Their Ways: Theorizing Reinterpretation in Popular Music

Cover songs;Analysis;Musical meaning;Frank Sinatra;Symphony;Boyhood sexual abuse;Music and Dance;Arts;Music: Composition and Music Theory

Ware, Evan Randall EliotLam, Joseph S. C. ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Cover songs;    Analysis;    Musical meaning;    Frank Sinatra;    Symphony;    Boyhood sexual abuse;    Music and Dance;    Arts;    Music: Composition and Music Theory;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/113528/evanware_1.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

In this dissertation, I propose an analytical approach cover song analysis. Although song repurposing is a pervasive and an important practice in contemporary Euro-American popular music, it is the object of little scholarly literature. What scholarship there is, tends to be analyses of discreet original-cover pairs, leaving unaddressed the broader process of what it means to cover. ;;Cover song” has thus remained an undefined term that conceals many different interpretive subject positions. I therefore propose to analyze the practice of covering as a series of decisions, made by the cover artist, to be similar to or different from a base song. Drawing from Michel de Certeau’s theories of creativity, I describe the base song as a ;;strategy,” an organizing force to which the cover artist responds with ;;tactics,” changes they make to repurpose the song for their particular expressive intentions. Depending on their number and extent, tactics either pull the new interpretation away from the original, or emulate it. These tendencies can be conceived of as continuum, stretching toward isomorphism (likeness) on one end, or metamorphism (dissimilarity). A third category arises when a song is repurposed by setting entirely new lyrics to an earlier song’s music. This is no longer a cover but a ;;derivative,” a new song that does not depend on the original for its meanings. Using the above framework, I bring multiple analytical lenses from music theory, and related disciplines to bear on several case studies. I draw these from the family of songs related to Frank Sinatra’s hit ;;My Way,” including its French source, Claude François’s ;;Comme d’habitude,” Sid Vicious’s violent metamorphic cover, and Canadian lounge act, Johnny Vegas, isomorphic homage to both Sinatra and Elvis Presley to help both broaden and focus the scholarly conversation on this important musical practice.This dissertation is the first of two, the second being my symphony for chamber orchestra, ;;The Quietest of Whispers.” In this work, I explore my own recovery from childhood sexual abuse in the hopes that it comforts other survivors of all walks, and initiates a broader conversation about sexual abuse recovery, particularly for boys.