Jack Penate (pronounced pen-YAH-teh) first came onto the radar in 2007 with his great 50s-rockabilly-inspired EP Spit at Stars. Fast forward to 2009. What a difference two years makes! Penate has discovered Afrobeat, and has used it to create one of the catchiest tunes of the year.
In addition to discovering Afrobeat, Penate has uncovered the linguistic phenomenon known as rhetorical metathesis. Basically, when you change word order in sentences for a better "flow", you're using this process. In the case of this song, Penate sings "Tonight's Today, Today's Tonight, Tonight's Today" as the chorus. Clearly, he's switching the word order around in order to reproduce a certain feeling-in this case, the sense that every day is the same, and involves a haze of drug and alcohol induced confusion. Or possibly zombies.
Here's the awesome black and white video for the song. I think I may have had a dream like this once. Whoa.
You can probably hear from the song that it's meant as a challenge to fight the audience. Peter, Bjorn and John have beef with someone, and they intend to confront them, at least lyrically. However, in linguistics, there's a deeper analysis beyond the cliche "them's fightin' words".
The idea of politeness theory began with work by Brown & Levinson in 1978. The idea is that any act of discourse between parties involves an attempt to "save face". Face can be either postive or negative. Positive face, according to this theory, includes the wish by all humans "to be liked, admired, ratified, and related to positively" by others. Meanwhile, negative face includes the wish "not to be imposed upon" by others. Loosely, these could be defined one's need for extroverted interactions versus introverted "me time".
This song by Peter, Bjorn and John exhibits negative face threatening behavior. Face threats either damage the hearer or speaker, and in this case, the hearer is damaged as Peter, Bjorn and John spew lines like "there must be something in you turning boys to men and then back again" and "if you're such a poet, loose your tongue and show it". Thus, these Swedes exhibit not just "fightin' words", but a textbook case of face-threatening discourse.
Here's a bonus track, for when you want to let someone down gently, say, by dancing to upbeat calypso drums while telling them you don't want a relationship.
Datarock, a lovably geeky Norwegian electro duo, have an album out later this year. And apparently, they really, really, REALLY have musician crushes on the Talking Heads. Evidence for this? Their new song "True Stories".
Background (in case you somehow managed to never hear of the Talking Heads):
The Talking Heads' cannon of work has influenced pretty much any band calling themselves Alternative or Indie since the early '90s. For instance, we can blame the band Radiohead on the Talking Heads, as that band got their name from a Talking Heads song. In 1986 the Talking Heads did a movie, True Stories, which still has a devoted following over 20 years later. And apparently Datarock are amongst its fans, and fans of the band. Listen to this new Datarock track:
(Thanks to Nashville Nights) Datarock-True Stories
Yes, you heard right. The lyrics to the song are literally pieced together titles of Talking Heads songs. The following Talking Heads songs are introduced, in this order:
Born Under Punches Crosseyed and Painless Slippery People I'm Not in Love Houses in Motion Road to Nowhere Once in a Lifetime Psychokiller Radiohead Television Seen and Not Seen This Must Be the Place Don't Worry 'Bout the Government The Democratic Circus
What we have here is hilarious and, depending on your views about appropriation of other artists' materials, either plagiarism or a sincerely flattering tribute. When things straddle the gray area between plagiarism and tribute, they can be described in literary/linguistic terms as a case of intertextuality. The basic definition for intertextuality, as Wikipedia notes, is "the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can refer to an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another."
This term hearkens back to Ferdinand de Saussure's idea of semiotics and how symbols gain meaning as well as to Bakhtin, who in discoirse analysis was important for his work on interdiscursivity. Bakhtin coined the term "dialogism" to refer to the multiple meanings within a text. Song lyrics are the perfect medium for Bakhtinian analysis, as they are typically rife with such layered meanings.
The Bottom Line: As incredibly cheesy and trite as this Datarock song may seem on the surface, it is quite deep in terms of intertextuality.
The Pet Shop Boys have a new album coming out in May, appropriately titled "Yes". This album sounds absolutely terrific, and will definitely be a top album of 2009 for Linguistics Lounge. Then again, any year this duo releases an album it will do two things-be awesome, and make me dance. Today's post is in honor of one of the best dance pop acts of all time.
Previously, I wrote about narrative construction in discourse, examining the narrative Morrissey has constructed for 25 years. Today I'll do the same with the Pet Shop Boys. Remember, I'm suggesting that discourse analysis extends beyond the typical realm of face-to-face interactions to include interactions with an imagined audience.
For the past 24 years, like Morrissey, the Pet Shop Boys have been having an imagined conversation with us. I've translated where appropriate.
When we begin, the Pet Shop Boys are feeling stressed out. It's difficult living in the big city, with so many choices on things to do.
The Pet Shop Boys are also sad because they've been feeling guilty about life choices lately.
As if these choices weren't enough to bum the Pet Shop Boys out, there's also war, starving people, and disease. Life's so tough!
Having resolved to think more optimistically, the Pet Shop Boys turn to the important task at hand-figuring out what to do with their free time in the city.
The solution, of course, is to go dancing! While out at the club, the Pet Shop Boys see that special someone who makes them all tingly inside.
The Pet Shop Boys next have to convince their love object that they should love them back.
The Pet Shop Boys' new lover has to leave town for business, and this makes them sad.
Sadly, it's not long before there's trouble in paradise, and the Pet Shop Boys become jealous or their partners' activities.
After seeing their significant other in many compromising positions, the Pet Shop Boys decide to leave their emotionally abusive relationship, but they're not sure how they'll get through it.
They console themselves by reflecting that love is unexpected, and difficult, but will work out in the end.
True to prophesy, although the Pet Shop Boys aren't sure they'll ever get over their previous love, something great happens!
The Pet Shop Boys decide to Go West with their new love interest and settle in San Francisco to live happily ever after.
There we have it, a constructed narrative discourse that the Pet Shop Boys have had with us for 24 years. If you've read seen the other post on Morrissey's narrative discourse, you'll note the themes of guilt, love, and finding understanding in the world are prominent with both groups. But the Pet Shop Boys remind us we can dance away our difficulties at the end of the day.
A couple days ago while doing research on online social networking site LastFM I stumbled upon an amusing example of music and linguistics colliding. For those of you uninitiated, LastFM is an online social networking site like Facebook or MySpace, except for music fans. You can install software called a scrobbler that works with your iTunes player and tells the website what you're listening to on iTunes. Then everyone else can see it and judge your taste in music (or lack thereof).
And, if judging other people gets old, you can visit one of the many group pages, such as the group Indie Sex. This group has a message board where people must add the phrase "in My Pants" to the end of song titles.
Try it-get out your iTunes, your Windows Media Player, or whatever you're listening to, and put it on shuffle. Whatever song comes up, you must add "in My Pants" to the end of the title. Here were the first 10 results when I did it:
Out Hud-The Stoked American in My Pants Placebo-Black Eyed in My Pants Wilco-Sky Blue Sky in My Pants Fiona Apple-Sleep to Dream in My Pants Elliott Smith-Amity in My Pants Talking Heads-This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) in My Pants Depeche Mode-The Great Outdoors in My Pants Office-Possibilities in My Pants The Fixx-Don't Be Scared in My Pants Counting Crows-American Girls in My Pants
Alright, so why are the results for this funny? Linguistically, what does adding "in My Pants" to anything do for it? Why not "in My Socks" or "in My Kitchen" or "in Space"? Sociolinguists interested in pragmatics would point out that "in My Pants" is an example of implicature. Stanford's got a useful online dictionary of philosophy, which includes a very helpful discussion of implicature. According to Grice's Cooperative Principle, which has four parts, implicatures like "in my pants" are explained by the Maxim of Relation-that is, by being relevant to your audience. So apparently we all know that the phrase "in my pants" is funny. I blame Anchorman, and the Pants Party. Go to 1:09 in the video to hear Brick's invitation.
So, I'd love to see your playlist results if you try the "in my pants" game. Also, any other theories besides the cultural relevance of Anchorman to explain why we recognize the phrase "in my pants" as funny?
Today's post is not really about linguistics, it's more about marketing. But the concept was too amusing not to mention.
Swedish rock band "Bob Hund" (or Bob Dog, in English) have been around for awhile, and apparently have a pretty large fanbase, at least on LastFM. I suppose after releasing several albums an artist might get bored with the typical constraints of the album, EP and single format. Why not create art and literally release a single?
Well, Bob Hund decided to do just that. They created a website about their new single, “Fantastiskt”, which they areauctioning off on eBay. If you're the lucky winning bidder (topping the current bid of $2,025) you get the vinyl dub plate of the single installed on a turntable with the lyrics etched on the top...a single in literal single form, ready to play.
If you can't afford this awesome art piece, here's a free YouTube video of their song "Danse efter min pipa". Just to show you that things are sometimes linguistically lost in translation, since I don't speak Swedish I put "Danse efter min pipa" into an online translator. The result was "dance after face hole." I hope this translation is incorrect.
In today's mail Linguistics Lounge received a copy of Arab Strap's 2005 album, The Last Romance, on vinyl, a rare find. Linguistics Lounge is a fan of Arab Strap in general, but of this album in particular, and is sad the band broke up after making it. Anyway, whilst listening to Arab Strap in all their depressing glory, Linguistics Lounge was reminded that the Scottish English accent is phonologically interesting.
Try listening to "The Shy Retirer" music video, from their Monday at the Hug and Pint album. It's a great song. So why is it difficult to understand the singing?
The answer is probably due in part to the elongated Scottish vowels. The Scottish have what's known as the Scottish Vowel Length rule, developed by a phonologist to explain the phonological environment of Scottish English vowels. This rule states in part that:
[ə], [ɪ], [ʌ], [ɛ] and [a] are usually short.
[e], [i], [o], [u] and [ø] are usually long.
These variations in vowel length make the fact that Scottish English is being spoken apparent. In standard British and American English, all vowels are the same length.
However, this isn't the only phonological variation going on in Scottish English. Try listening to "Love Detective", from The Red Thread album.
Do you notice how the [r]s sound during the singing? That's because Scottish English speakers often change their [r]s into flaps.
Finally, here's "Speed Date", from the amazing The Last Romance.
As you can tell from these three videos, Arab Strap sings about love in all its disgusting, murky, fascinating, complicated forms. This is what makes them compelling-the lyrics are always stellar. However, the accent that is noticeable due to the vowel length variations and the flapping of [r] is difficult to get past at first for non-native speakers. It just takes practice-so go out, find lots of Arab Strap to listen to, and before you know it you'll sound like a native Glaswegian!
I love two things-linguistics and music! The goal of this blog is to combine the two to provide education and entertainment. NOTE: Any songs on this site are for educational purposes only. If you want a song taken down, kindly email linguisticslounge@gmail.com. I also welcome emails about music and/or linguistics, or just to say hi. Thanks for reading!
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