University of Huddersfield Repository Smith, Adam The Influence of Literature in 1960s British Popular Music: Approaches to Popular Composition Original Citation Smith, Adam (2012) The Influence of Literature in 1960s British Popular Music: Approaches to Popular Composition. Masters thesis, University of Huddersfield. This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/18052/ The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of the University, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the items on this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners. Users may access full items free of charge; copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided: • The authors, title and full bibliographic details is credited in any copy; • A hyperlink and/or URL is included for the original metadata page; and • The content is not changed in any way. For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ The Influence of Literature in 1960s British Popular Music: Approaches to Popular Composition ADAM SMITH MA by Research Awarded by the University of Huddersfield August 2012 ABSTRACT There is a noticeable influence of literature and literary techniques in the popular music songs of the countercultural period in Britain (1965-71). These dates, as noted by Jonathon Green, characterize the beginning of the UK countercultural movement of the 1960s, culminating with the 1971 trial of the OZ magazine, which Green regards as marking the end of the period (1999). There are three main questions that this project explores. In what ways did songwriters of the era use literature as an inspiration in the compositional process? How can literary influenced songwriting techniques be used and extended in contemporary popular composition? How useful are these techniques and the extensions of these techniques in the compositional process? This project investigates the influence of literature on the songwriters of the era by analysing relevant song examples and subsequently inventing systematic forms that songwriters today can use as a basis for composition. A portfolio of original compositions is included, which demonstrates various approaches to composition that abide by the systematic forms, which stem from the literary influence of the 1960s songwriters. This project makes a contribution to our knowledge and understanding of popular music, as the influence of literature, especially the application of literary techniques in the compositional process, is a subject that has not been researched previously in any great depth. The abundance of available literary techniques and the possibilities for the invention of techniques is an exciting prospect when applied to popular composition. After highlighting certain issues such as the homogeneity of songwriters and poets, a brief contextual background is given concerning 1960s counterculture and popular music. A taxonomy of systematic forms is created, into which are placed literary influenced techniques used by songwriters such as Syd Barrett and John Lennon, illustrated by a number of examples. Explanations of the original compositions included in the portfolio highlight the attributes of various songwriting approaches and conclusions are drawn that look into the differing levels of constraint and artistic intuition and how these factors affect the compositional process. 2 CONTENTS Title page……………………………………………………......... 1 Abstract………………………………………………………....... 2 Contents………………………………………………………........ 3 Copyright Statement + List of Figures…………………………..... 5 Chapter 1 Introduction …………………………………………………......... 6 Chapter 2 Issues and Methodology………………………………………...... 8 2.1 Why Focus on British Popular Music of this Era? ……… 8 2.2 Creativity………………………………………………..... 9 2.3 The Use of Techniques…………………………………… 9 2.4 Lyricists or Poets? ………………………………………. 9 Chapter 3 Context…………………………………………………………. 11 3.1 1960s counterculture…………………………………….. 11 3.1.1 The Beats…………………………………. 11 3.1.2 Art-schools……………………………….. 11 3.1.3 Political Impact…………………………… 12 3.1.4 What Hierarchy?…………………………. 12 3.2 The influence of Literature……………………………… 13 3.2.1 Making Sense of Nonsense……………….. 13 3.2.2 The Nonsense of Youth…………………... 14 3.2.3 Drugs……………………………………… 15 3.2.4 Other Literary Influences…………………...15 Chapter 4 Systematic Forms and Song Analysis…………………………… 16 4.1 Creation of Forms ………………………………………... 16 4.1.1 Direct Form………………………………… 17 4.1.2 Direct Pastiche……………………… 17 4.1.3 Direct Metamorphosis……………… 18 4.1.4 Direct Inspiration…………………… 19 4.1.5 Spiritual Texts………………………. 22 4.2.1 Technical Form……………………………..24 4.2.2 Stratified Form……………………………...28 Chapter 5 Constraints and More Systematic Forms………………………….30 5.1 Why Constrain? ………………………………………… 30 3 5.2 Initial Stage of Composition…………………………… 31 5.3 More Systematic Forms………………………………… 32 Chapter 6 Original Song Explanations…………………………………….. 34 6.1 Songs Not Included in Main Portfolio………………….. 34 6.2 Songs Included in Main Portfolio…………………………38 6.2.1 Magic Rain………………………………….39 6.2.2 Freak Fire……………………………………45 6.2.3 Transmission……………………………….. 48 6.2.4 Take One Honey for the Kin………………..51 6.2.5 Ill of the Illness…………………………….. 55 6.2.6 Kings, Yazoos & Harlots………………….. .61 6.2.7 Edwood Liar……………………………….. 65 6.2.8 Fifteen Three……………………………….. 68 6.2.9 He Me Him………………………………… 73 Chapter 7 Conclusions…………………………………………………… 78 7.1 Usefulness of Techniques……………………………… 78 7.2 Further Avenues of Research……………………………. 80 Appendices…………………………………………………… 81 1. List of Tracks on CD 1……………………………………. 81 2. List of Tracks on CD 2……………………………………. 81 3. Other Songs Under Direct Form.…………………………. 82 References…………………………………………………….. 84 Bibliography……………………………………………. 84 Existing Literature Used During Compositional Process..86 Literature That 1960s Songwriters Used………………. 87 Websites………………………………………………... 87 Discography…………………………………………..... 88 Selected Further Reading………………………………. 89 WORD COUNT = 23,245 4 Copyright Statement i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns any copyright in it (the “Copyright”) and he has given The University of Huddersfield the right to use such Copyright for any administrative, promotional, educational and/or teaching purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts, may be made only in accordance with the regulations of the University Library. Details of these regulations may be obtained from the Librarian. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of any patents, designs, trademarks and any and all other intellectual property rights except for the Copyright (the “Intellectual Property Rights”) and any reproductions of copyright works, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property Rights and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property Rights and/or Reproductions. List of Figures Figure 6.1: Structure of TOHftK Figure 6.2: Codification table Figure 6.3: Structure of KY&H Figure 6.4: Structure of Fifteen Three 5 Chapter 1 Introduction This project investigates the use of literary techniques and a wider influence of literature in the songs of the British countercultural era of the 1960s, precisely 1965-1971. Also submitted is a portfolio of original compositions that use related literary techniques as a form of inspiration. The major artists examined are Syd Barrett and John Lennon along with other artists from the era such as Ray Davies and Donovan Leitch. The project examines the ways in which songwriters gathered their ideas and inspiration, the techniques that they used when converting a literary influence into lyrics and the ways in which these techniques can be adopted and adapted in the compositional process. The main incentive is to offer approaches to writing popular music. This is achieved with the analysis of songwriting techniques of the era and the use of the techniques as inspiration for the development of songwriting methods. The portfolio of compositions focuses on the application of literary techniques to both the music and the lyrics. Songwriters of the 1960s tended to experiment with the lyrical content but they did not appear in general to apply literary techniques to the musical content in the compositional process. The aim here is to apply experimental techniques to create popular music by using a mixture of technique and artistic intuition to cater to the conventions of popular music discourse. The term ‘popular music’ is ambiguous in nature; there is no definitive definition. Greg Hainge summarizes this point in detail (2004). I place my compositions within the popular music idiom for the following reasons. The compositions are songs that contain hooks and memorable vocal melodies and each composition uses similar instrumentation to the majority of ‘pop’ songs, such as drums, bass guitar, electric guitar, vocals, backing vocals, synthesizers and so on. The instruments are played in a conventional manner, for example the electric guitar is picked/strummed/fingered in a ‘pop’ fashion and there