Manchester University Press
2 Interpreting songs
Abstract
This chapter reflects on a very simple question: how do sociologists of music analyse songs and interpret lyrics? In the 1950s and 1960s, the analysis of lyrics was the principal activity of sociologists of popular music in the United States: they worked on the songs themselves, and were not concerned with the artists or their audiences. Popular music has often been the soundtrack of protest movements, if only because it represents the people as opposed to the elite: blues, rock, folk, soul, reggae, rap and so on are all musical styles that affirm a ‘different’ identity, even when they do not maintain a strong tie with social or political movements nor transmit an ideological message through their lyrics. Love songs still form the majority of the music charts, and this is true for reggae as well. An analysis of reggae charts in Jamaica shows this quantitative domination. The chapter offers an analysis in terms of meaning – without categorising semantic vehicles – and based on a corpus of songs that includes, but goes beyond, Bob Marley.
Abstract
This chapter reflects on a very simple question: how do sociologists of music analyse songs and interpret lyrics? In the 1950s and 1960s, the analysis of lyrics was the principal activity of sociologists of popular music in the United States: they worked on the songs themselves, and were not concerned with the artists or their audiences. Popular music has often been the soundtrack of protest movements, if only because it represents the people as opposed to the elite: blues, rock, folk, soul, reggae, rap and so on are all musical styles that affirm a ‘different’ identity, even when they do not maintain a strong tie with social or political movements nor transmit an ideological message through their lyrics. Love songs still form the majority of the music charts, and this is true for reggae as well. An analysis of reggae charts in Jamaica shows this quantitative domination. The chapter offers an analysis in terms of meaning – without categorising semantic vehicles – and based on a corpus of songs that includes, but goes beyond, Bob Marley.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of tables and boxes vii
- List of figures ix
- Acknowledgements xi
- Epigraph xiii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I A study in elective affinity: Music, religion, memory
- 1 Reggae and Rastafari 21
- 2 Interpreting songs 36
- 3 A diachronic analysis of Jamaican reggae charts, 1968 –2000 54
- 4 The construction of a musical memory 69
-
Part II Remembering the past
- 5 Slavery and the diaspora 85
- 6 The construction of a religious chain of memory 105
-
Part III Revealing the future
- 7 Messianism, between past and future 125
- 8 Hope and redemption 141
- 9 The eschatology as future-present 154
- 10 The construction of a socio-political memory 169
-
Part IV From revelation to revolution
- 11 Rhetoric of oppression and social critique 191
- 12 Only rasta can liberate the people 205
-
Part V Conclusion
- 13 Time and memory 231
- Annex 1 265
- Annex 2 271
- Bibliography 274
- Index 291
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of tables and boxes vii
- List of figures ix
- Acknowledgements xi
- Epigraph xiii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I A study in elective affinity: Music, religion, memory
- 1 Reggae and Rastafari 21
- 2 Interpreting songs 36
- 3 A diachronic analysis of Jamaican reggae charts, 1968 –2000 54
- 4 The construction of a musical memory 69
-
Part II Remembering the past
- 5 Slavery and the diaspora 85
- 6 The construction of a religious chain of memory 105
-
Part III Revealing the future
- 7 Messianism, between past and future 125
- 8 Hope and redemption 141
- 9 The eschatology as future-present 154
- 10 The construction of a socio-political memory 169
-
Part IV From revelation to revolution
- 11 Rhetoric of oppression and social critique 191
- 12 Only rasta can liberate the people 205
-
Part V Conclusion
- 13 Time and memory 231
- Annex 1 265
- Annex 2 271
- Bibliography 274
- Index 291
