slippery wheele that rowleth ay, And turnes all states with her impetuous sway.

Later in the poem, society members are ranked into classes, which is not atypical of the English identity, but who nonetheless form one society: Concords true picture shineth in this Art, Where divers men and women ranked be, And every one doth daunce a severall part, Yet all as one, in measure doe agree, Observing perfect uniformitie: All turne together, all together trace, And all together honor and embrace.

Additionally, society and all its dimensions, such as religion and politics, are ordered by and in dance: “all the rituals of society–war, military triumphs, parliaments” (Thesiger 1973, 293), join society through dance. Introducing order into society is closely linked to ordering individuals, which is the third of the motifs introduced. It is addressed in the following stanza, not without a measure of humour and irony. A man and a woman have their own ranks and places within society that should be obeyed, and if these positions happen to become unbalanced, it is the natural aspiration of the all-encompassing dance to re-introduce balance, i.e., the man should regain the upper hand. Natural order translates into social order; they are parallel:



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The excerpts from the poem referring to the universe, society and individuals attempt to illustrate Antinous’ previous point that everything is dancing. Stars and constellations in the universe move as if in a dance, and thus are similar to the people who dance in their earthly world. The human world on Earth is, therefore, tightly connected to the astral celestial world: as people look up to the sky to admire “precious Jemms in heav’n above,” through this they aspire to dance like them. In the poem, the concept of dancing functions on two levels: the metaphorical and the concrete. As a metaphor, dance stands for cyclical movement, supported by rhythm and accompanied by music, since music and dance require rhythm, and rhythm means order. Therefore, both have the ability to set things in order, possibly in a pleasurable way. Dance metaphors extend to seeing dance as “a frenzie and a rage” or “frantick jollitie” by Penelope, who refuses to be engaged in it. Antinous, on the other hand, disagrees and regards dance as “heav’nly Daunce,” ornamenting it with adjectives like “divine.” Dance is also applauded for having chameleon-like characteristics, being able to “change/Into all formes of excellent devise,” while one of the paramount metaphors of the poem that supports the central motif of merged concepts of dance and order is dance being named “the World’s great frame.” When, however, dance unfolds as a set of orderly motions, it becomes a concrete materialization of an abstract concept. Davies devotes considerable attention to “forms of dancing,” which he either names or describes. The main dance referred to in “Orchestra” is the Galliard, which is also accurately described. This dance emerged and developed in France and came to England during the Tudor dynasty. It became popular to the extent that many Elizabethan playwrights frequently included it in their plays, particularly Shakespeare and Marlowe. The dance is described as “sprightly” and consisting of five steps (Pulver 1913, 99); it has four energetic kicks, a jump and a cadence (Walls 1974, 164): “Thys is true Love, by that true Cupid got/Which daunceth Galliards in your amorous eyes.” An interesting connection between this dance and the poem’s meter can be observed: “Orchestra” is written in iambic pentameter, which is not primarily associated with dancing rhythms. This is, however, not true of the



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galliard, which in its main part includes five steps. In “Orchestra,” Davies provides a meta-commentary alluding to the five-beat poetic meter as well as to the dance, which can hardly be a coincidence: “Five was the number of the Musicks feete/Which still the daunce did with five paces meete.” Apart from the galliard, which is named a few times and thus highlighted, several other dances are mentioned or alluded to. Davies includes references to a variety of types, all of them existing contemporary dances and rhythms. According to Thesiger, “Love teaches man the actual dances of Davies’s day, the dances described by, say, Thoinot Arbeau, and stanzas 65-70 are taken up with accurate descriptions of the measures, the galliard, the corranto, and the lavolta” (1973, 279). Weaver even observes that Davies personifies the dances and attributes gender to them; the galliard, supposedly, is “a manly ‘she,’ ‘corranto’ is a light-footed ‘he’ and ‘lavolta’ is an ambiguous pair, exemplified on the one hand by the twin brothers Castor and Pollux, on the other by the lovers Mars and Venus” (2012, 160). Davies’ descriptions sometimes focus on considerable detail, such as the following description of a three-measure dancing rhythm using poetic terminology and, most wittily, including a pun on the word feet, which can mean metric feet as well as the actual feet of the dancers, the body part crucial for dancing: And still their feet an Anapest do sound: An Anapest is all theyr musicks song, Whose first two feet are short, and third is long.

These are thoroughly analysed by Thesiger (1973, 297), who refers to Thoinot Arbeau’s Orchésographie, a 1589 monograph with extensive descriptions and visual material regarding dances, dancers and their coordination with music as well as ballroom behaviour. Thesiger concludes that the words used are “technical” and “in some cases movement is originally conceived in more spatial terms, in terms of a floor pattern traced out by the path of the dancer” (1973, 302). Modern directing decisions that build on the tradition of including dancing in the performance can be found in several of the Shakespeare’s Globe Productions of Elizabethan plays produced in the 2010s, which include dance acts either suggested in the plot or, even more frequently, as part of live scene background, as audience entertainment during scene changes, as visualisation of the subject of conversation (as in the previously quoted scene from Doctor Faustus) or for other usages. These also correspond to the previously quoted duality of the metaphorical and concrete levels. By this point, it should be obvious that Davies in “Orchestra” cleverly connects dance and music, since they are inseparable: “And thou sweet



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Musicke, Dauncing's onely life.” He even goes beyond this assumption with his explanation that when air dances, music is born: “That when the Aire doth daunce her finest measure/Then art thou borne, the Gods and mens sweet pleasure.” However, the poet introduces another prominent concept in the poem; it is the joining force, the gravity of all this celestial and earthly movement: it is love. Nature provides love and love is the agent for dancing, which according to the poem means setting the world in order. “Dancing was traditionally connected to love” (Thesiger 1973, 290), and according to Davies, “dauncing is the child of musick and love.” It embodies love and harmony, and, therefore, order. “Kind Nature first doth cause all things to love/Love makes them daunce and in just order move.”

“Orchestra” or Dancing with Style Although “Orchestra” was left unfinished, or a part of it was presumably lost (Manning 1985, 194) explains that “[t]he last verse in 1622 tails off into an incomplete stanza”), the poem consists of a respectable one hundred and thirty-one stanzas.4 Owing to its considerable length, the help of a digital corpus stylistics tool can prove useful for conducting certain aspects of the stylistic analysis. In our case, CATMA (Computer Assisted Textual Markup and Analysis) was used, and the main activities connected with it included building the wordlist, establishing word frequency, basic categorizing and visualising word occurrences and distribution. Working with the originals of older texts using digital analysis software has certain limitations. Transliterations may vary among editions, which may interfere with the numerical results. For example, When may be rendered as VVhen, love as loue, Ulysses as Vlisses, etc. For our digital analysis, the Project Gutenberg edition was used. The wordlist function offers a display of words according to their frequencies. We were particularly interested in the words expressing



4 The number of stanzas in “Orchestra” varies among individual editions. The Project Gutenberg edition honours both versions, the 1596 edition with 131 stanzas (not counting the dedication that comes in the form of a double stanza of twice seven lines), as well as the 1622 edition with 136 stanzas. The Renascence Edition that we originally used for qualitative analysis was transcribed by R. Bear of the University of Oregon in 2001 from the Huntington Library copy (1596 edition); it contains 131 stanzas; however, it explains at the beginning that the Tillyard edition (1947) contains 136 stanza, and that the additional 5 are not shown in their edition. Hair and Smith (2016), for example, which we also consulted, work with the 136stanza version.



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movement (mostly verbs but not exclusively) and words expressing order. These results provide an additional statistically supported argument that movement and particularly dancing holds a salient spot in Davies’ poem. The most frequently used verb in the poem is “dancing” (in its obsolete variant, dauncing) and its derivatives, but then the poet invigorates the poem’s internal motion with other verbs of movement, such as jumping, skipping, wandering, turning, mingling, flying, following, passing, whirling, marshalling, fleeting), as is illustrated with the following excerpts that also support the concept of measure and order: Harke how the birds doe sing, and marke then how Jumpe with the modulation of their layes, They lightly leape, and skip from bow to bow; Yet doe the cranes deserve a greater prayse Which keepe such measure in their ayrie wayes, As when they all in order ranked are, They make a perfect forme triangular.

and Where all the elements themselves impart, And turne, and wind, and mingle with such measure, That th' eye that sees it, surfeits with the pleasure.

Daunce and the other parts of speech with the same root appear in total 291 times, which is more than twice per stanza on average. The list of expressions is led by daunce with 182 occurrences (including nouns and verbs) and followed by dauncing (60), daunceth (21), dauncings (9), daunces (8), daunc'd (8), dauncer (2) and dance (1). Another expression that we looked at is order. Order and its derivatives (not counting those with the prefix dis- that suggest disorder, or even misorder, for that matter, even though order can also be defined as the absence of disorder) appear 20 times: order (15), ordered (3), orders (1). The merging of the two expressions and their derivatives in a single graphic representation yields an interesting result: it shows that their frequencies rise and fall in proportion, possibly suggesting that when there is more dancing there is also more order. It is, of course, also true that the mere mentioning of order does not necessarily reflect an orderly situation, but references to order standing near the references to dance do show an existing relation between the two concepts. The upper line represents the derivatives of daunce and dance, and the lower one those of order.



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Graph 1: Distribution and occurrences of daunc-, danc- and order- with derivatives, using CATMA



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Apart from identifying concepts of movement in general, a frequently occurring sub-category includes words that express cyclical movement, some of which feature in the following excerpts: Imitate heav'n, whose beauties excellent Are in continuall motion day and night, And move thereby more wonder and delight. /…/ With turnings, windings, and imbracements round? /…/ Love makes them daunce and in just order move.

Cyclical movement is, however, not solely expressed through verbs but also through whole phrases that signal the cyclical order (“casts them in a ring,” “whirled round,” “To which first points when all returne againe,” “Carried in a circle”). Another intriguing sub-category of motion, perhaps even of circular motion, are pairs of repetitive movements in opposite directions, which could also be interpreted as a particular or borderline case of cyclical order, for example, in and out, doubling and redoubling, flowing and ebbing, forward and backward, upward and downward, forth and back again, to and fro. It is not only the verbs that indicate cyclical order, nouns can also be found to support this concept: “The dim dark shades, and turn’d the night to day,” and “From ev’n to odd in her proportion’d score.” An insight into the imagery used in the poem shows instances where nature is drawn in parallel with the human world, and on many occasions, the imagery of dancing or moving is depicted. Apart from visual and auditory imagery, the kinetic type is also evident. Visual imagery creates celestial impressions, not only by depicting stars in the night sky, which seem to be a stereotypical image of the universe, but also the sky in the daytime with the sun and consequently clouds and other shapes. Imagery is also strongly combined with metaphors, which are filled with visual imagery (“Those saphire streams which from great hils do spring”). On various occasions, the image of dance is drawn through many forms found in nature. The following examples refer to the stars: First you see fixt in this huge mirrour blew Of trembling lights a number numberlesse, If then fier, ayre, wandring and fixed lights In every province of the imperiall skye, Yeeld perfect formes of dauncing to your sights.



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The second type of imagery is auditory. Music, as a vital part of dance, is created through movements in nature and among the animals/birds: O that I might that singing Swallow heare To whom I owe my service and my love, His sugred tunes would so enchant mine eare, Hence is her pratling daughter Eccho borne, That daunces to all voyces she can heare:

The inspiration comes from nature, but also from creating rhythm and poetry using meters like the anapaest and the dactyl. To a trained ear, imaginary musical instruments will provide a musical accompaniment of lyre and timbrels: “And therefore now the Thracian Orpheus Lire/If dancers with their Timbrels had not been.” Kinetic imagery gives another dimension to the poem, but since the movement remains relatively mild, as in traditional dancing, some of this imagery could also be classified as visual and/or auditory. It might be fitting, however, to the nature of this poem that dancing is sensed as and considered kinetic, since the descriptions of various stages of dancing such as leaping and jumping are included. Apart from dancing, plenty of other movement is perceived, and it is expressed through verbs and nouns of motion: “With turnings, windings, and imbracements round?” Imagery is an appreciated addition in this poem. It supports Antinous’ arguments for the necessity that Penelope rise and dance (giving examples about dance being present in nature), it depicts vivid universal and natural movements, furnishes it with a musical background like an orchestra, and paints the colourful order and harmony behind everything, again drawing parallels between nature and human society.

The Universe and Dance in Slovene Popular Songs A Slovene reader of Davies’ poem should not be surprised by the metaphorical concept of the universe dancing, since this idea can be found in several Slovene pop songs. Certain songs entertain individual space-and universe-related motifs included in other thematic contexts, while this can also be a leading theme of a song. The latter is the case with the 1962 song “Zemlja pleše” (Engl. “The Earth is Dancing”) with lyrics written by Gregor Strniša and set to music by Mojmir Sepe. The Earth’s dancing mentioned in the title proves to be taking place amidst the stars, and then it swiftly evolves into an extended metaphor of the universe as a ballroom



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with certain celestial bodies or constellations featuring as musical instruments. Sredi zvezd, noþ in dan se vrti ta svet Zemlja pleše, tja med zvezde. Pade sneg, pride maj, pride spet jesen. Tisoþ let že zemlja pleše. Orion saksofon, mesec kontrabas, Zemlja pleše tja med zvezde. In z njo grad, vsak oblak In vse ceste in celo ta najin mali dom. Amidst the stars, night and day turns this world The Earth dances, there among the stars. Snow falls, May comes, autumn comes again. For a thousand years, the Earth has been dancing. Orion saxophone, the moon double bass, The Earth dances, there among the stars. And with it the castle, every cloud And all the roads (ways), and even our little home.

The predominant thematic concept in this song lyric is that of cyclical movement, which can be observed on several layers of the text, as well as in the described literary cosmic existence. The first line introduces the world that turns night and day (referring to planet Earth, in this context). A pleonastic second line merely replaces the literal wording from the first one with a metaphor denoting the Earth’s movement as dancing. This, however, later turns into a refrain-like recurrence, repeatedly evoking the image of planetary dance. Line three introduces the image of nature and the seasons, which are also cyclical (Pade sneg, pride maj pride spet jesen; Engl. Snow falls, May comes, autumn comes again). In one of the repeated variations of the title metaphor, there is the addition that the Earth has been dancing for a thousand years, which is a parallel to Davies’ idea of time and dancing, where the latter unifies the former. The line Orion saksofon, mesec kontrabas (Engl. Orion saxophone, the Moon double bass) suggests the interplay between the objects of the universe (Orion and the Moon) and the human world (saxophone and double bass). Common dancing of these elements, constellations and natural satellites with musical instruments, supports the idea of universal harmony, while the Earth’s dancing among the stars and other planets, together with the final couplet of the lyrics suggests a universal order, which encompasses all spheres of life, down to the castle and cloud, and even to “our little home,” which is the level of the individual. The double meaning of “ceste” from



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the last line is particularly interesting: ceste can refer to roads as traffic infrastructure, or they can mean galaxies that are visible from Earth in the sky (such as the whitish belt the astronomers named The Milky Way). “Najin mali dom” (our little home) metaphorically supports the idea of Earth and the Universe both being the home to people, as well as of the multiple layers of order which are subdued to the hierarchy of size (the Earth dances; therefore, everything else in descending order must dance as well), while the antithesis of home in the sense of house or apartment as opposed to the immense universe, both joined in the same song lyrics has a pleasant poetic effect. Another Slovene pop song with a similar set of motifs is “Orion,” also written by Gregor Strniša, and set to music by Jure Robežnik (1960). At this point it does not seem irrelevant to address Strniša’s general fascination with the themes connected to the universe as well as man’s position in it: two of his poetry collections are titled Vesolje (Engl. “The Universe”) and Severnica (Engl. “The Northern Star”); furthermore, he also wrote youth fiction and two stories have suggestive titles: Jedca Meseca (Engl. “Moon Eaters”) and Razbojniki z Marsa (Engl. “Robbers from Mars”). Not fully relevant to the universe-related theme, yet worth mentioning, is his poetry collection Odisej (Engl. “Ulysses”), since it forms a separate thematic tie between Strniša’s poetry and Davies’ “Orchestra.” “Orion” is essentially a love poem. It introduces a young couple standing underneath a green oak tree on a starry night, speculating about another young couple in a distant future, who will stand in the same spot under the then old oak in a thousand years’ time, but will be fascinated with the same stars. ýez tisoþ let, ko naju veþ ne bo, bo spet prav tak veþer, kot je nocoj. Na modrem nebu, daljen in svetal, spet kot nocoj bo Orion sijal. In a thousand years, when we are no longer here, there will be an evening just like this one. On the blue sky, distant and bright, like tonight, Orion will shine.

The widely recognizable seven-star constellation that seems to eternally oversee the young lovers is Orion. This seems a fitting choice for connecting the human world with the universe, since Orion was a figure in Greek mythology who was born human and was after his death placed among the stars (Schmidt 1995, 174).



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The central theme of the song builds on a traditional dichotomy: the brevity of human life as opposed to the eternity of the universe. Emphasizing this is the stylistic level of symbols and metaphors in the lyrics that simultaneously evokes imagery from both sides of the doublesided unity: the lovers (both couples, in fact) and the particular evening on the one hand, and the same stars and constellations, Orion in particular, on the other. Skoz mrak bo trepetala istih zvezd srebrna luþ, le mladi par, ki se bo tu takrat objel, bo drug. The light of the same stars will glimmer through the dusk, only the young couple, embracing, will be a different one.

The oak, even though it should belong in the former category, since its life span is brief in comparison to the universe, seems to have a liminal inbetween position, because it is eternal from the point of view of the lovers with their thousand-year-long span of speculation. The abstract concept of love, although limited with the existence of human race, falls in the latter category, together with other eternal concepts. The lyrics of “Orion” may lack the metaphoric concept of the universe dancing, but it adopts the cyclical principle of humanity (there will always be a couple standing underneath the oak), nature (there will be another evening like this one) and the universe (the stars, including Orion, appear in the sky every night). Adi Smolar’s 1999 song “Je treba delat” (Engl. “One must work”) emphasises the necessity of working rather than the pleasure of dancing. Work is given an undisputedly central status in the song, since it is omnipresent: except in the three intermediary sections, every line starts with the title phrase, while the expression reiterates several times in the closing line to every stanza. Being a humorous song, it can hardly claim the status of serious literature, yet the motifs of constant cyclical movement, and the relation of man, Earth and the universe link it thematically to “Orchestra.” In both texts, the continuous motion in the universe is presented as an argument for the characters (Penelope in “Orchestra”) or the implied audience (the listeners in “Je treba delat”) to adopt a certain activity, which in the former case is dance, while it is work in the latter: Ko pogledam u vesolje, se zdi mi, da pr’ mer’ stoji, þe pa pogledaš malo bolje, se kar širi in rotira, oscilira in vibrira, þisto niþ pri miru ni. /…/



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Like both “Orchestra” and “Orion,” Smolar’s song translates universal cyclical movement and order into nature: Ko pogledam žitno polje, dokaj mirno se mi zdi. ýe pa pogledaš malo bolje: žito rase, polni klase, korenine v zemljo rine, þisto niþ pri miru ni. When I look at a grain field, it looks still to me, but if you look a bit more closely, wheat grows, fills the ears, grows roots into the soil; it is not still at all.

Inspiration comes from nature: every atom is spinning, every cell is being split. The notion of time and existence persists through this song, visible in the last stanza: þas mineva, smrt odšteva, živa leta so mi šteta.... Time is passing, Death is counting down, living years are counted. Even though we die, somebody else will fill our spot on Earth. It should be mentioned that these Slovene songs are not an isolated phenomenon but exist in parallel with a group of mid-twentieth-century songs that celebrate dance in the lives of human beings. This could be called the “Lord of the Dance” phenomenon, based on a well-known folk hymn or carol of that name by Sydney B. Carter (1915-2004). The 1962 song linked dance to a generalized Christian outlook on and experience of life and was mentioned in Carter’s obituary as “the most celebrated religious song of the twentieth century” (Hawn 2017). “Lord of the Dance,” sometimes called “I Danced in the Morning,” belongs with a group of 1960s popular folk songs that evoked a semi-pagan cyclical view of human physical and spiritual life (Hawn cites Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan here). Since Carter’s song was recorded and popularized by a host of singers and groups (including Mary O’Hara, Donovan, The Corries, The Dubliners and The Irish Rovers), its catchy melody and lyrics would very likely have reached the ears of Slovene singer-songwriters.



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Conclusion Behold the World how it is whirled round, And for it is so whirl’d, is named so;

The (intentional) false etymology in this couplet that, owing to the near homophony, connects “world” and “whirl’d” might suggest that the content of Sir John Davies’ great epyllion is unreliable. This would be an inaccurate conclusion, since “Orchestra” is not only an accurate document about the culture of dancing of the period (Thesiger 1973, 302) but also a beautifully composed masterpiece rendered in seemingly endless iambic pentameter stanzas. An examination of this complex poem uncovers interesting connections between the man and the universe, nature and human society, music and rhythm, and most notably the central principles of movement that connect them all. The idea of dancing as the main ordering principle is particularly interesting, as it seems to be rooted in all spheres of life, human and inanimate. The prevalent motif is that of the universe dancing, which is cleverly incorporated in numerous figures of speech as well as kinetic, auditory and visual imagery. Our research was primarily focused on the analysis of these aspects in “Orchestra,” which we were able to link to a selection of Slovene popular songs either through their thematic concept or through the individual recurring motifs. The comparison of the poems and songs on the textual level shows similar usage of verbs of movement, particularly its cyclical and repetitive varieties, and the bringing of order to all these spheres of life through dancing. On the macrostructural level, the popular acceptance of these texts can also be interpreted as showing a broad interest in celestial themes as well as in the supreme movement in “Orchestra” and “Zemlja pleše,” which is dancing.

Discography Jagodic, Mihela and Vito Primožiþ. 2013. Potujoþa muzika 2. Ljubljana: Javni sklad RS za kulturne dejavnosti. Smolar, Adi. 1999. “Je treba delat.” Nika Records. http://www.akordi.eu/523/Adi-Smolar/Je-treba-delat/. Strniša, Gregor and Mojmir Sepe. 1962. “Zemlja pleše” (Engl. “The Earth is Dancing”). RTV Ljubljana. Strniša, Gregor and Jure Robežnik. (1960). “Orion.” RTV Ljubljana.



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References Arbeau, Thoinot. 1967. Orchesography (translation of the work Orchésographie by Mary Stewart Evans). New York: Dover Publications. Rearranged content also available online, http://www.graner.net/nicolas/arbeau/danses.html. CATMA Corpus Software. http://www.catma.de/. Davies, John. 2001. “Orchestra or the Poeme of Dauncing” (transcribed by Richard Bear). Eugene: University of Oregon Press. Also available online, https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/702/orc hestra.pdf?sequence=1. —. 2014. “Orchestra, or a Poeme of Dauncing.” In The Complete Poems of Sir John Davies, edited by Alexander B. Grosart, vol.1 of 2. Available online in Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44977/44977-h/44977h.htm#Page_155. Hair, Greta Mary and Robyn E. Smith. 2016. Songs of the Dove and the Nightingale: Sacred and Secular Music c.900-c.1600. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Hawn, Michael C. n.d. “History of Hymns: ‘Lord of the Dance’” Discipleship Ministries. Accessed 24 March, 2017, www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources. Ilc, Andrej, ed. 2004. Komadi: 111 pesmi za mlade in njim podobne. Ljubljana, Mladinska knjiga. Manning, R. J. 1985. “Rule and Order Strange: A Reading of Sir John Davies’ ‘Orchestra.’” English Literary Renaissance, vol. 15, no. 2, 175–194, www.jstor.org/stable/43447156. Marlowe, Christopher. 1970. Doctor Faustus. London: Methuen. —. Doctor Faustus. 2013. DVD recording of a staged performance. Directed by Matthew Dunster. London: Shakespeare's Globe. “Orion.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., www.britannica.com/place/Orion-constellation. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017. Pavis, Patrice. 1997. Gledališki slovar. (Trans. Igor Lampret). Ljubljana: Mestno gledališþe ljubljansko. Pulver, Jeffrey. 1913. “The Dances of Shakespeare's England.” Sammelbände Der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft, vol. 15, no. 1, 99–102, www.jstor.org/stable/929390. Schmidt, Joël. 1995. Slovar grške in rimske mitologije. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga.



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“Sir John Davies.” 1998. Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., www.britannica.com/biography/John-Davies-Britishpoet. Accessed 11 Mar. 2017. Thesiger, Sarah. 1973. “The Orchestra of Sir John Davies and the Image of the Dance.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 36, 277–304, www.jstor.org/stable/751166. Walls, Peter. 1974. “Common 16th-Century Dance Forms: Some Further Notes.” Early Music, vol. 2, no. 3, 164–165, www.jstor.org/stable/3125561. Weaver, William. 2012. Untutored Lines: The Making of the English Epyllion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN LI PO’S ESSENTIALLY CHINESE POETRY J. GILL HOLLAND

The star called Li Po burst in Western skies in answer to the plea of Oxford voices to redeem the dispirited Western soul after two World Wars. In 1950 Arthur Waley, the prince of Classical Chinese scholars, published The Poetry and Career of Li Po 701-762 A.D. as the third study in the Series entitled Ethical and Religious Classics of The East and West (George Allen and Unwin Ltd.) The timing was key. In the General Introduction of the Series, the editors recounted how “a group of Oxford men and their friends” saw the need to answer the spiritual devastation after the wars “when men are disillusioned and afraid.” The ethical and religious masterpieces of the world, both Christian and non-Christian, must be placed “within easy reach of the intelligent reader who is not necessarily an expert.” Mankind is hungry, but the feast is there, though it is locked up and hidden away. It is the aim of this series to put it within reach, so that, like the heroes of Homer, we may stretch forth our hands to the good cheer laid before us. (Waley 1950, vii-ix)

Waley’s choice was not accidental. Li Po was recognized as China’s greatest poet, and his short poem “Quiet Night Thoughts” “must be the best known now of all Chinese poems, especially among Chinese overseas” (Cooper 1974, 109). Its theme of homesickness seemed to fit the post-war soul. Li Po’s “Night Thoughts” may be one of the best-known poems about homesickness in the world. The poem reads down beginning with the rightmost column: Lower head think

raise head gaze

suspect this ground

bed before bright

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upon dew

moon gleam

bright ground gaze think

moon upon bright old

Now the English word order: bed before suspect this raise head lower head (Holland 2012)

gleam dew moon home

Before the bed the gleam of the bright moon[.] [I] suspect this [is] dew upon the ground[.] [I[ raise [my] head gaze [at the] bright moon[.] [I] lower [my] head[,] think [of my] old home.

The preposition “before” follows the object of the preposition “bed.” The pronoun is omitted, as is the verb tense. The verb “suspect” suggests his heart was ready to leap back to his old home. The four following verbs proceed with the characteristic verticality of up and down. The mental return home seems to go on forever. Home is ever there, never changing. I have read many translations of this quatrain. None captures in English the magical power of the mistaken jump to the conclusion that the moonlight is dew on the ground at the old home or the subsequent raising of the head to the moon and the lowering of the head in memories of home. Once a student of Chinese background who had been born in Vietnam and brought as a girl to the United States came to my office for a conference. She could read Classical Chinese. I showed her this poem in the T’ang-shih san-pai-shou. She read it and began to weep, even at such a remove! For Li Po, it should be noted, mind travel, or the dream journey, was not an idle fancy but an important part of Taoist philosophy. Moreover, the “old home” might refer to Heaven. Li Po was called and considered himself to be a “Banished Immortal” (Waley 1950, 20). It was commonly believed that immortals who had misbehaved in Heaven were as punishment banished to live on earth for a fixed period, where they figured as wayward and extraordinary human beings. They were what was called “Ministers Abroad of the Thirty-six Emperors of Heaven.” In “Night Thoughts” there seems to be an allusion to one of the most popular poems of T’ao Ch’ien (Tao Qian, 365-427), “Wine Poem No. 5” (Holland 2012, 138): The traffic where I build is terrible But I don’t hear a thing, not a cart or a horse.



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You ask me how that can be? When the heart is far away, nobody is at home. I pick never-die mums by the hedge to the east And keep an eye on South Mountain. At dusk its mountain air makes me promises. Birds flock in homeward flight. There was something true in all of this, But when I started to explain, I’d already lost the words.

South Mountain corresponds to Li Po’s “old home.” “Longevity like the Southern Mountain” is the irresistibly associative line from the Classic of Songs, one of T’ao Ch’ien’s favourite texts. It can also stand for removal from the ordinary world, even the grave, the final resting place. Like Li Po’s, T’ao Ch’ien’s five-character lines move from chaos—the confusion of the traffic and the puzzlement of the interrogator—to cosmos, the crystal vision of reassurance in the mountain scenery. The final couplet stating the ineffability of the meaning is unexpressed but understood in Li Po’s tight quatrain. If purity is a poetic category what can be better than the twenty characters of “Autumn Cove”? (Holland 2012, 134-5). From line one to the last three characters of the final line, this quatrain bears all the marks of Li Po’s delight in up-and-down verticality, parallelism, and the centrifugal antics of the monkey tribe whose energy is resolved in the closing image. Note the directness of the sequence of actions. Following the conventional order of Classical Chinese poetry, we start with the rightmost column and read down: drink play water centered moon

coax pull from branches children

bound leap like fly snowflakes

Autumn Cove many white monkeys

white fly branches centered

monkeys snowflakes children moon

English order: Autumn bound coax drink



Cove leap pull play

many like from water

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At Autumn Cove many white monkeys bounding leap like flying snowflakes[,] coaxing[,] pull children from branches[.] play [in] the moon centered (reflected) in the water[.]

Conventionally, in Classical Chinese poetry, number is not given; the plural forms of monkeys, snowflakes, branches, and children are understood. The reflected moon would first appear to be singular, though the movement of the water could flash more moons than one. For verbs no tenses or number is given. The action could be set in the past, the present, or the future. These conventions are one reason for the famous universality of Classical Chinese poetry. Also a prepositions follows its object: “water-centered” means “centered (reflected) in the water.” Parallelism is always a source of pleasure. It yokes “white monkeys” and “flying snowflakes.” The yoking of young white monkeys and the dancing reflection of the moon is highly suggestive. The energy of the upand-down movement of the monkeys in the inner two lines is signature Li Po. The resolution of up and down lies in the shimmering moon up in the sky reflected in the water below. The moon above seems to preside over the whole scene below. An exploration of the poetics behind these poems can open up much of the ethos of Chinese culture. Poetics in China is, of course, a vast and multifaceted subject. But a few claims may be tendered. First of all, it is clear that Li Po, though often said to be a Taoist, did not despise Confucius’s ideas about language. Confucius fought the corruption of language. Several of his analects seem to fit Li Po’s pared-down, minimalist quatrains and the authenticity of his feelings (Holland 1986, 7): Words—just far enough is enough. (15.41) Overdo your deeds but shame your words down. If words are not close to your heart you can’t do a thing. (14.27, 20) Without heart-language the people could not stand. (12.7)

As for the shape of the plot, it is a critical commonplace that comedy begins in chaos and ends with cosmos, harmony, whereas tragedy begins with cosmos and ends in chaos. In the two quatrains above, after the scene is set in line one, chaos and confusion fill in the second and third lines, and the last three characters of line four calm and crystallize the little story. The final mood of the two poems is of course different. In “Night Thoughts” the yearning for home is melancholy, but the certainty of home is as the North Star, ever constant. In “Autumn Cove” natural harmony settles in. Though some might argue that this is a detached, objective



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description of monkeys at play, there seems to be an immanent sense of joyful harmony in the scene. In Chinese nature poetry this is called the “fusion of feeling and sense” (qingjing jiaorong), which was used early to describe the nature poetry of T’ao Ch’ien, whose “Wine Poem No. 5” was discussed above. From ancient times, paired opposites have been explained in terms of yin and yang. In these poems we see several such opposites: up and down, as seen in the verticality of the action; movement versus the stillness seen in the image of the “water-centered moon” and in the vision of “old home.” In both poems the opposite of the bright moon is the implied darkness of water and tree in “Autumn Cove” and night in “Night Thoughts.” Yin and yang are terms often misunderstood (Ames 1998). They are “not universal principles that define some essential feature of phenomena, but are explanatory categories that register a creative tension in specific differences.” The yin-yang is a “vocabulary of complementary opposites.” This tension charges the action of the poems. In their union of movement and stasis in the last three characters of line four these poems might remind one of the “strolling gardens” of Suzhou. The stroller passes through partitioned sections or courtyards one by one, just as the reader of the poems proceeds from character to character. There is no panoramic view to be taken in instantly. The gardens and the quatrains unfold. The quatrain is, of course, a miniature (like many features of the garden), but the element of times is essential; the action must take place over time, through time, before reaching the final resolution of “water-centered moon” and “old home” at the end. The paradoxical union of movement and repose in a strolling garden resembles the union in these two quatrains. In discussing the gardens of Suzhou, Jan Stuart explains the concepts of “motion in repose” and “repose in motion,” which suggest an analogy to the paired opposites in the poems (Stuart 1990). “Motion in repose” is experienced as the stroller pauses and, inspired by the “dynamic sequences of sites to be visited— courtyards, buildings, watery spots, rock formations, and plants,” makes journeys of the mind through the miniature landscapes. “Repose in motion” is experienced as the stroller sees such rock formations as “steadfast monuments likened to China’s great peaks.” The boulders are not seen as mountains to climb but as solid, eternal presences under the sky. Such a union of repose and motion is found in particular in the peculiar manner of the solitary boulders from Lak Tai, which stand on their narrow end to represent mountain peaks. Though the monolith seemed about to overturn at any moment, a large piece of the rock was



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buried underground to act as an anchor. The sensation of potential motion was a valued allusion to yin and yang. This potential motion seems analogous to the union of movement and stasis in Li Po’s two quatrains. The “vocabulary of complementary opposites” is at work in both the poems and the gardens. To glance further back in history, we find that the tradition of “motion in repose” and “repose in motion” has roots in early Taoism. Chuang-tzu (4th C. BC) called it “going at a gallop while you sit.” A relevant postscript might be added in conclusion. US Poet Laureate Charles Wright (b. 1935) alludes to yin-yang in the Chinese garden in his poem “Reading Lao Tzu Again in the New Year” (Holland 1999): Whistling at something unseen, one black note and one interval, We’re placed between now and not-now, Held by affection, Large rock balanced upon a small rock. The magic will not cease!

Acknowledgements I wish to thank the staff of the E. H. Little Library of Davidson College for their help in technical matters in the preparation of this essay. This essay was written in memory of the late Dr. John M. Bevan, Dean of the Faculty and Vice-President for Academic Affairs at Davidson College, 1970-1975, in gratitude for his encouragement and support of my study of Chinese at Stanford University and my family’s first sabbatical leave in China.

References Ames, Roger T. 1998. “Yin-Yang.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward Craig, 832. London: Routledge. Cooper, Arthur 1974. Li Po and Tu. New York: Penguin. Holland, J. Gill. 1986. Keep An Eye On South Mountain: Translations of Chinese Poetry. Davidson, North Carolina: Briarpatch. —. 1999. “Charles Wright and Classical Chinese Poetry.” In Crossing Borders: Interdisciplinary Intercultural Interaction, Buchreihe zu den Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Bd. 15, edited by Bernhard Ketteman and Georg Marko, 317. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. —. 2012. “Teaching Narrative in the Five-Character Quatrain of Li Po.” EnterText 5 (3):136-137. Stuart, Jan. 1990. “A Scholar’s Garden in Ming China: Dream and Reality.” Asian Art 3 (4):42.



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Waley, Arthur. 1950. The Poetry and Career of Li Po 701-762 A. D. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN CI AS THE ORIGIN OF CHINESE POP MUSIC ZHIRONG YU

For thousands of years, poetry has been an indivisible part of Chinese literature and life; poets of all generations have expressed their lives, thoughts and emotions through poetry. In the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the development and creation of two special forms of poetry called Lüshi and Jueju (also known as Chinese quatrains) inspired a long tradition in Chinese literature and culture. Lüshi and Jueju are designed to be written using a certain rhyme which makes them catchy and easy to sing. There is a tale recorded in many books which shows the popularity of sung poetry in ancient times as a daily entertainment. Several poets were in a restaurant eating and drinking, and they asked a couple of singers to sing for them; the poets were proud when a singer sang their poetry, and even bet on whether the singer’s next song would be their own poetry. However, Lüshi and Jueju are not intended for singing, although they are meant to be catchy. The fixed number of words is the critical limitation; flexible rhythms cannot always be bound in this uncomfortable space, so changes must be made, and old forms must be dismantled; this is exactly where Ci comes in. The Song Dynasty (960-1279) ended the chaos of the Five Dynasties Ten Kingdoms period (907-960). The first several emperors of the Song Dynasty were renowned for good governance, which resulted in great economic prosperity and a stable political situation. In this atmosphere of cultural renaissance and with happy lives, people asked for more in entertainment, and the emergence of the form called Ci encouraged this trend. Compared with Lüshi and Jueju, Ci differs in being written in variable line-length formal types, and the number of words and sentences is not fixed; this is why Ci can also be called “long-short sentence.” Ci consist of two parts: the lyric part and the musical part, including the music for instrument and tune examples for choosing words. Different tunes or music are called “Ci Pai” (“Tune Title”), except in a very few

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cases; creating a Ci means writing a lyric according to a given Ci Pai. This is why during the Song Dynasty, people spoke of “filling a Ci” rather than creating one. This mode proves quite similar to the production of pop songs today; often singers get a melody first then write lyrics for it, and some classical melodies like Pachelbel’s Canon can be heard in many songs. Like some talented singers today, in the Song Dynasty, there were some Ci makers who could compose new music by themselves and fill it with new lyrics. Liu Yong was one of the best at that time; his songs were widely popular in his time and even beyond, and there is a saying that as long as there is water in a well, there will be Liu Yong’s songs. Liu Yong had travelled to the Song Dynasty’s capital to write the imperial examination several times, but failed to pass. After failing the examination for the final time, instead of returning home to prepare anew, Liu Yong remained in the capital and began to write. After spending time with singing-girls and good wine to relax and heal the pain of disappointment, he soon discovered his poetic value among those singing-girls. He wrote many Ci about the lovely singing-girls throughout his life, most of them when he lived in the capital city. He wrote about the girls’ lives, dresses and makeup, as well as his love for them and sorrow when missing them. He was so popular that if any singer sang Liu Yong’s songs to please people, she would soon be promoted. Although Liu Yong was not born to a rich family, and life in the capital was always expensive, his income allowed him to stay there for a long time. He was even paid to write songs for various singers, making him like a professional song-writer today. Before discussing Liu Yong’s Ci in more detail, I should mention that for a long time, Ci was not considered to be decent literature in the eyes of the Song Dynasty’s literati. Since Confucius compiled The Book of Songs, successive dynasties’ literati had the discourse power to define decent literature, and they intentionally maintained a clear boundary between the literature they considered respectable and folk literature. However, this boundary became blurred in Ci; given the origins of Ci, without doubt it is a type of folk literature, yet it was so popular that even the noble literati could not stop themselves from writing it for the singers when they attended banquets and festive gatherings. It looks like self-deception, but after these banquets, they never admitted that they had been composing Ci; furthermore, some literati especially asked their relatives to burn their Ci anthologies after they died, because they did not want people to see their “indecent” works.



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Like most intellectuals in ancient China, Liu Yong received a classical education that lasted for decades. He was supposed to pass the imperial examination and become a civil servant, but he chose instead to steep himself in the pleasure of courtesans and wine after his failure. Gradually he mixed these two different cultures, and applied his creative talent to describing daily entertainment. This explains why Liu Yong was abandoned by the literati class; he was too close to the singers and wrote too many indecent Ci, many of them indelicate even by today’s standards. Critics of later generations were overly harsh on Liu Yong; a single “indecent” lyric simply cannot fully represent his achievement and his contribution to the development of Ci. Here is a song of which the Ci Pai (Tune Title) is “Yu Lin Ling” (Tinkling Heavy Rain), which is one of Liu Yong’s best-known songs. Tinkling Heavy Rain Cicadas chill And drearily shrill, We stand face to face at an evening hour Before the pavilion, after a sudden shower. Can I care for drinking before we part? At the city gate Where we're lingering late, But the boat is waiting for me to depart. Hand in hand, we gaze at each other's tearful eyes And burst into sobs with words congealed on our lips. I’ll go my way Far, far away On miles and miles of misty waves where the ships sail, Evening clouds hang low in boundless southern skies. Parting lovers would grieve as of old. How could I stand this clear autumn day so cold! Where shall I be found at day's early break? From wine awake? Moored by a riverbank planted with willow trees Beneath the waning moon and in the morning breeze. I’ll be gone for a year. In vain would good times and fine scenes appear! However gallant I am on my part, To whom can I lay bare my heart?1

 1

This translation can be found in 300 Song Lyrics (Song ci san bai shou), translated by Xu Yuanchong, published by China Intercontinental Press: Zhonghua Book, 2012.



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This describes a scene in which Liu Yong bade farewell to his lover, a courtesan. Although many of the beauties of words, rhyme and pauses are either lost or distorted in translation, we can still see some of Liu Yong’s typical skill. This Ci is a “Chang Diao (Long Tune)”; before Liu Yong, poets usually wrote something shorter, which was called “Xiao Ling (Short Tune).” The Long Tune was a lively and popular genre in folk literature and entertainment places but usually contained coarse content, while the Short Tune was exquisite and fine in the poet’s hands but was considered dull for daily consumption. Liu Yong experimented with the combination of highly educated poetic skill and a new potential artistic form. Objectively, writers can put much more detail into the large stage of a long tune, while the short tune is suitable for fragmented thoughts or for describing a general scene. It turned out that both uneducated simple people and highly educated literati wanted to have some “simple and fast joyance and pleasure” as well as “obscure metaphor.” From the Ci mentioned above, we can see how skilled Liu Yong was as both a “story teller” and an “atmosphere maker.” In Chinese culture, especially in classical literature, the cicada became an image of desolation because its chirping sounds miserable in autumn. The time is about dusk, so the darkness is coming, just after a sudden shower, which must have made the road muddy. The first several lines describe the setting of their parting. Liu Yong used sound, weather and time to create a cold, dim background setting for the audience. With the mood created by this setting, when the following lines come, audiences can easily sympathize with the sorrow of parting between lovers. Liu Yong in this Ci shows how the attempt to numb the pain has obviously failed; the lovers are holding hands and yearn to say something, yet their sorrow is too strong to allow them to speak and their love is too great to express, as they are choked with sobs and look into each other’s eyes. Meanwhile, the boatman is losing patience, and asks Liu Yong to depart quickly. This is a brilliant way of creating dramatic tension for the audience. Once the scene of parting is finished, the rest is all about Liu Yong’s imagination of what might happen after his departure. In the short term, he imagines that his path will be misty and cloudy. It is a traditional Chinese belief that bright light is a positive sign for one’s future; here Liu Yong implies that he can see his future without his beloved girl. In the second part, Liu Yong wonders how he will spend the cold lonely nights, and he assumes he will have to do considerable drinking, but does not know where he will wake up next morning because he has nowhere to go without his lover. He foresees that he will wake up “by a riverbank planted with willow trees, beneath the waning moon and



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in the morning breeze.” In Chinese classical literature, the pronunciation of “stay” and “willow” are very similar, so it has become a tradition to give a departing lover a willow branch to express sadness. The moon is also a common image, which stands for family, friends or lovers getting together when it is full, and means people are parting when it is waning. In addition, everyone who has ever had the experience of being drunk must know the feeling of waking up in the early morning, uncomfortable and cold. Here Liu Yong imagined the miserable situation that would happen after their parting. In the long term, Liu Yong knows this parting might last for years, or it might be their final farewell, so to him, all the good times, fine scenes and his talent will be in vain because without his lover’s company, he will have no one to share these with. Liu’s significance lies in his introduction of a new realism in the expression of emotion, a much freer use of colloquial language than previously seen, and various stylistic and prosodic innovations (Liu, 1974). Liu Yong’s expression of emotion is direct, a format which is called “BaiMiao” (“Plain Sketch”), a concept derived from painting and that reflects how a poet explores the world and expresses it to his audience. Audiences and readers alike can strongly feel the sense of time and space though Liu Yong’s Ci. Liu Yong devoted his talents to constructing particular scenes that would serve the purpose of his Ci, and he intentionally expanded the time span to encompass the present, the future and the past. Liu Yong used few obscure metaphors, instead accumulating useful images. All these techniques together made for an immersive experience for his audience, who were mostly uneducated and liked things that were easily understood. Liu Yong’s creation is a remarkable collusion of art (high) literature and folk literature, and, as one Chinese critic has said, “Those people who mocked him, cursed him, eventually they all, directly or indirectly, were influenced by him” (Xue 1985). Liu Yong never knew that he would become the very first Chinese popular music star. His contributions to both serious and folk literature are indelible, and what people tend to ignore is that he was also instrumental in the development of Chinese commercial music. Recently, more and more Ci have been re-arranged and have become popular, and people are starting to regret that so much of the music of Ci has been lost.



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References Liu, J. J. 1974. Major Lyricists of the Northern Sung: 960-1126 A.D. Princeton University Press. Xue Liruo. 1985. Song Ci Tong Lun. Shanghai Shu Dian. XuYuanchong. 2012. Song Ci San Bai Shou. China Intercontinental Press.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN INTERNET MEME SONGS IN CHINA AND THE “DIAOSI” IDENTITY OF YOUTH CULTURE CAO ZHOU

The term “meme” was coined by the biologist Richard Dawkins as a unit of cultural transmission, in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene: “‘Mímeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene.’ I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme” (192). Later, he modified the definition of meme to include “patterns of information” in his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, which argues that the relationship between memes and genes is only an analogy “between true Darwinian evolution and what has been called cultural evolution” (196). Theorists from various fields have also interpreted the definition of meme. Dan Sperber, a cognitive scientist, propounds the phrase “cultural replicators” as a synonym, in light of representations which can propagate either vertically, as genes do over generations, or horizontally as viruses across a certain population, expanding the theory into the field of epidemiology. Susan Blackmore, a psychologist, pushes the interpretation of meme into the territory of social learning. From a cultural perspective, Daniel Dennett argues that “the pressure that culture exerts over the genetic evolution plays an essential role for understanding behavioural innovations as memes” (Dennett 1999, 338). Olesen takes an approach from communication theory, defining a meme as: “any form of cultural phenomenon that can be copied from one mind to another” (Olesen 2009, 71). The definitions of meme vary from different perspectives, but they all pinpoint the meme as a cultural phenomenon. The concept of “Internet memes” was proposed by Mike Godwin in a 1993 issue of Wired, which gained academic attention because it represents not only an activity, but also a genre in social networks.

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Shifman adds that the meme serves “as a prism for shedding light on aspects of contemporary digital culture” (Shifman 2012, 190). Dawkins updated the concept of Internet meme in a recent presentation. He argues that: [T]he very idea of the meme has itself mutated and evolved in a new direction. An Internet meme is a hijacking of the original idea. Instead of mutating by random chance, before spreading by a form of Darwinian selection, internet memes are altered deliberately by human creativity. In the hijacked version, mutations are designed—not random—with the full knowledge of the person doing the mutating. (2013)

Dawkins’ idea of mutation and hijacking in Internet memes shines the spotlight on cultural fields. Since Internet meme songs are carriers of music, the creators of such songs have developed their own prominent cultural phenomenon in China, a unique and up-to-date window on current Chinese culture.

A Cultural Phenomenon: Diaosi Identity The term diaosi, the word of the year for 2012 in China, can be literally translated as male pubic hair; however, as a slang term originating on the Internet, it can be loosely interpreted as the Oriental counterpart of losers. It has gone viral on the Internet, and even gone mainstream since 2011 as a self-mocking term, which young people, men and women, from all backgrounds have increasingly begun to embrace. Diaosi is a trendy but everyday phrase used by young Chinese to poke fun at their own low status and dim prospects, in contrast with the group of Gaofushuai, the "tall-rich-handsome," those with status, success and bright futures. The slang term originated in the online phenomenon of “trash talking” between fans of two Chinese Bulletin Boards Systems (BBS), where “diaosi” was first used as a derogatory nickname and was subsequently self-mockingly adopted as a label. The prestigious Peking University's Market and Media Research Center unveiled the first national “Diaosi Living Conditions Report” in October 2014. Over 200,000 questionnaires were collected from interviewees with different backgrounds, in 50 large, medium and small cities. Among them, 62.2% of respondents acknowledge themselves diaosi, generally a group of single men from 21 to 25, and single women from 26 to 30, with little money to their name. “Nearly 75% of those who identified themselves as diaosi lived far from their hometowns, with a low level of education, pursuing higher-paying jobs and making money to send



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back home to family as the reason they left” (“Diaosi Living Conditions Report”). That is the rough outline of the diaosi, but there is a distinction between diaosi and China’s impoverished population, for generally speaking, diaosi are gainfully employed and making ends meet, but struggling to establish themselves economically and socially. As the term diaosi gained momentum in numerous contexts, from online to offline, China’s state media, The People’s Daily, published an editorial called “The Belittling of Oneself, Can We Give It A Rest?” with the aim of suggesting that China’s young people need to reject the popular diaosi mentality as harmful to their mental health. However, a growing body of scholarship is attempting to apply the concept of diaosi culture to the study of modern China’s youth subculture. Xiaoxiong Ling claims that “Diaosi culture is shaped by the Internet media, as Internet youth subculture, which signals the expression of rights among the grassroots, also the narrative victory of self-mocking mentality” (2014, 58). Marcella Szablewicz, in a study entitled “The ‘Losers’ of China’s Internet: Memes as ‘Structures of Feeling’ for Disillusioned Young Netizens,” argues that “in the present moment of economic uncertainty, youth are using digital media to imagine and articulate alternative identities that pose a challenge to mainstream visions of what success entails” (2014, 262). Selfidentification as losers, or diaosi by young netizens, as a cultural phenomenon, conveys their inner struggle and disillusionment with upward socio-economic mobility in contemporary China. The Internet, as a new medium, provides a unique platform for the spread of youth subculture; Diaosi culture is intrinsic to the Internet. I will select one influential Internet meme song in China to explain the profile of the diaosi culture and uncover their struggle.

“My Skateboard Shoes”–The Profile of Diaosi “My Skateboard Shoes” ranked first among the “Top Ten Brainwashing Songs” of 2014 in China; it is a simple song about an ordinary young man searching for his dream skateboard shoes. Several remixes have been uploaded, some of which adapt the original song into different dialects. The most influential version is called “My Shampoo,” which parodies Jackie Chan’s advertisement for Bawang1 with the music of “My Skateboard Shoes,” because the product was accused of containing carcinogenic chemicals. The popular neologism “Duang” was coined in this meme song.

 1



The product is an herbal shampoo.

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Althoughh the song “M My Skateboard d Shoes” is ann Internet hit, the t ironic fact is its uunmusicality. Guangping Li, L a professiional music producer, p mercilessly attacks it: “itt does not even follow thee basic rules of o music, and I doubtt whether it could c be classsified into sonngs” (2015). The first impression iis that the sinnger has no prrofessional muusical skill an nd a thick country acceent; what is more, m he often goes off beat.. In termss of aestheticss, it should bee a terrible lisstening experiience, for the song uppends our traaditional understanding off popular son ngs. It is difficult to analyze its framework f baased on the ttraditional stru ucture of musical form rm. “Its meloody curve is not discernabble, only witth certain repetitive rhhythms of coontinuous mov vement of deemiquaver in a steady speed and paattern of demiiquaver-and-q quaver” (Niu P Pengteng 2016 6, 116). 

It is alsoo a challenge to t define its style. s In termss of its singing g style, it could possibbly be classifiied as rap, butt it lacks the ttypical rhymin ng lyrics; if it falls intto the categorry of freestylee in rap, then it seems therre is only rapping, witthout singing. Besides, the rhythm challeenges the trad dition, for it emphasizees functional words w or one character of vverbal phrases, instead of subjects or objects. Moreover, M it drraws out som me functional words or certain characters withouut completing the meaning. Such drifts of o rhythm along with tthe singer’s thhick accent serve to defamiiliarize the lyrrics. With the accompaaniment of drums d and guiitar at the beeginning, the song has simple harm mony, and reppetitive rhythm m, besides thee vocal and electronic e effects added in post-prodduction.



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While its lack of musicality fails to justify the sweeping popularity of the song, the cultural phenomenon of diaosi behind it is an invisible force that ignites a carnivalesque passion about this amateurish song. Diaosi culture is a product of the grassroots of the society, from bottom to top. Like many other subcultures, it includes the value orientations of countermainstream and counter-tradition. J. Milton Yinger, in Countercultures, The Promise and Peril of a World Turned Upside Down, states that “Countercultures are not simply bizarre and marginal sets of standards and activities, but important elements in the process of social change. Their influence may be creative or destructive” (1982, ix). In modern China, social changes including the income gap, social inequality, and the bleak future of the job market combine to limit the individual upward mobility of young people. The diaosi group lives in this social context, and they relieve their anxiety and depression with self-mockery and self-abasement; they express their discontent by distancing and ironizing mainstream culture and tradition. From this perspective, the unmusicality of the song can be seen as a challenge to traditional music, although this is perhaps beyond the intention of the songwriter. It is a song written by diaosi, for diaosi, spread through diaosi, and therefore it is a song of diaosi. Upon analysis of the lyrics, the profile of the diaosi group becomes clearer. It is a story of searching for one’s ideal skateboard shoes, echoed in the title “My Skateboard Shoes,” which serves as the central metaphor of the dream. The protagonist is a typical migrant worker who has had to leave his family and his hometown in pursuit of a better life in the city, following the normal life course of diaosi. “I looked for it, through all the streets in the whole city, but there is none,” implies his failure to realise his dream in his home town, so he goes to the “city of lights.” Yet, “Time passed quickly, and the night fell. I thought I had to leave,” indicating his feeling of being an outsider, a migrant worker, who cannot adjust to the dazzling city life. The mental issue has even been mentioned in a report, for 37.8% of the diaosi group believe that they have some undiagnosed mental disorder. However, the turning point is that “When I was ready to go, I saw in a specialty store the skateboard shoes I want.” Such a happy ending has a special term, “the counter-attack of diaosi,” the ideal result. One more counter-traditional element is the time span, for it takes only 80 seconds to narrate the whole story of the dream pursuit, while in the remaining 90 seconds the lyrics focus on how the protagonist feels and dances after he gets the coveted skateboard shoes. Thus, the song delivers, triggers and magnifies the emotion of the dream coming true. This prolonged chorus details his dancing, as “Rubbing, rubbing, and rubbing on the smooth ground,” which is the catchiest line. “One step, two step,



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one step, two step, one step and another step like claws like monster’s feet, rubbing, rubbing.” He compares his steps to claws and monster feet, images which vividly present how he dances with his shadow under the moonlight; nevertheless, the metaphorical vehicle “monster” deserves further discussion, in conjunction with the line “I would not fear the darkness with the skateboard shoes,” which implies his insecurity in the face of city life. When he achieves the dream, completing the “counterattack of diaosi,” he sees himself as the monster dancing with claws, which could be precisely what he had previously feared in the dark. As he becomes what he fears, he becomes able to terrify others in turn, and unconsciously there is a sense of revenge in his rapture. Thus, the entire process, consisting of dream pursuit, alienation from city life, and dream wish fulfilment, seems a version of the Cinderella model for diaosi in modern China. The audience may jump onto their own “pumpkin carriage” in their imaginations while listening to the song, escaping for a while from the depressing reality. Besides the happy ending, the delicate feeling of revenge secretly hidden in the lines fuels the inner desires of the audience, which may partly explain the song's popularity. However, the key is rooted in the diaosi group’s conflicted feelings, between ridicule and sincerity, towards the song. In terms of ridicule, it mainly lies in the unmusicality, which has already been discussed, and also the controversy surrounding the singer. Ironically, he speaks in the thick accent of northern China, but insists that he comes from Taiwan, which is, to most modern Chinese, a Hollywood-like area in the south; he looks over 30 with wrinkles, yet claims that he was post-90 (born after 1990); his English seems to be limited to greetings, but he gives his name as Joseph Pangmailang. No one believes his words, and everyone knows the truth is that his real identity is diaosi, even that of someone from the bottom of the diaosi group. After being accused of lying, he reluctantly admits that he is 35 years old, born in an acutely impoverished area of the Nansha River, the Ningqiang county of Shanxi, and his real name is Pang Mintao. Although his claimed identity proves to be a lie, on the one hand, it turns into a joke by going viral on the Internet; on the other hand, it functions as a self-deception that arouses public sympathy for him. Psychologically, there is a sense of superiority among the public, especially among the diaosi group, as they easily see through his act of pretence, sympathetically understand his reason for lying, and benevolently forgive it. To some extent, it is his dream life rather than an ill-made lie. On the other hand, the song is arresting in its sincerity. Specifically, Pang sings without any technique or skill, and it is his simple, natural



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voice, even the regional accent, that makes his emotion more credible. Besides, the unaffected lyrics also add to the sincerity. At first, he is upset, for “[he fancies] a pair of skateboard shoes,” but cannot find them. Then he exclaims, “It is the most fantastic moment in my life” when he does, yet feels it too good to be true, so he stresses, “I tell myself it is real, and it is not a dream.” The realistic lyrics exactly capture the psychological development of chasing a dream, which makes his emotions more tangible. Moreover, the real story of the singer makes the song autobiographical. At the age of 18, he left home as a migrant worker, and headed to the city of Hanzhong, which is the prototype of the “city of lights” in the song. In an interview, he admitted that he worked in a karaoke bar, cutting up dessert fruit in the kitchen from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. When there were no guests, he would sneak into the karaoke room with his colleagues and sing several songs in a low voice. His favourite was “Destiny” by Andy Lau, “Nobody cares, how bitter I feel, nobody minds, where I shall go….” Once he happened to find a Michael Jackson song, which amazed him, and he exclaimed, “I think it’s so trendy, so international!” He hears his colleague say, “One Michael song is worth one hundred thousand euro.” Pang thinks, “I could definitely make a fortune like him,” so he secretly determines to be “China’s most international singer.” At night back in the dorm, while his colleagues smoke and play cards on the bed, he sits facing the wall, with a primaryschool notebook on his knees, to write down his own songs. “My Skateboard Shoes” is just one of them. The catchy line “Rubbing, rubbing, rubbing on the smooth ground” was inspired by Michael Jackson’s moonwalk (“The Panic Pangmailang”). Consequently, the sincerity in the song can be felt in his voice, in the lyrics and in the connection to his real story, and then arouses public empathy, as listeners project their own experience into the song, seeking comfort. On the website of Netease Music, one of the top music service providers in China, there are almost 35 thousand reviews of “My Skateboard Shoes” as of January 2017. Surprisingly, the comments, which include many “likes,” often go as follows: “I heard this song on the radio accidentally; out of curiosity, I searched for it on the Internet. At first, it was funny, and what a stupid song it was! But after playing it again and again, I felt the impulse to cry just from looking at the lyrics.” Another listener comments, “It is not standardized Chinese, with the accent, so it sounds more like a country boy, which produces a sense of intimacy.” “My Skateboard Shoes” is an archetype of diaosi, lacking in musicality, but evoking contradictory feelings of ridicule and sincerity from the diaosi group. Though most Internet meme songs are poorly



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produced, they are both prolific memetic vehicles and fine examples of modern China’s diaosi culture.

References Dawkins, Richard. 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —. 1986. The Blind Watchmaker. New York: W.W. Norton and Company. —. 2013. Just for Hits. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFn-ixX9edg Dennett, Daniel C. 1995. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. London: Allen Lane/The Penguin Press. “Diaosi Living Conditions Report.” http://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1273984 Jing, Shu. Jan. 2015. “The Panic Pangmailang.” People.㸦池Ḏ㸪͆ᝤៃ ⹆㯏㑻͇㸪ே≀㹙0㹛  Li, Guangping. 24 Jan. 2015. “Music Production Should Follow the Basic Rules, from the Singer Pangmailang.” Guangming Daily, 9. ȋᮤᗅᖹǡ Dz 㡢᷸⇃సǡ⸼㑂ᚠᇶᮏ奬▴̾̾௕ḷᡭ⹆㯏㑻宰㉳dz㸪ග᫂᪥㉍㹙㹛 ʹͲͳͷǡͳǤʹͶȌ Ling, Xiaoxiong. 2014. “Diaosi Culture Reflects the Social Psychology of the Contemporary Young People.” Youth Exploration, vol.1. (௧ᑠ⇃ǡ “௕’⯴᷅ᩥ໬’㏱奮ᙜ௦㟷ᖺⓗ♫఍ᚰ⌮,”㟷ᖺ᥈⣴ȏ ȐǤʹͲͳͶ㸦ͳ㸧) Niu, Peiteng. 2016. “A Case Study of the Ugliness Appreciation in the Era of New Media.” Music Communication, vol. 2. ȋ∵ᇵ儦ǡ Dz᪂፹య㖞௦ ὶ⾜㡢᷸Dz⭉ଢ଼dzⓗ୍୭᱌౛奪ᐹǡdz㡢᷸Ỉ᧛ȏ ȐǤʹͲͳ͸ȋʹȌȌ Olesen, Mogens. 2009. Survival of the Mediated. University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Humanities. Shifman, Limor. 2012. “An Anatomy of a YouTube Meme.” New Media & Society, Vol. 14, no. 2, 187-203. Szablewicz, Marcella. 2014. “The ‘Losers’ of China’s Internet: Memes as ‘Structures of Feeling’ for Disillusioned Young Netizens.” China Information, Vol. 28, no. 2, 259-275. Yinger, J. Milton. 1982. Counter-cultures, The Promise and Peril of a World Turned Upside Down. New York/London: Free Press Collier Macmillan Publishers.





CONTRIBUTORS

Maximilian Feldner is a doctoral candidate at the English Department of the University of Graz, where he is writing about the literature of the Nigerian diaspora. His research interests lie in the fields of anglophone narrative fiction of the 20th and the 21st century, film and popular culture. J. Gill Holland is Professor Emeritus of English, Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina, USA. He studied Chinese at Stanford University and in Taiwan and Beijing. He has lectured and published in the USA, Europe and Asia, and has translated Classical Chinese Poetry. His latest book is a translation from the Norwegian entitled The Private Journals of Edvard Munch, University of Wisconsin Press, 2010. Victor Kennedy teaches English literature at the University of Maribor and is the author of Strange Brew: Metaphors of Magic and Science in Rock Music (2013) and editor, with Michelle Gadpaille, of Words and Music (2013) and Symphony and Song (2016). Wojciech Klepuszewski obtained his Ph.D. in literary studies from Gdansk University. He teaches at the Faculty of Humanities, Koszalin University of Technology, Poland. His latest publications are All the Vs of Life–Conflicts and Controversies in Tony Harrison’s Poetry (2013, coauthor Stephen Butler, Ulster University), Academic Fiction Revisited: Selected Essays (2014, co-editor Dieter Fuchs, Vienna University) and Recalling War: Representations of the Two World Wars in British Literature and Culture (2014, editor). He also teaches courses in lexicology and has published three books on vocabulary, word formation and phraseology. Mihaela Koletnik holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics and is a Professor of the Slovene language at the Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor, where she teaches diachronic Slovene linguistics. Her research interests include the study of north-eastern Slovene dialects, dialectal lexicography, language contact and the changing role of dialects within the context of globalization, in particular their use in media and in popular culture. She is the author of three books and over a hundred articles, and as a researcher, she has been actively involved in national and international projects. As a

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visiting professor, she has lectured at various universities in Austria, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary and Croatia. She is a member of the Scientific Council for the Humanities at the Slovenian Research Agency (appointed in 2015) and Bologna expert for Slovenia at the Ministry of Higher Education and Science. She has held the positions of Head of Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Chair of the Commission for Quality Assurance, Vice Dean for research at the Faculty of Arts, and Vice-Rector for Education at the University of Maribor. Monika Konert-Panek is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Specialised and Intercultural Communication at the University of Warsaw. She received her MA in English phonology from the University of Warsaw, the Institute of English Studies. In 2007, she obtained her Ph.D. in linguistics on the basis of the dissertation entitled From Mentalism to Optimality Theory: Notion of the Basic Phonological Segment from the Perspective of European and American Phonological Theories. Her current research interests include phonology, sociophonetics, stylistics and Polish-English contrastive grammar. Agata Križan earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Maribor and her MA degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language at the University of Birmingham. She is a lector in foreign languages at the University of Maribor, Faculty of Arts and has published several articles on the topic of appraisal/evaluative language, language in advertisements, and teaching critical thinking using advertisements in the classroom. Paul Lindholdt is the author most recently of the books Explorations in Ecocriticism and In Earshot of Water. His essays have appeared in AlterNet, American Quarterly, and Sewanee Review. He’s a professor of English at Eastern Washington University. Urša Marinšek is an MA student of English and Sociology at the Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor, Slovenia. She is currently finishing her studies and enjoys research into various topics, which include literary theory, corpus studies and drama. Her previous research includes Slovene translations of Shakespeare’s plays. She has taken part in international conferences and is co-author of chapters in monographs, one published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, titled The Whirlwind of Passion: New Critical Perspectives on William Shakespeare (Petar Penda, editor, 2016).



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Tomaž Oniþ is Assistant Professor of English and American Studies at the Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor, Slovenia. His primary research is in the field of contemporary British drama, particularly its stylistic and translation aspects. He has studied the works of the Nobel Prize winning British author Harold Pinter, and translations of his plays into Slovene, and has published extensively on these and related topics. He has edited several monographs and journal editions in drama and Pinter studies, the most recent being Harold Pinter on International Stages (Peter Lang, 2014). He has also published on stylistic aspects of Germont’s aria from La Traviata in three languages in Words and Music (2013), on Dulcamara's speech from The Elixir of Love in English and Slovene in Symphony and Song (2016), and an article about the music in a Slovene production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Katie J. Peterson is an instructor of English at Eastern Washington University. She is earning her master’s degree and plans to become an English professor. She is also an avid musician and songwriter, which sparked her interest in this project. Jerneja Planinšek Žlof is a third-year doctoral student in American literature and literature based cultural studies at the University of Graz. She is developing her dissertation entitled Dysfunctional Families and the American Dream in Mid-20th Century American Drama. Her research interests include cultural studies, gender studies and eco-criticism. In 2000 she received a BA and was awarded the title Professor of English language and history from the Faculty of Education, Department of English and American Studies at the University of Maribor. She has been teaching English language and history to secondary school students since 2000 and professional terminology in English language and courses focusing on cultural heritage to vocational college students since 2009. Nada Šabec holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics and is a Professor at the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Maribor, Slovenia. Her research interests include primarily sociolinguistic issues, Slovene-English language contact and intercultural communication. She is the author of the book Half pa pu: the Language of Slovene Americans (1995) and the co-author of Across Cultures: Slovene-British-American Intercultural Communication (2001). She has edited the volume English Language, Literature and Culture in a Global Context (2008), as well as a recent volume of the ELOPE journal on Words and Music (2016). She has presented at international conferences and published in the International



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Journal of the Sociology of Language and other periodicals. She studied at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, was a Fulbright visiting scholar at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and a guest lecturer at several institutions in North America and Europe. Janko Trupej holds a Ph.D. in translation studies from the University of Ljubljana (2013). After completing his doctoral studies, he received a grant to conduct post-doctoral research at the University of Tubingen. In 2016, he began teaching English and American literature at the University of Maribor. His main research interests include literary translation, racist discourse, reception theory and audio-visual translation. Alenka Valh Lopert holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics and is an Associate Professor of the Slovene language at the Department of Translation Studies, the Faculty of Arts, and at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Maribor. The topics of her research include media language, the influence of non-standard, regional colloquial speech and dialects on media language, loanwords in Slovene, language and gender, and language and identity. She has participated in international conferences at home and abroad (Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Germany, Finland, Bulgaria, Italy, Slovakia, Czech Republic), and given lectures at various universities in Austria, Slovakia and Bulgaria. She is the author of over 40 articles and two books Kultura govora na Radiu Maribor/Spoken Discourse of National Radio Maribor (2005) and Med knjižnim in neknjižnim na radijskih valovih v Mariboru/Between Standard and Non-Standard on Maribor Radio Stations (2013). She is a member of the faculty senate. Saša Vekiü obtained his Ph.D. at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, Serbia. His doctoral thesis is entitled on Popular Music as a Framework of Contemporary Irish and British Prose. He holds the University’s BA in English Language and Literature and its MA in Literary Studies. He is interested in Popular Music Studies, Irish literature, British contemporary literature, American contemporary literature, the English language, British Cultural Studies, Popular Culture Studies and Radio Broadcasting. Zhirong Yu earned his master’s degree in Ancient Chinese Literature at Hangzhou Normal University, China. In fall 2016 he visited Europe as an Erasmus exchange student. His research interests focus mainly on the literature of the Song Dynasty (960-1279). He has published several



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articles on the topics of parallel prose and the philosophical thoughts of the Song Dynasty. Melita Zemljak Jontes is an Associate Professor of Slovene language at the University of Maribor, Faculty of Arts, Department of Slavic Languages and Literature. She researches the issues of Slovene dialectology and language culture, in the last decade mostly their connection to social varieties of youth language. She has published two books, Vowel Duration of the Styrian speech of Zabukovje, Instrumentalauditory Analysis (2004) and Language Culture in Theory and (School) Practice (2014). She is a co-author of the book Slovene or Standard Slovene–Which One is Correct? (2015). She is a member of the Slavic Studies Association of Maribor (since May 2013 its president) and of the International Society for Dialectology & Geolinguistics (SIDG). She participates in organizing international professional and scholarly linguistic symposia and congresses. Cao Zhou is a postgraduate student of English Language and Linguistic from Hangzhou Normal University China. In 2016, she visited the University of Maribor as an Erasmus exchange student. She has previously published an essay entitled “On Westminster Abbey––A Portrait of Midtwentieth Century English Social Life in Dramatic Monologue.”





INDEX

AC/DC, 161 Adorno, Theodor, 31 Ainsworth, William, 70 Ali G, 180 Alien Kulture, 46 Animals, The, 27, 166, 168 Arbeau, Thoinot, 215 Arctic Monkeys, 11 Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, 39 Ausländer raus!, 173 Bach, P.D.Q., 161 Back to Black, 4, 81 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 57 Balfour, James, 72 Bangles, The, 40 Baron Cohen, Sasha, 160, 175, 180 BBC World Service, 20 Beatlemania, 13, 23, 193, 194, 198, 200 Beatles, The, 1, 7, 11, 13, 15, 20, 26, 27, 28, 78, 91, 161, 177, 187, 188, 189, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200 Beauvoir, Simone de, 96 Beckett, Samuel, 48 Beggar’s Opera, The, 162 Behan, Brendan, 53, 57 Berry, Chuck, 26, 27 Beyoncé, 28 Bijelo Dugme, 188 Biljard v Dobrayu, 135 Blackie, John, 68, 71 Blackmore, Susan, 241 Blair, Tony, 15, 32 Blake, William, 37 Blind Watchmaker, The, 241 Blur, 11, 15 Bolan, Marc, 24 Bond, James, 10, 11, 168, 169, 176

Bono, 107, 108 Book of Songs, The, 236 Borat, 160, 175, 180 Borge, Victor, 161 Bowie, David, 10, 12, 13, 24 Boyle, Danny, 15 Bradley, Shanne, 47 Bragg, Billy, 24 Branagh, Kenneth, 10 Brennan, Stan, 45 Brexit, 27, 32 British Invasion, 1, 12, 13, 27 Britpop, 11, 15, 17, 20, 23, 79 Bruno, 180 Buckley, Jeff, 5, 113 Burns, Robert, 71 Burr, Aaron, 102 Butler, Judith, 96 Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 107 Cale, John, 5 Canadian Brass, The, 161 þapci, 179 Carey, Henry, 68, 70 Carter, Sydney B., 224 Cave, Nick, 191 Caxton, J., 69 þefur, 7, 8, 160, 161, 163, 165, 168, 169, 170, 172, 173, 174, 180 ýefurji raus!, 170 þevapþiþi, 149, 150 Chambers, Robert, 72 Chan, Jackie, 243 Chang Diao, 238 Chaos UK, 35 Chariots of Fire, 10 Charlatans, The, 40 Chernow, Ron, 98, 100 Chevron, Philip, 44, 56 Chicago Tribune, 187

Ethnic and Cultural Identity in Music and Song Lyrics Child, Francis, 65 Christie, Julie, 19 Chuang-tzu, 233 Ci, 8, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239 Ci Pai, 8, 236, 237 Clancy, Willie, 45 Clash, The, 11, 12, 20, 21, 22, 25, 34, 46 Cohen, Adam, 107, 114 Cohen, Leonard, 5, 107, 108, 109, 110, 112, 115 Cohen, Lorca, 107, 114, 115 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 112 Common Sense, 102 Confucius, 231, 236 Cookies, The, 27 Copyright Law, 185 Cornwall, Barry, 66 Corries, The, 224 Cowley, Abraham, 70 Crass, 35 Croker, Thomas, 68, 72, 73, 74 Crompton, Hugh, 70 Crystal, David, 78, 91 ýudežna polja, 199 Cunningham, Peter, 70 Cure, The, 11 Curtis, Ian, 38 Daiches, David, 71 Dammed, The, 25, 34 Dammers, Jerry, 24 Dave Clark Five, The, 27 Davies, Ray, 11, 17, 18 Davies, Sir John, 8, 209, 210, 211, 212, 215, 216, 220, 221, 225 Dawkins, Richard, 241, 242 Day, John, 74 Declaration of Independence, 4, 102 Deep Purple, 12 Dennett, Daniel, 241 diaosi, 8, 242, 243, 245, 246, 247 Dickinson, Angie, 193 Diddley, Bo, 26 Dire Straits, 38, 113, 114 Doctor Faustus, 212, 215 Dolenz, Micky, 144



255

Dolgan, Cilka, 145, 146, 150, 155 Domicelj, Tomaž, 193 Donleavy, J.P., 55 Donovan, 224 Doolittle, Eliza, 91 Doors, The, 198 Dr. Feelgood, 25 Dr. No, 168 Drake, Nick, 37 Dread Zeppelin, 161 Dream Academy, 37 Drifters, The, 26 Dubliners, The, 45, 224 Dylan, Bob, 107, 113, 114, 193, 194, 224 Eliot, Thomas Stearns, 21, 179 Elrod, Suzanne, 114, 115 Emerson, Lake and Palmer, 22 Eminem, 179 English and Scottish Ballads, 65 Eurovision, 179, 180 Exploited, The, 35 Fall, The, 40 Far From the Madding Crowd, 19 Farage, Nigel, 32 Fearnley, James, 43, 44, 47, 48, 50, 58 Fender Telecaster, 168 Fiddler on the Roof, 98 Finer, Jem, 44, 51, 55 Fletcher, John, 67 Flick, Vic, 168 Foucault, Michel, 53, 58 Frank, 4, 81 Franz Ferdinand, 11 Frith, Simon, 2, 165 Fun Home, 98 Funny Girl, 98 Gale, Norman, 67 Gallagher, Liam, 11, 17 gaofushuai, 242 Garrick, David, 69 Gay, John, 72, 162 Gender Trouble, 96 Géricault, Théodore, 3, 42 Gerry and the Pacemakers, 27

256 Gibson Flying V, 176 Ginsberg, Allen, 107 Glasnost, 187 Godwin, Mike, 241 Goffman, Erving, 172 Goldsberry, Renée Elise, 102, 103 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 187 Gray, Charles, 69 Grease, 97 Guardian, The, 44, 46 Hairspray, 98 Haley, Bill, 191, 192 Halliwell, Geri, 17 Hamilton, Alexander, 97, 99 Hamilton: An American Musical, 4, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100 Hardy, Thomas, 19 Harrison, George, 193, 195 Haydn, Joseph, 161 Hayseed Dixie, 161 Heaney, Séamus, 39 Heath, Robert, 66, 67 Higgins, Henry, 91 Hill, Noel, 58 Himmler, Heinrich, 174 Hoggart, Richard, 31 Homer, 209 Horkheimer, Max, 31 Hunt, Darryl, 44, 51 Hutcheon, Linda, 162, 166, 168 Icicle Works, The, 36 Idle, Eric, 10, 161, 177 In the Heights, 98 IRA, 21, 49 Irish Rovers, The, 224 Irish Times, The, 46 Iron Curtain, 187 Jackson, Michael, 161, 247 Jam, The, 10, 11, 15, 24, 25 Jefferson, Thomas, 103 Johnson, Roy Lee, 27 Joplin, Janis, 115 Jordan, Thomas, 66 Joy Division, 38 Joyce, James, 43 Jueju, 235



Index Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The, 36 Kaiser Chiefs, 11 Kardoš, Štefan, 6, 129, 135 Kavanagh, Patrick, 53 Keats, John, 107 Keddie, Dave, 34 Kennedy, John F., 56 Khachaturian, Aram, 176 Kinks, The, 1, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 27, 28 Kmecl, Matjaž, 128 Knopfler, Mark, 2, 38, 39, 114 Koþar, Marko, 6, 129, 133 Koþevar, Marko, 132 Kory, Robert, 107 Kreslin, Vlado, 6, 129, 135, 136 Lady Gaga, 28 Laibach, 197 Lainšþek, Feri, 6, 129, 135, 138 Lak Tai, 232 Larks, The, 35 Lau, Andy, 247 Lauper, Cyndi, 180 Lausche, William, 144 Led Zeppelin, 10, 12, 13, 22, 161 Lennon, John, 196, 197, 199, 200 Les Misérables, 98 Li Po, 8, 228, 229, 230, 231, 233 Liberace, 161 Libertines, The, 11 Light, Alan, 5, 108, 109, 113 Lillywhite, Steve, 56 Little Richard, 27, 192 Liu Yong, 8, 236, 237, 238, 239 London Symphony Orchestra, The, 10 Lüshi, 235 Lydon, John, 46, 48 M.I.A., 28 MacColl, Kirsty, 55 MacGowan, Shane, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 53, 55, 57, 59 MacGowan, Therese, 44 Mack, Geoff, 161 MacLean and MacLean, 161

Ethnic and Cultural Identity in Music and Song Lyrics Madonna, 161 Magnifico, 7, 160, 163, 165, 166, 168, 171, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180 Marley, Bob, 25 Marlowe, Christopher, 212, 214 Marvelettes, The, 26 Mary Poppins, 10 Maynard, Theodore, 69, 74 McCartney, Paul, 10, 78, 198, 199 McLaren, Malcolm, 35 McLaughlin, Noel, 2, 3, 57, 58 Melody Maker, 46 meme, 241, 242, 243, 247 Mežek, Aleksander, 192 Mi2, 6, 118, 120, 122, 124 Milky Way, The, 222 Millwall Chainsaws, The, 47 Milton, John, 10 Mintao, Pang, 246 Miranda, Lin-Manuel, 4, 95, 98, 100, 104 mods, 16 Monkees, The, 144 Monty Python, 10, 161 Moorman, Frederic William, 34 Morricone, Ennio, 56 Motown, 26, 27 Mr. Bean, 10 Mujo and Haso, 175 Murska Banda, 6, 129 Murske balade in romance, 6, 126, 130, 132, 133, 135, 136, 138 Muse, 11 My Fair Lady, 97 National Front, 35 Neuwirth, Thomas, 180 New Order, 11 New Republicans, The, 47 New Swing Quartet, 193 New Wave, 34 Newton Neurotics, 35 Nipple Erectors, The, 47 Nips, The, 47 NOFX, 35 Notsensibles, 35



257

Nude, 6, 118, 120, 124 O’Casey, Sean, 56 O’Connor, Nuala, 58 O’Hara, Mary, 224 O’Hooligan, Shane, 47 O’Mahony, Dee, 47 O’Riordan, Cáit, 44, 47 Oasis, 11, 15, 17 Obama, Barack, 99 Oklahoma, 98 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, 39 Orlek, 6, 118, 120, 123, 124 Ostanek, Walter, 145 Pachelbel’s Canon, 236 Paine, Thomas, 102 Pangmailang, Joseph, 246 Paradise Lost, 10 Paul, Billy, 91 Peking University, 242 People’s Daily, The, 243 Pestner, Oto, 193, 199 Pešut, Barbara, 179 Pešut, Robert, 7, 160, 161, 163, 164, 165, 166, 168, 171, 173, 175, 176, 177, 179, 180 Peter Pan, 10 Pink Floyd, 10, 12, 13, 34 Pinteriþ, Alenka, 198 PJ Harvey, 24 Pogues, The, 2, 3, 42, 43, 48, 49, 51, 53, 55, 57, 58, 59, 60 Polka Hall of Fame, 145, 146, 150 Polka Mass, 151, 152 Poredoš, Vlado, 6, 129, 135, 136 Prague Spring, 199 Prekmurje, 6, 126, 128, 130, 132, 135, 136, 137, 138 Presley, Elvis, 7, 22, 179, 187, 188, 189, 192, 200 Prlekija, 6, 126, 128, 130, 131, 138 Project Gutenberg, 216 Pulp, 11 Punk, 28, 34, 35, 38, 42, 44, 46, 47 Queen, 10 Queen Elizabeth II, 10, 11

258 Queen Victoria, 17 Ramsay, Edward, 70 Ranken, Andrew, 44 Red Wedge, 24 Redding, Otis, 26 Renaud, 35 Rihanna, 28 Rizling polka, 135 Robežnik, Jure, 222 Rock Against Racism, 25 Rok’n’band, 193 Rolling Stone, 99 Rolling Stones, The, 1, 10, 11, 13, 15, 26, 27, 28, 177, 192, 197 Ronettes, The, 91 Ross, Jonathan, 81, 92 Rotolo, Suze, 114 Rotten, Johnny, 35 Rowling, J.K., 10 Rutles, The, 161, 177 Ruts, The, 46 Šarotar, Dušan, 6, 129, 135 Savages, 24 Schuyler, Angelica, 96, 97, 100, 102, 103, 104 Schuyler, Eliza, 100, 105 Schuyler, Phillip, 100 Second Sex, The, 96 Secret Garden, The, 40 Seeger, Pete, 224 Sepe, Mojmir, 220 Sestre, 179 Sex Pistols, 10, 11, 22, 23, 34, 35, 46 Shadows, The, 193 Shakespeare, William, 10, 214 Sham 69, 46 Shaw, George Bernard, 48 Sheahan, Siobhan, 56 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 107 Sheridan, Richard, 67 Shirelles, The, 26 Sideburns, 34 Simonon, Paul, 22 Simpson, Paul, 162 Sinatra, Frank, 145



Index Siouxie and the Banshees, 24 Ska, 26, 34 skiffle, 26 Slits, The, 24 Small Faces, 20 Smiths, The, 11, 15, 40 Smolar, Adi, 223, 224 Song Dynasty, 8, 235, 236 South Pacific, 98 Soviet Union, 187 Specials, The, 24, 26, 36 Sperber, Dan, 241 Spice Girls, The, 11, 17 Spin, 109 Stacy, Spider, 43, 44, 47, 51, 58 Stalin, Josef, 7, 188, 189 Stamp, Terence, 19 Stone Roses, The, 11 Strniša, Gregor, 199, 220, 222 Struthers, John, 65, 72 Suede, 15 Suzhou, 232 T’ao Ch’ien, 229, 230 Tang Dynasty, 235 Taoism, 233 Thatcher on Acid, 35 Thatcher, Margaret, 22, 25, 35, 38, 39 The King and I, 98 The Sound of Music, 98 These Four, 196 Thornton, Big Mama, 179 Three Mile Island, 21 Tito, Josip Broz, 7, 188 Tonight Show, The, 145 Tortelvis, 161 Toxic Waste, 35 Trainspotting, 15 T-Rex, 12 Trudgill, Peter, 77, 78, 79, 91, 93 Turbofolk, 7, 165 Turner, Frank, 35 TV Dober Dan, 175 Two Tone, 25, 26, 34 U2, 107 UKIP, 32

Ethnic and Cultural Identity in Music and Song Lyrics Ulysses, 43 Union Jack, 10, 11, 16, 17, 23, 47 Valentine, Hilton, 168 Vangelis, 10 Varukers, The, 35 Velvet Underground, The, 198 Verdal, Suzanne, 114 Vicious, Sid, 35 Village People, The, 178 Vincetiþ, Milan, 6, 129, 135 Voice, The, 108 Vojnoviü, Goran, 160, 170, 171 Wainwright, Rufus, 5 Waley, Arthur, 228 Waste Land, The, 21, 179 Waterloo Station, 19 Waters, Muddy, 26 Weimar Germany, 162 Weller, Paul, 24 Who, The, 11, 13, 16, 20, 21, 24, 27 Wicked, 98



259

Weiss, Maja, 135 Wilde, Oscar, 46, 48 Winehouse, Amy, 3, 4, 11, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93 Wired, 241 Woods, Terry, 44, 50 Wright, Charles, 233 Wurst, Conchita, 180 X-Factor, The, 108 Xiao Ling, 238 X-Ray Spex, 24, 46 Yankovic, Weird Al, 161, 180, 185 Yankovich, Frank, 145 Yeats, William Butler, 48 Yes, 22 YouTube, 5, 108 Žabot, Vlado, 6, 129, 132 Zen Buddhism, 107 žganci, 153 Zorko, Zinka, 120