Parody As a Borrowing Practice in American Music, 1965–2015
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Parody as a Borrowing Practice in American Music, 1965–2015 A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Division of Composition, Musicology, and Theory of the College-Conservatory of Music by John P. Thomerson BM, State University of New York at Fredonia, 2008 MM, University of Louisville, 2010 Committee Chair: bruce d. mcclung, PhD ABSTRACT Parody is the most commonly used structural borrowing technique in contemporary American vernacular music. This study investigates parody as a borrowing practice, as a type of humor, as an expression of ethnic identity, and as a response to intellectual trends during the final portion of the twentieth century. This interdisciplinary study blends musicology with humor studies, ethnic studies, and intellectual history, touching on issues ranging from reception history to musical meaning and cultural memory. As a structural borrowing technique, parody often creates incongruity—whether lyrical, stylistic, thematic, evocative, aesthetic, or functional—within a recognized musical style. Parodists combine these musical incongruities with other comic techniques and social conventions to create humor. Parodists also rely on pre-existing music to create, reinforce, and police ethnic boundaries, which function within a racialized discourse through which parodists often negotiate ethnic identities along a white-black binary. Despite parody’s ubiquity in vernacular music and notwithstanding the genre’s resonance with several key themes from the age of fracture, cultivated musicians have generally parody. The genre’s structural borrowing technique limited the identities musicians could perform through parodic borrowings. This study suggests several areas of musicological inquiry that could be enriched through engagement with parody, a genre that offers a vast and largely unexplored repertoire indicating how musical, racial, and cultural ideas can circulate in popular discourse. !ii Copyright © 2017 by John P. Thomerson. All rights reserved. !iii This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Jeff and Mary Hausmann, who instilled in me a love of our nation’s music and history. And to Shirley Payne. “God practiced on the rest of the world, And then he made Kentucky.” —P. D. Q. Bach, Blaues Gras Cantata !iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have accumulated several debts of gratitude over the course of this project. None of my work would have been possible without the diligence, generosity, and resourcefulness of librarians at the Albino Gorno Memorial Music Library at the University of Cincinnati, Blake Library at the University of Maine at Fort Kent (especially Deb Durkin and Sofia Birden), the Blount County Public Library, the Erie County Public Library, Pellissippi State Community College (especially Maud Mundava and Christy Coulter), the Knox County Public Library, Reed Library at SUNY Fredonia (especially Kevin Michki), and the dozens of consortium libraries who shared the contents of their collections. Support your local library! I have had the pleasure of working alongside incredible musicians, thinkers, and educators, including Jack Ashworth, Scott Brickman, Marie Kendall Brown, Jean Christensen, Jim Davis, Michael Markham, Jim Piorkowski, Gordon Root, Doug Shadle, Lance Strasser, Aniko Walker, and Ann Marie de Zeeuw at SUNY Fredonia, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Louisville, and the University of Maine at Fort Kent. I strive to live up to their collective example. Dr. bruce mcclung served as my dissertation advisor and spent countless hours reading drafts, suggesting comments, and generally improving everything he touched. His attention to detail, high standards, and hard work are matched only by his kindness, and he serves as a model for my work and teaching. Dr. Stefan Fiol was originally a member of my committee, and while research commitments prevented him from being able to attend my defense, my project is better because I wrote it preparing for his incisive comments. Drs. Jeongwon Joe and Stephen Meyer served on !v my dissertation committee, and my work has been vastly improved by their thoughtful comments and patient guidance. Sarina Pearson shared a book chapter that was otherwise inaccessible to me. Colleagues at several institutions and scholarly societies including the Collaborative Initiative on Problem- Based Learning in Music, the University of Cincinnati’s Preparing Future Faculty program, the Society for American Music, and the Midwest chapter of the American Musicological Society have commiserated, offered advice and encouragement, and provided models of exceptional scholarship and service. The members of my graduate cohort, including Will Ayers, Alex Bádue, Doug Easterling, Ashley Greathouse, Michael Kennedy, Jesse Kinne, Michelle Lawton, Gui-Hwan Lee, Matteo Magaratto, Alyssa Mehnert, Erik Paffett, and Adam Shoaff, provided comradeship, challenges to my ideas, and stimulating conversation. I am grateful to everyone on the Transitive Axis for their community and levity. Nick Johnston provided material and psychological assistance throughout the course of this project. Tyler Fritts has been a friend and inspiration for years. I am especially indebted to my reading group partners Steven D. Mathews and Sarah Pozderac-Chenevey for their unwavering encouragement and editorial assistance. Sarah and her husband, Ben, shared their home with me during my final semester in Cincinnati and I am indebted for their hospitality. To my family, Jeff, Mary, Tim, Roseann, and Adam Hausmann; Barbara Burris; Shirley Payne; Janet Thomerson; Tom Thomerson; Karen Ramsey; and Mark, Jennie, and Lauren Daugherty, I am indebted for their continued love, encouragement, and home cooking. !vi To my wife, Holly Rae Thomerson, and our dogs Maddy and Albus, who make make all of this worthwhile. I cannot begin to express my gratitude for Holly’s sacrifices of time and attention throughout the entirety of my graduate schooling, which she handled with unwavering support and unconditional love. She remains my biggest inspiration as a careful thinker and as a human being. “A lovely view of heaven, but I’d rather be with you.” To quote Allen Ginsberg, “America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?” I would like to acknowledge that over half of American public school students live in poverty. About two thirds of American community college students are food insecure, half are housing insecure, and 13 to 14 percent are homeless. We have a high infant mortality rate; epidemics of heroin, obesity, prescription drug abuse, meth, and stroke and heart disease; a shortage of mental health workers; rising rates of teen suicide; and an average of two dozen veterans who commit suicide every day. Millions of American seniors live in poverty. Studying American music has renewed my love for this nation while reminding me that too often in our history—and in our present—we have not lived up to the rhetoric that we teach or the promises that we have inherited. !vii CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES.........................................................................................................................x INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1. PARODIC BORROWING TECHNIQUES IN VERNACULAR MUSIC.......................40 2. PARODY, INCONGRUITY, AND HUMOR IN THE MUSIC OF “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC AND P. D. Q. BACH...................................................................................64 Theories of Humor.................................................................................................67 Incongruity and Parodic Borrowings....................................................................81 Parody and Humor Techniques..............................................................................74 Parody, Humor, and Context................................................................................107 3. PARODY, ETHNICITY, AND VERNACULAR MUSIC...............................................133 Whiteness.............................................................................................................139 Jewishness............................................................................................................159 Chicanoness.........................................................................................................200 4. CULTIVATED PARODY IN THE AGE OF FRACTURE..............................................226 Memory, History, and Time..................................................................................229 Power and Institutions.........................................................................................248 Parody and Identity..............................................................................................270 CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................274 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................278 APPENDIX 1. SELECTED LIST OF VERNACULAR PARODISTS AND WORKS..............294 APPENDIX 2. SELECTED LIST OF PARODIC BORROWINGS...........................................295 !viii LIST OF FIGURES 3.1 2 Live Crew, As Nasty as They Wanna Be, album cover ....................................190 3.2 2 Live Jews, As Kosher as They