"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

SHEENA HYNDMAN

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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: 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. In other words, mate selection has become an undertaking that often places disproportionate importance on compatibility of interests, beliefs, economic position and potential, and health prospects, to name a few, rather than basing such a decision on the grandiose and romantic idea of one true love. While this may seem like standard practice across the ages, it is important to note that such a pragmatic approach to mate selection is the result of conscious choice - with a few exceptions, members of contemporary

Western society no longer let their parents choose their mates based on archaic notions like the promise of a dowry, nor is it acceptable to be forcibly entered into a marriage that is not of their choosing - and this rational approach flies in the face of the Utopian belief 3 that there is one true love for every person. Now, it is more common to assume there is such a thing as more than one great love for each of us, and that true love is, in fact, not true at all, but a thing of impermanence. Further, traditional rules guiding amorous interaction have been, to some extent, overridden by formal, rational, and legal mechanisms, perhaps best embodied by the prenuptial agreement. This sense of impermanence and the need for self-protection demonstrates a significant shift in thought about falling in love compared to generations past: subject to suspicion, love cannot be left up to the ambiguousness of fate. Instead, involved parties must at once protect themselves, legally and emotionally, while constantly working at their relationships in order to ensure longevity and prevent their love from becoming mired in cliche (Dowd and Pallotta 2000, 550-553).

This pragmatic approach to love, however, is rarely supported by the predominant representations of love in popular culture, which present ideas and images akin to the ideals of a more hopeful, trusting, and romantic generation. This is especially true with respect to iconic sites of cultural production such as the Hollywood film industry or the sitcom. While individuals in contemporary society may appear more sanguine in their approach to mate selection than in earlier times, the romantic comedy invariably bolsters the most conservative tendencies of our culture, insofar as it depicts idealized culture, such as the idea of living happily ever after with one's soul mate as a likely attainable occurrence (Dowd and Pallotta 2000, 549; Klosterman 2003,1-10). Similarly, the popular love song is renowned for presenting romanticized situations in the form of stock 4 scenarios, such as those that lament lost or unrequited love and those that celebrate mutual or genuine love, in addition to commenting on the nature and importance of love

(Inglis 1997, 37).

In considering the proliferation of ideas that seem to contradict today's reality, we can be certain of two things. First, the love song deals with the personal, despite the fact that what is described may not be a realistic or truthful representation of the experience of romantic love. By using standard themes that are understood to represent a personal and emotional experience, the love song creates a sense of imagined community between the performer and the listener by appealing to our culture's Utopian desires for 'true' romance, which occur in spite of our most rational tendencies. Second, by virtue of the standardization of idealized circumstances in the popular love song, we can assume that the love song too meets standard criteria with respect to both sonic tendencies and lyrical content. This begs the question of how to represent love in music appropriately: based on our understanding of the role of romance in culture, what are popular love songs supposed to sound like?

To address love's "proper" sonic representation is problematic. While there may be certain things audiences understand about how 'love' should be sounded, this understanding works in collusion with several other factors, such as stylistic trends, social and economic status, and resonance with personal experience. Furthermore, different people in discrete social situations may understand the above-mentioned factors differently. What these variables have in common, however, is an understanding and 5 expectation of particular emotional resonance with some aspect of the music. For example, when the word "love" appears in a song's lyrics, it is natural to conclude that the song is about love. However, can a love song that talks primarily about the pain and suffering caused by another person, be it physical or otherwise, be considered in the same terms as a song that takes as its focus the positive and unconditional love between two consenting adults? Furthermore, can any song about pain, even the pain of love, truly ever be about love? The same type of questions can also be asked about how love songs sound, particularly whether or not there exist specific guidelines regarding tempo, dynamics, gesture, delivery of lyrics, and so on. These characteristics, of course, would change depending on the type of love song being performed. For example, a heavy metal fan might have a different idea of how love should be represented sonically than a fan of folk music would. This difference in perspective would make obvious interesting questions about performance practice: first, there is the issue of how emotional a performance must be in order for an audience to identify with and equate the sound to a personal experience. Next, the question of what would happen when one of the features described above fails to meet our expectations comes into focus. Additionally, the presence of contradictions within or between lyric and sonic features, could determine the extent to which music either becomes or fails to be emotional.

In order to address some of the concerns I have stated above, it is necessary to examine some of the different theories on emotion that have emerged from areas of scholarship such as anthropology, sociology, neuroscience, and music. Though such a 6 survey may not necessarily answer the questions outlined above, it will still be useful in demonstrating why the question of emotion and its applicability to real life is so complex but still very necessary. Before tackling this problematic area, though, I would first like to introduce the music of the California-based duo She Wants Revenge as an ideal case for the study of the love song.

She Wants Revenge: Who and Why

She Wants Revenge (SWR) was formed by and Adam Bravin in

2003.l Prior to its formation, the members of She Wants Revenge were already active members of the commercial music industry. Formerly known as a rap artist, Warfield was a member of and appeared on the soundtrack for the 1996 Hollywood remake of Romeo + Juliet, which garnered him respect as a cult icon of the west coast rap world; Bravin has established himself as a well-known DJ and continues to spin in and around Los Angeles under the pseudonym Adam 12.

With a sound that can best be described as dark, perhaps verging on dreary, She

Wants Revenge is often accused of badly mimicking postpunk heroes Joy Division, largely due to the similarities, and arguably obvious homage, to Joy Division's singer, the late . This opinion, however, is a position that the duo believes is misguided; while they were devoted listeners of New Order, the band that was formed by the remaining members of Joy Division after Curtis's suicide in 1980, Warfield and Bravin maintain that Joy Division was never a group that they were interested in while they were 7 growing up, and that any exposure to the group occurred much later on in their musical and personal development (Interviews with Bravin and Warfield, 2006). Rather, the instrumental arrangements of SWR provide the most conspicuous marker of their musical influence. Recorded and produced entirely by themselves using mainly computers and other digital music-making equipment, the sound, style, and approach to composition taken by She Wants Revenge pays homage to the iconic dance music artists of their youth, such as Prince, Madonna, and as their greatest musical influences.

It comes as no surprise, then, that Bravin considers touring as the opening act for

Depeche Mode in 2006 to be the highlight of the band's career to date.

I first came across the music of She Wants Revenge through a fairly common avenue: a friend of mine was listening to the group and I asked him what they were all about. Upon first listening, I was taken aback by a few noteworthy things. First, the darkness of their sound was initially off putting. I originally found the singer's unadorned and dispassionate delivery of the lyrics to be uninteresting compared to many of the musical groups I am fond of, and the accompaniment to the voice seemed to lack variation. Not long after this, however, I was struck by a second realization: the awareness that She Wants Revenge was not performing just any music, but that they were participating in the longstanding tradition of singing about love.

While it is not exceptional that SWR would write love songs - many popular musicians do, after all - their love songs are particularly striking for several reasons.

Firstly, the content of the lyrics, which is often considered the primary marker of what 8 the love song's conceptual formation might be, addresses aspects of love that would

normally be considered incongruous vis-a-vis socially accepted behaviours and

sentiments as represented in typical love songs. For example, any song that deals with sex

usually treats its subject as a novelty, without any real connection to the emotional;

however, we as members of contemporary western society know that quite often sex is

socially, culturally, and morally linked to the idea of love, and therefore, such novelty

songs are generally considered to be within the same category as other songs that deal

with love more explicitly.

Next, there is an apparent disconnect between the lyrics, which speak of love,

and the delivery of these lyrics by Warfield, whose voice seems to dispense of the words

as if he has no personal attachment to the subject matter at hand. This is remarkable for

the simple reason that we conceive the musical performance of a love song as

intrinsically personal, and by extension, we have come to understand that song topics

such as love require some kind of personal investment on the part of the performer that is

perceivable in the musical delivery. She Wants Revenge's performance by contrast is

rigid, coldly indifferent, and decidedly unemotional. Furthermore, there is also a

disconnect between the love aspect of the lyrics, the austere musical delivery of the

vocalist Justin Warfield, and the accompaniment, performed by both Warfield and Adam

Bravin.

Nonetheless, the conceptual approach to creating this debut album is inextricably

tied to love: the cover art, the list of ex-girlfriends in the liner notes, and the songs 9 themselves suggest that Warfield and Bravin have set out to, at least in part, redefine how love as a song subject is treated in the language of popular music. What makes this self- titled debut album of love songs arguably more interesting than, and certainly different from, other love-theme albums, is intent. In making this album, the duo seems to have two connected goals in mind: first, to write and sing about love in all its forms, as free from cliche as possible; second, "to make girls dance and cry," a quotation that appears in an interview posted on the band's official website. Not surprisingly, it is found under a heading that reads "Deceit"; when I interviewed the band, Warfield revealed to me that the interview itself was a fake, something he and Bravin had collaborated on in response to their 's demand for a biography from the duo. However, after further questioning on this point, Warfield admitted that "[this quote is] a simplified way of saying that we want to express a range of emotions, a wide range of emotions" (Interview with Warfield, 2006), and goes on to describe the importance of representing a wide spectrum of emotional states in music, something he remembers from the songs of his youth, but feels is missing in the current climate of popular music. Since the former point will be addressed throughout this study, I will at this juncture discuss the implications of the latter statement: the notion of creating music with the goal of making girls both dance and cry. 10

Dance

For my present purposes, I am proceeding under the assumption that the terms

"dance" and "cry" are related, insofar as they represent two emotional opposite states

(happiness and sadness), connected by a range of emotional states occurring somewhere in between. This premise is further based on my opinion that She Wants Revenge reveals the dance and cry/happy and sad polarity through their album in many different ways, and I will begin by addressing the dance portion of the emotional spectrum.

She Wants Revenge, composed of only two members, perform and produce everything themselves on this album. This information reveals several interesting facts.

First, She Wants Revenge is not a conventional three-to-five-member rock group: they quite simply lack the requisite number of members to make up a multi-instrumental ensemble. Thus, they fill in the gaps themselves by playing more than one instrument on the recording. This distinction between how SWR makes music in the studio and how they make music in a live performance setting, where they are assisted by an additional guitar player and drummer, is important because it means that their music would be impossible to replicate without the aid of additional musicians and producers.3

She Wants Revenge tours with extra members who make up the back-up band, replicating on stage with conventional rock instrumentation what Warfield and Bravin created on their own with both traditional musical instruments and computer-generated sounds. In considering the discrepancy between how SWR performs their music live vis- 11 a-vis how their music is initially composed and mediated, an important question about authenticity in performance practice arises: though electronic music has traditionally considered an inauthentic means of expression by supporters of the more culturally dominant rock and roll popular music aesthetic, how authentic is a performance that replicates the music in ways that is not in keeping with the original method of

composition, despite the fact that it is being replicated on "real" instruments? And, in relating this question to aspects of emotional performance, how can a performance that is not in keeping with the original customs of the recording accurately portray the intrinsic

emotional sensibilities of the recording upon which this live performance is based? The

latter question is especially important considering the fact that She Wants Revenge is an

album of dance music insofar as it has been inspired by, has been composed as and

sounds like postpunk/new wave music, a popular revivalist trend in contemporary dance music that pays homage to the 1980s, and arguably, the birth of dance music from this

decade.4

However useful or interesting the question of performance practice might be, there still remains a question of authenticity to be considered: can an attempted

duplication of a specific set of sounds outside the original conception of the composer

change the way the music and any attendant messages are received by an audience?

Where She Wants Revenge is concerned, this question seems especially appropriate: their use of computer programs in their music making, a style of composition that is often

considered 'inauthentic,' are meant to represent 'authentic' emotional expressions of 12 love. However, in a live performance, SWR chooses to involve more people in the performance process under the guise of a rock show, rather than making use of other technologies, such as pre-recorded samples from their songs. Under the circumstances of this album's conception and realization by Warfield and Bravin, a live concert made up of sampled music performed by just the two of them might be considered more stylistically and aesthetically appropriate.

To that end, in looking to the stylistic character of this music, the dance music of this album could be meant to elicit a specific corporeal response that is associated with emotions of enjoyment and pleasure, a response that may not be realized in the same way when the same music is performed by instruments that are not in keeping with the composer's original conception as it appears on the album. As such, what is typically considered authentic, the conventional rock band setup, may be considered inauthentic in this particular performance situation, and thus, would likely have an effect on how the music was received and interpreted by audiences.

"Cry"

Considering this use of the word "cry," it is reasonable to suppose that there is

something present in both the lyric and musical material that is expected to educe a

sorrowful response. Given that the songs that appear on this album all deal in themes of love, one could conceivably contend that they mean to spark tears of joy in the (female) listener. However, even a cursory reading of the lyrics from SWR's album reveals that 13

these songs conflate love with atypical actions such as masochism and violence, juxtapositions that are rarely attended to in such a candid way in popular music, despite

their increasingly visible presence in and cautious acknowledgement by mainstream

culture.

She Wants Revenge's treatment of masochism and violence as sequelae of love is

especially remarkable when considering Peatman's three classifications, mentioned

earlier. The violent and sexual themes from SWR's love songs would likely be classified

as category three, "novelty songs of a sexual nature" (Peatman in Carey 1966, 721).

However, to classify these songs simply as novelties is to be inattentive to a variety of

motifs at play in the work of She Wants Revenge. While they may deal in sexual themes

that are closely related to physical and mental violence, the lyrics also reveal that there

are personal experiences and investments at stake that go beyond just novelty. And the

song subjects are, in fact, inextricably linked to love.

Given the polysemous nature of the lyrics, it becomes all the more important to

discuss the musical material, which may generate a better understanding of how She

Wants Revenge negotiates the composition of lyrics that contain signifiers that, in

popular music and especially in the love song, have previously been considered

semantically distinct. A preliminary listening to She Wants Revenge reveals that the vocal

performance and the song accompaniment emphasize the lower end of the sound

spectrum, especially in comparison to much other popular music, which tends to make

greater use of higher registers than those employed by She Wants Revenge.5 The sonic 14 tendency of the songs is towards instruments and sounds that are more easily performed in lower registers, and there is a notable absence of the "natural" instruments that would traditionally make up the sound of a rock band.

Both the voice and the accompaniment vary little, if at all, in terms of dynamics, intonation, tempo, and other musical gestures. In short, these songs do not sound like conventional love songs: the music lacks any sort of recognizable quality that would lead a listener to believe that She Wants Revenge are not simply computers themselves, and the singer's rigid performance demonstrates an absence of the gestures typically associated with the emotional nature of the love song. How is the listener to negotiate this incongruity? In other words, how do we understand love in, or as, musical expression, and how does this understanding measure up against the music of She Wants Revenge? 15

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In view of this, the group, their songs, and the album aesthetic focus on negative themes, for example, sadness, crying, anger, revenge, violence and so on, as they are 17 related to love. Consider, for example, the cover photograph and liner notes for the album. The front cover shows the torso of a young woman in white underwear and a plaid bra under a slightly transparent white singlet (see fig. 1). Though the singlet and the small frame of the wearer have a boyish, prepubescent quality, and the colour white signifies innocence or purity, the visibility of a dark bra through her white shirt at once makes her undoubtedly female and trumps any inference of virtue. Her face is cut off above the lower lip, suggesting a universality of sorts: this woman could be any one of the heartbroken and angry ex-girlfriends mentioned in the liner notes, as well as any female audience member whom She Wants Revenge wishes to make cry. The woman's left arm tugs at the top of her singlet in a sexualized manner, as the person sitting in front of the woman in real time could be in a position to view her breasts, or at least her bra, while her right hand remains mysteriously hidden behind her back. Once the cover is turned over, however, the secret is revealed: the young woman holds a large kitchen knife behind her back, and the once sexual, possibly loving, woman immediately becomes an icon of violence and revenge against a former lover (see fig.2). What happened to this woman to make her prepare for violence? Furthermore, what happens to this woman after she uses her knife to cut someone? These queries are especially important here because they reveal an emotional in-between-ness present in the narrative of the picture. If we assume that the woman is vengeful in the present, we may also assume that she was at one time not seeking revenge, and was perhaps even happy. Is it plausible that love, betrayal, sadness, or any other emotional state existed in between the presumed happiness 18 and the illustrated potential intent towards vengeance; and if so, to what extent is the woman representative of a potential aggression among women in general? How easily could the woman on the cover stand in for the women we meet in our daily lives?

The perspective discussed above is admittedly general in scope and does not speak for every aspect of every song on this album. What it does underscore, however, are a few pressing concerns. First, it becomes important to consider how She Wants

Revenge treat love as a song subject, bearing in mind that their stated goal is to address love in all its forms. By extension, the typical understanding by audiences of the treatment of love as a ubiquitous presence in the popular music idiom becomes a point of contention, and thus, would surely affect the reception of She Wants Revenge's music.

Next, questions concerning how notions of love change with respect to what is becoming socially and culturally acceptable arise. Finally, how and to what degree popular music works in tandem with perceptions of love in the public sphere to both reflect and influence changes in social and cultural norms must be considered. In preparation of answering these questions, this next section will consider a wide range of literature that focuses on how to define the term emotion. Though this survey is by no means complete, it will provide some insight towards how to consider emotion with respect to the love songs of She Wants Revenge.

Literature Survey: Music and Emotion

In order to properly take up the subject of love and attendant artistic expressions, it is important to first discuss what it means to be emotional; however, it is also necessary 19 to acknowledge the subjectivity, and by extension the potential for misinterpretation, of what it actually means for something or someone to be considered in an emotional state.

In musicology alone, there are several recent studies devoted to understanding the emotional experiences of listeners (Becker 2004; Cumming 2000; DeNora 2000; Feld

1990; Kivy 2001, 2002; Schering [1935] 1990; Woody and Burns 2001), and it is certainly not contentious to suggest that studies of emotion in other academic areas operate with the goal of attempting to better understand the human experience. However, varying opinions and cross-disciplinary disagreements about emotion makes this a worthy topic to explore further. What follows is a survey of recent perspectives on the role and nature of emotion in the context of human experience. While acknowledging that

any survey of the literature on emotion is bound to be incomplete, I have attempted to provide as complete a picture as is needed to proceed with this study.

There are several interpretations of how emotions function and where they

originate from. Two primary theories suggest that emotions are either the product of biologically determined attributes (Becker 2004, 49), or the result of cultural influence

(Finnegan 2003; Levy 1984; Rosaldo 1984). Arguments that favour a biological perspective come primarily from studies done in the field of neurosciences, which

suggest that emotions may be divided into two categories: core/primary emotions, which are hardwired into the psyche, and secondary emotions, which are learned social behaviours. Primary emotions, according to these studies, include fear, anger, surprise,

and disgust, and are considered necessary for the survival of any organism. Secondary emotions, such as embarrassment, shame, guilt, and jealousy, are thought to be the result of cultural conditioning because they are based on received notions and interpersonal conduct. Thus, primary emotions are the product of years of evolutionary conditioning in the service of survival, whereas secondary emotions are more particular to specific cultural contexts (Becker 2004,49; Damasio 2003, 27-80).

While the perspective above does make allowances for cultural influence, a possible subtext resulting from assigning emotions resulting from social and cultural conditioning as secondary is that these emotions are somehow less important for living than primary emotions. While embarrassment or jealousy may not be essential factors in enhancing the potential for an organism to survive, such secondary emotions do point to social and cultural particularities that certainly not only inform the perspectives of both the researchers and the subjects of study, but also provide an alternative to the neurological perspective for understanding idiosyncratic behaviours related to both primary and secondary emotions. How, for example, does a theory that relegates specific emotions to categories that suggest they are either essential or non-essential then make sense of emotional disorders that are specifically the product of the non-essential, or so- called secondary, emotions, such as depression, anxiety disorders and any number of neuroses that drive people to seek professional help? Such disorders would surely impinge on a human's ability to survive. It is here that a cultural perspective may provide a useful alternative to the biological imperative. 21

The notion that culture influences emotion has been widely discussed in anthropological studies, which underscore the importance of diversity when considering how emotional tendencies are formed within, and informed by, varying sociocultural groups. For Michelle Rosaldo, emotions are bound to thought, and thus, to understand emotion it is necessary to also comprehend how thought is both culturally patterned and infused with feeling (1984,137).7 Similarly, Robert Levy takes issue with the work of structural anthropologists who, until as recently as 30 years ago, viewed culture as "a system of knowledge" which excluded consideration of the place of emotion within culture. This, according to Levy, is due to the structuralist tendency to disregard the possibility of asystematic behaviour, of which most understandings of human emotions would undoubtedly be (1984, 215). Furthermore, Levy asserts that emotions are not simply infused with feeling: they are themselves feelings, specifically ones tied to the external relationships of the self ("I"). The self, in turn, is constructed out of group processes and interpersonal relationships. Additionally, emotions highlight the relationship between an embodied person and their physical environment, and back again to the physical support of "I" (Levy 1984, 220).

From Levy's assessment, a number of things can be deduced. First, while emotion and culture are necessarily distinct, they also exist in a symbiotic relationship with each other. Secondly, the feelings that inspire emotion are reliant upon an emotional subject's sense of self-awareness. Finally, a person's sense of self-awareness necessarily binds the body and the mind together. This last point remains a highly contentious topic and has been much debated in western philosophy. In one school of thought, the body and the mind are polarized and taken to represent different aspects of the human condition: the former was taken to stand for the baser, more "animal," instincts while the latter represented the seat of reason, which was responsible for maintaining control of the baser, weaker urges of our unreasonable bodies (Finnegan 2003,181 -182). This perspective is especially present in many studies of traditional Western art music, which privilege formalist study at the expense of subjective experience in music. The imperative for these types of formalist studies, according to Ruth Finnegan, is to "provide the intellectual guidance for the regulation of [fundamental bodily urges]" (2003, 182). The formalist Western art music position, as pointed out by Finnegan, is inherently problematic because of the limitations it automatically imposes on itself: this type of study only works when considering art music, as other forms of unwritten music such as jazz, folk, and most popular music are all too often considered to be characteristic of an

"irredeemably physical [and] mindless outflow of primal emotion" (ibid.), which is certainly not in keeping with the 'high' and 'intellectual' properties of Western art music.

Furthermore, such a perspective precludes consideration of any corporeal reaction that may result from listening to Western art music. Thus, it is clear that studies which polarize the body and the mind, as evidenced in the works of many scholars focusing on

Western art music, should not be considered unilaterally applicable as such assessments are bound to exclude other important perspectives. 23

The concept of mind/body parallelism was first posited by 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza, whose work will be discussed later, as a response to

Descartes' belief that the mind holds absolute dominion over the actions of the body

(Spinoza 1996, 69). In contrast to the polarization that has been discussed above, mind/body parallelism operates on the assumption that neither the body nor the mind has dominance over the other. Rather, the body acts as a mode of extension (acting), while the mind acts as a mode of thought. As such, the body and the mind are autonomous but retain a sense of ideal (conceptual) or occasional causality between them, despite the absence of a readily identifiable or consistently tangible causality. For example, a passion, which originates from the mind as a thought, then corresponds to an action from the body. Furthermore, this sequence may also take place in reverse, where an action from the body elicits a passionate response from the mind. The important thing to recall is that neither the body nor the mind is in control of the other, and that when one undergoes change the other is also changed (Deleuze 1988, 86-90).

So, how do these contrasting ideas of parallelism and polarity of mind and body translate into the expression of emotions? There exist many studies that attempt to provide an understanding of how emotions function and what purpose they serve in both culture and personality studies. Robert LeVine investigates what he terms the "affective experience" based on "commonly observable bodily symptoms (such as weeping, blushing, trembling)" (in Levy 1984, 214-215). By considering these bodily symptoms with respect to their cultural and psychological contexts, these studies, suggests LeVine, would contribute towards a better understanding of personality and development (214-

215). In other words, through an analysis of expressions of the body, such studies would provide greater insight into the working of the mind, which is implicitly connected to the

body.

One related issue is the question of determining the capacity for affective

experiences to express meaning. In her discussion of Catnap's positivistic work on the

construction of language, The Logical Syntax of Language (1934), Suzanne K. Langer

finds that very little of our everyday communication has a place in Carnap's assessment

of language as a vessel for the communication of meaning, and one result of this is that

the symbolism of nonverbal expressions is absent from discussions related to meaning,

which can only come from literal interpretations of language (1979, 83). In response to

this, Langer asks, "What is the true function of those verbal combinations and other

pseudo-symbolic structures that have no real significance, but are freely used as though

they meant something?" The answer, she concludes, is that pseudo-symbolic structures,

such as the ones described by LeVine as affective experiences, are expressions of

emotions, feelings and desires, and rather than functioning as symbols for thought they

act instead as symptoms of inner life (1979, 82-83). In other words, the affective

experience creates a mode of extension, whereby the ideas resulting from the mode of

thought are acted out.

In contrast to Langer and LeVine, Malcolm Budd (1992) maintains that it is

incorrect to associate emotional expression with bodily expression. This is not to say that 25

a bodily sensation may not be experienced as a response to an emotional episode, but

rather, that to assign bodily sensation to emotions is to problematically assume that

emotions are expressed through bodily sensations. The suggestion that there exists a set

of bodily sensations tied to corollary emotions, and that each emotion that is felt has an

antecedent bodily sensation, or set of sensations, is incorrect, according to Budd. "It is

never sufficient in order to experience a certain emotion that you should feel various

bodily sensations as a result of the representation of the world integral to emotions"

(136). In other words, it is problematic to assume a stable correlation between emotional

and physical experience; that which is experienced by one will not necessarily be

experienced by others in the same, or similar, way. Thus, Budd concludes that emotions

are not the result of a causal relationship between body and mind, but rather, are the

product of modes of thinking only (1992,135-136).

These contrasting perspectives, offered by Langer and LeVine's parallelism and

by Budd's polarity respectively, present compelling arguments for their respective cases.

LeVine and Langer suggest approaching the problem of understanding the emotional

experience through a closer look at nonverbal communications, which are thought to

stem from somewhere deep inside the human psyche, while Budd maintains that to

understand the emotional is to understand the processes of the mind at the expense of

inconsistent modes of extension from the body. However, both arguments are problematic because they assign too much weight to one or another aspect of the

emotional experience. While Langer and LeVine are clearly more willing to operate 26 under the assumption that mind and body are connected, they rely perhaps too heavily on the cues from the body to tell them what is happening in the mind. And, while Budd rightly suggests that expressions of the body may not necessarily be demonstrative of modes of thinking that consistently align themselves to certain bodily expressions, it is certainly problematic to discount the body's connection to the mind altogether.

As such, an important question must be asked: Is it at all possible to identify and discuss emotion as a response to, or an expression of, something that orders the experiences of both the body and the mind in a tangible way? If so, how? Peter Kivy

(2001) suggests that there are three primary elements that must be considered with respect to emotional response: the object, the belief, and the feeling. The object of emotion is simply the subject on which the emotion is based, or at which the emotion is directed. In passing, Kivy's object is very similar to what Spinoza calls the "external cause," which will be discussed in greater detail later. The "belief quotient," as Kivy terms it, is explained as one or a set of rationalizations on the part of the subject as to why the emotion may be directed towards the object. Kivy uses the example of learning that his friend has just cheated at a poker game. Here, the friend becomes the object of the emotion, while the subject's belief that his friend has cheated provides the cause of emotional distress. The final category, feeling, is much less clearly described by Kivy, who states quite simply that emotions tend to be felt by a subject. It is important to acknowledge, however, the implicit connection Kivy draws between the mind and the 27 body by associating feeling with expression of emotion, particularly by associating emotional response to bodily manifestation (Kivy 2001,125-126).

Kivy's theory is problematic insofar as it is heavily reliant on what he unrealistically considers 'normal' circumstances. That is, emotional responses are dependent upon "standard" reactions to "typical" situations from mentally "normal" people (2001, 110-111). This is evident through his designation of a short list of emotions as "garden variety" throughout this work as well as in his other writing on this topic

(Kivy 2002,2001). While it is certainly not unusual for theorists writing about emotion to present caveats regarding the impossibility of being universal with such a broad and difficult subject, Kivy's particular designation of emotions as "garden variety" gives the impression that there are only certain emotions, with few variations, that may be experienced during specified times and under specified circumstances. And, while Kivy does not deny the possibility of certain emotional instances that fall outside the object- belief-feeling matrix, he maintains that many cases of emotional experience may be categorically fit into his analysis (2001,110-111).

In a similar manner to Kivy, Paul Ekman presents his own tripartite model for identifying the processes of emotional response. First, Ekman considers the elicitor, which is that which acts as the occasion for an emotion. The elicitor can be any number of things, including a person, a situation, an inanimate object of inherent value to the person experiencing emotion, and so on. The next element is the appraisal system, or, that which determines when and what will be responsible for activating the third 28 component, the affect program. The affect program, which completes the trifecta,

"directs emotional responses" in addition to directing the "conventions, norms, and habits that develop regarding the management of emotional response" (Ekman in Levy 1984,

223). In other words, it is the affect program that guides the person sensing the emotional response towards socially and culturally accepted norms governing typical emotional response.

What is particularly useful about Ekman's theory is that it points towards a parallelism between the body and the mind, as well as acknowledging the possibility of anomalies by calling attention to "conventions, norms, and habits" that guide particular emotional responses. So-called conventions, norms and habits are learned behaviours that are very much informed by culture or social upbringing. As such, this assessment allows for the possibility of variations in response to an elicitor as well as different responses resulting from the affect program. However, a few issues come to mind: first, it is not clear whether or not Ekman's theory makes room for a feeling component. In absence of the feeling component, it must then be inquired whether or not the feeling component is of crucial importance to any discussion about emotion.

Following this, it is important to consider types of emotional response. Emotions, according to Budd, exist in one of two forms: dispositional and experiential. Budd states:

If you have a general fear (of dogs, for example), or you are afraid of a particular person or that a certain state of affairs will come about, you need not be undergoing any experience of fear - you might even be dreamlessly asleep, experiencing nothing at all. Your fear is in a dispositional state, which is manifested not only in a tendency to avoid the feared object or to reduce the 29

likelihood of the threatening state of affairs or to reduce your vulnerability to the threat it poses, but also in experiences of fear targeted on particular objects or concerned with possible states of affairs. (Budd 1992,135)

In other words, dispositional emotion manifests itself as a tendency towards avoidance of fearful conditions or experience. Experiential emotions, by contrast, are felt or experienced by the subject, and are manifested as a mental representation of the emotion in collusion with a feeling about the emotion (Budd 1992,135). Budd presents an interesting paradox about the nature and degree of separation between the experiential and the dispositional as emotions: we see here that one needs not to have had direct contact with dogs in order to possess a dispositional aversion that is manifested in the subject as fear. This, however, also suggests that a fear of dogs, or of anything, must be based on some prior knowledge about the nature of dogs. So, how is it possible to understand a disposition to fear something one has never experienced? Further, how is experience defined in this context, or in other words, is it enough to have experienced something through a mediator, such as a person telling a story or through the television, for such an aversion to be counted as experiential? This question may be answered, at least in part, by once again consulting the field of neuroscience. The claim made by

Antonio Damasio is that involuntary or automatic emotions that are triggered by certain objects are the product of evolutionary coding, which pertains to the primary emotions discussed earlier (see Damasio 2003, 55). This is not to say that all dispositional emotions are primary emotions or that, despite the fact that experiential emotions are always the result of an individual's experience with a certain object, it should be assumed that 30 experiential emotions are only social, or secondary, emotions, as such experiences could also determine a person's chances of surviving.

The last contribution to this survey of ideas on emotion considers a section from

Spinoza's Ethics, which is one of the oldest, if not one of the most difficult to interpret, theories on emotion. Still, it is my contention that the inclusion of his work on the affects

is necessary for a discussion of emotion in general, and for my discussion of She Wants

Revenge in particular. A recent wave of interest in Spinoza's Ethics has spawned a great number of new translations and interpretations, many of which attempt to make short work of understanding Spinoza's difficult text (e.g., Damasio 2003; Deleuze 1990;

Massumi 2002). Of these many attempts at deconstructing Spinoza, perhaps the best and most comprehensible look comes from Steven Nadler's recent study, simply titled

Spinoza's Ethics: An Introduction (2006). It is from Nadler's work, in conjunction with

Spinoza, that the following section is generated.

Spinoza defines affect as follows:

IIID3: By affect I understand affections of the body by which the body's power of acting is increased or diminished, aided or restrained, and at the same time the ideas of these affections [in the mind].

What this definition refers to is a changing from one state to another, and importantly, the

affect itself does not cause this change, but is the transition itself. Within this definition, there are two types of affects that are distinguished by the thing that causes the transition to occur: active affects and passive affects (passions). According to Spinoza, the primary

distinction between these two types of activities is a matter of "adequate ideas" versus 31

"inadequate ideas." Where the former is concerned, the cause of a body's transitioning from one state to another comes from within the body itself: as such, it is an active affect.

"Inadequate ideas," however, are caused by something external to the affected body, and because the cause of the transition is external to the body, the experience is passive because it is beyond the control of the person experiencing the passing through one state to another. Steven Nadler provides this useful example by way of explaining the difference between action and passion:

My mind is active when my admiration of what a snowflake is follows from my adequate knowledge of the properties of water vapor, atmospheric conditions, and the principles of crystallization. My mind is passive, by contrast, when my admiration of what a snowflake is derives only from my sensory experience, from the way in which my body happens to be affected by seeing or feeling a snowflake. (Nadler 2006, 194)

Using Nadler's example, the difference between adequate and inadequate ideas becomes clarified: in using the knowledge gained on a subject, an affect is active because the understanding of the subject comes from within a person. Because an active affect occurs as a direct result of the individual and not because of something external, it will be responsible for amplifying the freedom and autonomy of said individual. However, passions stem from inadequate understanding of an external subject, which means that the experience in question is both uncontrollable and impermanent (Nadler 2006, 211-

212).

In spite of the superiority assigned to actions by Spinoza, with respect to how action are supposed to better the human condition, most experience happens in collusion 32 with forces external to the affected person. As such, Spinoza spends some time defining these passions, which have, to some degree of error, become understood as akin to contemporary discernments of "emotion." According to Spinoza, there are three primary affects: joy, "a man's passage from lesser to greater perfection"; sadness, "a man's passage from greater to lesser perfection"; and desire, "a man's very essence, insofar as it is conceived to be determined, from any given affection of it, to do something" (Spinoza

1996,104). It is from these three that all other passive affects are derived. As before, the three definitions above denote an evolution from one phase to another, rather than an end product resulting from the affect. Furthermore, the species of affect derived from these three starting points seem to be differentiated from one another by their relationship to the thing that causes alteration to occur. Love, for instance, is defined as "a joy, accompanied by the idea of an external cause." This cause can be based upon the individual's greater understanding (e.g., knowledge of mechanics leads to love of automobiles), which would make it an active affect. However, the cause of love could also be anything that exists outside the self, such as romantic love felt for another person, which would then make it a passive affect.

The importance of considering various perspectives on what defines an emotion or an affect is essential to understanding how love is represented in the songs composed by She Wants Revenge. 33

The Question

This thesis will look at the love songs of She Wants Revenge, seeking to identify, locate, and better understand their approach to love songs with respect to the shifting social and cultural perceptions of love in contemporary society. In particular, this shifting seems to manifest itself as a semantic disconnect between inter-, intra- and extra-musical qualities, such as lyrical and musical elements and how these are informed, received, and interpreted by sociocultural convention, of the love songs from their self-titled debut album, She Wants Revenge, which I will take as the focus of this study. Therefore, this work concerns itself with the issue of representation, and aims to clarify the ways in which the music of She Wants Revenge challenges common assumptions about what is generally accepted and expected from love songs by audiences of North American popular music.

Scope and Methodology

The songwriting in this album is reflective of a tradition of postpunk music that has recently been revived by contemporary performers and audiences of popular music such as the Constantines, Bloc Party, Interpol, the Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand.

Though the duo deny having been inspired by the early postpunk group Joy Division, the music composed by She Wants Revenge pays homage to the dance music of the 1980s, primarily Depeche Mode and New Order, and to goth rock group Bauhaus, all of which are a product of the postpunk style first presented through the music of Joy Division.

The methods of research I have used for this study are varied. First, I will refer throughout my work to interviews conducted with Adam Bravin and Justin Warfield at the Phoenix nightclub in Toronto on August 2,2006. After having received no response from the band before their visit to Toronto, I conducted these interviews prior to She

Wants Revenge's performance at the Phoenix. At their request, and for reasons unknown to me, Warfield and Bravin were interviewed separately. In addition, I have included interviews with my colleagues, who have shared their thoughts and opinions on what the love songs of She Wants Revenge sound like to them. Further, discussions of lyrics and music will take place with respect to both the primary sources outlined above, and to secondary sources from various areas of scholarship.

With respect to academic literature, the sociological studies I consulted were primarily concerned with the love song as a lyric category, without considering any sonic quality that might also influence the reception of love songs by audiences. More recent musicological work (e.g., Inglis 1997) treats the sonic aspects a bit more closely, but many of these studies conclude that it is difficult, if not impossible, to categorize love sonically, and thus, relinquish any claim to shed light on the nature of love and how it may be represented sonically. While I will make no such totalizing claim of my own in this work, I hope to demonstrate that there are ways in which love may be understood 35 through sound, and it is this realization in particular that makes the loves songs of She

Wants Revenge especially fascinating and appropriate for the research that follows.

Layout of Chapters

Chapter two of this work is a brief survey of postpunk, with respect to its unique stylistic characteristics and its emergence from and commentary on the considerable socioeconomic upheaval that took place in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Following this will be a discussion of two important postpunk bands, Joy

Division and Bauhaus. In discussing the musical styles of these two groups, I will have laid the groundwork for better understanding the particular aesthetic choices made by

SWR.

Chapter three is the first part of a style analysis, which will deal with aspects of the lyrics and music from She Wants Revenge's eponymous debut album. In particular, this chapter seeks to draw connections between early and more recent sociological perspectives on the love song, which are mainly concerned with lyric classification, and discussions of musical style and representation. Applied to the songs from SWR's album, this analysis will discuss the variety of love-related themes as they are represented both musically and lyrically.

Chapter four is a case study of a single song from She Wants Revenge,

"Monologue." This song is a prime example of the stylistic characteristics of postpunk revival. In my analysis, I will consider musical semiotics in conjunction with She Wants 36

Revenge's unique treatment of love as a song subject, concluding that SWR's musical representation of love as articulated in the lyrics demonstrate a break from the conventional love song.

Chapter five will present the conclusions I have drawn from my study, and will point to possible areas for future study, both related to She Wants Revenge and to the major theoretical ideas discussed and applied herein. 37

Notes

The following biographical information comes from the band's website (www.shewantsrevenge.com), as well as from interviews conducted with Justin Warfield and Adam Bravin at the Phoenix in Toronto, Ontario on August 2, 2006. 2 This point refers to early sociological studies on the love songs, which discuss only song lyrics without any consideration for sonic elements such as musical accompaniment, song presentation, etc. (eg. Peatman 1944, Carey 1969, Horton 1991). This point will be addressed in greater detail in chapter two. 3 Simon Frith and Paul Theberge have both argued that with technology comes a type of authority, and this idea is no different when related to musical practices. Despite the fact that music is written and performed by musicians in a traditional sense, it is the production team, responsible for controlling how the sound is mixed, who ultimately determine how music is heard by listeners. Though musicians ultimately have more control over this process when recording an album, the issue of determining a band's sound often becomes an issue of negotiation during a live performance, when the performer's sound is often subject to the aesthetic sensibilities of the person behind the mixing board. See Frith (1996) and Theberge (1997). 4 It has been argued that the birth of rave culture took place in Manchester, England, circa 1982. The Hacienda was reopened as a dance music club by , of , and , the manager for New Order. The club was originally intended to be a performance venue for Factory's fledgling lineup of Mancunian bands, including New Order, whose members owned shares in both Factory Records and the Hacienda. Later, the Hacienda became one of England's most infamous dance clubs, inspiring what came to be known as the "Madchester" scene, attracting at once world class DJ's, drug culture, and street violence. For more information on Factory Records, the Hacienda, and Madchester, see Brewster and Broughton (2000, 345-346), and Middles (2002). 5 This is especially applicable to male voices, which, according to Simon Frith, tend to sound higher and more feminine in popular music. See Frith (1996,193-195). 6 Correspondence with Adam Bravin, 2008. 7 In order to maintain a greater sense of clarity throughout this discussion, I will refer to what Rosaldo calls "affect" as "emotion." Rosaldo's use of the term affect is more in keeping with contemporary use of the word emotion, and is certainly not to be confused with Spinoza's concept of affect. A more comprehensive discussion of affect will take place later on in the discussion of Spinoza's Ethics. CHAPTER TWO: A BRIEF SURVEY OF POSTPUNK

Introduction

Postpunk is a designation that cannot help but be contentious. By rights, any new music emerging after the glory days of punk, which lasted approximately from 1976 to the early 1980s, can be considered post-punk regardless of whether or not it fits the criteria of postpunk musical style. Still others would argue that punk never really died, it merely became the province of the musical underground, emerging once again into public view primarily as a result of popular Seattle Sound grunge bands such as Soundgarden,

Pearl Jam, and perhaps most importantly, Nirvana. To take the latter position on the fate of punk is to problematize the existence of postpunk, a designation that, for better or worse, has been accepted and used to describe contemporary groups such as She Wants

Revenge.

This chapter will define postpunk music as a unique stylistic movement, originating from punk aesthetics and developing alongside the socioeconomic upheaval experienced in the United Kingdom from the late 1970s through to the 1980s. Following this, I will briefly discuss the contributions of two important postpunk bands, Joy

Division and Bauhaus. These groups are essential to any discussion of postpunk music because of their influence on the proliferation styles of music that fall under the umbrella of postpunk, such as new wave and goth, as well as their role in inspiring the postpunk revival of the late 1990s and early 2000s. In discussing the musical contributions of Joy 39

Division and Bauhaus, I am attempting to trace a stylistic link between the musical aesthetic of early postpunk and the contemporary offerings of She Wants Revenge.

Postpunk: Definition and History

Unlike the contentious nature of punk's beginnings, the starting point of postpunk is much less contestable. In the context of this thesis, postpunk will be defined as a musical movement that began around 1977 in the United Kingdom. Postpunk both emerged from and operated alongside the punk movement until what many consider to be punk's demise in the early 1980s. What the punks shared with the postpunks is an idealization of independence: both groups valued the concept of DIY, or do-it-yourself, and were instrumental in popularizing the concept of independent, or indie, music making. However, postpunk's impetus for breaking away from the punk movement is based in part on the view that punk had not managed to finish what it had started, both commercially and aesthetically. Simon Reynolds writes:

By the summer of 1977, punk had become a parody of itself. Many of the movement's original participants felt that something open-ended and full of possibilities had degenerated into a commercial formula. Worse, it had proved a rejuvenating shot in the arm to the established record industry that punks had hoped to overthrow. [Further,] punk had failed because it attempted to overthrow rock's status quo using conventional music (fifties rock 'n' roll, garage punk, mod) that actually predated dinosaur megabands like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. The postpunks set forth with the belief that "radical content demands radical form" (Author's emphasis; Reynolds 2005,1, 3) At the time of this writing, there are many excellent histories of punk available

(e.g., Heylin 2007; Savage 2005), so it is unnecessary for me to go into this history in any great detail. Before continuing with my discussion of postpunk, however, I would like to briefly address the issues of commercialism and aesthetics in punk music, and how these served to influence the formation of a postpunk movement. Punk's move towards commercialism, it can be argued, was the result of calculated moves made by one particularly enterprising individual, Malcolm McLaren. While, as mentioned, the origins of punk are not as clear, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that punk began in earnest as an artistic movement in the United States. One of the most important precursors to punk, the American group the New York Dolls, were performing to great acclaim as early as 1973, and it was during this fateful year that McLaren made the acquaintance of Sylvain Sylvain of the New York Dolls. While spending time with the

Dolls in New York, McLaren was able to observe many trendsetting groups and their performances at the infamous CBGB's. Perhaps the most influential of these groups to

McLaren's vision was Television, whose frontman, Richard Hell, sported spiked hair and torn clothing, a look that would soon be dubbed "punk" (Kinsella 2005, 28-31).

The next part of the punk/McLaren story is more well known: after the decline in popularity of the New York Dolls, McLaren returned to England and to the shop he ran with his girlfriend, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. This shop, called Sex, attracted the patronage of what would later become the , though the Sex Pistols were not a group that would come together organically. In spite of espousing messages of 41 anarchy, authenticity, and anti-commercialism, the Pistols were formed by McLaren in the same manner as the pre-fabricated girl groups of the 1960's. John Lydon, more famously known as Johnny Rotten, would come to lead the Pistols based on an audition that saw him screaming improvised lyrics into the microphone and pretending to vomit on stage (Kinsella 2005 31-32). Through clever marketing and media visibility, punk via the Sex Pistols became one of the most prominent musical movements in the history of popular music.

The Sex Pistols are not the only punk band to ever have taken the commercial road on their rise to the top, but I use them as an example here because their story is the most well known. Even today, the image of the punk movement in the United Kingdom is primarily composed of references to the Sex Pistols, with secondary mention of other groups like the Clash and the Jam. Many of the groups that became popular enough to warrant national and international attention eventually signed contracts with major record companies, which served at once to promote a false sense of DIY, as these groups were no longer recording music on their own or for independent recording labels, and to popularize the punk lifestyle to such an extent that punk would eventually become the status quo. While this type of "selling out" was likely enough to incense the youth who would later go on to make music known as postpunk, it is also important to note that a lack of musical ingenuity greatly impeded the possibility of longevity in punk music as a commercial endeavor. 42

One reason punk is considered to be important, in spite of the fact that it was

never a part of mainstream culture, was because of its promotion of DIY, or the do-it-

yourself ethos. Where music making was concerned, DIY meant that anybody could

form their own band and record their own music, and it is this notion that led to the

proliferation of indie music labels such as Factory and Rough Trade. The idea that

anybody could make music regardless of level of skill was in stark opposition to the

exclusionary norm that dominated popular music at the time, which was that skilled

musicians made good music. Punk not only challenged the idea that a limited few could

make music, but they also created a dialogue around the question of what constitutes

good music. The first and most obvious way this dialogue was enacted was through

encouraging anybody to play and create music. The second way was through the severe

critique of much of the popular music made prior to 1976, especially American and

American-influenced rock and roll. A well-known example of this anti-rock and roll

sentiment can be found in the way Sex Pistols expressed their feelings about the music

of Chuck Berry:

Perhaps the first example of Berry-phobia occurs as early as the Sex Pistols demo exhumed on The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. The band begins jamming on "Johnny B. Goode." Johnny Rotten - the group's closet aesthete [...]- halfheartedly jabbers the tune and then groans, "Oh fuck, it's awful. Stop it, I fucking hate it. Aaarrrgh." (Reynolds 2005, 3)

In spite of the fact that many postpunk groups would later echo the sentiment that "rock

'n' roll is not about regurgitating Chuck Berry riffs" (ibid.), the upshot the type of 43 reaction towards American blues based guitar playing, such as Johnny Rotten's as presented in narratives like The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, was the creative limitation of punk. In discouraging the acknowledgement and use of what Simon Reynolds typifies as the "blackness" of , or in other words, a good deal of popular music made and inspired by African Americans, punk became "militant and aggressively monolithic

[sounding]," (ibid.) which was a style of performance not particularly conducive to greater creativity beyond what was already on offer by the punks.

In opposition to the "strident purism" of punk's sound, postpunk musicians chose to acknowledge their creative provenance, cautiously at first, by incorporating aspects of free improvisation, noise, reggae, dub, and funk into their performance and composition.

Simon Reynolds writes:

Instead of "fat" sounds, players like the Talking Head' David Byrne, the Fall's Martin Bramah, and the Slits' Viv Albertine preferred a "skinny" rhythm guitar style often inspired by reggae or funk. This more compact, scrawny style of guitar playing didn't fill up every corner of the soundscape, and this allowed the bass to step forward from it's usually inconspicuous, supportive role to become the lead instrumental voice, fulfilling a melodic function even as it pushed the groove. In this respect, postpunk bassists were playing catch-up with the innovations of Sly Stone and James Brown, and learning from contemporary roots and dub. (Reynolds 2005, 3)

Reynold's description of a "skinny" guitar sound in opposition to a "fat" sound is an interesting juxtaposition that illuminates one of the more obvious and important aesthetic differences between punk and postpunk music. While Reynolds himself does not explicitly state that the "fat" sound belongs to punk music, it was common for punk 44 guitar players to play loudly and use as much distortion as possible, which at once served to promote a specific aesthetic ideal, to hide any major errors on the part of the performer, and to cover a majority of the sonic landscape to such an extent that it would be difficult to hear any other sonic detail being performed on other instruments. The sparser style of guitar playing favoured by postpunk bands, however, allowed other sonic textures to be heard. These textures were not limited to the traditional guitar-bass-drum band set up, but also incorporated synthesized sounds that were inspired by European electronic musicians such as the German group Kraftwerk (Reynolds 2005, 6).

Postpunk music, in sum, can be loosely defined as a period of music making that emerged from, and briefly operated alongside, punk music. Though punk and postpunk musicians share the desire to be self-sufficient in their music making, they diverge in the areas of style and execution: punk favours a style of music making that is more monolithic and virtually devoid of past musical reference, while postpunk music makes use of past musical offerings by taking what they need and making it their own. While punks were purists in terms of instrumentation, sticking to the basic formula of guitar, bass and drums, postpunk musicians were unafraid to incorporate new sounds, technologies and techniques into their music making. Further, although many of the most famous punk bands, such as the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Ramones, eventually signed contracts with large record companies, many of the most famous postpunk groups opted to stay with their independent record labels, in spite of the fact that they were

Q losing money as a result. The term postpunk is admittedly broad, and so it is useful to 45 mention that there are a number of postpunk subgenres (for lack of a better term), including new wave, goth rock, and postpunk dance music. These subgenres will be addressed later, with respect to how they would come to inspire the music of She Wants

Revenge in 2006. Before that discussion takes place, though, it is important to briefly consider the ways in which the socioeconomic situation of the 1970s and '80s impacted the form, content, and execution of the postpunk groups that would later inspire a musical revival.

The idea that social and civil unrest should inspire musical movements is not a novel one. One need only look at the latter half of the twentieth century in order to see copious examples of the ways in which music was used as a tool for communicating dissatisfaction with the system currently in place: in North America, the Great

Depression and the Civil Rights movement both inspired music that expressed a desire for change. Punk also emerged, in part, as a way of critiquing a broad swath of values held by the majority of society, including but not limited to personal taste, economic and political structures, gender roles and relations, and so on. In the United Kingdom, the punk ethos, shared later by the postpunks, was born out of the increasing poverty, unemployment and civil unrest resulting from the effect of changing government: the rise of Thatcherism, which favoured Hayekian monetarist economics over the Keynesian system that had previously guided the British economy, meant that social programs were eliminated and many government programs were privatized. This was compounded by the increasing worldwide prevalence of economic globalization. These types of changes, 46 which would find their way to other parts of the world in the form of Reaganomics

(United States) and Rogernomics (New Zealand), would drastically, and arguably negatively, impact the economies of many countries, including first world nations such as

Canada, the United States of America and Australia. Further, political groups like the

National Front in England encouraged civil unrest by promoting racist views of a type not seen so publicly and predominantly since the rise of Nazism in pre-war Germany

(Bannister 2006, xvi; Reynolds 2005, 7-9, 64-65).

To say that punk and postpunk musicians reacted against this period of social turmoil is something of an obvious statement, one that has been addressed at length in various histories of punk and does not necessarily need to be attended to here. Of equal importance is the extent to which the reaction of postpunk youth culture is a product of parameters set up before the era of capitalist Thatcherism and other analogous governments, specifically the social changes that started to take place in the 1960s.

According to Geoffrey Holtz, it was the introduction of birth control that was in part responsible for amended thinking about the role children play as members of society. The hormonal birth control pill acted at once as a symbol for individualization, championed by the baby boomer counterculture of the 1960s, as well as acting as a way of addressing fears of a population explosion. The claims that rising divorce rates, working mothers and the increasing necessity of commercial daycare led to neglected children coincided with the demonizing of children in popular culture, notably in films (e.g., The Omen,

Rosemary's Baby). Matthew Bannister writes: 47

Holtz suggests that the subtext [of such representations] was that kids were every bit as powerful and scary as adults: hence perhaps they didn't need parents to look after them. [... Rob Latham goes on to suggest that] youth moved from being the ideal symbol of mass consumption towards images of youth consumption as pathological - dependence, morbidity, halted growth, aberrant reproduction: "a symptom of malaise of a system that conceives only one role for youth - the idleness and hedonism of consumption - but then indicts them for enacting it." (Bannister 2006, xvii)

While it is true that all generations of youth lay claim to the idea that their childhood was uniquely more difficult than others, it is also true that to hold missteps made in the '60s responsible for the latter day position that viewed youth culture as something to be vilified does not answer the question of why the youth of the 1970s were portrayed in popular culture as they were, nor why this generation of youth reacted to social and civil upheaval as they did (Bannister 2006, xviii). Still, to consider the subtext suggested by

Holtz sheds new light on possible inspiration for a punk/postpunk response to the social upheaval of the 1970s and '80s. In spite of the popular punk slogan "no future," which reflected a fear of the potential fallout of the cold war that would result in no future for anybody, as well as serving to reinforce the image of youth in the 1970s as a dangerously misguided group of people (Savage 2001, 351-355), the purik notion of DIY reflects a form of self-sufficiency that may have been seen as a threat to existing systems of power.

The DIY aesthetic not only applied to writing, performing and recording music, but also extended to the realm of "making things happen." There are numerous examples of youth from the postpunk era, famous or not, who lived on the dole (a jobseeker's allowance) in 48 order to maintain a level of income while still being able to hone their craft, whatever that was, and save money (e.g., Simpson 2005, 8-24). Another example of self-sufficiency at the hands of an unwilling system can be found by looking at Joy Division, whose lead

singer, Ian Curtis, and his wife Debbie, took out a bank loan that was supposed to be

spent on furniture. Instead, the money was used to finance the group's first independent release, (Ott 2004, 25). While the misspending of this money is likely to be seen by some as an abuse of trust and evidence of slackerism, it is equally true that without this bank loan, one of the most influential bands from the latter half of the twentieth century might never have gotten off the ground.

Postpunk Ground Zero: Joy Division

The provenance of She Wants Revenge can essentially be traced back to two main

styles of postpunk music: new wave, as performed by groups such as New Order, and

Goth rock, such as the music of Bauhaus. However, any discussion of postpunk music would be incomplete without considering the impact of Joy Division. Though She Wants

Revenge explicitly deny being directly influenced by Joy Division, the latter remain essential to this discussion because they are one of the first and perhaps the most

influential of the postpunk bands that find themselves a part of the short history of the

genre.

Based in Manchester, Joy Division was formed in 1976 by four men in their late teens and early twenties. First called Stiff Kittens and later renamed Warsaw before 49 eventually settling on the name that would see them through the short remainder of their time together, guitarist and bassist reputedly got the idea to start a band after seeing the Sex Pistols perform at the Manchester Free Trade Hall, a legendary performance which drew a 42-member audience and would be credited with inspiring the formation of dozens of groups down the road. Singer Ian Curtis and drummer Stephen Morris would soon join Sumner and Hook to complete the band's lineup. The group performed as Warsaw for a short while, until they learned of another group performing as Warsaw Pakt, which prompted them to change their name to avoid confusion. They eventually settled on Joy Division, a name that referred to the Nazi practice of choosing racially pure-looking women from concentration camps to be used as sex slaves. In addition to their Nazi-inspired name, the members of Joy Division incorporated Nazi themes into their stage performance by donning short haircuts and dressing in drab gray uniforms meant to resemble the ones worn by Nazi soldiers in

World War Two, as well as making reference to the Nazi regime in some of their earlier songs. Notable examples of Joy Division's performance of Nazi themes include the use of a concentration camp identification number (3-5-0-1-2-5 GO!) in place of a count down (1-2-3-4) on the song "Failures," and making reference to Rudolf Hess, a Nazi war criminal and inmate at Spandau prison who, prior to his suicide in 1987, suffered a heart attack and did not receive proper medical attention following the life threatening episode, in the song "At a Later Date." In passing, it is important to note that Joy Division's use of such a name was not meant to denote any sort of allegiance to Nazism, but was used 50 more as a situationist-style device meant to reflect identification with the victims, not the oppressors (Curtis 2001, 54-55; Ott 2004, 20-27; Reynolds 2005, 111).

Though there were a great number of bands forming around the same time, Joy

Division stood out for a couple of reasons. The first was through their situationist use of

Nazi imagery, which garnered the band some noteriety. That their ironic performance of

Nazism was misunderstood could simply have been a matter of bad timing: living in the era of neo-Nazi resurgence in the UK, any person who appeared too flippant or ambiguous about where they stood in terms of their politics were branded Nazis or racists. For their part, such allegations only served to encourage the members of Joy

Division to keep doing what they were doing, and so they continued to incorporate macabre themes and images into both their public image and their music making

(Reynolds2005, 111).

Next, Joy Division was unique insofar as the lyric themes pursued by Curtis, the main , were of a type that had never been seen before in popular music. This, of course, is not to say that serious music did not exist in a popular form before Curtis left his mark. However, it is important to remember that Joy Division, along with many other analogous groups, was formed alongside the nihilism of punk. While many would argue that Curtis' suicide in 1980 is nothing if not evidence of nihilism, his songwriting tended to reflect a deep sense of social and historical context, primarily surrounding human suffering, that was absent from a great deal of punk and other types of popular music.

Further, Curtis' lyrics also very tellingly reflected his own mental state: he suffered from 51 a sever form of epilepsy, and much of what he did with the band - performance under specific lighting conditions, drinking, doing drugs, and not resting enough - only served to aggravate his condition. Finally, Curtis's marriage strained him, first because of his desire to live the rock star lifestyle (which did not include a wife and child), and then because of his affair with a glamorous Belgian woman who was unsympathetic towards

Curtis regarding his illness. These themes were very present in Joy Division's music, especially in Curtis's later song writing (Ott 2004, 88-97; Reynolds 2005, 112-116). But beyond any of this, Joy Division stood out mainly because Curtis was a poignant lyricist.

As Chris Ott writes, "His lyrics revealed a mounting, innate gift for poetic exposition that

- although it was barely realized - could only be called genius" (Ott 2004, xii).

Finally, Joy Division's sound was unlike anything else that came before it, largely due to the interference of producer . To use the word "interference" in describing Hannett's contribution to the legacy of Joy Division may seem strong, but in order to give him credit for his role in shaping the future of postpunk it is essential to acknowledge the means through which he managed to bring his vision to life through the music of Joy Division.

Joy Division first met Hannett in 1978 while recording songs for Factory Records owner Tony Wilson's A Factory Sample, and Hannett would return to the Factory studios a year later to produce the band's first record, Unknown Pleasures (1979). To say that

Hannett's methods were unorthodox is to be kind: in fact, he was well known for his temper and his dehumanizing treatment of the bands he was working with. He often 52 combined his role as the producer with his tendency towards abusive behaviour, creating a sense of panic among the musicians for his own entertainment. This often worked to his advantage, as people would eventually leave him alone so that he could work on their music by himself, ensuring that the music always matched his creative vision without regard for what the band wanted. And, though Unknown Pleasures was critically well received and is still considered to be the product of one of the greatest bands of all time

(Ott 2004, xii), the members of Joy Division were initially unhappy with Hannett's

intrusion into their sound. As Bernard Sumner would later comment, "we resented it, but

Rob [Gretton, Joy Division's manager] loved it, [Tony] Wilson loved it, and the press

loved it and the public loved it: we were just the poor stupid musicians who wrote it!"

(Ott 2004, 75). In spite of any feelings of ill will, however, it is undeniable that Martin

Hannett's production is partially responsible for creating a sound that would come to

influence scores of popular musicians down the road.

Martin Hannett was a great believer in using the recording studio as a creative

tool, and he has been credited with "[defining] the notion of a creative rather than

reflective producer, bringing new ideas to the bands rather than documenting theirs" (Ott

2004, 45). As far as his work with Joy Division is concerned, Hannett enhanced the

sensation of a broad and sweeping soundscape through the use of new studio

technologies, such as the AMS digital delay line for "ambience control" and the Marshall

Time Modulator used to compress guitar and drum sounds. Hannett's use of this

equipment, which at first was perceived as being a hindrance to Joy Division's vision for 53 the band, actually served to hide mistakes made due to lack of skill and poor quality equipment, in addition to contributing to opening up the sonic landscape (Ott 2004, 53).

Yet another technique Hannett employed on Unknown Pleasures was what he called

"sound separation," which was achieved by recording each instrument separately instead of as an ensemble. This technique was not limited to individual performers, but also included the separation of components of instruments, notably the . Stephen

Morris recalls:

Typically on tracks he considered to be potential singles, he'd get me to play each drum on its own to avoid any bleed-through of sound [...] First the bass-drum part. Then the snare part. Then the hi-hats [...] The natural way to play drums is all at the same time. So I'd end up with my legs all black and blue because I'd be tapping on them quietly to do other bits of the kit that he wasn't recording. (Reynolds 2005, 113)

What resulted from combining Hannett's sound separation method of recording with equipment like the AMS digital delay machine, which was the first machine that could produce exact replicas of the kind of sound sought by Hannett, was the creation of an ethereal stereo soundscape in which specific drum sounds bounced from one stereo speaker to the other with only a millisecond's difference between them. Though this interchange was impossible to detect just by listening, it worked in tandem with the compressed guitar and bass and Curtis's dull baritone voice in such a way as to enhance the spectral and multi-layered nature of Joy Division's music (Ott 2004, 61-64). 54

Hannett's work on Unknown Pleasures, and later on Closer (1980) has undoubtedly played a large part in the reception and influence of Joy Division's music.

But to suggest that the members of the band played no real part in securing their fate as one of the most important bands of the twentieth century is untrue. While aspects of their group sound, such as Peter Hook's high, angular bass lines or Stephen Morris' simple yet mechanistic drumming, can initially be attributed to their lack of musical training, these particular sonic qualities have been replicated by many bands since, and continue to influence the composition of popular music today. Perhaps the single most influential aspect of Joy Division's sound, however, is Ian Curtis's voice. Many deep-voiced singers, such as Interpol's Paul Banks and Justin Warfield from She Wants Revenge, have been accused of imitating Curtis's baritone. Regardless of whether or not this likeness is purposeful or accidental, there is no denying the influence Joy Division has had on contemporary popular music making in general, and on She Wants Revenge in particular.

Bauhaus and "Bela Lugosi's Dead"

While She Wants Revenge deny ever being directly influenced by Joy Division

(though they do admit to being fans of New Order, the band that formed from the remaining members of Joy Division following Ian Curtis's death), they do admit to having been inspired by Goth rock band Bauhaus and electronic dance group Depeche

Mode. A more clear connection between She Wants Revenge and Depeche Mode will be 55 made in chapter four, but for now, I will briefly discuss aspects of style from the music of

Bauhaus, primarily exemplified in their most famous song, "Bela Lugosi's Dead."

The postpunk genre of Goth rock, originating from the London music scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s, is said to have been inspired by Joy Division, ,

Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Bauhaus. While these bands likely did not set out to start a genre called Goth, they contributed to the genesis of a musical style that would come to exemplify certain attitudes and themes that would later come to be associated with Goth, specifically neo-Romantic references to the supernatural, death, destroyed love, escaping the mundane, and sexual ambiguity via makeup and androgynous clothing. Further, these prototypical bands would assist in perpetuating a musical aesthetic that combined dark subject matter in the lyrics with experimentation in the recording studio that often resulted in the creation of a sense of sonic space, one that allowed for the emphasis of melodic bass lines, angular rhythms and spooky-sounding guitar parts (Carpenter 2008,

1-2).

While there are many seminal bands that make up the genre of Goth rock, there is no group more famous for its performance of Goth than Bauhaus. Formed by singer

Peter Murphy, guitarist , bassist . Haskins and drummer Kevin

Haskins, Bauhaus is considered to be largely responsible for defining what Goth was to become, and this is primarily due to the popularity of the song "Bela Lugosi's Dead."

This song invokes the image of Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi, who is most famous for performing the role of Dracula, among other vampire characters, in black-and-white 56 movies. While the song makes use of typical vampire imagery through lines such as "the bats have fled the bell tower/ the victims have been bled," it also confuses imagery through the juxtaposition of dead and undead, notably in the lines "Bela Lugosi's dead/

Undead undead undead." This contradiction seems to gainsay the possibility that the song reflects any serious interest in the occult, as Bela Lugosi is a dead actor and not an undead vampire (Carpenter 2008, 2), and instead suggests that the members of Bauhaus are in the know regarding obscure figures in popular culture. More to the point, though, the lyrics hint at entertainment: as Alex Carpenter succinctly puts it, "dead, undead: it's hilarious" (ibid.)!

In spite of the apparent lack of seriousness of content, the musical aesthetic of

"Bela Lugosi's Dead" is one that has been emulated, to varying degrees, in a number of musical acts, including She Wants Revenge. Recorded in 1979 and produced by Derek

Thompkins, the process of creating "Bela Lugosi's Dead" was the opposite of Joy

Division's experience working with Martin Hannett: because the inexperienced members of Bauhaus were unable to communicate exactly what they wanted from the production,

Thompkins decided to set them up in the studio for a "good sound," similar to how he would have recorded a reggae band. Recorded live off the floor and with minimal added effects and mixed by the band themselves, again because Thompkins was not sure how to give the band what they wanted from recording, the resulting sound is one that combined

Joy Division-style experimentalism with dub- and reggae-style performance, though the influence of dub and reggae are only apparent on "Bela Lugosi's Dead" through the spare 57 sounding drums, prominent melodic bass and absent guitar, and appear nowhere else in

Bauhaus' musical catalogue (Carpenter 2008, 3-8). Additionally, the sonic atmosphere of

"Bela Lugosi's Dead" benefits from the combination of a simple performance style - the bass line, which oscillates between octaves on each quarter note, the "skinny" postpunk guitar style described earlier, the rigid drumming of Kevin Haskins, and the predominantly dispassionate delivery of the lyrics by - with broad swaths of ethereal sounding effects that float in and out of the sonic foreground.

Conclusion

The music of the postpunk era has been influential on many aspects of the music industry. Not only has it been instrumental in perpetuating the virtues of independent music making without "selling out," postpunk continues to inspire innovative music making of a sort that pays homage to its cultural roots while prizing individuality and creativity. Postpunk is historically contextualized by a period of socioeconomic upheaval, a period that was actively responsible for guiding the actions of people who made music in this era. And, though much of what came to represent the DIY aesthetic - for example, making and recording music on used equipment, the justification of misused government resources in order to make music, and so on — was forged out of necessity as a result of this civil unrest, these values continue to motivate young musicians to do what they can on their own. Finally, due to postpunk's combination of American blues-based rock and roll aesthetics with modernized studio techniques and technologies, postpunk represents a 58 period of great musical innovation that continues to arouse interest in the postpunk period as well as paying homage to the contributions of these musicians through a recent postpunk revival. 59

Notes

The most famous example of a postpunk group's relationship with their independent record label is the story of New Order and Factory Records. Though New Order were meant to receive 50% of any profits made from the sale of their records, most of that money went towards financing the Hacienda, a club owned by Factory owner Tony Wilson. The only way New Order was able to make any money was from the international sale and distribution of their records, which were not handled by Factory. For more information, see Middles 2002 and Ott 2004, 100-101. 9 More detailed accounts of abuses suffered by Joy Division at the hands of Martin Hannett can be found in Reynolds 2005, 113-114. CHAPTER THREE: THE LOVE SONGS OF SHE WANTS REVENGE

Introduction

In this chapter, I will present the love songs from She Wants Revenge (2006) and explore the ways in which She Wants Revenge communicates various experiences of love through their music. In order to accomplish this task, a few questions must be considered at the outset: first, it is important to consider how the love song is defined, both as a cultural expression and as a song category. Embedded within this general query are several peripheral matters, such as how a love song is typically thought to sound and what it seeks to accomplish through its performance. Furthermore, the question of who performs love songs, and for whom these songs are performed is of consequence here.

Next, the kinds of a priori knowledge that colours a listener's perception of love songs should be taken into consideration. And finally, how love songs have evolved over time will help to shed some light on the current state of the love song. In attempting to answer these questions, numerous sources from sociology, philosophy, cultural studies, film and media studies, and musicology alike have been engaged. Further, I have included a brief listener response section, which outlines how some of the songs from She Wants Revenge were received and interpreted by a small number of respondents. My approach, though admittedly not conclusive, presents a broad spectrum of ideas and opinions that emerge from numerous disciplines. Though there are a vast number of resources that would have been highly applicable and extremely helpful both within and outside Western 61 scholarship, for the purposes of this study, secondary sources consulted are limited to writings published since the beginning of the twentieth century.

The love song has long been a fixture in popular music, and needless to say, much has been said on the subject. Much of the analytical work, as will be discussed in further detail later on, was carried out in the early to mid-twentieth century by sociologists or by music critics, many of whom do not appear to be trained musicologists. These studies present valuable scholarship to which the field of popular music studies owes a debt of gratitude; however, because of the lack of musical training among the authors of these early studies, discussion of the sonic component of popular music is notably absent in their studies. Whether by choice, by accident, or by personal limitation, in excluding considerations of sound — discussing meaning in popular song as solely derived from the lyrics ~ these early studies miss the very thing that makes popular music remarkably different from literary or other music forms.

It has been argued that sonic elements, as abstractions, are interpreted by audiences through the mediation of the words, because interpretation of lyrics requires no special skills on the part of the listener, save for a working knowledge of the language, in order to be generally understood (Fornas 2003, 37-40; Frith 1996, 158-159; Inglis 1997,

42-43). It is understandably true that many scholars are more likely to focus more on the lyric content than on the musical rendering; however, music itself is meaningful. Despite the fact that it is not as easily interpreted as language, which is can explicitly convey concrete ideas, music educes emotional responses from listeners, which require the 62 interpretation of nonverbal utterances.1 Furthermore, as Robert Walser suggests, problems of locating meaning in music are based not so much on the idea that sounds lack meaning as it is a matter of epistemological tensions between the propositional language we use to describe music and the thing we describe with propositional language

(Walser 1993, 39-41).

The argument for lack of tangible meaning in sonic elements, as Simon Frith points out, depends on the assumption that words and music should be considered irrespective of each other, which, with the exception of instrumental songs, is impossible to do. Because the reception of popular music by and large requires a mode of perception where words and music are in constant collusion, any consideration of lyrics from a popular song best occurs with respect to its musical setting, by virtue of the special relationship between its medium of performance/communication and its sonic context

(Fornas 2003, 38; Inglis 1997, 38). Furthermore, Frith has demonstrated that lyrics themselves, without music, are less memorable, having been separated from their original context, which relies on an association with melodic and rhythmic settings (Frith 1996,

159-160). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, lyrics are not simply words, as has been suggested in many studies (e.g., Inglis 1997, 42): lyrics are words as performance (Frith

1996, 166). 63

The Love Song: What and for whom?

The love song is an expression of desires, experience, fantasy, and community.

The love song is a unique form of social expression with wide-ranging social and cultural influence, and there has been a great deal of discourse surrounding the value of the love song as a cultural artifact. Several critics of popular music have sought to disarm the love song by claiming it to be nothing more than a perpetuation of bourgeois ideology

(Adorno 1990; Harker 1980; Hoggart 1957), yet a great many more writers have argued that love songs are undeniably important cultural expressions because of their ability to reach a wide range of people and elicit responses suggestive of personal identification with the song's thematic content (De Nora 2006; Frith 1996; Hall and Whannel 1990;

Horton 1990; Inglis 1997, 2004). Furthermore, the popular love song was thought to be primarily an expression by and for youth culture (Bradby 2005; Frith 1983; Gibson, Aust and Zillman 2000; Hall and Whannel 1990; Hebdige 1979; Johnstone and Katz 1957) in that many popular songs gave adolescents the opportunity to fantasize about participating, through vicarious discourse, in what they perceived to be ideal adult experiences, especially falling in love and getting married (Horton 1990, 24-25).

It is interesting to note that these same studies placed love songs in the position of providing youth with a taste of what it is "really" like to be in an adult relationship. For instance, John Gray Peatman's radio music study classified all songs as either "happy in love," "unhappy in love," or "novelty song with sex interest" (1944). Later, Donald Horton's "dialogue of courtship" traced relations between the singer and their bel^eau from the first trace of feeling to the end of the story, whether this meant matrimony or a break-up ([1957] 1990). Following this, James T. Carey's revision of Horton's dialogue of courtship (1969) consigned all love songs to the realm of formula. In reviewing these studies, examples taken from the hit parade of the respective temporal periods of each study were designated to fit into certain categories, with little, if any, overlap between these categories. Possibly the most flexible of these studies is that of Carey, as he sought to disprove Horton's original theory by demonstrating that times and values do in fact change. However, perhaps the greatest conclusion drawn from Carey's work is that relationship ideals of younger generations fit into formulas of their own, modified from those of previous generations (Carey 1969, 728-731). But in spite of this, an important idiosyncrasy is revealed by these studies, namely how it is possible to communicate experience that is supposed to be personal in a way that is understood virtually universally by audiences, to the extent that all of these so-called personal experiences may be placed into set categories. This is undoubtedly a difficult issue to address with any accuracy, as there are several possible directions that may be taken and many more conclusions that can be drawn from these directions. However, I would like to suggest that the answer lies, at least partially, in our understanding of the term "love" as it relates to the issue of the love song. 65

Love

Love has been the topic of a great many academic studies (e.g., Bell 1902; Dowd and Pallotta 2000; Goode 1959; Haughton 1974; Kristeva 1984,1987; Kurland 1953;

Reik 2002; Tallis 2005; Wilkinson 1976, 1978). While there are several different types of love that may be experienced, the type most frequently discussed with regards to the love song is that of romantic love. Such love songs are defined by Ian Inglis as "song[s] whose lyrics refer, directly or indirectly, to considerations of a positive and close emotional and/or physical relationship with another person or persons, and to the circumstances in which such a relationship might be realized or constrained" (Inglis 1997, 38). While this definition is certainly not free of problems, it usefully denotes an important factor that distinguishes romantic love from other types of love: the possibility of a physical relationship between the actors in the song's storyline. Furthermore, this definition is flexible enough to allow for variation in thematic material to include issues of loss, affirmation, and reflection.

Before continuing with "love," it is useful to better define the term "romance."

Though commonly understood to refer to a type of interpersonal relationship, this use of the term "romance" is a relatively recent one. According to James Dowd and Nicole

Pallotta, the original use of the word "romance" described the chivalrous exploits of medieval European knights, and later came to signify a type of written prose characterized by lengthy plot-driven detours (2000, 551). It was George Bernard Shaw in 66 his 1919 story Overrule who was one of the first to use the word "romance" to depict a transgressive love affair (Shaw in Dowd and Pallotta 2000, 551), and significantly, can be interpreted as leading to the notion that passionate love not only could, but should be a part of a marriage.11 Prior to Shaw's modern idea, marriage was largely (though not always) based upon social and economic factors (Dowd and Pallotta 2000, 551; Kurland

1953). Furthermore, the relatively recent notion that romance and love should be a part of marriage now meant that the types of relationships between men and women could be necessarily different from and arguably better than relationships among couples from generations past. Speaking historically, Virginia Woolf points out in her essay, A Room of

One's Own, that women living prior to the 20 century were the property of their husbands and subject to control from their spouses, including, but not limited to, physical abuse or "wife beating" (Woolf 1993, 38-39). While I am by no means suggesting that the rise of romance as a factor in decisions about matrimony meant the end of abuse, this new idea as applied to the state of matrimony does suggest an element of choice that was never before an option open to young couples. If, as the saying goes, you cannot choose the person you fall in love with, it is likely that a person who holds romantic feelings towards their partner may be more inclined to treat their partner with a certain amount of respect, albeit relative to the times in which they live and any predisposition to abusive tendencies. However, as I will address in greater detail later in this chapter and the next, what is typically interpreted as abuse can also sometimes lend itself to the expression of affection. 67

So, what is love? Several attempts have been made to come to an understanding of this seemingly ubiquitous emotion. Perhaps the best survey of the problems of defining love (at least in song) comes from Ian Inglis's work on the Beatles. Inglis writes:

Given the problems of analysis that these inconsistencies [regarding the sociocultural position of love] produce, it is hardly surprising that so many attempts to define love remain less than satisfactory. [Sanford] Bell's concentration on love as a "strong emotion directed at a person of the opposite sex and involving feelings of sexual attraction, tenderness, and some commitment to the other's ego-needs" is unnecessarily, and, to some, offensively, heterosexist; as is [William J.] Goode's view of love as a "strong emotional attachment, a cathexis, between adolescents or adults of the opposite sex, with at least the components of sex, desire, and tenderness." [Anthony] Giddens' reference to "a mutually physical and personal attachment two individuals feel for one another" overlooks the possibility of unrequited love; so too does [Jacqueline] Sarsby's more detailed suggestion that falling in love is "a physical and mental experience associated with the joy and anxiety of finding someone who accepts one and whom one accepts for what is prescribed as the most intimate and responsible long-term relationship with a non-relative in one's lifetime." And other authors have offered a list of descriptive factors, which are not easily open to analysis, and which ultimately work only at the level of vague generalisation. (Inglis 1997, 44)

Inglis's assessment helpfully illuminates the problems associated with defining love, and begs the question of whether or not it will ever be possible to come across a definition that will be flexible enough to be all-inclusive while avoiding the pitfalls of being too vague. And, though it is clear that the definitions discussed by Inglis all relate to romantic love, such definitions gainsay the possibility that romantic love could include other types of relationships and feelings, such as friendship, on the one hand, and taboos such as incest on the other. 68

One useful definition of love that seems to be able to operate on multiple levels comes from Spinoza's discussion of affect, as presented in chapter one. Spinoza writes of three primary affects upon which all others are based: joy, sadness, and desire (Spinoza

1996, 105). For the moment, I will concern myself only with joy, which Spinoza defined as "a man's passage from a lesser to a greater perfection" (Spinoza [1677] 1996,104).

This definition itself is dependent on the knowledge that joy is not perfection itself. It is defined, rather, by the passage from an initial state to a state that is greater in its perfection. This is an important distinction because it points to the very thing that differentiates an active affect from a passive affect, or passion.

It is from the primary affects that all other affects are derived, and the one most pertinent to this discussion is love. Love, according to Spinoza, is "a joy, accompanied by the idea of an external cause" (1996, 105). This definition facilitates the understanding of love in all its forms, being flexible enough to be widely inclusive, without lacking all significance. The key to understanding this definition is in the external cause: though it could be reasonably argued that love brings about improvement to an individual's condition, love is a passion, Steven Nadler explains, because the cause of love is external to the person and not a product of the individual's own efforts (Nadler 2006, 202-208).

The notion of the external cause is not limited to the realm of heterosexual romantic relations, nor does it mean that love is always reciprocated, which opens the door to other affects that may work in collusion with love, such as devotion ("a love of one whom we wonder at"), fear ("inconstant sadness, born of the idea of a future or past thing whose outcome we to some extent doubt"), hope ("inconstant joy, born of the idea of a future or past thing whose outcome we to some extent doubt"), favour ("a love towards someone who has benefited another"), compassion ("love, insofar as it so affects a man that he is glad at another's good fortune, and saddened by his ill fortune"), lust ("a desire for and love of joining one body to another"), and so on (Spinoza 1996,106-112). Finally,

Spinoza's definition of love encompasses special relations between friends, parent and child, siblings, lovers, people and their pets, as well as holding high regard for certain behaviours, sensations, fictional characters from stories, and inanimate objects, for example.

Song Analysis

There are twelve songs on the album She Wants Revenge (2006). This section will be concerned with two primary components: the lyrics and the music, which will be considered separately and as a whole. Bearing this in mind, I will address the lyrics as both words and words in performance (see Frith 1996,166). Any reading of the latter relies heavily on the delivery of these words by vocalist Justin Warfield, and so, connected to the lyrics will be a discussion of the particularities of his voice. In the section that follows, I will demonstrate two things: 1) regardless of the sometimes uncomfortable and taboo actions and sentiments described in the lyrics, the songs do reflect the affections of love; 2) because of the unusual nature of these love songs,

Spinoza's definition of love is best suited to discussing and understanding the songs in 70 question. While it may seem unnecessary to defend the notion that the content of these songs reflect love, I discovered during a listener response session that even the most overt love songs from She Wants Revenge were not perceived as sounding like love songs. This will be elaborated upon later.

Lyrics: Stories and themes

She Wants Revenge, recorded in 2006, is composed of twelve songs, eleven of which contain lyrics. Based on Peatman's classification, the eleven songs on this album that include lyrics may be superficially categorized by their primary thematic subjects, with some overlap, as follows: two happy songs ("Monologue," ""); eight unhappy songs ("Red Flag and Long Nights," "," "I Don't Wanna Fall in

Love," "Broken Promises for Broken Hearts," "Sister," "Us," "Someone Must Get Hurt,"

"She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not"); and five lust songs ("These Things," "Out of

Control," "Monologue," "Sister," "Tear You Apart").13 While there are a few songs here that extend beyond a single categorization — the majority of the songs address, at the very least, the possibility of sexual relations — it should be noted that only one of the lust songs, "Out of Control," does not appear in either of the other categories.

Heterosexual relationships are the focus of She Wants Revenge. Of these songs,

"Out of Control," and "Monologue" discuss the possibility of physical intimacy with a stranger. Notably, however, the characters in "Monologue" retain a sense of anonymity because neither character ("me," the narrator, and "lover," the other person) is identified 71 as having any particular gendered qualities. Rather, these individuals are defined by power relations, which will be discussed in greater detail in chapter four. With the possible exception of "sister," discussed below, the rest of these songs suggest some kind of history between the players in the narrative, and it is clear that the narrator is the man and the other character is the woman. Four songs tell stories of breaking up ("Broken

Promises for Broken Hearts," "Us," "Someone Must Get Hurt," and "She Loves Me, She

Loves Me Not"), while only two songs, "Monologue" and "Tear You Apart," are about the start of new relationships. Both "Red Flags and Long Nights" and "I Don't Wanna

Fall in Love" outline the narrator's emotional and romantic uncertainty towards the female character, who acts as an external cause for the narrator's emotions. On the contrary, "These Things" speaks about the female character's distrust of the narrator. The only relationship of ambiguous origin occurs in "Sister": while this song clearly deals with feelings of lust between the man and the woman, it is unclear from the lyrics whether or not the characters knew each other prior to the scenario described in the song.

Relationships

The primary topic of She Wants Revenge is the heterosexual romantic relationship between the male storyteller, who is usually involved in the narrative, and a female character. With the exceptions of "Sister" and "Tear You Apart," where Warfield narrates the story from an outside perspective, the male storyteller always recounts the narrative as a participant in the action. By contrast, the perspective of the female character is always recounted from the point of view of the story's male character, who, instead of directly addressing the woman in his narrative, seems to make a great deal of conjecture about her perspectives on the situations being described by Warfield. The notable exception to the role of the female in the narrative is in "Sister," which, again, is narrated from an outside, arguably neutral, position.

According to Donald Horton's study on love songs of the 1950s, love songs present issues of control by constructing situations of the pursued and the pursuer

(Horton 1990, 22-26). Later in the 1960s, James T. Carey argued that characters in love

songs tended to be more autonomous than those of the previous generation as outlined in

Horton's work (Carey 1969, 728-731). This evolution in the roles of characters could possibly suggest a change in the relationship between the pursuer and the pursued insofar as the goals of the pursuit have evolved to exclude the romantic values championed in the

1950s, and thus the divide between the person in power, who is autonomous, and their less autonomous subordinate becomes much greater. While the love songs from She

Wants Revenge certainly are not exempt from issues related to power and autonomy of the individual, the aspect of control has also evolved beyond the studies of both Horton and Carey, and indeed becomes less cut-and-dried than just considering who in the narrative is dominant and who is subordinate/None of the songs from She Wants

Revenge present situations that are entirely typical: they fail to fall neatly into formulas such as Horton's dialogue of courtship (Horton 1990) or Carey's modification of the 73 aforementioned prescription (Carey 1969). What follows is a discussion of the types of relationships between the actors in the song narratives of She Wants Revenge.

To begin, one issue that presents itself throughout She Wants Revenge is the notion that one of the characters is responsible for the fate of the relationship. That is, in spite of whatever actions occurred prior to any given song's narrative, or who was responsible for bringing to light the actions that inspired a song's set of circumstances, there usually seems to be one person who holds the fate of their relationship with the other character in their hands. On this album, five songs present the male in a position of greater power in the relationship, while four show the female character in control. Two songs represent the characters in more egalitarian terms. Beginning with what I will call, for the purposes of clarity, the male songs, the nature of the male character's control over the female in the different scenarios sketched out in the songs can be divided into two subsections: those which characterize the man as more autonomous, and those that characterize him as less autonomous but still in control of the outcome of the relationship. Of the songs where the male narrator is in control, "I Don't Wanna Fall in

Love," "Broken Promises for Broken Hearts" and "Someone Must Get Hurt" present the narrator as the self-directed actor who rejects the relationship with the female character.

Despite the fact that control is granted to the male character, his autonomous status becomes suspect as the song continues, by virtue of the fact that his rejection of her love is motivated by an external cause. 74

Right face, wrong time She's sweet, but I don't wanna fall in love Too late, so deep, better run cause... Can't eat, can't sleep, can't think straight You say it's not a problem, you say it's meant to be But love is not an option, our love is never free And things are not so easy, so cold and we've been burned I know that I'll have regrets

But that's the price of one more lesson learned.

{She Wants Revenge 2006, liner notes)

In "I Don't Wanna Fall in Love," the male character states that he will likely regret his decision to walk away from the relationship, but such is the price of "one more lesson learned." The "lesson learned" could refer to a failed past relationship that now impedes the formation of a meaningful relationship with someone he identifies earlier in the song as "the right girl." Following this line of thought, it then seems plausible to interpret that the narrator was hurt in the past, which is the reason he walks away from a new relationship. The potential to walk away then makes him responsible for putting a halt to any further emotional attachment to the female character. In "Broken Promises for Broken Hearts," it would seem that there is no doubt that it is the male narrator who is responsible for ending an unhappy relationship with the woman in question.

Pay attention my love, cause it's over At the tip of my tongue is the price you weren't willing to pay Still this is something akin to a breakdown And your impression of a woman surprised made it easy to say That there'd be... Torn up photos and lonely nights Cursing crying and drawn out fights 75

Make-up sex and a brand new start Broken promises for broken hearts.

(She Wants Revenge 2006, liner notes)

Nevertheless, his scorn for her and confident (negative) predictions about their future together is undermined by the last line in the lyrics, "I want to wish you away, I want to kiss you away," which could suggest that the male narrator is uncertain about his own feelings towards the woman he's just addressed so contemptuously. So, despite being the one to verbalize the end of the relationship, the male character's sense of control over the

situation may be considered suspect due to his uncertainty, which could be interpreted as

immaturity or lack of self-awareness.

Finally, the narrator in "Someone Must Get Hurt" is making his choice to end a relationship based on a sense of betrayal by the female, who "swore in black and white there'd be no strings." Furthermore, this betrayal is also linked, in some part, to her rejection of him:

As I stare through you and I stand quite still And an alarm sounds just up the road I can tell you'd like some company But I can't fix you when you don't want me

(She Wants Revenge 2006, liner notes)

So, it then becomes important to ask: can a person truly be autonomous in decision

making if their decisions are motivated by some level of investedness in the past or

present actions of other individuals? Despite the alleged control held by the male in the album's opening track, "Red

Flags and Long Nights," the power balance between the male and the female actors becomes more convoluted as the song progresses. On a superficial level, it could be argued that there is little doubt that the future of the relationship lies in his hands.

I can find a reason that we should quit, I can find a reason to do it I can find excuses for all my shit She tells me just to work right through it She's pretty and I like her but she's too well Cause I need red flags and long nights and she can tell

(She Wants Revenge 2006, liner notes)

His misgivings about her seem to stem from his own sense of incompleteness, especially when compared to her. She appear to be the stronger of the two emotionally ("She don't need a thing, she don't need saving or a lay"), whereas he is controlled by his need for

"red flags and long nights," a metaphor for self-destruction. And yet, the fact that she recognizes his special needs ("She tells me just to work right through it"; "Cause I need red flags and long nights and she can tell") and is still willing to accept him/them for an amount of time, to be determined by him, can be interpreted in one of two ways: either she is a wonderful, accepting person, or she is all too willing to sacrifice herself for his sense of well-being. What is interesting about these two possible interpretations is that, depending on the perspective of the interpreter, either explanation about the female character could lead to the conclusion that she is either a strong person or a weak person, especially since so many details about the characters in the story and the context in which this narrative takes place remain unrevealed. As the song continues, the strength of 77 character of the female becomes more ambiguous: "She's got all her friends around and you can hear them say/ 'He's not into you, he's into the idea of.. .7 But little do they know that she's not through." At this point in the song, the female character's friends entreat her to see that the relationship she has with the male character is not good for her.

However, what they don't know is that their advice to her will go unheeded and she will continue on in the relationship. Because the listener is never privy to the circumstances surrounding her decision as to whether or not to stay in the relationship with the male character, it never becomes clear whether the woman in the story is self-sacrificing of her own volition, or if she simply lacks the strength of self to walk away from a bad situation.

So, in spite of his demons and the fact that she initially seems more stable than he is, it is the male who holds the upper hand in this particular relationship story.

In the songs where the female seems to hold the bulk of the power in the relationship, by contrast, the male narrator is presented as fragile, wistful, and resentful.

This observation comes for two reasons: first, in the songs where the male character is at an advantage, the reaction of the female to the male's commentary and his actions is never presented to the audience. Any mention of the woman's reaction is presented as a supposition made by the male character. Examples of this type of inference on the part of the male can be found in "Broken Promises for Broken Hearts," where the male narrator disdainfully interrogates the female character, while at the same time making presumptions about her investment in their relationship based on his anger towards her

("When you look back now was it special? / Or was it nothing but an anecdote that you 78 can tell now and then?"). Also, in "She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not," the male narrator comes to terms with rejection by guessing what the woman feels towards him ("All those nights we shared, were we just killing time?"). The notable exception to this absence of perspective on the part of the female character is in the song "Sister," in which the narrator, who is not a character in this particular story, provides an objective account of the male's rejection of the woman, as well as her response to his rebuff, from outside the action of the narrative.

Situations in which the female character is in control lead to a second observation: the man's reaction to the woman's rejection is of a quality that has been typically ascribed to women in a pejorative way, that is, 'emotional.' Take, for example, the song

"Us":

Late last night I was looking through pictures Flooded with memories I lie on the floor And spread them around me like friends at a party Their faces remind me of all that I've known, still I can't forget

{She Wants Revenge 2006, liner notes)

Here, the man reminisces about a relationship that has ended, reliving the memories through keepsakes and mementos that hold little material value, but for the narrator, are priceless. Another example, "She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not," tells the story of a man obsessing over the value of his relationship with a woman who appears not to share his feelings about the connection he felt between them. According to the narrator the relationship meant more to him than it did to her: 79

All those nights we shared, were we just killing time? For all the things I said to her, for all the ways I tried And all the things I did for her, they're lost with one goodbye.

(She Wants Revenge 2006, liner notes)

"Tear You Apart" and "These Things" are perhaps less obvious examples than the two previously discussed, but still present situations that place the male in a "feminized" position, insofar as the male character seems to lack control over both the relationship with the female character, and his feelings towards the female character. "Tear You

Apart" tells the story from the perspective of a younger male who is preoccupied by his

feelings for a girl, and tries at once to dismiss his feelings and find a way to make them known to the object of his affections:

Late night in passing, mention it flip, to her best friend It's no thing, maybe it slipped But the slip turns to terror and a crush to a like Then she walked in he froze up, leave it to fright It's cute in a way till you cannot speak And you leave to have a cigarette, knees get weak Escape was just a nod and a casual wave

Obsess about it heavy for the next two days.

(She Wants Revenge 2006, liner notes)

The sensation of weak knees and obsession, experienced in "Tear You Apart" by the male character, are physical symptoms that have been associated with the idea of the hysterical female, insofar as these are physical sensations that escape the control of the person experiencing them (DeBeauvoir 1989, 619; Foucault 1990, 103-114)14, and it is 80 interesting to see how this feminized behaviour is juxtaposed against the chorus material, which presents the male character's rape fantasy:

I want to hold you close, skin presses against me tight Lie still, close your eyes girl So lovely, it feels so right I want to hold you close: soft breath, beating heart

As I whisper in your ear, "I wanna fucking tear you apart."

(She Wants Revenge 2006, liner notes)

In spite of the fact that the male clearly desires the female in a romantic, and also lustful, sense, he remains feminized and vulnerable until the moment his feelings are validated by the girl. Following this substantiation, his feminine behaviour may be taken as a preamble to his fantasized violent possession of the girl, which is portrayed here in an ironic manner: after waxing poetic about the soft and sweet way he envisions being physical with her, he caps it off by whispering "I wanna fucking tear you apart."

In "These Things," the male character appears subordinate, begging for forgiveness while the female character distances herself from him by masturbating, a type of sexual behaviour that is considered normal for men but has been stigmatized when connected to female sexuality (Gosselin and Wilson 1980,163-166):

I heard it's cold out, but her popsicle melts She's in the bathroom, she pleasures herself Say's I'm a bad man, she's locking me out It's cause of these things, it's cause of these things

(She Wants Revenge 2006, liner notes) 81

There is more than one possible interpretation of this passage. It is possible that the female character, in her anger, punishes the male character by closing off participation in her life and her sexuality by locking him out. Or, she could be toying with the male character by "locking him out" while she masturbates, while simultaneously accusing him to be "a bad man." It is likely that the correct interpretation of this passage depends on the definition of "these things," which, according to the song, is the cause of the female's antagonism towards the male. However, because the listener is never privy to what "these things" are, it is impossible to concretely identify the motives of the woman in the song.

What is especially remarkable about the album in general, and the aforementioned songs in particular, is that they present situations that place the male narrator not only in positions of power, but also in positions where he is honest about his emotional investments and uncertainties regarding the different relationships presented in She Wants

Revenge. While many contemporary gendered portrayals of relationships, such as those represented in movies and situation comedies, present women as fundamentally irrational and men as emblematic of quiet courage, it is undeniable that so-called "real" men do experience the "emotional" reactions typically ascribed to women. Furthermore, the women in these songs are often characterized as "male," if and when they exhibit the personal detachment commonly ascribed to men following the end of a relationship (e.g.,

"She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not"). Additionally, when the men do find themselves in positions of control over the outcome of the relationship, they are often presented as 82 stereotypical men: unreliable, angry, driven by sexual desire, and emotionally distant.

However, this sort of angry detachment becomes suspect when it is revealed that this behaviour is the result of past experience or the actions of others. Thus, these songs, at least from their words, present examples of love songs that are multidimensional, unformulaic and exist beyond the scope of any of the formulas presented in earlier studies.

The Voice

To begin this discussion, it is pertinent to discuss the quality of Justin Warfield's voice, as well as how the vocal melodies appear in relation to the accompaniment. I would like to start by pointing out the commonalities of vocal quality between the songs on the album in question. While this seems like an obvious statement in itself, it should be acknowledged that Warfield alters his voice very little from song to song, in terms of timbral variation, changes in vocal range, or performance of the lyrics, which all assist in contributing to a sense of emotional detachment. First, where the melodies themselves are concerned, all of these are sung syllabically, as opposed to melismatically. The melodic range of each song is usually contained within an octave, and the languishing syllabic delivery of the lyrics, sustained note for note and devoid of tessitura, gives the impression that Warfield is in danger of falling behind the beat, in spite of the fact that he manages to remain more or less consistently in time with the accompaniment.

Furthermore, with the notable exceptions of the choruses in "Us" and "She Loves Me, 83

She Loves Me Not," there is virtually a complete absence of any sort of rhythmic play e.g., rubato, changes in tempi, et cetera.

Melodic shape is another parameter for discussion. This is a category derived from Alan Lomax's Cantometrics, and is used to "group general strophe types into useful subcategories" (Daley 1997,111). In She Wants Revenge, melodic shape ranges from static (songs with limited melodic range, such as "Red Flags and Long Nights," "Sister,"

"Tear You Apart"), terraced (songs with melodies that begin higher in relation to the total pitch range of the song and then stagger downwards, such as "These Things," "I Don't

Wanna Fall In Love," "Monologue," "Us," "Someone Must Get Hurt,"), descending

(songs that start high and descend in a fairly straightforward manner, such as "Out of

Control") and undulating (songs with melodies that demonstrate freer movement through the total pitch range, such as "She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not").16

The timbral and registral qualities of Justin Warfield's voice are also important parameters for discussion here. In general, Warfield has a deep male voice of limited range, which, sounding between 20 and 60 Hz, is composed mainly of middle and low sounds. He sings with a predominantly open voice, without any nasal singing and only a handful of moments that can be described as breathy. Furthermore, the dryness of

Warfield's voice can be attributed to the absence of the use of delays in the studio, which would cause the vocal line to echo just enough to provide some warmth to the overall delivery. Vibrato is used sparingly, usually in conjunction with the middles and ends of phrases, and, with a few exceptions which will be discussed in greater detail 84 momentarily, Warfield rarely employs the use of musical gestures such as rubato, dynamic change, timbral change, or any other nuance that is typically associated with a personalized, if not "emotional," performance. In fact, the precise syllabic delivery of the lyrics in many of these songs may be interpreted as Warfield's detachment of himself from the personal experiences, or at the very least, constructed personal subject matter, of the songs he sings. This could mean two things: first, Warfield is a narrator in the truest sense, in that his voice used to tell the story from the perspective of a detached and unpartisan observer, letting the audience decide for themselves what sort of investment they, and the performers, should have in the story and its characters. Conversely, this style of delivery could also mean that Warfield, while willing to share and describe these situations, is not willing to be as generous with sharing his reaction to the experiences he describes.

As mentioned earlier, there are a couple of very important exceptions to

Warfield's stoic delivery, which occurs in "Broken Promises for Broken Hearts," "Us," and "She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not." "Broken Promises" is defined by distinct differences in vocal timbre, which highlight the emotional spirit of the song itself. The first verse begins with a notable breathiness in Warfield's voice as he, in the first person, proceeds to end a relationship for an unnamed reason, while expressing both contempt and disbelief in the sincerity of the woman's surprised reaction to his decision. Following this verse, Warfield sings the chorus and his voice seems to be restored to its regular open timbre as he predicts what will follow when he breaks up with her: following a period of 85 anger, betrayal and hatred of each other, he suggests they will then experience a short­ lived reunion that is shrouded by "broken promises for broken hearts." In the second verse, Warfield's vocal timbre alternates between breathiness and strength, as the protagonist questions both his lover's investment in their ended relationship, as well as his own judgment regarding the relationship in the first place. Interestingly, Warfield's voice falters on the lines that discuss their happiness together and the worth of their relationship ("When you look back now was it special?" and "still I delude myself it was worth it"), and regains its strength when he makes negative claims about both her character and his lack of judgment ("Or was it nothing but an anecdote that you can tell now and then" and "Even though from the beginning I could see exactly how it would end").

Similar timbral variations occur in both "Us" and "She Loves Me, She Loves Me

Not." In "Us" these changes seem to occur most prominently in the lines "And spread them around me like friends at a party," which refers to photographs taken during the relationship the protagonist reminisces about, and "I turned out the lights and imagined you with me," which demonstrates the protagonist's desire to be near his ex-lover.

Because the listener is never made privy to the circumstances under which the relationship came to its end, these lines can be interpreted in a few ways: first, as the narrator's trip down memory lane, which in this case enhances his desire to be with his departed lover. Second, these lines could represent the narrator's loneliness; because the listener is not aware of who ended the relationship and for what reasons, it may be 86 possible that the protagonist simply misses being in the company of a lover. Finally, the obvious third option is that these lines are emblematic of a combination of loneliness and desire. Additionally, these two lines offer examples of behaviour that may sometimes be described as delusional, which are distinct from other lines in this song that describe loneliness and longing because Warfield takes his reminiscing a step further in his vain attempts to attach tangible physical characteristics to inanimate objects (photographs) and memories. "She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not" also begins with breathy vocals, that then become stronger as Warfield sings the line, "My maybe love, who wouldn't even try," which is the last line before the song's chorus. Following the chorus, Warfield's vocals become breathy once again, and, as before, regain their open timbre on the last line before the second chorus, albeit much more gradually than the first time. These observations are significant because they point towards audible signs of "emotion" that contrast with the predominantly rigid and "unemotional" sound of the majority of

Warfield's performances on this album.

Variations in timbre, however, are but one aspect that makes "Broken Promises for Broken Hearts," "Us," and "She Loves Me..." anomalous by comparison to the rest of the album. In "Us," Warfield's voice rises as he strains to communicate his heartfelt message in the song's chorus. Furthermore, the rubato-like lazy rhythmic delivery in the last two measures of the chorus, where he sings, "As we look at this thing called us," is notably different from the precise rhythmic delivery of words in the majority of the album. Similar to "Us," "She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not" features not just a 87 comparatively wider melodic range between verse and chorus, and decidedly rubato distribution of song lyrics, but also introduces, for the first time, and ironically at the end of the album, a vocal glissando that leads up to the final return to Warfield's open timbre following the songs second verse. This glissando may be interpreted in a number of different ways: first, the gradual transition from a breathy, "weak" timbre to an open timbre could signify emotional strengthening on the part of the protagonist. Next, the appearance of this glissando at the end of the song, and the end of the album, could mark the end of Warfield's stoicism and a transition into the expressive, since nuances such as this often appeal to audiences insofar as the singer appears to be more sincere in his delivery of the "emotional" lyrics (Frith 1996, 194-195). This conclusion can be supported by the song lyrics that immediately follow the glissando, which are "She loves me, she loves me not." Warfield's pleas, signified by the relatively high range in which this portion of the song are sung, may also suggest that Warfield is no longer narrating a story from the perspective of an outsider, but is now telling a personal anecdote.

Musical Accompaniment

The instrumental material presents an interesting dimension for discussion.

Stylistically, She Wants Revenge's sound is very much inspired by electronic dance music artists of the 1980s, primarily Depeche Mode, Prince, and New Order, and by postpunk groups of the early 1980s, such as the goth rock band Bauhaus.17 As a result of these various influences, their general timbre is very electronically processed and dark 88 sounding,18 which assists in reinforcing the unconventional themes sung by Warfield's deep voice. Instrumentally, this album is a mixture of conventional rock instruments, such as the guitar, the bass, and the piano, and electronically generated sounds on a and synthesizer.

Like Warfield's vocal delivery, the delivery of the musical accompaniment is characterized by a dark stoicism. First, with the exception of the odd high-sounding punctuation, She Wants Revenge is dominated by low and middle sounds, with most instruments, like Warfield's voice, sounding between 20 and 60 Hz. Next, some programmed electronic sounds reinforce the mournful nature of the songs. One example of this can be found at the beginning of the song "Us," which starts with a strong attack that gradually decrescendos, followed by yet another strong attack and long descent in volume. This opening helps to set the tone of the story described in this song, which illustrates the aftermath of an ended relationship. Finally, the rhythmic composition of this album consists mainly of straight duple meter, which is performed steadily, perhaps even rigidly, in time, and there is a complete absence of virtuosic solos that would showcase the abilities of the accompanying performers. This type of exacting rhythmic rigidity in both the performance of the accompaniment and the absence of florid and virtuosic instrumental solos could support the idea that the overall sound of She Wants

Revenge is, to a large extent, "unemotional." 89

Listener Response

In order to get a sense of how listeners would react to the love songs from She

Wants Revenge, I organized a group listening experiment. Due to time constraints, my sample of listeners is limited to three participants: Lauren Acton and Alberto Munarriz, both students in the PhD program in ethnomusicology and musicology at York

University, and Chris Wilson, a freelance musician. Despite the limited number of participants in my sample, however, the responses provided as a result of listening to She

Wants Revenge are very interesting and worthy of discussion.

The organization of the listener response session is based on reactions to four songs from She Wants Revenge ("These Things," "I Don't Wanna Fall in Love,"

"Monologue," and "Tear You Apart") took place in three parts. First, I played only the instrumental introductions to the songs, asking the respondents to make notes of what the music reminded them of in terms of imagery - where the storyline of the song might go - and musical references. Next, I played the songs in their entirety and the respondents were asked to reflect upon whether or not the song's lyrics matched their initial impression of the music. Finally, I asked the respondents to consider how these particular love songs measured up against what they themselves consider to be love songs.

In terms of the initial sonic content, the respondents all agreed that they could hear overt musical references to Joy Division and New Order, and these references only became more pronounced as the songs progressed. In particular, Wilson noted similarities 90 in song titles: Joy Division's "These Days" and "Love Will Tear Us Apart" were linked to She Wants Revenge's "These Things" and "Tear You Apart," though, according to

Wilson, the songs by She Wants Revenge fall short of communicating the breadth and depth of emotion that he perceived to be very much a part of Joy Division's work. Acton and Munarriz both agreed with this point, stating that this absence of emotion is due to the music's repetitive nature and Warfield's stoic delivery of the song's lyrics, which creates a sort of tension in the music that is never resolved in a satisfying way.

In addition to Joy Division and New Order, the respondents also noted similarities to artists that predated and in part inspired postpunk music, such as David Bowie, and to groups who are a part of the postpunk revival movement, such as the Killers and the

Postal Service. This strong connection to the postpunk sound, as perceived by the respondents, inspired references to the urban. Some words that were used to describe the music, both the instrumental introductions and the songs in their entirety, include concrete, urban landscape, desolation, Trainspotting (a film that takes place in urban

Scotland and follows the exploits of a group of heroin addicts), and postpunk England.

With respect to the communication of emotion, the respondents used words like plaintive, self-absorbed, depressing, introspection, introverted fury, dark, and tense to describe the songs.

The most useful part of this session, however, came from the answers provided to the question of how the love songs by She Wants Revenge measured up against their impressions of what a love song should be and sound like. All of the respondents agreed 91 that none of these songs matched what they thought a love song would sound like, and that they would not engage with the music of She Wants Revenge in the same way as they would with other songs that were more obvious depictions of love. While Wilson did admit that he might be more comfortable with the idea that She Wants Revenge's songs were about love after repeated listening, he also stated that these songs did not measure well against what popular culture dictates that love should sound like, which includes songs that are more ballad like and that feature lyrics that are more obvious with respect to the romantic love content. Acton and Munarriz both agreed with this sentiment, mentioning that these songs reflect a bitterness that calls into question whether or not these songs should be considered love songs in the first place. Acton then stated that while there are a host of angry break-up songs that find themselves a part of the love song canon, these angry songs tend to have a softer delivery that serves to make them more palatable and sympathetic to listeners, an impression she does not get from She Wants

Revenge. In short, the respondents agree that, while She Wants Revenge's songs may technically fall into the love song category, they do not square well with what they understand a love song to be.

Conclusion

In this chapter, I have attempted to outline the different concepts presented in the love songs of She Wants Revenge, both sonically and in the lyrics. Rather than fitting rigidly into single categories designed to make sense of love songs, She Wants Revenge's 92 songs show a fair bit of overlap between happiness, sadness, and lustfulness, which demonstrates a shift in perception that seems to acknowledge that real love, as with real life, is not formulaic. Furthermore, the power relations and reversal of roles traditionally ascribed to specific genders supports this conclusion. Warfield's delivery of the storylines featured in She Wants Revenge, which are generally performed in a stoic and unemotional manner, are accompanied by timbrally dark and registrally low instruments. Similarly, the impassive performance of the instrumental accompaniment of the lyrics supports the paradoxical ideas that Warfield presents these stories with the sincerity of a specific type of participant in the narrative on the one hand, and as a dispassionate narrator who is disconnected from these stories, on the other hand.

Despite being a widely discussed topic, the concept of the love song seems to be narrowly viewed by the many scholars who have undertaken its study with respect to what is possible in a love song and how they should be interpreted. This much is evident in the studies conducted by Peatman, Horton, and Carey, and unfortunately, there appears to be a deficit of academic writing that addresses the possibility that there may be more to a "typical" love song than meets the eye, not to mention that love songs which fall outside of the typical settings proposed by these three writers receive little attention in music scholarship. As a result, what is considered normative with regard to the sound and content of the love song remains largely unchanged. It is certainly important to recognize that much of the scholarly work on this topic must be considered with respect to the temporal periods in which these articles were written: it is highly unlikely, for example, 93 that a rock-and-roll star of the 1950s would be willing or able to write a popular song about the kinds of sexual proclivities that existed outside the boundaries of what was considered socially appropriate at the time. However, as times change, so do the thresholds of acceptability change: cultural artifacts such as love songs evolve to reflect this transformation. It is from this idea that I will now move to my analysis of

"Monologue." Notes

In chapter one, I discussed Suzanne K. Langer's conclusion that meaning may be expressed through nonverbal, or pseudo-symbolic, structures that act as expressions of the unarticulated inner being (Langer 1979, 82-83). Though Langer applies this to human vocalizations of non-verbal communication, I will extend this to include music, which can be both non-verbal and an extension of abstract sentiments that remain difficult to communicate in a concrete way. 11 The original quote from Shaw's text is "Marriage is all very well, but it isn't romance." This statement, as I interpret it, suggests that marriage and romance are of different orders: the former of comfort and security, and the latter of passion and excitement. Further, to state that "marriage is all very well" could imply that something is lacking in the state of matrimony, and that marriage would be well served to include the idea of romance. The album's hidden thirteenth track will not be a part of this discussion. 13 The song "Disconnect" does not appear on this list because it is the only instrumental song on the album. While there are sonic qualities that might suggest this song could be categorized using the same parameters applied to songs with lyrics, I have chosen not to be so presumptuous. Though the idea of the "hysterical female" in psychology has been discredited, portrayals of both this model and the people who believe in it remain a part of Western culture, particularly as expressed in popular culture. One example of this can be found in NBC's hit television series The Office: Michael Scott, the office manager, is a bumbling fool who makes many silly and irresponsible decisions throughout each episode. Whenever a female employee questions his choices, his usual reaction is to make sure that they are not menstruating so that he can take them seriously. Though this particular character and his behaviour are meant to be comedic, they still serve to reinforce the fact that there are people in contemporary Western society who still believe in the "hysterical female" model as being representative of the emotional states of women. See episode 3- 20 (Women's Appreciation) of The Office: Season Three. 15 Simon Frith suggests that, because of mainstream culture's preference for high-pitched male voices, several value judgments emerge regarding deeper male voices, including the idea that a deeper voice that doesn't strain to reach high notes, such as Warfield's, is both freakish and insincere sounding (Frith 1996, 193-195). Justin Warfield's voice is an example of the "masculine" when compared to many other male voices on the radio soundscape, such as Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant, Michael Jackson, or the Libertine's Pete Doherty, for example. 16 With the exception of the definition of "static" melodies, all other definitions have been taken from Daley 1997,111-112. 17 Interview with Adam Bravin, 2006. 95

In the context of this work, the term "dark" is used to describe a particular musical aesthetic that originated in early postpunk music, specifically that of Joy Division and Bauhaus. Features of this particular sound include a melodic range lower than and not exceeding middle C; a dryness of sound characterized the absence of studio effects that would provide the sound with warmth such as vocal layering or reverberation and/or the overt use of studio effects that would enhance the dry quality of sound, such as Martin Hannett's "sound separation"; optimal use of the stereo spectrum in recording in order to contribute to the illusion of a left-to-right musical spectrum of sound; a style of performance that maintains rigid tempos and is mostly devoid of any of the characteristics that would be associated with upbeat or "happy" sounding music. CHAPTER FOUR: CLANDESTINE LOVE AND THE CASE OF "MONOLOGUE"

Introduction

She Wants Revenge presents a veritable cornucopia of interesting parameters for discussion. Not least among these is how the songs on this album express an unusual type of romantic love through the music and the lyrics. While the idea that such a topic may be a point of contention could seem unusual at best and unreasonable at worst, it becomes important to consider how meaning is typically generated from popular music. For many, consideration of a song as a text means searching for meaning through a song's lyrics.

This approach can be useful in terms of "demystifying" one aspect of a song's content, but, as mentioned in chapter three, the biggest problem with attempting to find meaning in a song's lyrics is that the search often happens without any regard to what happens in the nonverbal sonic arena. According to Simon Frith, the thing that distinguishes song lyrics from other types of writing is that lyrics are associated with performed sound and generate at least part of their meaning from that association (Frith 1996, 166).

Similar problems arise when attempting to find meaning in sound only, especially when sound is associated with a particular kind of text, as is the case with the love song category. With popular music in particular, certain modes of performance are considered more "authentic" and "appropriate" for certain genres and song types. The voice is an interesting example of how sound generates meaning: male voices in particular, Frith notes, seem to be considered more heartfelt and sincere by audiences if their voices sound higher pitched and strained. This is the result of a "specific expressive context" popularized in the early twentieth century history of popular music and subsequently adopted as a Western cultural convention (Frith 1996,193-195).

But, what happens when encountering music that contradicts what has become standard? In writing an album of love songs that deals with love in such an odd fashion,

She Wants Revenge contravenes many of the standards of Western popular music. The example from their album that, in my opinion, stands out the most in this regard is

"Monologue." This song is the primary focus of this chapter, which will illustrate how both instrumental texture and timbral variation buttress important aspects of the lyrics.

Furthermore, I will argue that the unique sonic qualities of this song, when considered alongside the lyrics, support the particular treatment of love as it is presented in the context of this song.

Sonic Content

"Monologue" opens with a trio texture of synthesized bass, high-register strings, and drums. Additionally, there are synthesized handclaps on the fourth beat of every second measure. Beginning at m. 9 and continuing through to the end of the first verse

(m. 32), a rhythmic synthesizer figure is added to the opening trio texture. This particular rhythmic figure is especially interesting for a few reasons. First, it is the only figure that alternates between the right and left speakers, suggesting a play with the virtual space.

Second, it is this figure that effectively replaces the traditional role of the drum kit, insofar as this figure is what gives the song a sense of a recurring ostinato, at least until 98 the chorus. The drums, which are rhythmically slower and lower sounding in pitch, are much more peripheral in the sonic mix. It is within these first thirty two measures that two opposing sonic elements have been presented: the long and smooth sounding opening section characterized by an asymmetrical bassline, which will repeat itself again during the chorus, and the straight, not syncopated, rhythm of the musical material of the verses.

The significance of this will be discussed in greater detail later. 99

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Musical Example 1: Opening instrumental trio. 100

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Musical Example 2: Primary instrumental and thematic structure for verses.

The lyrics begin at m. 17. Warfield's voice is foregrounded in the stereo mix, with every two measures of singing interspersed with two measures of countermelody, performed by a synthesizer patch: Melody

oitntetmelody

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Musical Example 3: Melody and countermelody of verses.

However, this countermelodic voice remains distinct from other sonic layers because of the upper partials present in this line, which are so clear that the countermelody appears to be several lines moving in parallel motion. This call-and-response structure could 102 signify a pseudodialogue between the male and female characters of this song, a point that will be discussed in greater detail later on.

Upon arrival at the song's chorus, the instrumental texture is flooded with new sounds and Warfield's voice is significantly less audible in the newly saturated texture.

As the rhythmic synthesizer and the overtone-laden countermelody disappear from the mix, a ghostly sounding background hum joins the persisting trio texture from the opening. This humming is significant because it is one element that assists in changing the song's character. First, the humming sounds as though it is several human voices in unison, which is part of what demarcates the chorus vis-a-vis the verse that preceded it.

Next, both the chorus and the humming are typified by lengthy phrases, which is contrary to the short rhythmic bursts of the synth figure from the verse material that shifts from left to right in the mix. Furthermore, at eight measures each, Warfield's phrases are much longer during the chorus when compared to the two-measure phrases of the verses.

After a four-measure interlude that borrows from the song's opening instrumental trio, the verse-chorus structure is repeated in much the same way, but with one small and noteworthy difference: during the second verse, an echo effect is applied to Warfield's voice at the ends of the phrases, highlighting specific lyrics in the song. Following the second chorus and a one-measure transition is a piano solo, which is performed on an electronic keyboard rather than on a real piano (in keeping with the song's synthetic quality), and is rhythmically simple. Following a third return to the chorus, in which a final countermelody floats daintily over the previously established instrumental texture, 103 there is a sixteen-measure coda in which the song's texture thins noticeably: all sonic layers drop out except for the drums, and the bass. Additionally, the coda melody, performed in the bass, is doubled in the lower octave and repeated after eight measures and is then joined by synthesized strings playing long tones just four measures from the song's pulsating ending. Finally, the ghostly and ethereal humming, until now in the background, becomes foregrounded in the mix against the bass.

Why is this particular information significant? First, I would like to note the different ways in which the song's verse and chorus materials are conflicted. Because the constant bass line acts as the rhythmic underpinning of the song, it can be argued that the rhythmic variations between verses, in which the bass plays strictly on the beat, and choruses, where the bass punctuates the offbeats, lays a foundation for change in character throughout the song. In other words, it is the bassline that acts as the principal marker for structural change in this song.

9

Musical Example 4: Bass line from introduction and chorus 104

Musical Example 5: Bass line in verses

Next, and related to the previous point, the ways in which rhythm is used in this sonic context assist in enforcing changes in character throughout the song. As noted, a synthesized rhythmic figure constitutes the principal isorhythmic cell in lieu of the drum set, while also giving the verses a double-time feel in comparison with the choruses.

However, upon arrival at the chorus, the synthesized rhythmic figure disappears and it is once more up to the drums, which perform at half the tempo of the synthesizer, to provide rhythmic stability. The challenge for the drums at this point lies in mix: the drums do not become foregrounded, and as before, they remain secondary to other arguably more important sonic information, such as offbeats in the bass line, the long, drawn out phrases performed by the singer, and the vaporous humming in the background.

Though often overlooked, timbre is used to create contrast in this song, both within the various distinct sonic layers that make up this song's texture and between the verse and chorus material. In a great deal of music, sonic variation may occur within individual lines of a song's performance; singers, for example, can regularly change the shape of vowels, add vibrato, and/or employ any number of techniques in order to alter the timbre of their voice, which then affect the performance and reception of the sound in 105 question. In this song, however, no such linear timbral change occurs within any of the polyphonic instrumental textures in this song, and each sonic layer tends to remain timbrally the same throughout the song: the bass, for example, tends to retain a slightly grainy distorted quality, while the various other synthesized sounds may be recognized not only by their individual musical lines, but also by the individual timbres they maintain throughout the song. However, the timbres of the individual textures themselves vary from one layer to the next, and when they are performed in conjunction with each other, this creates a type of timbral quality that is terraced. That is, sonic variation is created in the combination of contrasting sounds, rather than through alteration of individual sounds.

Though a fairly common technique in a great deal of music, the addition and subtraction of instrumental layers at various points throughout the sonic texture also contributes to a sense of timbral variation, which occurs in this song through the contrast of sonic "moods." The verses, for example, are characterized by sharpness, graininess and distortion, best embodied in the bassline, Warfield's voice, and the synthesized rhythmic figure. Despite the fact that these sounds all possess their own timbral qualities, they also complement each other and work in tandem with each other to form a specific character. The choruses, by contrast, are characterized by long, smooth lines, exemplified by the sustained hum, which floats along in the background, and the absence of the comparatively staccato notes of the verses. Though it should be acknowledged that when sounds are added in the chorus, other sounds are also taken away, the fact that Warfield's 106 voice becomes less audible during the chorus suggests an important textural distinction between these two parts of the song, namely that phrases from the verse are generally and comparatively short and crisp sounding, while the chorus is characterized by lines that are longer, less precise sounding, and certainly more sonically overwhelming.

Lyrics

The lyrics for "Monologue" are the sole factor designating this track as a love song. In addition to talking about love, there are several other topics touched on in the lyrics. These topics assist in painting a picture of a realistic love theme and also reinforce ideas that work in tandem with musical material to create a type of love song that reflects a unique aesthetic sensibility.

Verse 1 Kissing a strange hand, my city like street lamps fade On the edge of an answer you weigh lust, beginnings are made Lover forgive me, my guilt is my only crime And I'll carry it round till it brings me down every time.

Chorus This is the time of night When the moonlight shines down and we can reveal who we truly are Within the darkest most depraved of joys If you're afraid to say, but you'd like to try, just give me the safe word and Take my hand... and smack me in the mouth, my love.

Verse 2 From hunger you call and it falls upon the ears of faith A half-open mouth and the whole truth that no one can take Pretend all you want, you can cry to your heart's own beat We will take love and swear upon the things that we just can't keep.

(She Wants Revenge, liner notes, 2006)

"Monologue" is a unique example within the love song category in general, as well as being exceptional in comparison with the other love songs from the group's self- titled debut album. This song tells the story of two lovers who, after meeting for the first time, quickly develop a loving and romantic relationship based on respect, understanding, and most importantly, a mutual desire for a sexual relationship that incorporates actions and behaviours outside the commonly held boundaries of acceptability in contemporary

Western society. Though these unconventional activities that are described as "depraved" in the song lyrics, printed above, are what brings the two characters together, they are clearly treated as the actions of lovers and not the actions of depraved individuals.

Several clues in the song's lyrics point to this conclusion: "Kissing a strange hand, my city like street lamps fade" indicates that this girl occupies the narrator's senses beyond all else; "When the moonlight shines down and we can reveal who we truly are" suggests an intimacy between these two people, finding themselves in a position to comfortably behave unguardedly in each other's company.

"Monologue" is the only song on She Wants Revenge in which the characters are not antagonistic or present self-imposed obstacles that prevent them from being happy within the relationship they have with each other. Instead, the "antagonist" appears to be the composite force of societal expectations and past disappointments, evident through the lyrics, "Lover forgive me, my guilt is my only crime / And I'll carry it round till it 108 brings me down every time." The male protagonist is wholly aware of how he and his urges are viewed by the implicit presence of invisible others in his abstract world, and so, he must keep his desires hidden from view. The line, "From hunger you call and it falls upon the ears of faith / A half-open mouth and the whole truth that no one can take," could be interpreted as articulating a similar sentiment in the female character, where she learns that sheepish admission of her desires, demonstrative of her own acknowledgement that her desires exist outside the norm, will fall upon disapproving ears. Rather unfortunately, there is also a sense of the impermanence of their romance because of this invisible antagonist, bearing down upon the characters in the song. The line, "We will take love and swear upon the things that we just can't keep," seems to point to two things: first, that the relationship between these two individuals will happen regardless of the social constraints that act as antagonist in this story; second, despite their greatest hopes and best efforts, their relationship will also come to an end due to the prejudices of the antagonist.

Though love is the primary emotion in "Monologue," there are several peripheral themes that appear throughout the song that may be viewed as juxtaposed. As the song progresses, the different themes that have the most in common with love in the context of this song tends to supercede a prior, perhaps weaker, theme and point towards the conclusion that the scenario illustrated in "Monologue" is primarily defined by love. For example, anonymity, exemplified by the lines "kissing a strange hand" and "beginnings are made," may be feasibly paired with, and will later be overridden by, the notion of 109 intimacy, as found in the chorus line "We can reveal who we truly are." Similarly, the indecisiveness of the female character ("On the edge of an answer, you weigh lust") falls by the wayside when the idea of trust presents itself with the introduction of the "safe word," a point that will be taken up in further detail later.

Finally, lust and shame, ideas that are present throughout the song, are linked together. Unlike the areas previously discussed, however, the distinction between lust and shame is not so distinct, nor does one concept fully override the other. While the characters in this song seem to find each other and bond, in spite of their own misgivings and the disapproval of the invisible other, the last line of the second verse ("We will take love and swear upon the things that we just can't keep") could be construed as an admission that the shame they are made to feel about their desires may be stronger than the desires themselves. To this end, the chorus, which immediately follows the previously stated line from the lyrics, can be interpreted as an exhibition of the shame experienced by the man and woman: while the singer admits that it is at night (whether this is actual or metaphorical night is unclear), with all its attendant imagery, that they feel most comfortable expressing their desires, it is not unreasonable to wonder whether things might be different for our protagonists if their behaviour was viewed with greater acceptance. In other words, the chorus may serve to reinforce the idea of shame insofar as our characters are limited to expressing themselves only within the confines of an actual or metaphorical "time of day," and to operate outside those confines is undesirable to the song's characters, as well as being viewed unfavourably by the invisible others. Though 110 it is a specific type of physical desire that forms the basis of their love and their relationship with each other with respect to both its genesis and its demise, it would seem that shame is also very much a part of their love because of antagonistic social constraints.

In considering the nature of how the relationship between the two characters is informed by the incongruent, but inextricably connected, ideas of lust and shame, an important question arises: why is the relationship between the characters in this song different than that of other love songs? Unlike the characters from the songs described in chapter three, these two people appear to have an equilibrium of power within the context of the relationship they have with each other. Their relationship is in part defined by mutual desires and a perception that what they desire is considered taboo when compared to the behavioural expectations subscribed to by the rest of society. Furthermore, a relationship such as theirs is predicated on a mutual understanding of their marginal status, in terms of sexual desire, and agreement upon the rules of engagement, signified here by the idea of the "safe word." The role of the safe word in this situation is twofold.

First and foremost, the safe word is a verbal indicator that is mutually understood to mean

"no" or "stop." In a sexual situation that involves any sort of risque behaviour, saying

"no" or "stop" might be a part of the fantasy; the idea of a safe word, symbolic of cessation, allows the fantasy to continue by securing emotional and physical limits that are understood by all parties involved in such sexual exploits, essentially marking an important distinction between a potentially fearful situation and a safe one. Ill

Next, the safe word also designates the manner in which control of a particular sexual situation may be exchanged at any time. Though the safe word is agreed upon by both of the characters, it is logical to assume that it is the submissive, rather than the dominant, who would find themselves most likely wanting to halt the activity. Because it is the male singer who implores the female to use the safe word, it suggests that in this situation it is he who is dominant and she who is submissive. In spite of this assignation of roles, however, it could be argued that the submissive woman is really the one in control here because of her ability to invoke the use of the safe word: in halting the proceedings, the submissive takes control of the situation and offers, by reward or by punishment, a smack in the mouth to the dominant male ("Give me the safe word and take my hand and smack me in the mouth, my love"). Such theatrical role-playing, in this case utilizing actions typically associated with violence, could support the notion that, despite the equivalent power between these two characters, this situation leaves the female character responsible for the comfort and well being of this interface, by virtue of being the submissive with permission to invoke the safe word.

Words and Music: Making the Connection

The musical and lyrical elements discussed above are very much a product of the postpunk music of the 1980s. First, there is the use of synthesized sounds to consider. As sound technologies developed throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, they were integrated into musical performance. The highly stylized and electronically 112 generated compositional aesthetic evident in this song, which was so popular throughout the 1980s, challenged notions of "authenticity" as they were related to rock music formations, which used "real" instruments for music making, and this "inauthentic" sound could be said to be emblematic of the hedonism and profligacy of this decade

(Reynolds 2005, 389-399). Next, it is clear that the composition of "Monologue" was in some part inspired by postpunk's danceable beats and lyric writing style, which were often dark sounding themselves in terms of both lyric content and sonic characterization.

Take, for instance, the bass line for New Order's hit song "Blue Monday":

X4-4^8SKge4-_f3=r iafcdt#43BF *—w w w g g # *rr

Musical Example 6: Bass line from New Order's "Blue Monday."

There are very obvious stylistic similarities between this bass line and the bass lines from

"Monologue" (see fig. 4 and 5). Both are synthesized, performed in a very low register, and are relentless and steady (perhaps even "unemotional" sounding), in part replacing the function of the drums in a standard three-to-five-member rock band. Additionally, both of these bass lines tend to jump around the staff, notably leaping within octaves.

While this observation in particular is not in itself a novelty nor strictly a feature of music from the 1980s, it is possible that a leaping bassline that doesn't hold the function of being melodic, such as the one from "Monologue," could be stylistically inspired by the likes of New Order, given the other sonic similarities between these two particular musical passages.

There are very clear thematic similarities between "Monologue" and Depeche

Mode's "Master and Servant":

There's a new game We like to play you see A game with added reality You treat me like a dog Get me down on my knees

We call it master and servant We call it master and servant

It's a lot like life This play between the sheets With you on top and me underneath Forget all about equality

Let's play master and servant Let's play master and servant

It's a lot like life And that's what's appealing If you despise that throwaway feeling From disposable fun Then this is the one

Domination's the name of the game In bed or in life They're both just the same Except in one you're fulfilled At the end of the day

Let's play master and servant Let's play master and servant

Let's play master and servant 114

Come on master and servant

(Source: Depeche Mode, The Singles: 81-85)

There are two very clear thematic similarities between the Depeche Mode song and

"Monologue." First, both songs are about a sexual relationship between a dominant and a submissive, who participate in the event of their own volition. Next, both songs invoke the notion of sexual proclivities as part of a game. These similarities make sense when considering the influence Depeche Mode has had on the members of She Wants Revenge

(Adam Bravin, 2006). Despite the fact that both of these songs discuss sexual proclivities in a very candid way, there is an important distinction between them: "Master and

Servant" is not a love song.

The premise I have adopted throughout this chapter is that She Wants Revenge's

"Monologue" is a love song. Though such assessments about music are more often than not made based upon an analysis of a song's lyrical content, often irrespective of the performance of said lyrics, it is not simply this song's words that lead me to my conclusion that "Monologue" is a love song, but also, the intertextual way in which music and lyrics interact to form a complete picture: in this case, a picture of heterosexual love in a very specific context. The concept that the music supports ideas presented in the lyrics is not a new one (e.g., Walser 1995), and is also quite apparent in the music of many other artists. New Order's "Blue Monday," for instance, employs dark sonic elements, similar to the ones discussed in She Wants Revenge, but in the context of an angry break-up told from the perspective of a male narrator. Furthermore, the manner in 115 which New Order's singer Bernard Sumner's delivers of the lyrics, including the famous first line "How does it feel to treat me like you do," is stylistically similar to Warfield's dispassionate singing style. Warfield's idiosyncratic singing style, likely inspired by vocalists like Sumner and others from the postpunk era, begs the questions of how and why She Wants Revenge might consider this kind of delivery appropriate for the performance of a love song. In incorporating elements from 1980s postpunk music, She

Wants Revenge has created a unique love song in which both sonic and lyrical elements work in tandem to reflect the positive emotional states of the characters in the song.

There are numerous ways in which love is represented sonically as well as in the lyrics, but I will start by considering the unusual title of the song. The most immediate question that comes to mind is whether "Monologue" is actually a dialogue. In spite of this song's title, this song does not appear to be monologic in nature. Though there is only one character speaking in the song, there are two people involved in its storyline: the male protagonist, who narrates the story, and the female protagonist, who is being addressed by the male narrator. Furthermore, though it would seem that dialogue is not required any of the definitions of love discussed in chapter three, which may certainly be true when the object of affection itself is absent or inanimate, the very essence of a monologue depends on an assumption that another person's response, if it exists at all, will remain unheard or unacknowledged by other listeners.19 In considering love as a dialogue in the context of this song, by contrast, may be useful when considering the scenario outlined in "Monologue" by virtue of this song's storyline: two people, who, 116 after living in "monologue," find each other and are able to relate to each other based on their shared sexual desires. In this particular love scenario, there is one external cause: their desire for each other.

The essence of dialogue is also represented musically in this song. Though a fairly common technique amongst , the call and response that occurs in the verses takes on a dialogic character and could be interpreted as suggesting that one voice, that of

Warfield, represents the male, while the synthesizer represents the female character.

Furthermore, the contrasting tone of the verses and choruses is also suggestive of dialogue: the verses, in which the singer outlines the fretting and misgivings both he and his female compatriot have about the consequences of giving in to their physical cravings, is countered by the chorus material, where our protagonists do eventually give in to both their desires and each other. In support of these differences in sentiment, sonic variation between verse and chorus also lend a sense of dialogue to the song. The verses are characterized by sparser instrumental textures, shorter phrases and quick rhythmic cells that support the uncertainty vocalized in the verse lyrics. These qualities occur in opposition to the long phrases, smooth lines and thick-sounding instrumental texture that accompanies the song's chorus.

In spite of the argument that "Monologue" is actually a dialogue, there could be reasons for naming this song as She Wants Revenge did. It is possible, for example, that this song is called "Monologue" based on the idea that two people in love become like one. The song's chorus, which appear three times, while the two verses are performed 117 once each, reinforces the notion that the love, respect, or whatever these people feel for each other is true and not just a passing fancy based solely on lust. Additionally, this positive reinforcment occurs irrespective of the possibility that their love for each other is primarily based upon the discovery that they share each other's lustful fantasies. Perhaps the monologue occurs in the chorus in order to buttress the notion that, in spite of whatever obstacles present themselves, the song's characters are still united by a common set of desires, beliefs, misgivings, and so on. With this in mind, it could be argued that the two characters become more than just participants in a sexual affair: they have, as lovers, become united.

I have suggested that the antagonism of this song lies in the idea that the sexual activities indulged in by the characters in "Monologue" are not highly regarded by others.

The dismissal of such desires by the adversarial, but notably invisible, others becomes recognized by the singer, who narrates the happenings of the relationship. As a result, the desires felt by both the narrator and his lady friend are labeled as "depraved," though it is not clear whether or not it is the narrator or oppositional social convention who is responsible for the designation. Furthermore, the postpunk goth rock style, e.g., the varied use of synthesized instrumental layers, distortion of voices, and especially the characteristically dark sound, could suggest that the sonic elements of this song support the impression that the atypical longings of the characters in this story are indeed

"depraved." However, an argument that attempts to define the elements of this song as depraved fails to consider one important fact: these characters are fueled not just by 118 physical yearning, but also by love. The best evidence that "Monologue" represents love, and not depravity, is to be found in the song's chorus. First, the chorus repeats three times, as opposed to a mere single recitation of each of the two verses. In repeating the very statement that reinforces the idea of love, it may be argued that any uncertainty vocalized in the verses, which is framed by recurring choruses, becomes secondary to the love expressed by the characters in this song.

Despite the fact that the chorus is glutted with new sonic material, it could be argued that this type of sonic representation is what best symbolizes the nature of the relationship between our two protagonists. Because their desires are viewed as unsavory, it is only natural that the accompanying sounds reflect this prejudice. However, it is also important to recall that the specific line from the chorus reads: "within the darkest most depraved of joys" (italics added). For the characters in this song, these "depraved" physical expressions are not punishing; in fact, it is within these "depraved" activities, condemned by the invisible other, that our characters find, and are united by, love.

Therefore, the sonic element of this song can be taken to signify the unusual love these two people feel for each other.

Conclusion

"Monologue" tells the story of two lovers united by common interests and common fears. What I have attempted to demonstrate in my lengthy discussion is that there is a great deal of musical and textual evidence to support the suggestion that this is 119 a love song: our two protagonists experience a joy that is unique to them, and is inspired by the presence of the other. In this sense, the love experienced by these two is passive, as they do not seem to have had any control over the circumstances of their meeting, nor does their joy appear to have any semblance of permanence. This impermanence of joy could be the result of a second emotion, hate, insofar as it can be argued that hate is experienced by our protagonists towards the invisible others. Antagonism of these others acts as an external cause by labeling the song's character's desires as in some way unsavory, and is thus responsible for any sadness related to the impermanence of the relationship. However, it must be noted that hate, if treated as an emotion that results from the actions and behaviours of other, is also subject to the same kind of stopgaps as love. As a result of this observation, it can be concluded that the relationship between our protagonists is controlled by the fluctuating strengths and influences of two different, but ultimately connected, emotions. Notes

Mikhail Bakhtin defines monologism, "at its extreme, [as denying] the existence outside itself of another consciousness with equal rights... Monologue is finalized and deaf to the other's response, does not expect it and does not acknowledge in it any decisive force" (in Daley 1997, 90). CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS

In this study, I have attempted to make sense of a body of ambiguous material.

She Wants Revenge's first album has proven to be a challenge, insofar as the intentions of Warfield and Bravin in creating this album, while perhaps clear to them, remain contentious given the album's content with respect to the goals of the artists. That said, I have approached my study of She Wants Revenge by keeping in mind that this album was intended by the band members to reflect love in a variety of forms. While it has been argued that once a work of art leaves its creator and enters the world, the perspectives and intentions of the creator matter no more or less than the interpretation of an audience, I believe that to discount the intentions with which a work was created is to do a great injustice to that work. Though an artist's perspective does not necessarily need to be shared by an audience, some useful discourse can arise from knowing the perspective from which a work was conceived and subsequently created.

The work that I have undertaken has led me to make the following conclusions.

First, while many studies on emotion attempt to make allowances for both "normal" and

"abnormal" situations, there are some general and consistent problems. One such problem is the oft-undefined "feeling component," which is sometimes referred to (e.g.,

Ekman quoted in Levy 1984) and is other times absent (e.g., Budd 1991). This indicates that there is a lack of consensus regarding the relevance of the "feeling component" with respect to what constitutes an emotional experience, and some form of agreement would 122 logically aid in better understanding all manner of experience. Next, related to the issue of inclusiveness is the question of whether mind and body act in tandem, or whether emotional experience is polarized in either the mind or the body, but never at the same time. While I am neither qualified nor willing to suggest that one idea is better than the other, I do feel that disagreement over where the emotional experience is located obscures the subject and generates a great deal of ambiguity surrounding the nature of the emotional experience.

As with the study of emotion, the study of the love song has been at once too narrowly conceived and understudied. While many studies of the love song do try to trace some shifts in sociocultural values and stylistic development within the song type itself, these works often miss the mark by opting to exclude any discussion of how sound effectively shapes the reception of love songs. Furthermore, many of the studies discussed in this thesis were either written during, or discuss music from, the middle of the twentieth century. While this fact alone is not inherently problematic, it should be acknowledged that there are, to my knowledge, no recent academic attempts at discussing the current state of the love song in Western society.

She Wants Revenge's contemporary love songs demonstrate a shift in the ideas and understandings of how the love song functions in terms of both sonic and lyric content, as compared to a majority of songs from the Western popular music repertoire.

In addition to discussing scenarios that at one time may have been considered inappropriate for public audiences, She Wants Revenge combines elements such as pain, sadness, and lust with the overarching theme of love in such a way that the songs remain love songs in spite of their atypical musical settings. I have also argued that the sonic elements of the music, however atypical for a love song, contribute a great deal towards the expressivity of the song's lyric content. Both Warfield's vocal and Bravin's instrumental performances can in many ways be described as "unemotional," but as I have attempted to demonstrate, this type of performance corresponds effectively with the tenor of their album.

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges in writing this work was in defending a position that is easily perceived as being sexist and misogynistic. She Wants Revenge have constructed an album and a public persona that essentially revolves around the idea of "love in all its forms," and it is important to acknowledge that the preceding chapters are simply attempts to defend the arguments of She Wants Revenge regarding the intentions of their work. In taking this position, I have chosen to forego the feminist/women's studies route, which no doubt would have yielded a great deal of analysis that would have contradicted my current conclusions - for example, a sex positive feminist approach, which views pornography, sadomasichism and other non normative sexual acts as being responsible for the oppression of women (e.g., Dworkin

1981; MacKinnon 1997), would no doubt shifted the perspective of this work - and instead, I have considered She Wants Revenge to be the product of two male songwriters who live in the 21st century and write music that reflects their own particular desires and/or experiences. This is not always an easy position to take, as, despite Warfield's attempt to be as clear as possible in the song lyrics, there remains a great deal of uncertainty regarding the themes presented in She Wants Revenge. Though I have sought to support the claim that She Wants Revenge is an album of love songs, it is always possible that someone else could be less convinced by both their insistence and my arguments and come to another conclusion about this music that is entirely different from the one I have defended.

Further Research

This study is a step towards readdressing the love song as a subject of study, a ubiquitous cultural entity that has received little scholarly attention since the mid-20th century. One area that appears to be missing in the study of the love song is any consideration of how changes in sociocultural perspectives may be better understood by taking up the study of music that temporally both follows and precedes the music of She

Wants Revenge. As mentioned earlier, there is a notable absence of surveys of the love song since those conducted by Peatman, Horton and Carey, the most recent of these having been written in the late 1960s. While these studies, I have argued throughout, are flawed in many ways, they remain important because, if nothing else, they continue to represent the only surveys of the North American popular love song. At the time of this writing, I am unaware of any comparable and more recent surveys that examine more contemporary music, and it is my contention that a study dealing with current love songs, a study of large scale and great scope, could usefully illuminate new developments and recurring patterns in the love song when considered in tandem with older studies.

Another area that is, in my view, important and worth taking up at a later date is the study of how emotion is reflected in sound, especially when sounds occur as a reflection of associated words. While there do exist more recent studies that attempt to address emotion in the sonic aspect of music (e.g., Kivy 2001, 2002), I discovered a consistent problem throughout the course of my work: if music has lyrics, then it is often thought that all meaning should be derived from and interpreted through them. It is not a problem that meaning is taken from song lyrics per se, but I do believe that to discount the potential of the sonic component to enhance our experience and influence our interpretation of meaning derived from lyrics is to do music, and ourselves, a great disservice. Furthermore, as I learned through conducting a listener response survey, listeners are fully capable of pointing out that sound reflects specific emotional states, regardless of whether or not they are able to articulate precisely why certain music makes them perceive particular emotions. One way to continue this work would be to conduct more listening experiments with a larger sample, which would help to locate the root source of how this sort of collective agreement on how sounds come to signify emotions.

I believe that this study is a step forward in the exploration of how changes in musical sound and style can reflect modifications in sociocultural views on love and other subject matters. There is no doubt that as time and music making proceeds, ideas about the "best" way to represent something sonically or otherwise develop in new ways. 126

Consider, for instance, the differences between protest songs of our recent history and those of the 1960s and 1970s. A song like Ani DiFranco's homage to the attack of 9/11,

"Self-Evident," is a far cry from protest songs such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's

"Ohio," both in terms of content (DiFranco's lyrics are much more subversive and explicit than CSNY's lyrics) and musical performance (DiFranco employs a variety of extended vocal and guitar techniques which emulate extra-musical sounds and serve to make her point more explicit, while CSNY's performance remains within the confines of the rock music idiom). Similarly, the love songs of She Wants Revenge demonstrate a leap beyond what was previously heard in a "typical" love song. While society still only cautiously acknowledges some of the actions described in these songs, it is conceivable that somewhere in the future the kinds of relationships alluded to in this album could become somewhat more integrated into the social fabric, if only in terms of their overt recognition. As a result, it is also likely that artistic reflections of this kind of love will evolve to reflect this change, and for this reason, it is necessary to continue exploring the link between sound and social change. 127

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