Narrating Love Through Time and Space-The Magnetic Fields' "Papa Was a Rodeo"

One branch of linguistics that's more on the experimental side of things is that of analyzing narratives from a cognitive science and linguistic point of view rather than a traditional literary perspective. The linguistic analysis of narratives involves using three key concepts: frames, mental spaces, and blends. In order to understand this post a definition of the three terms might be helpful.

Frames- According to Fillmore ([1982] 2006), a frame “is a system of categories structured in accordance with some motivating context”. Let's consider the example of the word 'carnivore' in English. English speakers understand that ‘carnivore’ means ‘person who only eats meat’ because of the cultural context, or ‘frame’ surrounding the term. So frames will be different for every individual, although based on shared cultural experiences we might assume they'll be somewhat similar.

Mental Spaces- Fauconnier (1985, 1994) introduced this concept. Basically, this refers to the images your mind thinks of when imagining a particular frame. Taking the 'carnivore' example again, a mental space could be imagining yourself eating steak, a hamburger, or other meat. Perhaps you'd imagine a table filled with meat. Whatever works. Again, every individual will have different mental spaces evoked by a frame.

Blending- Turner (2002) discusses the concept of 'blending', which is basically a combination of more than one mental space. Imagine, if you will, that you've heard the word 'carnivore' while sitting in a large lecture. Suddenly you start envisioning the row of classmates in front of you as large, juicy steaks. Perhaps the person next to you turns into a bratwurst. What your mind has done is combine the mental space where you imagined large quantities of meat with the mental space of physical reality-the actual people sitting in chairs in class. Your mind combines the spaces into a blend, leaving out original elements of both spaces in the process.

For more info on these concepts, the following articles are good starting points.

Fauconnier, Giles. Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction in Natural Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, 1994.

Fillmore, Charles J. “Frame Semantics. In Cognitive Linguistics: Current Applications and Future Perspectives. Mouton De Gruyter, 2006.

Turner, Mark. “Conceptual Integration”. In Cognitive Linguistics: Current Applications and Future Perspectives. Mouton De Gruyter, 2006.

Now that we have basic definitions down, let's see how these concepts can be applied to understanding song lyrics. Consider the song "Papa Was a Rodeo" by The Magnetic Fields. Here are the lyrics:

I like your twisted point of view, Mike
I like your questioning eyebrows
You've made it pretty clear what you like
It's only fair to tell you now

that I leave early in the morning
and I won't be back till next year
I see that kiss-me pucker forming
but maybe you should plug it with a beer

Papa was a rodeo
Mama was a rock 'n roll band
I could play guitar and rope a steer
before I learned to stand
Home was anywhere with diesel gas
Love was a trucker's hand
Never stuck around long enough
for a one-night stand
Before you kiss me you should know
Papa was a rodeo.

The light reflecting off the mirror ball
looks like a thousand swirling eyes
They make me think I shouldn't be here at all
You know, every minute someone dies
What are we doing in this dive bar
How can you live in a place like this
Why don't you just get into my car
and I'll take you away I'll take that kiss now, but

Papa was a rodeo
Mama was a rock 'n roll band
I could play guitar and rope a steer
before I learned to stand
Home was anywhere with diesel gas
Love was a trucker's hand
Never stuck around long enough
for a one-night stand
Before you kiss me you should know
Papa was a rodeo

And now it's 55 years later
We've had the romance of the century
After all these years wrestling gators
I still feel like crying when I think of what you said to me

You get the idea. Now let's see a diagram of the blend that's constructed that helps us visualize and understand the narrative occuring in this song. It's tiny, but if you click on the picture you can see a larger version.

This is already a long post, so in brief, the letters next to the terms each represent a different frame in the order in which they are evoked within the narrative. Input 1 is the initial setup of the narrator-adult and Mike talking at the bar. This is presented by the line “I like your twisted point of view, Mike”. Here we have the first frame of love within the narrative-Mike’s point of view as he speaks with the narrator. A connection has developed, however the narrator is afraid to build on it. This is because past frames are being evoked one after another-“Papa was a rodeo”, “Mama was a rock ‘n roll band”, and “love was a trucker’s hand”. These three frames from the past are aligning within the general category of Past found within the Input 1 mental space.

As the diagram illustrates, the narrator is able to visualize Mike in both the Input 1 and Input 2 frameworks, as the narrative switches back and forth from present to past and back again. Due to this visualization of Mike and the narrator in both Input spaces, the blended space contains both Mike and the narrator as he sees himself the adult and himself the elderly man.

The idea behind this is that we can explore song lyrics as narratives to better understand how our minds grasp metaphorical concepts like love, across time and space. HOWEVER-it should be noted that this is an analysis of the lyrical content of the song, not the vocals. So it's only preliminary. A full analysis would take into account the different voices singing the song. In this case, Stephin Merrit sings by himself until the final "your papa was a rodeo too", when he's joined by a female vocalist. The integration of this second voice is unexplained by this model.

For now, to wrap it up, here's a live video of this beautiful song. Enjoy!

The Past is a Grotesque Personification Metaphor

Last Friday I went to Oakland's Fox Theatre to watch Of Montreal perform. The show was amazing, even with all the highschoolish kids there acting bratty. Before getting into the linguistics of today's post, and explaining the connecting thread, check out the video of what happened before the concert. I was a few feet to the right of these people, I think.

Of Montreal took to the stage, and played many fantastic songs. Among them were the following:


There was also the magical dancing of lead singer/wizard Kevin Barnes, who personifies what someone I know calls "loud shy".


Ok, so now that everyone's jealous of what an awesome concert they missed, onto the linguistic connection. I recently finished a course on metaphor with George Lakoff here at the Linguistics Society of America's summer institute. The course dealt with many types of metaphors, including personification metaphors. While watching the Of Montreal show, it occurred to me that my absolute favorite Of Montreal song, "The Past is a Grotesque Animal", is a wonderful example of personification metaphor.

Now, the question is how our brain knows that when we speak of a concept (time) we do not literally mean that it is physically animate (animal). According to Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their work "Metaphors We Live By", personification is a general category for many types of metaphors that are extensions of ontological metaphors, which deal with events. Personification helps us related events in terms of human qualities. Here's the breakdown of "The Past is a Grotesque Animal" in terms of metaphors.

UGLY IS EVIL-This relates to our physical reaction to something we find visually unappealing. We feel bad when we see something bad. This leads us to connect UGLY with EVIL, and conversely BEAUTIFUL with GOOD.

BAD IS WILD-Again, this construct relates to our negative experiences with bad events. We feel negative emotions, which may make us behave like animals, when bad events occur. We link these negative emotions to a loss of control.

ANIMALS ARE WILD-This construct derives from simple everyday observation of nature-we view animals in nature. Thus, animals are connected to the wild and in our minds animals are wild.

TIME IS A ____-This construct is known as a referrent metaphor, one type of ontological metaphor. Referrents simply seek to connect concepts. Thus, in this case they connect the concept of TIME with the concept of A GROTESQUE ANIMAL.

In mathematical terms, here's our metaphoric equation: TIME+REFERRENT+(UGLY IS EVIL+ BAD IS WILD+ ANIMALS ARE WILD)=The Past is a Grotesque Animal

Here's a clip of Of Montreal's most famous performance of this amazing song, when Kevin Barnes emerged from a coffin completely covered in shaving cream.


There are other very effective metaphors in this song. Can you spot any?

Stylizing "This Fucking Hipster"

In the past decade, an emergent trend in sociolinguistics has been analyzing how people perform identities, or styles, using speech, dress, and gestures. Exploring how people make themselves known as members of a particular group is done through ethnographic observation.

One highly stylized community has emerged in the past five years or so. This community, made up of people from around ages 15-30, is known as the 'hipster' community. They're often defined in a negative fashion for their clothing as well as musical tastes, which trend towards "Indie", although the "Indieness" of their favorite bands (like MGMT, technically on a major label) is debated by many.

The blog "Look at This Fucking Hipster" started a few months ago and has served as a somewhat authoritative voice about what is considered 'hipster style'.

The July 28 posting is a music video of a band that's considered 'hipster', in addition to being 'Indie'. Check out the music video below.


So the first question for sociolinguists is the following-How is the band performing 'hipster style'? Here's a breakdown of how some sociolinguists' proposed theories and models might suggest there is a 'hipster style'.

Habitus (Bourdieu)-The band is replicating a manner of dress that is found throughout the website "Look at This Fucking Hipster". Particularly, the man in sparkly leggings is an indicator of the 'hipster' style, as dressing in a less traditionally masculine way is a practice among the community.

Ethnography of Communication (Hymes)-To have a recognizable style, speech acts must be performed within the community. By definition a band performs, thus what the band is doing in the video is a performance of style.

Audience Design (Bell)- Style shifts in response to audience. The flat intonation of the band members is important here, as it seems to project an icy coolness to the audience. Do you think the band members speak in robotic monotone 24/7? No way. They are thus adjusting their style to fit their audience.

Enregisterment (Agha)-Once a large enough number of people perform the same speech and stylistic acts for other communities to become aware of this, and for the community themselves to see this performance as salient to their identity, the style is enregistered. This band's video is posted on a site about hipsters, indicating that this style has become enregistered, and therefore, recognizable when performed.

Semiotics Combined With Language Variation (Eckert)-Style is not just speech-dress, gestures, symbols, other elements of semiotics play a key role. Again, the clothing conveys a very unique yet reproduced and reproduceable aesthetic. This suggests a style. The objects seen in the video also serve to semiotically convey the style. For instance, holding a longneck (signifying cheap) beer in the left hand is important for male hipster style.

What other ways is style signified in this video? Is there an identifiable 'hipster' style?

Peaches-I Feel Genderless

Back in May, electroclash artist Peaches released a new album, "I Feel Cream". This latest album continues her use of sexuality and gender themes. For example, the song "Billionaire", a duet with Yo Majesty! rapper Shunda K, incorporates themes of S&M/dominatrix style, gender role-reversal, female empowerment, and lesbianism.



According to Wikipedia, Peaches began touring with a backup band known as The Herms in 2006. This was a tribute to what she has allegedly called "hermaphrodite envy", or the notion that everyone is masculine and feminine, so traditional gender labels don't fit.

The song "I Feel Cream" also demonstrates the "tough girl" side of Peaches, with lyrics like "pretty boy, this will be fun". Peaches also gets psychological on this record with the song "Mommy Complex".



As with the song "Billionaire", you can see Peaches projects a fierce stage presence, and fans love it. Go out and get the record if you're a fan of intelligent, provocative lyrics and danceable beats.

Jack Penate- Love in a Native Dialect

Back in May, I blogged about Jack Penate, one of my favorite artists, who is also awesome because his birthdate and year makes him just three days younger than me. A few weeks ago his new album "Everything is New" came out, and I've been dancing to it ever since.

Linguistically, Jack Penate is interesting because he doesn't sing in traditional British Received Pronunciation, which is what BBC broadcasters use and schoolchildren learn. Rather, he uses Estuary English. I previously blogged in detail about Estuary English. Basically, the most famous musician to use this mix of RP and Cockney dialect is Robert Smith.

However, according to Last.FM, younger South London artists like Jack Penate, Lily Allen, and Adele sing in their traditional Estuary English rather than choosing to use RP. This is a style choice, perhaps, that these artists have used in order to maintain some authenticity or present themselves as being from a particular neighborhood.

Check out the video for Penate's new single "Be the One", and listen to some lovely Estuary English. Then go buy the new album!

New Calvin Harris-Summer Style

After a hiatus to travel around Europe, Linguistics Lounge is back, and currently at the LSA Institute at UC Berkeley. One course she's taking is "Sociolinguistics of Style" with Mary Bucholtz. While on Twitter this morning, I noticed that Calvin Harris has posted the video for his new single, "Ready for the Weekend". The video is below. Watch it, and then read how it relates to sociolinguistic notions of "style".



Within sociolinguistics, there have been many theories of style. Bourdieu's notion of "habitus" says that stylistic features might be unconscious and result from the practices of the speaker/agent. However, music videos are deliberate and intentional-like magazine fashion shoots or other public performances, the artist has a concept of how they wish to appear.

Thus, we turn to a different theory of style, that of deSaussure and his followers, who came up with semiotics-the study of symbols and signs to convey message. I argue Calvin Harris' video portrays style via semiotics. Obviously, the clearest example of this is the circular frame he and the dancing women hold throughout the video. This circle is a sign representing a turntable. Harris is a DJ. This is a deliberate usage of a symbol to convey style.

There are at least two other obviously deliberate stylizations conveyed via semiotics in this video. The second is the use of a bright color palette for the background and for the outfits. Bright colors signify happiness, summer, dance music, and the 80s. Harris is deliberately trying to envoke these images for his audience.

Finally, the American Apparel zip-front unitards worn by the dancers throughout the video are another example of semiotics-a symbol conveying style. The became popularized in 1980s exercise videos, then appropriated into mainstream fashion. Now, American Apparel has mass-produced them as part of the 80s nostalgia that is currently popular. Calvin Harris relies on this 80s nostalgia as a large part of his style.

Any other ways style is conveyed in this video?

Tonight's Today, Today's Tonight: A Rhetorical Statement

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.

Jack Peñate - Tonight's Today