Give Me the Safe Word and Smack Me in the Mouth, My Love": Negotiating Aesthetics of Sound and Expressions of Love in the Music of She Wants Revenge
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"GIVE ME THE SAFE WORD AND SMACK ME IN THE MOUTH, MY LOVE": NEGOTIATING AESTHETICS OF SOUND AND EXPRESSIONS OF LOVE IN THE MUSIC OF SHE WANTS REVENGE SHEENA HYNDMAN A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN EDUCATION YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO MAY 2008 Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-45946-1 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-45946-1 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada iv ABSTRACT Over the last century, there has been a great deal of discourse surrounding the nature of love in popular music. As a unique and, at the same time, ubiquitous manifestation of cultural values, the love song represents both social and cultural perceptions of what love is, and the values articulated in these songs tend to change from generation to generation. As such, it is necessary to consider issues such as how love songs are defined both as cultural expression and as a song category; who performs love songs and for whom are they performed; the types of conventions that determine how love songs are composed, received and interpreted by listeners; and, how the popular love song has evolved over the course of the twentieth century. This thesis is concerned with the love songs of postpunk revival group She Wants Revenge, and how these songs reflect the shifting social and cultural perceptions of love by contemporary society. Drawing on the history of postpunk music, which developed alongside socio-economic unrest in the United Kingdom, and in discussing issues related to the study of emotion, love/romance and popular music, this work attempts to negotiate the different and sometimes conflicting sonic and linguistic codes that appear in the group's love-themed eponymous debut album (2006), in order to better understand how the musical and lyric construction of these songs correspond to both contemporary attitudes towards and newer representations of love and romance. V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis is the culmination of innumerable hours of listening, reading, and conversing about music, philosophy, and love. I am grateful to many people for their assistance and support throughout this project, and would like to take this opportunity to recognize, in print, the contributions they made towards the finished product that is this thesis. Invaluable to my research were conversations with Adam Bravin and Justin Warfield, the members of She Wants Revenge. I am forever grateful to them for taking time from their busy tour schedule to enlighten me about the particulars of their music. Both Bravin and Warfield are intelligent and insightful about their own music-making processes and I feel honoured to have been made privy to at least some of the inner workings of their music. Next, I learned a great deal from lengthy conversations with both Mike Daley and Juan Opitz, who very graciously shared their time and their knowledge of the recording studio with me. Without their assistance, a great deal of the analysis in this work would not have been possible. The people in York University's Music department have done a great deal for me over the last several years, and there are many people who deserve thanks. Among them are Tere Tilban-Rios, Melanie Marrinucci, Prof. Bob Witmer, Prof. Dorothy deVal, and Prof. Louise Wrazen, who over the course of my master's degree have provided both vi academic and personal support, for which I am eternally grateful. I would also like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Rob Bowman, and Prof. Michael Marcuzzi, my committee member, without whose guidance and friendship I would not have been able to complete this project. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the contributions of my family and friends. Though not directly involved in my work, they were instrumental in reminding me who I am, why I do this, and in keeping me sane throughout this process. Thank you to Aura Giles, Rachel Muehrer, Chris Wilson, Lauren Acton, Alberto Munarriz, Chris Lucier, Jen Reimer, Mickey Vallee, and last but certainly not least, my sisters, Lara and Zoe, and my mother, Fran. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract iv Acknowledgements v Table of Contents.... vii List of Figures ix List of Musical Examples ix Chapter 1: Introduction 1 She Wants Revenge: Who and Why 6 "Dance" 10 "Cry" 12 The Question 33 Scope and Methodology , 33 Layout of Chapters 35 Notes ; 37 Chapter Two: A Brief Survey of Postpunk 38 Introduction 38 Postpunk: Definition and History 39 Postpunk Ground Zero: Joy Division 48 Bauhaus and "Bela Lugosi's Dead" 54 Conclusion 57 Notes 59 Chapter Three: The Love Songs of She Wants Revenge 60 Introduction 60 The Love Song: What and for whom? 63 Love 65 Song Analysis 69 Lyrics: Stories and themes 70 viii Relationships 71 The Voice... 82 Musical Accompaniment 87 Listener Response 89 Conclusion 91 Notes 94 Chapter Four: Clandestine love and the case of "Monologue" 96 Introduction 96 Sonic Content 97 Lyrics 106 Words and Music: Making the Connection Ill Conclusion 118 Notes 120 Chapter Five: Conclusions 121 Further Research 124 Reference List 127 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Album cover, She Wants Revenge (2006) 15 Figure 2: Image from back album cover of She Wants Revenge (2006) 16 LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES Musical Example 1: Opening instrumental trio 99 Musical Example 2: Primary instrumental and thematic structure for verses 100 Musical Example 3: Melody and countermelody of verses 101 Musical Example 4: Bass line from introduction and chorus 84 Musical Example 5: Bass line inverses 85 Musical Example 6: Bass line from New Order's "Blue Monday" 112 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION "Physical love is unthinkable without violence." (Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being) The love song is at once a unique and a universal manifestation of cultural values. While these values and their expression may vary cross-culturally and from one generation to the next, each generation is in possession of a body of repertoire that best articulates their perceptions of love. In other words, while the language and the ideas expressed may diverge over the years, the notion that expressive songs concerned with love are socially and culturally relevant remains uncontested. It becomes difficult to listen to a great number of popular musical performances and not be able to identify some link to one or another aspect of love. The love category, therefore, is ubiquitous in the Western popular music idiom; however, conceptions of love as presented through these songs are anything but categorical. While particular themes do tend to emerge throughout style periods (e.g., as asserted by John Gray Peatman in his 1944 classification of all love songs as either "happy in love," "frustrated in love," or "novelty song with sex interest," which will be discussed in greater detail both later in this chapter and in chapter 3), atypical themes also tend to surface as socially and culturally relevant during specific temporal periods. Ian Inglis, for example, suggests that the 1950s privileged an idea of romance that is now considered old fashioned; the mid-1960s saw a rise in the representation of the autonomous individual, indicating an increase in the number of people who admitted to partaking in premarital sex; the 1970s demonstrated an almost blatant disregard for the once-favoured value of romance through 2 songs that valorized sexuality in a way that reflected the growth of a "permissive society" (Inglis 1997,40). Is it changing societal attitudes towards love that alter our perception of what is an acceptable, even important, artistic rendering of love, or is it the expression itself that inspires new modes of consciousness, articulating the modern ideas that they themselves inspire? Though there is no way to ascertain this, it is probably more correct to assume that changes in perception result from a symbiotic relationship, whereby both forces are at play. In considering depictions of love in music, a critical question must be asked: How do we understand love, and by extension, how does this understanding inform representations of love? Of the differences mentioned regarding changes to our perspectives regarding love, a striking feature of modern love is our pragmatic approach to romance, similar to the way in which we approach dealing with, for instance, our finances.