The Ballad in American Popular Music: From Elvis to Beyoncé 9781107161528, 9781316676400, 1107161525

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: What Is a Ballad?
Chapter 1 The 1950s
Interlude I: Patsy Cline, “Crazy”
Chapter 2 The Soul Ballad
Interlude II: It Still Hurts…
Chapter 3 The Power Ballad
Interlude III: Sarah McLachlan, “Angel”
Interlude IV: Hip Hop Ballads
Chapter 4 Indie Ballads
Interlude V: I Confess
Conclusion: Goodbye
Select Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

this is the first book to explore the history and appeal of these treasured songs. David Metzer investigates how and why the styles of ballads have

Metzer

While ballads have been a cornerstone of popular music for decades,

changed over a period of more than seventy years, offering a definition of Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, and Whitney Houston. The emotional power of the ballad is strongly linked to the popular mood of the time, and consequently songs can tell us much about how events and emotions were felt and understood in wider culture at specific moments of recent American history. Tracing both the emotional and stylistic developments of the genre from the 1950s to the present day, this lively and engaging volume is as much a musical history as it is a history of emotional life in America. David Metzer is a Professor in the School of Music at the University of British Columbia. He has published widely on a range of modern musical topics, and is the author of Quotation and Cultural Meaning in TwentiethCentury Music (Cambridge University Press 2003) and Musical Modernism at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge University Press 2009).

Printed in the United Kingdom

Jacket illustration © Nathan José Kipe

The Ballad in American Popular Music

the genre and discussing the influences of celebrated performers including

The Ballad in American Popular Music From Elvis to Beyoncé David Metzer

THE BALLAD IN AMERICAN POPULAR MUSIC

While ballads have been a cornerstone of popular music for decades, this is the first book to explore the history and appeal of these treasured songs. David Metzer investigates how and why the styles of ballads have changed over a period of more than seventy years, offering a definition of the genre and discussing the influences of celebrated performers including Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, and Whitney Houston. The emotional power of the ballad is strongly linked to the popular mood of the time, and consequently songs can tell us much about how events and emotions were felt and understood in wider culture at specific moments of recent American history. Tracing both the emotional and stylistic developments of the genre from the 1950s to the present day, this lively and engaging volume is as much a musical history as it is a history of emotional life in America. david metzer is a professor in the School of Music at the University of British Columbia. He has published widely on a range of modern musical topics, and is the author of Quotation and Cultural Meaning in Twentieth-Century Music (Cambridge 2003) and Musical Modernism at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge 2009).

THE BALLAD IN AMERICAN POPULAR MUSIC From Elvis to Beyoncé

DAVID METZER University of British Columbia, Vancouver

University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, ny 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia 4843/24, 2nd Floor, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, Delhi – 110002, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107161528 doi: 10.1017/9781316676400 © David Metzer 2017 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2017 Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. isbn 978-1-107-16152-8 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

To the memory of Michael Fellman

Contents

Acknowledgments

page viii 1

Introduction: What Is a Ballad? 1 The 1950s

32

Interlude I: Patsy Cline, “Crazy” 2 The Soul Ballad

78 85

Interlude II: It Still Hurts. . .

127

3 The Power Ballad

134

Interlude III: Sarah McLachlan, “Angel”

168

Interlude IV: Hip Hop Ballads

174

4 Indie Ballads

180

Interlude V: I Confess

210

Conclusion: Goodbye

220 223 225

Select Bibliography Index

vii

Acknowledgments

As a child, I cried silently to myself in the backseat of a car while listening to Terry Jacks’ recording of “Seasons in the Sun.” That kid would have been surprised that he would write a book on ballads, not to mention that he would become something called a musicologist. Yet the musicologist is in touch with that kid and still gets emotional over ballads. Musicology has provided me with a way of understanding why ballads have moved me so much. I never, though, wanted my work on ballads to be a musicology secret, a study produced for and best understood by fellow scholars. It was always my goal to write a book that would follow the paths of scholarly research but do so in an accessible and engaging way that would appeal to the general reader, that is, all of us who love ballads. I would like to thank Cambridge University Press for their support of this project. Editors Vicki Cooper and Kate Brett have agreed with me that a book on widely loved songs should reach out to a wide audience. To have two passionate and shrewd editors behind you is good fortune for a scholar. Before I wrote a page of this book, I was encouraged by my friend Michael Fellman. A Civil War historian, Michael wrote books that attracted both scholarly and general readers. He thought that I could do the same with one about ballads. The challenge was to find the voice to connect with that large audience. Michael coached me in developing that voice, telling me when it got muffled in academic prose and when it rung out. It grieves me that Michael passed away before I completed this book. I would have loved to hear what he had to say as I worked away, let alone to see his smile when I handed him the published copy. Yet I have heard his voice in my head while writing and him telling me to persevere when setbacks arose. I dedicate this book to his memory. Also involved in this book from the outset was Michael’s wife, Santa Aloi, who has read all of it. I would like to thank her for her dedication and ever-insightful advice. My gratitude also goes to my parents for their undying support, especially for a book in which they will know some of viii

Acknowledgments

ix

the music. Thanks to Robin Attas, who was a research assistant in the early stages of this project. For my friends and colleagues who listened to me talk about this book for years and buoyed me with enthusiasm and guidance, I would like to offer a big alphabetical hug: Sally Bick, Sara Davis Buechner, Greg Butler, Lynn Butler, Matthew Davison, Alex Fisher, Jim Grier, Heather Gunn, Hedy Law, Fred Lee, Vera Micznik, Greg Miller, Maribeth Payne, Becki Ross, Maurice Russell, Rob Taylor, and Claudio Vellutini. Finally, I would like to thank all of those who have shared with me stories about how particular ballads have shaped their lives. I hope that I can help them understand why and how ballads have been there for us. Chapter 3 draws upon material previously published in “The Power Ballad,” Popular Music 31 (2012), 437–59 and “The Power Ballad and The Power of Sentimentality,” Journal of American Studies 50 (2016), 659–77. Reprinted with Permission. I have created Spotify playlists of the songs mentioned in the book.

Introduction What Is a Ballad?

What is a ballad? The question kicked off an episode of the TV show Glee devoted to the songs.1 Simply called “Ballad,” it opens with glee club instructor Mr. Schuester asking choir members just that. One student throws his arm up in the air and answers: “a ballad is a love song.” Mr. Schuester agrees but adds that the songs are not just about love. As he puts it, ballads are “stories set to music.” Not only that, they are also “the perfect storm of self expression.” I too have begun lectures about ballads with that question and have received a range of responses. “Love songs” is the most popular answer, followed by sad songs. Sometimes you get personal tales garlanded around those replies, like “the kind of song that was playing when I met my girlfriend” or “the songs that I listen to when I’m depressed.” Then there is always the unexpected: “the songs that my Mom likes,” “the songs that I turn off on the radio as soon as I hear them,” and “pretty songs.” These disparate responses show that we need to settle upon a definition. Everyone has a general idea about ballads – romantic or sad songs that can be very personal – but they find it hard to pin down that idea. This is often the case when we are asked to define the ubiquitous things around us, like concrete or electricity. We see or use these things every day, but never stop to think what exactly they are or how we would capture them in words. Ballads are that common. There are usually one or two of them around the top of the charts and they number among our favorite songs, at least for readers of this book. We know one when we hear one, but we never stop to think exactly what we know about them. So to get things started, I will provide a concise definition: A ballad is a song set to a slow tempo that deals with feelings of love and loss. I will fill out that definition as we go along, but let’s begin with a discussion of the term “ballad.” It is an unusual term in popular music 1

The episode aired on 18 November 2009.

1

2

Introduction

because it has been around for centuries and has been used in different ways. “Blues” and “rock” may be venerable names in popular music, but they are fledglings compared to “ballad.” To his credit, Mr. Schuester opens his rehearsal with an etymology lesson, telling the class that “ballad” comes from a Middle English term. Not exactly. There are Latin and Middle French precedents, but we do not need to quibble with Mr. Schuester or descend into the etymological mines. The important thing for us is that by the Middle Ages there is a type of song called ballad, one that is still around today, although it is not the type that we will be looking at. This other kind of ballad arose from the age-old act of storytelling. The lyrics narrate tales, which are presented in a sequence of stanzas. The stanzas are set to the same music, repetitions that made the songs easier to remember for the singers and to pass on through following generations. The songs took up treasured topics, including religious stories, battles, supernatural incidents, and romance. Especially grisly are murder ballads, which recount the events leading up to a killing, the act itself, and the aftermath. The popularity of murder ballads in the United States during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reveals how established the narrative ballad had become in American musical life. The songs were central to different folk traditions, particularly those of the Appalachians and West, and, when polished up, could also be heard in domestic parlors and concert halls. The narrative ballad enjoyed renewed attention with the folk-revival movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1958, the Kingston Trio captivated audiences with the murder ballad “Tom Dooley.” Bob Dylan turned to the ballad, although with tales far more poetic and enigmatic than those in folk songs. With a cast of characters including a “one-eyed midget” and “lumberjacks,” “Ballad of a Thin Man” (1965) tells a story about alienation, although, as a line in the chorus says, “you don’t know what it is.” The folk-revival movement appears to have been the last hurrah for the narrative ballad. The songs, though, are still with us. Whenever I ask my classes what a ballad is, one student without fail mentions the narrative ballad. Even the Glee episode nods to those songs with the line that ballads are “stories set to music.” The love-song type of ballad that we know emerges in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but even then it is hard to spot. It gets lost among other kinds of ballads, including the narrative songs. There were a lot of different types of ballads back then, or rather disparate songs that fit under the heading “ballad.” A look at songwriting manuals from the

Introduction

3

early twentieth century reveals a map of musical genres unlike the one that we use for our listening journeys. Today, we define genres largely, but not exclusively, on the basis of style, which produces a map that consists of different genre countries, each with distinct styles and sounds, like R&B, punk, and electronic dance music. Back in the early twentieth century, the map consisted of large continents, made up of types of songs. There were three chief categories of songs: ballad, novelty song, and rhythm song. The divisions between the three were made along the lines of the topic of lyrics, mood, language, and musical characteristics. Novelty songs like “Yes, We Have No Bananas” dealt with comic topics and used slang or colloquial language. Ballads, on the other hand, turned to more serious topics, above all romance, and used simple language, with occasional poetic plumes. True to the name, rhythm songs excited listeners with catchy rhythms, often those derived from ragtime or early jazz, and featured fast tempos. If those infectious beats were not enough billing, the tunes often placed “rhythm” in the title, like Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm” and “Fascinating Rhythm.” Ballads were by comparison rhythmically demure, using straightforward, steady rhythms and set to a slow tempo. Syncopated rhythms, of course, pepped up ballads, enough to warrant a particular subcategory, what composer Arthur Korb called the “rhythm ballad.”2 The ballad had many subcategories at this time, more than rhythm or novelty songs. As one scholar of musical theatre put it: “Ballads, as a rubric, cover on Broadway a multitude of sins.”3 He was not talking about the romantic peccadillos described in love songs but rather the number of different types of songs called ballads, some of which emerged from the mixing of different kinds of songs, like the mongrel rhythm ballad. In his 1949 book How to Write Songs that Sell, Korb’s brood of ballads not only includes the rhythm ballad but also the “regular” ballad, the slow foxtrot, the foxtrot in a slightly faster tempo, and the slow waltz.4 The breakdown of the ballad in E.M. Wickes’ 1916 Writing the Popular Song gives us an even more unusual cast of characters: march, semi-high class, rustic, waltz, Irish, descriptive, and mother ballads.5 2 3 4 5

Arthur Korb, How to Write Songs that Sell (New York: Greenberg Publishers, 1949), 22–23. Isaac Goldberg, Tin Pan Alley: A Chronicle of the American Popular Music Racket (New York: The John Day Company, 1930), 213. Korb, How to Write Songs that Sell, 22–23. E.M. Wickes, Writing the Popular Song (Springfield, MA: The Home Correspondence School, 1916), 6.

4

Introduction

Instead of talking about these individual and mostly defunct types of ballads (RIP), we will consider what the ballad in general was. In the songwriting manuals, it comes across as a genre blob that occupies a third or more of the popular music world and contains a multitude of offshoots. We might not recognize this blob conception of the ballad, but our present-day idea of the ballad was part of it. Slow songs about love and loss were always in the mix. During the course of the 1920s and 1930s, the chaff of march, descriptive, and semi-high class songs disappeared. Songwriting manuals of the 1940s offer definitions that jibe with the one that we will be building upon. In his Secrets of Successful Song Writing, Harry Stoddard describes the ballad as a song that is “usually written in a slow tempo, and has a smooth, melodious, romantic, and appealing melody. The lyric is concerned with romance, lovers, and memories.”6 He then goes on to divide the ballad into three categories: the love song, sentimental ballad, and torch song. I will also be dividing the ballad repertoire into different categories, some based on genres (soul, hip hop, rock), some on expressive qualities (power ballads), and others on cultural oppositional lines (indie vs. mainstream). A hundred years from now, a scholar may point out how odd those divisions seem, as I did with Wickes’ list. His list and mine, though, make the point that there is no such thing as one type of ballad. Nor is there anymore such a thing as the broad ballad that encompasses a large chunk of the popular music scene. It was good that we got to look at that conception of the ballad, though, for it shows us what the ballad was and allows us to appreciate even more what it would become in the 1950s, the starting point of our history of the ballad.

The Music A history of the term “ballad” only goes so far in telling us what a ballad is. We need to get into the music and lyrics of the songs. As for the music, we will break down the ballad into six different areas: melody, harmony, instrumental accompaniment, form, tempo, and rhythm. Each not only shapes what a ballad is but also adds to the emotional spells cast by the songs. Ballads are all about melody, a point made by Harry Stoddard’s definition mentioned above, which emphasizes melody by describing it with four adjectives: smooth, melodious, romantic, and appealing. I would agree 6

Harry Stoddard. Secrets of Successful Song Writing (Los Angeles: The Bookman Press, 1949), 14.

The Music

5

with that list (although I could do without melodious melody), and I will throw in many more adjectives to describe the melodic lines in the songs as we go along. But for now, I will begin with this observation: melodies are front and center in ballads. How can they not be? The songs are all about singers and the melodies that they sing. The other parts – piano, strings, horns – do not pile on top of the vocal line. Ballads do not have the intricate layering of individual lines that we find in a funk song. The other parts usually stay in the background. The prominence of the melody has made many singers afraid of ballads, for there is no place to hide. Bad notes or weak breath control will be exposed. The same elements that make ballad melodies fearsome also make them enchanting, particularly the length and shapes of the vocal lines. Ballads spin out long lines, or, as heard in The Righteous Brothers’ hit, they unchain melodies, allowing them to flow, build, and arabesque. Any genre extolling voice and melody tends toward melodic extravagance, as is the case with nineteenth-century Italian opera. The composer Giuseppe Verdi described his predecessor Vincenzo Bellini’s works as having “long, long, long melodies.”7 Whether in a ballad or aria, extended melodies show what a singer can – or cannot – do and also grip listeners. Such a melody allures us with a lovely opening phrase and from then on we want to follow it, or glide along with it. We want to become part of all the twists and turns that the melody takes. Long melodies also draw us in by prolonging and deepening a mood. A short phrase for “I love you” can be touching, but an unfurling melody can give us a love story. In eight bars, a melody can evoke a drama of conflict with a pleasant romantic ending or draw out sadness. The Carpenters’ recording of “Goodbye to Love” (1972) builds upon a long melodic phrase, using it to enhance a “woe-is-me” love story. Richard Carpenter wrote the music and John Bettis the lyrics about a woman convinced that she will never find love. How important that long melody is to the song comes through with Karen Carpenter singing the opening notes of the melody alone. There is no instrumental introduction, just Karen and the melody. The orchestra soon enters and provides plush backing for her voice. The melody is eight bars long and proceeds without a rest until there is a short break in the seventh bar. Richard said that Karen needed “three lungs full” of air to sing it. As to be expected, she 7

Mary Ann Smart, et al. “Bellini, Vincenzo.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/subscriber/article/grove/musi c/02603.

6

Introduction

pulls off the melody effortlessly; air never seems to be a problem and her tone remains rich and lucent throughout. As in all Carpenters recordings, Karen’s voice pulls us in to the song. Richard’s melody does too. We get caught up in the melody, as it never comes to a harmonic rest until the last bar (most melodies would reach a resolution at the midway point). We cannot come to a rest until then either. Richard throws in dramatic touches as well. Abundantly mellifluous, Carpenters songs generally avoid strong dissonances. Richard, though, places a brief, yet incisive, one on the “no” of “no one” in the line about how no one really cares about the singer. At the end of the melody beginning on the words “know of,” he quickly ascends over an octave to build tension and underscore Karen singing about how all she knows about love is that she will never have it. Richard recalled that he must have been listening to Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky when writing the song. Perhaps so, because like those two Romantic composers, he realized that it takes a long melody to capture longing.8 The melodies in ballads not only tend to be long but they also have shapes. They curve up and down, which makes them all the more appealing. For an example of these arches, let’s stay in the early 1970s and turn to Barbra Streisand’s recording of “The Way We Were” (1973). Like “Goodbye to Love,” the song tells us upfront that it is all about melody. There are a few notes on the piano and then the melody appears, with Streisand humming it. Just the melody, no words. Without the lyrics, we can appreciate the shape of Marvin Hamlisch’s melody. It begins with a drawn-out descent down a step, which creates this feeling of savoring a thought as the first note slowly resolves to the second one. After that we have two billowing phrases. The first floats up and then quickly moves down by step before coming to a rest on a sustained note. The second rises over a greater range and draws out the descent. The billowing evokes a sensation that the lyrics, when they appear, will clarify. By pushing us toward the peak of a phrase, the ascents suggests that we are pushing toward a goal or experience, like, as captured in the lyrics, getting closer to a past romance through memory. The memories may seem so close, but we will fall back into the bleakness of the present, just as the phrases fall back to notes lower then where the ascents began. For all the extended, curvilinear melodies in ballads, there are also short, repetitive one-or-two note tunes. Those piecemeal melodies, though, can 8

“‘40/40’ Celebrates The Carpenters’ 1969 Debut,” Fresh Air, NPR (25 November 2009) www.npr .org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120760959.

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7

be just as expressive as the long-limbed ones. Such melodies are common in African American music, which builds upon declamatory, speech-like vocals in a range of genres, like the talking passages in blues or the shouting in gospel. As we will see with soul ballads in Chapter 2, Otis Redding shaves down melodies to one or two notes and then repeats them over and over, all part of the moods of romantic fervor and desperation that he creates in his ballads. James Brown’s “Please, Please, Please” (1956) is even blunter about desperation. There was probably no other title for the song, which includes passages in which Brown sings “please” again and again as he begs his lover not to leave him. Not only is there just one word but it is also often presented on one note. A master of making the most out of seemingly little, Brown smears the repeated note with various vocal sounds and rhythmically bobs it around in different places in the measure. We never know if Brown’s lover stays or not, but we want to stay with him and listen to him pour out those colorful pleas. Long or short, melodies remain notes on a page or a tune in someone’s head without voices to render them. This book will discuss the one-of-a-kind voices that have enriched the history of the ballad, like those of Karen Carpenter, Barbra Streisand, Otis Redding, and James Brown. I will deal with these unique voices as they come up in that history and describe, say, what makes Whitney Houston’s voice so remarkable and what she did with her ballads. For the time being, I would like to make a simple, yet important, observation. No matter how unique the voices of these singers, they all bring out one point about why voices are so important to ballads. Voices create the intimate human connection between singer and listener that is at the heart of the experience of listening to ballads. Jazz instrumentalists like Miles Davis and John Coltrane obviously move listeners with their ballad performances, but a voice – that most human of sounds – creates a strong connection, especially when that voice can tell us about romance or sorrow through words. When I ask people about their experiences listening to ballads, they often say that they have felt that a singer was right next to them and that he or she was talking to them. There is perhaps no more touching compliment for a singer than that. So in describing voices later on, we will not only consider the distinct vocal styles of different artists but also the different types of intimacy that they create with listeners. For now, let’s continue our discussion of the musical properties of the ballad by turning to the sounds around those melodies and voices, particularly the harmonies in a song and the instruments accompanying a singer. When it comes to harmony, I will keep it simple. The important thing is to hear changes in harmony, which is not difficult to do in a ballad

8

Introduction

for several reasons. First of all, slow tempos make it easier to hear chords change; unlike the whir of harmonies in fast tempo pieces, as in the bebop works of Charlie Parker. Second, there are usually many chord changes in ballads, or more so than in the average up-tempo song. Like a bridge stretching across a wide bay, the long melodies of ballads must be supported; one or two chords are not enough to hold them up across so many bars. The chords not only provide support but also add rich harmonic colors to bring out key words or beguiling melodic turns. Having said that, there are many wonderful ballads that use only a few chords. Alicia Keys’ “Fallin’” (2001), for example, alternates between just two chords and is far from being musically or emotionally impoverished. Emotions are another reason for the emphasis on harmony in ballads. Changes in chords can set up reflective or dramatic moments. To go back to a classic, Cole Porter calls attention to such a moment in his “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” (1944) with the line “how strange the change from major to minor.” The chords do indeed change from major to minor (that is as technical as we will get in talking about harmony) and, in doing so, convey how quickly feelings can turn from bliss to sorrow when a lover departs. In “Stay” (2012), recorded by Rihanna and Mikky Ekko, the contrast between major and minor chords brings out one lover’s anxieties about asking the other to stay and be part of his or her life. With just a piano for the accompaniment, the changes in harmony are easy to hear. The lover has pondered his or her decision, as caught in the chords for the verse, which move from an opening major chord, suggestive of some sort of happiness or hopefulness, and then conclude with a repeated minor chord, the persistent doubts from which the lover cannot break free. In the chorus, the lover realizes how empty his or her life has been and how much he or she needs their partner, a thought that takes us on a harmonic route that begins with a major chord and passes through two minor chords before ending on a major chord. The peace brought out through that realization, however, fades away with the concluding line of the chorus: “I want you stay.” It ends with the repeated minor chords heard at the end of the verse. Doubts and anxieties drum on. Besides the contrast between major and minor chords, songwriters have turned to rich chords for expressive effect. The standard chords in popular music contain three notes. One or two additional notes create harmonies with more color and depth. Jazz musicians have used them for that reason, as have ballad composers. The harmonies form a vivid backdrop that sets off melodies and voices. Ballad composers have also relied on these chords to generate sensations of warmth, feelings crucial to the songs. Ballads

The Music

9

comfort you during both the bliss of falling in love and, especially, heartbreak. You can sink into these lush chords, finding there the warmth that you need. With a background in jazz, Burt Bacharach knew these types of chords well and he also knew how to use the warmth that they create. In “(They Long to Be) Close to You” (1963), you want to cozy up to those chords as much as you do your new love. With “A House Is Not a Home” (1964), there is no one to console the lover alone in the “gloom” of an empty house, but lonely listeners can find some comfort in the flow of rich chords running throughout the song. The house may be empty, but, touched by those harmonies, the music and our feelings are anything but. Bacharach’s house also gets quite loud. Produced by Bacharach and lyricist Hal David, Dionne Warwick’s recording features a large string section and backup singers. Rather than making a racket in that empty house, they create more warmth. The backing adds to the richness of the harmonies. When Warwick delivers the despairing line “I’m not fit to live alone,” the strings and backup singers stretch out swathes of sumptuous sounds, which become more so the second time she sings it. With those rich sounds and harmonies, we are far from being alone in listening to her plaint. Once again with ballads, there is the musically opposite yet just as emotionally powerful alternative. Some ballads use two chords instead of strings of harmonies, and then there are those for voice and one instrument rather than a full orchestra. We have already discussed such a sparse song – “Stay,” which was among a flock of piano ballads when it came out, including Adele’s “Someone Like You” (2011), Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man” (2013), and John Legend’s “All of Me” (2013). As with other piano ballads, these songs capture listeners through directness. There is nothing between us and the singer and pianist. The music has been stripped of anything superfluous – no sheen of strings or backup singers here – and the singer has nothing to hide behind and tells us how he or she really feels. The film for Beyoncé’s album Lemonade (2016) stages the intimate spaces created by piano ballads. The album features two songs that begin as piano ballads before adding other layers: “Pray You Catch Me” and “Sandcastles.” “Pray You Catch Me” is the only episode in the film for Beyoncé alone. She needs that solitude to confront suspicions that her husband Jay Z has been unfaithful, thoughts that for now can only go as far as “whispering.” She wants to hear him whisper something about his infidelity and to have him realize that she hears him. That would be some form of intimacy, as it is for us as Beyoncé sings softly so that we

10

Introduction

come close and listen to her confess her fears and hurt. After scenes with Beyoncé surrounded by dancers, musicians, and actors, “Sandcastles” returns to Beyoncé alone, sitting at a keyboard and singing the song. She is in what could be her and her husband’s house, but now in the desolate disarray created by a breakup. With the heavy piano chords and ringing ache in her voice, she moves into a more private space, memories of her and Jay Z together. Or are they dreams of them reunited, as she broaches the idea of getting back together with him. Using a range of genres to testify to the strength and sacrifices of African American women and to protest the racial injustices past and present in American history, Lemonade turns to the piano ballad for secluded moments of sorrow and hope. Whenever I ask a class to tell me what a ballad is, a student usually says that it is a form, or the way a song is put together. I am always pleased to hear this response because it gives me a chance to make an important point. The ballad is not a form, meaning that it is not a structure that all ballads use and only ballads. Ballads instead build upon a form that can be heard in a range of popular music genres. That form consists of two sections: verse and chorus. Ballads employ this basic form in different ways. “The Way We Were,” for example, has a chorus and bridge, but no verse. It discards the verse in order to get right to Streisand humming the tune that everyone knows. Her humming sets up the song perhaps better than any verse about memories and lost love could. “Stay,” on the other hand, has a verse, chorus, bridge, and pre-chorus.

Slow All ballads have one thing in common: a slow tempo. Ballads can deal with different topics, from the sparkle of first love to the death of a partner. They can also appear across a range of genres, including pop, country, R&B, and rock. They all, though, use a slow tempo. As important as slow tempos are, they are the least discussed and understood musical element in ballads. So there is a lot to say about slow tempos and to do so, we will slow down and take some time to discuss slow. The first thing to say about slow is that it is different. It stands out. It is not the norm. What is the norm? As a cliché about modern life tells us, the world has become so fast, and we are all busy. The train and car accelerated life and then the computer and smartphone turned it into a whirlwind. Want to fight the bustle? Then you could take hours to cook a meal, or if you are rushed and do not have the time for that, then you could buy a lovely artisanal cheese, a dish that someone else took a long time to

Slow

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prepare. Either way, you have slow food, a stand against fast food and fast life. That is how different slow is. A stew cooked for several hours in a crockpot gets stamped with the word “slow.” And it is not just food. There is slow art, which occurs when a museum encourages you to take around ten minutes to view a painting, as opposed to seventeen seconds, which, according to two scientists, is how long the average person spends looking at a piece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.9 If you want to stay at home, you can turn on slow TV, which has become a specialty of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. It has built programs around everyday activities, like a twelve-hour broadcast of knitting. All of these fit into what Carl Honoré calls the slow movement, a larger stand against the unrelenting rapidity of life. The calmness and reflection won through slow can, according to him, help us make “real and meaningful connections – with people, culture, work, food, everything.”10 Slow also stands out in popular music, perhaps nowhere more so than in Top 40 radio. How many of us have noticed that the programming on Top 40 radio consists predominately of up-tempo songs? Honoré might argue that we have not realized this because we have become inured to the hurried pace of the world around us. Indeed, top 40 could be the factory music of modern life, as it is often played in workplaces and keeps us moving from one place to another in our cars. Then there are ballads. As one Billboard writer put it, the songs are an “anomaly” in a radio format known for its energetic beats.11 As such, they cause problems for program directors. Responding to a strong teen interest in ballads in 1990, program director Keith Clark remarked: “We are taught that you can’t program a lot of ballads and that you have to keep the energy level up. But when you get this wave of ballads that everybody is into what are you supposed to do?”12 Billboard raised that question again in 2013 when another “wave” hit. At the crest was “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus. This time, the magazine had an answer. As program director Mike “Mad Dawg” Biddle put it: “Our station, in particular, has carved out an uptempo sound. However, we’ve stepped away from that periodically because sometimes a song is just that big.” “Wrecking Ball” was that big, as was Adele’s “Someone like You,” 9 10 11 12

www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-brain-the-beholder/201411/the-slow-art-movement-its-moremeets-the-eye. Carl Honoré, In Praise of Slowness: How A Worldwide Movement Is Challenging the Cult of Speed (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 14–15. Gary Trust, “Top 40 Slows Down the Songs,” Billboard (15 November 2013). “Ballads, Rap Rule Among Teens at Urban Stations,” Billboard (3 February 1990), 18.

12

Introduction

which came out the year before. As hesitant as they may be to highlight ballads, program directors and other industry figures have admitted that a ballad hit can outlive a dance song favorite. Slow, if not slow and steady, wins the race. According to Capitol Records executive Dennis Reese: “Ballads tend to have a long life span at radio and become some of the biggest hits for those artists.”13 Slow also gets sorted out in popular music genres. Like slow food, slow art, and slow TV, some genre names tell us that the music is going to be slow. Down-tempo, does not use the word “slow,” but this recently-coined cousin of “up-tempo” makes clear what to expect. If you are at a club dancing away to electronic dance music, you know that you are going to get a break from the rattling beats and hear music to which you can “chill,” to use another name for this relaxed reprieve. Rock fans do not relax but rather despair when they listen to “slow core,” songs that are not only slow but also long. It is a powerful combination that, along with lyrics about loneliness and depression, plunges listeners into the lugubrious. If you are listening to a slow jam, you will not get anywhere near that woe. Quite the opposite, as the songs stir sensuality. You can listen to a jam by yourself, but you would enjoy it best with a loved one. The two of you could be swept by the music into a slow dance – before maybe being swept into bed. Slow jams and slow dances usually are built around ballads, maybe songs by Isaac Hayes or Barry White. Given that they involve ballads, it might seem redundant to label them both as “slow,” but that is how different slow is. We feel the need to call attention to it even when we already know that the song is going to be slow. So how slow is slow? In other words, how slow does a song have to be to be considered a ballad? If only there was some sort of measuring stick to separate ballads from up-tempo songs. There are bpm (beats per measure) counts, which reduce the tempo of a song to a number. DJs use bpms to help them segue from one song to another or patch in material from one track into a new one. The measurements allow them to be precise. So bpm counts sound like they would be perfect for measuring the slowness of ballads. They do provide a measurement for individual songs, but not one for the ballad as a genre, a point made by the counts for a few songs mentioned so far: “Goodbye to Love” (76), “Stay” (112), “Fallin’” (64), and “The Way We Were” (70). Based on these counts, it would be hard to tell what the magic bpm number for a ballad is. There is an almost fifty count difference between “Fallin’” and “Stay.” Yet both are ballads. 13

Trust, “Top 40 Slows Down the Songs.”

Slow

13

Once again we realize that ballads are a disparate group of songs. Even with this one defining feature, there is a great deal of variety. Some ballads are much slower or faster than others. The differences in part stem from genre. Certain genres will emphasize slower tempos and others faster ones. R&B and soul favor slow tempos, as heard in “Fallin’.” R&B, after all, gave us the slow jam, but even here there are gradations of slow. Usher’s “Nice & Slow” (1998) is as advertised with a bpm count of 61, while Barry White’s equally sexy “Let Me in and Let’s Begin with Love” (1981) takes things a little faster at 81 bpm. As we will see, some indie ballads, enamored with despair, dig into slow tempos. Recent pop ballad recordings, in contrast, tend to be on the faster side, so much so that you might momentarily wonder if the song is a ballad or not. Examples of such songs include “Stay” (112 bpm), Pink, “Try” (104), and Britney Spears, “Sometimes” (96). Tempo might give you pause as to whether or not these songs are ballads, but they dispel those doubts by playing up other ballad characteristics. With the solo piano, “Stay” bills itself as a piano ballad, an impression enhanced by the lyrics about romantic anguish. The instrumentation and lyrics of the Pink and Spears songs similarly cast those recordings as ballads. So why the faster tempo in these pop ballads? One possible reason is the difficulty of ballads cutting through the up-tempo format of Top 40 radio. There are songs that do just that, like Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball.” It clocks in at 60 bpm, which comes across as sluggish compared to two other songs in the top five when it reached number one: Avicii, “Wake Me Up” (124) and Robin Thicke, “Blurred Lines” (128). No wonder program directors were flustered by it. “Stay” and the other two pop ballads, however, stick closer to those faster tempos and do not pose as big a problem to program directors. The songs will not break up the uptempo flow as much, and, at the same time, they offer listeners what they love about ballads, introspective songs with great vocals about love and sorrow. In a video interview for her 2008 CD The Ballads, Mariah Carey begins by defining the ballad and first mentions slow tempos like I have but then says that tempo is not so important. For her, ballads are all about emotions – about “the song and what it makes you feel.”14 I dare not disagree with a diva, but it is not one or the other. Slow tempos are means of enhancing the way a ballad makes you feel. Tempo – slow or fast – significantly shapes the types of emotional experiences that we get out of music. Fast songs excite, feeding 14

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9pjDVPy9RQ.

14

Introduction

the exhilaration of being out on the dance floor or fortifying the determination to win a big match. You probably would not turn to a fast song, though, to soothe a broken heart. Slow songs do that, or slow tempos do that. Throughout the history of Western music, slow tempos have been associated with the expression of tender emotions, like those of love, sorrow, and loss. The connection is so tight that it has produced the equations: slow=sad and fast=happy. It is no coincidence that slow core rock is also known as sad core. Classical composers have done without the “core” lingo, but they have built upon that equation in all sorts of pieces. The lament arias sung by characters in opera, for example, are set to slow tempos. Slow, however, does not just convey sadness. The slow movements in symphonies by Mozart and Beethoven can bring you to tears but they can also lead you to tranquility and comfort. As if Mozart and Beethoven were not authoritative enough, the connection between slowness and tender emotions has been made by writers in different fields. Like many thinkers in the seventeenth century, René Descartes was taken by the affective power of music, its ability to move us to emotional and physical states. In a treatise on music, he expands upon the above equations: “I say that in general a slow tempo likewise excites in us slow passions, such a languor, sadness, fear, pride, etc., and that a quick tempo also gives birth to quick passions, such as joy, etc.”15 Psychologists have subjected those equations to experiments. One study threw minor and major keys into the mix to create the revised equations: slow and minor=sad and fast and major=happy. The playing of slow/minor and fast/ major melodies to non-musician subjects confirmed those associations. Then the psychologists scrambled the equations, playing the major melodies with a slow tempo and the minor ones with a fast tempo. The experiments revealed that slowness has the strongest emotional resonance, more likely to make a melody seem sad than a minor key.16 Jazz musicians have conducted similar experiments. They often take a well-known happy song in a major key and then slow it down, while keeping the original melody and major key. A song that was once lively and carefree now becomes introspective and touching. Harry Connick Jr. worked such a transformation with “If I Only Had a Brain” from The Wizard of Oz. How slow is it? The Scarecrow and Dorothy skip through the song in one minute; Connick lingers over it for three. When 15 16

Quoted in Downing A. Thomas, “Music and the Origins of Language: Theories from the French Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 29. Lise Gagnon and Isabelle Peretz, “Mode and Tempo Relative Contributions to ‘Happy-Sad’ Judgments in Equitone Melodies,” Cognition and Emotion 17 (2003), 25–40.

Slow

15

stretched out and supported by rich chords on the piano, the song takes on new meanings. The Scarecrow imagines all the cogitation feats that he could pull off with some intelligence and tells Dorothy about the kind of figure he would like to be and also what a helpful companion he could be for her. With Connick, the song becomes a man telling his lover about his shortcomings and by doing so he conveys how sad he is about those perceived faults and how much he really wants to be with his lover. If he had that brain, he would “deserve” her and be “even worthy” of her. A slow tempo brings out a poignancy in the song that we never noticed when it was sung by Ray Bolger twirling around on the yellow brick road. The reverse direction – from slow to fast – most often does not work that well. DJs, for example, have often included vocals of hit ballads in uptempo remixes. The voices usually sound out of place among, if not trampled upon by, the heavy beats. The emotional spells cast by ballads fade away, becoming a memory that dancers may have of the original songs. Sometimes the revving up of tempo produces what amounts to a new song. “Always on My Mind,” for example, is a country ballad sung by, among others, Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson, who took it to no. 5 in the Top 100 charts in 1982. The Pet Shop Boys covered the song in 1987. The opening rapid patter of drums is the first sign that this is not the song that was in most listeners’ minds. That impression is confirmed by the new synthesizer melody added to the song, a melody and sound so different from the steel guitar in Nelson’s recording. The contrast between synthesizer and steel guitar is similar to that between Neil Tennant’s airy detached voice and Nelson’s gritty ache. The biggest difference perhaps is the unrelenting fast beat (73 bpm in the Nelson recording, 125 in the Pet Shop Boys version). The beat whisks away the regret of the original. Some of that sadness remains in the song, but it becomes part of a strange emotional mix, traces of sorrow in the pounding vivacity of the recording. Listeners who did not know the earlier versions by Presley and Nelson would probably have no idea that the song that they are dancing away to was once a country ballad. The link between slow and sad has been made across centuries, genres, and disciplines. It has been taken as a given, as some sort of natural musical law. But why does slow suit sad? Not even Descartes asked that question. We will take it up here and ponder what he did not. The “why” prompts another fundamental question – how do slow and sad work together. As for “how,” the first answer is that slow disrupts. It takes us out of the normal speed of life, like the mandated up-tempo of Top 40 radio or the hectic pace of our daily lives. Once free from that pace, you have time to think

16

Introduction

and, important for ballads, to feel emotions. It is hard to settle into the furrows of loss dug by a breakup when you are rushing around. The slow beat of a ballad invites you to pause. The lyrics give you the story of a breakup and the singer’s voice a person to connect to, but the slow tempo sets the stage for reflection. As the song continues, time becomes more suspended, and we are pulled further into the music and our emotional experience. In what has become a refrain in my discussions about ballads, people tell me that they become absorbed in the songs and that everything else disappears. Everything else includes worries about what is for dinner, the fight with a coworker – and time itself. In the four minutes of a ballad, we switch over to an interior time, one in which memories and emotions unfold at their own pace. Television dramas have used ballads to slip us into that slower interior world. At a highpoint in a show, a character recalls the blissful early days of a relationship or reviews the events leading up to a painful emotional decision through a montage. Whatever the scenario, cue a ballad. The character, so it appears, never hears the ballad, just us. As in our untelevised lives, time slows down. The show slips out of the fast clip of the scripted dialogue and action and adapts to the slow tempo of a ballad. There is no dialogue in these moments, other than the lyrics of a ballad, which, along with the singer’s voice and slow tempo, seem to say much more than dialogue ever could. The music alone does more than dialogue can do, as it suspends time and heightens emotional reflection. Like us, a character in a television show, and the show itself, can get absorbed into the introspective tempo of a ballad. Slow tempos not only open space for emotional reflection but they also enhance the power of music to stir feelings. To understand how, let’s turn not to ballads but rather to food, art, and TV shows – slow food, art, and TV, of course. The slow movement to which all three belong rests upon the idea that slowness enriches. It adds to the food, painting, or whatever is placed in streams of slowness. It also enhances our appreciation of those things, and our own mental and emotional selves. A roast cooked for several hours becomes succulent and our taste buds are richly rewarded. If you pore over a Picasso painting, you would not only pick up on the intricate spatial layering in his cubist works but your acuity would be sharpened. As for slow TV, I am sure that some people have an epiphany in the eleventh hour of watching knitting. For them, “knit one, purl one” becomes a mantra. When it comes to ballads, slow tempos enhance musical elements that have long been held up as expressive. In a ballad, there is more time for

Slow

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these elements to unfold, which deepens their emotional resonance. We also have more time to hear them and also to respond to them. Let’s turn to three elements that we have already discussed: a two-note descending melody, the contrast between major and minor chords, and dissonance. The three add to the woe in a classic song about the eruption of woe: “Crying” by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson. That eruption comes in the chorus, which repeats the title word several times. The chorus closes with four successive statements of that word, each done to a descending twonote melody (this section starts at: 53 in Orbison’s 1961 recording). Long before Orbison recorded the song, that two-note figure had become a musical illustration of sorrow. As heard in music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the drawn-out descent suggests a falling tear or the accentuated sigh in words such as “alas.” Stated four times in a row by Orbison, the phrase gives us a steady stream of tears. There are several tears here, but they are measured compared to the fivenote descending melody on “crying” that begins the chorus, which, in comparison, comes across as a wail (:33). In both cases, descending notes convey cascading tears. In a fast song, the five-note gush and the four repeated tearful phrases would be a blur. With a slow tempo, though, their weepy residue sinks in. If these descending melodies were not already evocative, Orbison and Melson make them more wrenching. The four statements of the two-note phrases occur above different chords. This is especially effective given that the first three phrases consist of the same two notes, so we have the same notes colored by different harmonies. The chords play up the expressive contrast between major and minor. The first “crying” occurs above a major chord, and the second is sung above an augmented chord, which, although not a minor chord, still has the darkness of a minor chord with added harmonic tension created by dissonance. The third statement returns to a major chord. The notes of the fourth “crying” are higher, and the first note creates a strong dissonant clash with the underlying minor chord. Bringing together all three musical elements, that last teardrop is the most painful. Now let’s slow down those tears. That is what k.d. lang did in her performance of “Crying” for a 2001 live album. Her version clocks in at 65 bpm, compared to 95 bpm in Orbison’s recording. If playing a fast song like “If I Only Had a Brain” slowly reveals new, or latent, emotional veins in that song, then playing a slow song more slowly strengthens the expressive impact of slow tempos. With more time at her disposal, lang draws out the two-note descending phrases, making each tear trickle a little longer (1:28–1:40). The band also brings out the quality of each chord,

18

Introduction

especially the augmented and minor chords, more clearly than in the Orbison recording. Finally, lang gnashes the dissonance with the minor chord on the final “crying.” Slow tempos not only allow her to work these expressive ploys but they also give us time to hear them and respond to them. Slowness, to recall, enriches both a song and us. In listening to lang’s recording, we can become aware of fine details, like the changing colors in her voice. We also hear that voice speaking to us, telling us about how difficult it is to hold in tears and how you have to let them go. Her story becomes our story. That exchange is part of the intimate conversational tone created by slow tempos. A friend telling you about how seeing an ex brought her to tears will most likely pause here and there and draw out certain words. The slow tempo of a ballad allows a singer to do the same thing and allows us to respond to the singer as we would a troubled friend, attuned to every emotional inflection in her voice and drawn closer to her. So far I have said a lot about how slow tempos make you feel, but not anything about how they make you move. That they do so may sound counterintuitive. After all, fast tempos get you out on the dance floor. So do ballads, though. Who has not enjoyed a slow dance? Ballads are the music for slow dances, as confirmed by a look at different websites listing the best slow dance songs, which are all ballads. The most ceremonial of slow dances – the first dance at a wedding reception – is also done to ballads, the most popular probably being Etta James’ recording of “At Last.” Ballads have become the music for slow dances not simply because they have a slow tempo. We do not see couples dancing away to slow core or drone music at weddings and proms. Ballads have filled this role because of the intimacy fostered by slow tempos. There is the emotional intimacy that emerges when you have time to listen to the words of a song and form a connection with a singer over the feelings that he or she is describing. That bond, however, does not often remain between a lonely listener and a recorded voice. It can jump to that between an in-love listener and partner, and when it does, emotional intimacy translates into physical intimacy. The latter, of course, takes many different forms, one of which is a slow dance. I will leave others to your imagination. Whatever the form, loving, as many songs have told us, is best done slow. Maybe, though, we need slow for loving, or so suggest ballads. Slow tempos, as we know, disrupt time, and it is only when you have been ripped out of fast, everyday time that romance can arise, be it in a slow dance or an evening at home with a partner.

Rhythm

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Rhythm Dancing brings up the topic of rhythm. Rhythm, though, does not usually bring up the topic of ballads and vice versa. The two are not strongly associated with each other and are sometimes placed in different musical realms. The genre schemes of the early twentieth-century songwriting manuals, to recall, contrasted the ballad with the rhythm song. If I asked people today to give me the names of songs that have great rhythms, few would mention ballads. Yet there are obviously beats and rhythms in ballads, no better proof being the slow dances done to the songs. There is no characteristic rhythm for ballads, like there is for a march or waltz, because ballads are not one type of song. They appear across different genres. So as with approaches to slow tempos, it all depends on what the genre of the ballad is. Some genres put down straightforward rhythms, while others build intricate and funky rhythmic patterns. Pop ballads are nothing but serviceable when it comes to rhythm. They present a clear four beats per bar in the bass and drums, with few rhythmic crosscurrents, like syncopations or backbeats (emphasis on beats two and four), to disrupt that regularity. In “The Way We Were,” for example, the bass plays on beats one and three and the piano, and later drums, keeps a steady eighth-note pulse; however, the bass puts down a more independent rhythmic line in the contrasting bridge section. In the chorus of “Wrecking Ball,” the four beats in a bar are hit with the heavy impact of – sorry to say – a wrecking ball. You cannot miss the beat in that song. With pop ballads, the emphasis is clearly on vocals and melody, and nothing, especially jostling rhythmic lines, is to steal attention away from them. With R&B ballads, it is not a question of either vocals and melody or rhythm. The songs indulge in all three. Like other African American genres, R&B ballads create elaborate rhythmic edifices built out of many different parts (bass, drums, horns, keyboards) playing lines with their own distinct rhythmic patterns. You can hear a beat, but you can also hear rhythmic lines going around and against that beat. This overlapping can be used to different effects. At fast tempos, the different parts pushing against each other build up energy, as heard in a 1930s swing chart or 1970s epic funk song by Parliament. The slow tempos of ballads offer a different experience. First of all, those tempos, as we know by now, allow you to linger over details. You can hear the individual lines more clearly and how they interact with each other. Those interactions play into a favorite topic of R&B ballads: sex. Many of the songs are about the singer winning over

20

Introduction

his or her lover and their bodies coming together. Clumsily put, yes, but that phrase offers us a way to hear the rhythms in an R&B ballad, for the different lines do come together, or, as music scholars unromantically put it, interlock. We can hear an example of this rhythmic and bodily union in Marvin Gaye’s bluntly titled “Let’s Get It On” (1973). The song rests upon a twobar repeated pattern in the bass, which emphasizes beats one and three. So there is space on beats two and four and that is where many of the other parts play, particular keyboards and solo electric guitar. The drums bring out the off-beats, while another keyboard part comes in later to reinforce beats one and three. Gaye tells his lover “let me groove you good.” That is what the song does to us with all the rhythmic parts coming together to form a slinky groove. Isaac Hayes’ slow jam “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight” (1978) uses rhythms to evoke another sexual pleasure: anticipation. A kiss or embrace is more fulfilling when you have to wait for it, and that is what happens with the downbeat in Hayes’ song. There are moments when the tempo becomes a little free and the beats looser. The heavy low bass note usually lands right on the downbeat, but now and then we have to wait a bit as the note comes in slightly late. The waiting makes that downbeat all more the satisfying when it comes. It is not all about sex, though. R&B ballads deal with pressing cultural issues. Gaye, for example, asked “What’s Going On” with civil unrest and the Vietnam War in a song that is at heart a ballad. In “Waterfalls” (1995), TLC used an R&B ballad to get audiences thinking about drug violence and HIV/AIDS. Like Gaye, they realized that one way to present challenging social topics was through a smooth ballad. Both Gaye and TLC use the R&B ballad as bait. The familiar style draws in listeners and once comfortable in the genre surroundings of the song, they have to confront topics that they might normally turn away from. TLC, though, adds something that Gaye did not have at his disposal, something to toughen up their message. The song draws upon hip hop elements, not only in the rap section by Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes but also in the underlying beats. In a musical world taken more and more by beats, it is not surprising that hip hop beats have found their way into both R&B and ballads, and R&B ballads in particular. Hip hop thickens the overlap of rhythmic layers characteristic of African American music, making those mixes all the more packed and boisterous, especially when rough sounds like turntable scratching and car horns elbow the other layers in the mix. “Waterfalls” does without street noises, but it draws upon scratching sounds and sped-up staccato drum licks that come from hip hop, which

Lyrics

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are mixed in with some traditional R&B sounds, like the rhythm guitars and horn lines. This mix of new and old beats shows how ballads, far from being rhythmically square, have brought in innovative beats and sounds. The hip hop elements in “Waterfalls” not only add a new rhythmic kick to the R&B ballad but they also strengthen the social message in the song. By the early 1990s, hip hop musicians had stridently taken on contentious issues, like urban poverty and police violence against blacks. Some hip hop beats and a rap section gave TLC both the rough edge and credentials to have listeners think about the mounting deaths from both inner-city violence and HIV/AIDS.

Lyrics Few ballads deal with the “three letters” – HIV – mentioned in “Waterfalls.” Most instead take up, as put in Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars,” “those three words”: I love you. Love is one of the two main themes of ballad lyrics; the other is loss. Let’s begin our discussion with how love comes through in the songs. That ballads are often called love songs says how closely they are connected to that emotion. That keen choir student in Glee, to recall, defined ballads as love songs. Legendary A&R man Mitch Miller elaborated on that point. When asked what ballads, along with other pop songs, were about, he offered a compendium of love: “I love, you love, we all love, why do we love, who do we love, how much do we love, where do we love, why did you stop loving me.”17 A ballad from 1955, a few years before Miller’s comment, made the same point in the title of the song: “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.” Those things, as Miller put it, include the who, why, how, and where of love. The question of what kind of thing love is has long been the bane of philosophers, writers, and anyone bold enough to try to answer it. Most begin with the protestation that love is either difficult or impossible to define, but then they try to do just that. Not literary critic Roland Barthes. In his A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, he acknowledges that love resists definition, but then explores the discourse surrounding love so as to give readers an idea of how the concept has been understood, a kind of secondhand definition. Barthes turns to excerpts, or fragments, from sources that explore love, including “philosophical, gnomic, lyric, or novelistic” works. Rather than trying to lay out a clear definition like a “dissertation” would, these works either expand upon conceptions of love, as in philosophical 17

“Music,” Time (23 December 1957), 60.

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Introduction

studies, or depict or express love, as in artistic pieces. The latter are particularly rich because they do not offer a definition but rather capture an expression of love being addressed to someone, whether it be between characters in a novel or a singer singing to his or her beloved. The idea of love being addressed to another is key to Barthes’ conceptions of love and to ballads too.18 I will take inspiration from Barthes. I would never dare try to define love. Following his lead, I will turn to ballads and show how different songs have presented love and by doing so have shaped the ways in which we understand it. Ballads are a rich source, one that Barthes surprisingly ignores. He does turn to opera and art song but not to popular music. Rather than treating ballads as fragments in a discourse as Barthes does with the works he cites, I see them as entries in a large – very large – encyclopedia on love. Each song has something to tell us about the emotion. The upcoming chapters will pull out individual entries, like the following examples. Nat King Cole’s “When I Fall in Love” is all about the ecstatic bliss of, as the title says, falling in love. The earthy sensuality of love comes through in Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” Connie Francis’ “Who’s Sorry Now?” relishes the spite of telling off the lover who rejected you. Adele’s “Someone like You,” on the other hand, captures how the undertow of sorrow and obsession can pull you, full of hope and delusion, back to an ex. Then there is The Magnetic Fields’ three CD-set 69 Love Songs, which forms a pocket encyclopedia on love. Love songs in general also have much to tell us about love. Once again language falls short, not just in defining love but also in expressing it to another person. The declaration of “I love you” is always a big moment in a relationship, but, as in the Snow Patrol song, “those three words” are often “not enough.” Love demands something more than spoken words. That something more can be an embrace, or it can be a song. There are, of course, words in a song, but there are also melodies, harmonies, and, above all, singing. Singing has long been considered a more romantic way of saying “I love you,” as in the archetypal scene of a man serenading a lover standing on a balcony. That scene got a memorable modern rewrite in the 1989 film Say Anything with John Cusack holding a boom box above his head playing Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” outside his girlfriend’s bedroom window. Whether they are sung in person or played on a radio, love 18

Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Vintage, 2002), 74.

Lyrics

23

songs reveal love to be a teeming emotion, one that exceeds spoken or written language and that calls out to be expressed in song. If love songs can heighten love, they can also debase it. The songs are often dismissed as cliché. No one knows that perhaps better than me. When I tell people that I am working on a book about ballads, I often get looks of shock and then questions about how I could ever write about such drivel, let alone tolerate listening to it. Songs by Barry Manilow and Céline Dion? Love songs are full of romantic bombast and platitudes, or so I have been told. I respond with my well-rehearsed line that ballads tell us much about how popular culture presents emotions and how we experience them and are thus worthy of study. That line usually gets me some respect, but then I too have to admit many songs are full of clichés, a point made by the lyrics of Manilow and Dion songs and countless other ballads. “Love is a Many Splendored Thing,” for example, should be retitled “many hackneyed thing,” which include roses, spring, singing hearts, and lovers kissing in the “morning mist” on top of a mountain. I also fend off questions that I am devoting myself to the pablum of popular song by saying that I will be discussing provocative ballads like Frank Ocean’s “Bad Religion,” a song through which Ocean came out as gay. This is a weak line of defense, because it looks like I have sought out the exceptions to the rule and that I am uneasy about the cliché trappings of many ballads. Once again, I should learn my lesson from a song, in this case Paul McCartney’s “Silly Love Songs.” In his initial recordings with his group Wings, McCartney was criticized for not continuing The Beatles’ march of innovation and, worst of all, writing love songs. He laughed off those attacks by composing “Silly Love Songs,” which, although too fast to be a ballad, is still a love song. He asks why the hang ups about “filling the world” with love songs. After all, people want to hear them and musicians like him want to sing them. The best response to his critics is taking the line “I love you,” one so common that many songs avoid it, and setting it to a memorable hook. As McCartney’s song shows, there are a lot of romance and good times to be had in clichés, especially in silly love songs. A similar case is made by “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.” After all, who does not want roses, a singing heart, and an embrace with a lover in the morning mist on top of a mountain? Ballads are not only love songs but they are also sad songs, that is, songs that deal with feelings of loss, the other main topic of ballad lyrics. Love and loss, of course, are not distant emotional realms. The loss that inspires sad songs is often that over someone who was loved. Breakups are the most mourned loss in ballads. There are countless songs in which a poor rejected

24

Introduction

soul tells us how lonely, sad, devastated, desperate, angry, or bitter they are. Ballads also attend to the loss of family members and friends. Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” was written to honor the death of his four-year-old son who fell out of a high-rise building window, and Green Day singer Billy Joe Armstrong composed “Wake Me up When September Ends” to connect with the pain that he felt after his father died when he was ten years old. Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men’s “One Sweet Day” is a tribute to Carey’s friend, record producer David Cole, and Sarah McLachlan wrote “Angel” to provide comfort to herself and others who have dealt with the death of those who have overdosed. Ballads reveal the workings of sorrow. That emotion connects, or we connect through sorrow. When held by sadness, we often turn to sadness, to someone else who is suffering or to a sad song. We go where sorrow is welcome and known. The sorrow that we seek is often larger than our own or one that takes refined forms, as in a ballad. We can learn from this sorrow and use it to reckon with our pain. Above all, we learn that other people suffer too and how they experience sorrow. It is not just that misery loves company. If anything misery is effaced, as we find consolation in the sorrow of others. Our sorrow remains, but it grows easier to bear when shared by others and becomes something that enriches us. The desire to connect to sorrow comes through on that Saturday night alone when you rue a breakup and listen to a ballad over and over. You want to cry or tears are already winding down your face, so turn on k.d. lang’s recording of “Crying.” She can release the tears that you want to or make your tears bolder. You can step into her drama of sorrow, taking the part that you need to play to come to terms with your broken heart. The connections made by sadness branch out, tying us and a ballad to other sorrows. With “Wake Me up When September Ends” and “Angel,” the links expand to national tragedies. During the second Iraq invasion, the Green Day song became a tribute to the passing of young soldiers. With its lyrics about being “pulled from the wreckage” and McLachlan’s soft voice, “Angel” became a song of consolation in the days after 9–11. That ballads served as emotional gathering places during those trying events reveals how much they can help us in coping with loss and how well they guide us in connecting with our own sorrow and that of others.

Genre Having discussed music and lyrics, we have a better idea of what a ballad is. So now it is time to turn to another question: What kind of songs are

Genre

25

ballads? In other words, where do ballads fit into the genres of popular music? You might think nowhere if you are shopping in a record store (for those who still do). There are sections for rock, hip hop, country, and other genres but none for the ballad. You will be similarly stymied in the virtual record store of iTunes. The site’s genre categories too include rock, hip hop, and country, but there are still no slots for ballads. Yet both the brick-and-mortar and e-stores are full of ballads. They just happen to be in the rock, hip hop, and country sections. Those songs are what I would call rock, hip hop, and country ballads. So what kind of genre muddle is this? It is not a muddle but rather the overlap of two different ways of defining genres. Ballads are a genre in that they are a type of song. That is the way it was in the early twentieth century, except back then ballads were a large type of song, large enough to make up a third or more of popular music. Since roughly the 1950s, genres have been defined in terms of style rather than as kinds of songs. Style encompasses the types of vocals, instruments, and rhythms among other elements used in a song. Those three elements alone give rock, hip hop, and country distinct styles. Genres, though, are more than just musical styles. They are larger modes of performance that encompass all sorts of non-musical characteristics, including the fashion of both performers and fans and the venues where the music is typically played. So how do these two genre schemes – kinds of songs and styles – work together? It is actually quite simple. The basic premise is that the ballad is a type of song taken up by musicians in different genres, including rock, hip hop, and country. In the case of rock, we get a song that is both a ballad and rock, or, better yet, a rock ballad. In the early twentieth century, the relationship between the two schemes worked in the opposite direction. Different styles – march, waltz, and foxtrot – could be placed under the larger heading of ballad. As listeners, we do not think of one type of genre fitting into another type, as illuminating as that may be. We are instead caught up in the musical and emotional exchange between the ballad and another genre. Each has something to give to the other and to us. Rock, hip hop, and country, for example, take on the distinctive qualities of the ballad and inflect them with their own styles. So in rock ballads, we get love songs with the roar of electric guitars and virtuosic guitar solos. In the heavy metal power ballads discussed in Chapter 3, for example, that roar could toughen up lines like “home sweet home,” which might be too treacly even for some pop ballads. With hip hop ballads, the swagger and dexterous wordplay of rap can make the romantic entreaties of ballads all the more

26

Introduction

alluring. A later Interlude section takes up LL Cool J’s “I Need Love,” in which he convinced listeners that he was no longer a raging rapper but rather a lover who found “sheer delight” in “romance” and needed a girl to “make [his] life complete.” Country ballads deepen the lament of a brokenhearted singer with the tearful sounds of the steel guitar. As we will hear in Dolly Parton’s recording of “I Will Always Love You,” there seems to be a rivalry going on over who can sound more tearful, Parton or the steel guitar. Such exchanges have produced some of the most significant new types of ballads that have appeared across the history chronicled in this book, including soul ballads, rock power ballads, and indie ballads.

Histories Now that we have a clearer idea of what a ballad is, we can turn to a history of the songs. Or make that histories. This book chronicles two histories. The first is a musical one and, in particular, a familiar kind of history in writings on popular music, that of a genre. Rock, punk, disco, electronic dance music, hip hop, and other genres both niche and mainstream have been the subject of numerous books. Not the ballad, though. This is the first book devoted to the history of the songs in recent popular music.19 It seems strange that such a prominent genre has not had several books written about it, let alone just one. The reason for this neglect is in part because the ballad, as we know, is not like other genres and because of that it resists the conventional historical narrative that unfolds in books about individual genres. That narrative begins, as to be expected, with the origins of the genre, illuminating the scene from which it emerged and the musicians who created it. The second part of the narrative deals with the first crest of popularity as the genre reaches a large audience. After that section, the narratives go in one of two directions. Some books talk about how a genre, like disco, did not survive sudden popularity or, like punk, barely survived it before returning to its original smaller audience. Books on rock and hip hop follow the more standard narrative path, discussing how the music stylistically changed over time and how it remains important, if not, like rock, as popular as it once was. The ballad frustrates this narrative from the outset. Even after studying the songs for years, I have no idea what the origins are. Slow songs devoted 19

For an analytical study of Tin Pan Alley ballads, see Allen Forte, The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era, 1924–1950: A Study in Musical Design (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).

Histories

27

to love and loss in one form or another have been around for centuries, if not millennia.20 And even when they became known as ballads, that term referred to different kinds of songs. As for the first burst of popularity, ballads have long been popular. They never emerged from obscurity. In a 1931 songwriting manual, E.M. Wickes proclaimed that “love songs have always been popular and always will as long as man exists.”21 His prophecy has proven to be true in the almost hundred years after his book, and it is safe to say that a hundred years after this book that ballads, or love songs, will still be captivating listeners. What especially obstructs the familiar historical tale is that the ballad is a genre that crosses genre lines. A history of funk pretty much focuses on funk songs, although it will acknowledge related genres like R&B and disco. A history of ballads has to cover many different genres, including funk, disco, and R&B. It is hard to unroll a nice linear history when you have songs that at any given moment can appear in so many different genres. It is hard and that is why I will not attempt to write a comprehensive, or near comprehensive, history of the ballad. Such a book would be scattershot, saying a little bit about this song or artist and little bit about that one. I have decided instead to write a history of the ballad that remains true to the ballad as a genre, particularly how the songs traverse genre lines. I will focus on important moments or repertoires in the history of the ballad, both shaped by that proclivity. Chapter 1 turns to the 1950s and looks at how ballads were at once poised against the upstart rock and roll genre and mixed with it. In addition, that decade saw the rise of lush high-fidelity ballads, which, with their ideal of sonic warmth and intimacy, have strongly influenced the recording of ballads since. Chapter 2 slides into soul music, one of the most significant new genres to emerge in the 1960s. Soul, as we will see, is a thick mix of different genres, including gospel, R&B, blues, and pop. The mix becomes especially thick in ballads, and it is through that blend that African American genres became more deeply integrated than ever before in the ballad repertoire. Chapter 3 focuses on the power ballad. Like ballads in general, power ballads appear in different genres. The mixtures with rock and heavy metal in the 1980s, though, stand out, as the combination brought out new sides to the ballad and have proven to be popular then and now. Chapter 4 turns to indie music, a new type of genre based more on cultural ideals, particularly the desire to be 20 21

For a sweeping historical account of love songs, see Ted Gioia, Love Songs: The Hidden History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). E.M. Wickes, The Song Writer’s Guide (New York: Morrison Music, 1931), 75.

28

Introduction

separate from the mainstream, than stylistic qualities. Ballads, of course, are at home in the mainstream, so this chapter will raise the question of what happens to them when they get enlisted in the indie campaign against the conformity of popular culture. As much ground as these chapters may cover, there are beloved artists and songs that fall between the cracks. What about Patsy Cline and Adele? And what about certain genres like hip hop? To get to these artists and genres, I have written a series of Interludes. Of course, there are still great singers and songs missing in this book. If you do not find some of your favorites here, then I apologize but I hope that my discussion of other ballads will give you new ways of hearing them and finding in them even more to love. This book compiles a second history, that of emotions in popular culture. The history of emotions is a relatively new field of study pursued by scholars across disciplines. It explores how particular social groups during certain periods understand and experience emotions. For example, Peter N. Stearns, one of the leading scholars in the field, has delved into how white middle-class Americans during the middle of the twentieth century were instructed through different social channels to restrain their emotions, especially the more unpredictable ones like sorrow and anger.22 The 1950s, as he depicts it, was a time of enforced emotional self-discipline, a view that I will challenge in the chapter on that decade. Like other scholars, Stearns draws upon a range of sources. Some deal directly with emotions, particularly psychological studies, while others address topics that may seem to have nothing to do with emotions but that still weighed in on how people should deal with their feelings, including etiquette manuals and industry publications about workplace behavior. Ballads, and popular music in general, are surprisingly not among the sources that historians of emotions have mined. The songs obviously have much to tell us about feelings. To return to a metaphor that I used earlier, ballads, if they were ever to be bound together, would form encyclopedias about love and loss, volumes as rich as those by any psychologist or philosopher. Unlike those analytical studies, the songs do not just describe emotional experiences but also make you feel emotions. The intimacy created by the music and lyrics draws you into a song and heightens your response to the feelings being conveyed. “Crying” may make you cry, but even if tears are not streaming down your face, it may connect you to a part 22

Peter N. Stearns, American Cool: Constructing a Twentieth-Century Emotional Style (New York: New York University Press, 1994).

Histories

29

of yourself that would like to cry or that did weep at some time in the past. The song is both a historical source that tells us about how crying was presented and understood in the early 1960s when Orbison first recorded it and a personal source that has us go through our own emotional histories and recollect moments of sorrow. The musical and emotional histories of ballads, as to be expected, are entwined. After all, you cannot separate music and feelings in the songs. Each of the chapters explores what a style of ballad, or even a single ballad, reveals about the emotional experiences of a particular time. Chapter 1, for example, shows how the plush, comfortable pop ballads of the 1950s eased listeners into the emotional moderation that Stearns views as dominant during the middle of the century. That dominance, though, was tested. Johnnie Ray’s hit single “Cry” tapped into a desire for listeners to do just that – cry – and also set off a crying fit in popular culture, as music and film were full of weeping teenagers, notably James Dean. The popularity of soul music and especially soul ballads in the 1960s (Chapter 2) exposed a need for emotional moments that were considered to be deep and authentic, qualities found in the gospel and blues strains in soul music. That music also provided emotional mettle and comfort in the Civil Rights struggle, and some ballads, notably Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” were among the message songs of that fight. Chapter 3 turns to the power ballads that emerged in the 1970s and have continued to be popular up to the present day. The songs whisk listeners into euphoric, grandiose emotional experiences that are more about exhilaration than being gripped by one feeling. These stirring experiences have spread across popular culture into movies, TV, and video games. Some musicians and listeners, however, have resisted the adrenaline rush of the power ballad. Not surprisingly, the indie movement has mounted that resistance. As discussed in Chapter 4, it is poised against the ubiquitous products of mainstream popular culture, and the power ballad has become just that. The songs offered by indie musicians are the antithesis of the power ballad, emphasizing emotional restraint, irony, and sonic austerity. Finally, the Interludes add to the emotional histories recorded in this book. One discusses how conceptions of hurt have changed over decades. In “Love Hurts,” first released in 1960 by The Everly Brothers, hurt is the tender but, we assume, quick-to-heal wounds of a brokenhearted teenager. Thirty years later, “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M. depicts hurt as the anguish of depression. Across the two histories and almost seventy years tracked in this book, we will follow a larger trend: ballads get bigger, both musically and

30

Introduction

emotionally. One way to make that point is with a crystal ball jukebox. Let’s say that some 1950s teens at the malt shop put coins in the jukebox and got Whitney Houston’s recording of “I Will Always Love You.” They would be shocked by so many things, especially how big the song is. The recording would probably strike them as overblown. It is not as if there were no big ballads in the 1950s. Singers like Roy Hamilton and Jerry Simms put out “big, big ballads,” as critics in Billboard called them, although nothing as big as Houston’s recording.23 The 1950s ballads, as the critics’ stuttered adjective suggests, do build to large climaxes, but none of them build as much as Houston’s power ballad does. It springs from a quiet a cappella opening to a grand climax set up by a sudden, lurching change of key. In other words, the “big, big” ballads do not have the power of a power ballad. Far from being freakish jolts of intensity, power has become close to the normal emotional level of ballads in recent decades. Power ballads have ratcheted up the intensity of ballads in general, so much so that it can be difficult to distinguish between power ballads and the average top-40 ballad. The power ballads and the revved-up regular ballads show not only how big ballads have become but also how much we want to be caught up in the exhilaration of swirling, propulsive emotions. So before we set out for a history of the ballad, there is one more question to answer, one that the image of a crystal ball jukebox in the 1950s brings up. That question is, why begin in the 1950s? Why not go back earlier to the Tin Pan Alley period and the classic songs of Gershwin, Berlin, Porter, and Rodgers? Or why not start off with a more recent decade, like the 1970s or 1980s? As with the history, or histories, that we will cover, there are two answers to that question: one dealing with music, the other with emotions. When it comes to musical style, many historians have viewed the birth of rock and roll in the 1950s as the beginning of the modern period of popular music. Rock is a sound that is still very much with us today, one that pushed aside the older types of Tin Pan Alley popular songs, or pushed them at least off the charts. Rock may not be as popular as it once was, but it is still a prominent part of the genre mix in contemporary music and also a significant part of the history of the ballad, as seen in the timeline of 1950s rockaballads, 1980s heavy metal ballads, and 2000s indie rock ballads. 23

Songs earning that label were Hamilton’s “In a Dream” (1958) and Simms’ “Dancing Partner” (1958). “Reviews of New Pop Records,” Billboard (14 April 1958), 40 and “Reviews of New Pop Records,” Billboard (9 March 1959), 48.

Histories

31

Regarding emotions, the 1950s mark a turning point in the history of the ballad. Beginning in that decade, ballads pushed to new levels of emotional intensity. Chapter 1 appropriately features the song that turned up the emotional volume of the ballad: Johnnie Ray’s “Cry,” which implored listeners “to let your hair down and cry.” There were, to be sure, songs about crying and even crying in ballad performances before Ray’s 1951 hit. As we will see, singers and listeners wept with parlor song performances around the turn of the twentieth century. Yet those tears were distant memories by the 1930s and 1940s, during which time ballads became emotionally and musically mellifluous. The rich high-fidelity pop ballads of the 1950s followed that lead, but Ray’s song and its weepy successors, like Orbison’s “Crying,” rent that pleasantness. 1960s soul ballads are the next step in the steady emotional escalation of ballads. Singers like Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin used gospel cries and blues moans to plumb new emotional depths in the ballad. Fitting for songs that feature sudden changes of key up a step, power ballads took the emotional intensity of the ballad up a level. There are, to be sure, individual ballads that stand apart from this escalation, and, with indie ballads, a kind of ballad opposed to it. Yet if we stand back and listen to ballads from the 1950s to the present day, we are taken by the sound of a musical and emotional crescendo.

chapter 1

The 1950s

It’s 1956 – and you’re a teenager. You just bought the single for “Heartbreak Hotel” after seeing Elvis sing it on TV. The song is as raucous as you remember it being. Always wanting more Elvis, you turn over the record and play a new tune, “I Was the One.” This is an Elvis you don’t know and one that you don’t know if you want to know. You would never have bought this record by itself. The song is a ballad, not rock and roll, and, worse yet, it has to do with kissing, crying, and girls. One way to get that song out of your head is to put on a strange song, so strange you don’t even know what the lyrics mean. So you grab Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti.” Whatever “whop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom” means, you want more of it so you turn over the record to listen to Little Richard sing “I’m Just a Lonely Guy.” It’s another ballad, but different from the Presley song. You can tell it’s a blues tune, and it sure sounds painful with Little Richard screaming the word “lonely” over and over. What you will not admit to your friends is that you got to know “Tutti Frutti” through Pat Boone’s version, which now seems so square. It, though, has one good thing about it. The other side of the record is Boone’s take on The Flamingos’ ballad “I’ll Be Home,” which you heard them perform in that film Rock, Rock, Rock. Boone may not sing it as well as they did, but he still does a good job with it and other ballads, much better than he does with rock and roll. This little bit of retro role playing makes one point clear: If you turned over a rock and roll record in the 1950s you were bound to get a ballad on the other side. Record companies often put ballads on the flipside of rock and roll singles. The pairing works well, as the two are complementary opposites: fast and slow, rhythm and romance. Ballads were on the flipside of rock and roll songs then, and they continue to be in our thoughts of 1950s music. Songs on the flipside usually never received much attention, ignored by radio stations and audiences alike. For present-day listeners, 1950s ballads remain stuck on an overlooked historical flipside. When we 32

The Ballad and Rock and Roll

33

think about music of that decade, we immediately think about rock and roll, not ballads. Yet ballads were obviously there – as both flipside filler and hits. Ballads were far from overshadowed by rock and roll in the 1950s. On the contrary, they stood out in the debates over that music, being cast as the opposite of the brash young style. Needing an alternative to, an escape from, or a bulwark against rock and roll, many listeners found it in the ballad. It was everything that rock and roll was not: tuneful, pleasing, and old. The songs became part of another debate, or, more to the point, a cultural schism. The conflict was about emotions. On one side was the dominant attitude that emotions should be moderate and restrained, while on the other was a desire to express feelings freely and forcefully. Ballads supported both positions. The sonically luxuriant high-fidelity pop ballads that filled the charts kept emotions as smooth as the rich vocals and violins in the recordings, a lush lesson to listeners to keep their feelings smooth and pleasant. One ballad challenged this attitude: Johnnie Ray’s “Cry.” Full of tortured wails, Ray’s recording turned the title of the song into a command, and many listeners obeyed. The collective wails set off arguments about how fully and spontaneously feelings should be released. By inciting a scandal, “Cry” revealed changes in both the emotional values of popular culture and the emotional intensity of ballads.

The Ballad and Rock and Roll Before we can turn over to the ballad flipside, we have to begin on the rock and roll side with a few observations about that music. The emergence of rock and roll is typically portrayed as one of the more dramatic births of a new genre. Scandalous yes, but rock and roll arose from the same process as genres before it. There is no such thing as a completely new genre; rather, genres develop from the mixing of existing ones. So it was with rock and roll, which was the offspring of the intermingling of the three main industry categories: pop, R&B, and country. In his study of 1950s popular music, Albin Zak focuses on the mixture of genres in rock and roll. He describes the music as arising from “a process of absorption, revision, and fusion of disparate influences.” According to him, “what made this music so unpredictable, for many unbearable, yet ultimately revolutionary was its indiscriminate merging of all existing idioms regardless of provenance or aesthetic tradition.”1 1

Albin J. Zak III, I Don’t Sound Like Nobody: Remaking Music in 1950s America (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010), 6, 176. For another discussion of the mixture of genres that shaped rock and

34

The 1950s

Rock and roll not only mixed the three main genre categories of the time but it also confounded those categories. Presley, for example, had releases that topped the pop, R&B, and country charts. That his recordings could pull off such a feat is not surprising, for they combined elements of all three genres and appealed to listeners in each category. The result for many industry observers was market mayhem. The disarray led Billboard writer Gary Kramer to float the idea that the industry “revise and perhaps abandon some of its old boundary lines.”2 Sage Billboard editor Paul Ackerman cautioned that the talk about “once-clear genre boundaries disappearing” was an “oversimplification.” The categories, he held, had not yet lost their “identities” and that “it was still too early to state that there are no longer any categories.” For now, popular music listeners could only marvel, as Ackerman did, at a time when “the diversity of current domestic repertoires far exceed any other period within memory of the disk and music publishing business.”3 Ballads, one of the oldest genres of the time, were just as much part of that diversity as the upstart rock and roll was. The songs too crossed and mixed industry categories. The result was an array of different types of ballads. There were pop ballads, defined by warm vocals, rich orchestral arrangements, and resonant stereo production. Like pop styles in general, pop ballads merged with rock and roll, a union that created the rockaballad, a new song species discussed below. Ballads not only mixed genres but also generations. Tin Pan Alley ballads from the 1920s and 1930s bobbed up and down on the charts, and some of them were even turned into rockaballads. Ballads also took on country elements, as heard in the recordings of Patti Page and The Everly Brothers. Country, in turn, responded by drawing upon the lushness of pop ballads. The blend was at the heart of the “Nashville Sound” that arose in the late 1950s, which replaced the scrappy fiddle with string orchestras and backup singers. In African American music, there were the blues ballads of Charles

2 3

roll, see Philip H. Ennis, The Emergence of Rocknroll in American Popular Culture (Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press, 1992), 193–228. Quoted in Zak, I Don’t Sound Like Nobody, 177. Zak also offers a discussion of the place of the ballad in the ever-shifting music scene of the late 1950s. Paul Ackerman, “Diversified Sphere of American Music at Peak Influence,” Billboard (29 April 1957), 1, 21. Billboard columnists also winked at the social lines being crossed by Presley and white and black musicians trampling on market lines that reinforced racial lines. Rhythm and Blues was a category that referred to music created by and aimed toward black listeners, whereas pop and country charts were for releases targeted at and largely purchased by whites. In her article on the growing chart confusion, June Bundy dropped in the racially charged words “desegregation” and “integration,” although she never elaborated upon the racial tensions stirred by those terms. Bundy, “Desegregation of Chart Categories Earmarks ’56,” Billboard (26 January 1957), 48.

The Ballad and Rock and Roll

35

Brown and Ivory Joe Hunter, R&B ballads by Little Richard and James Brown, and ballads inflected with gospel by Sam Cooke and Clyde McPhatter. No one singer makes the point about the diversity of the ballad better than Presley, which may come as a surprise given that he is not closely linked to the genre.4 He, though, started off as a ballad singer, not as a rock and roll musician. In 1953, the eighteen-year-old unknown walked into Sun Records to record a few tunes for the company to consider. He sang a group of ballads. On his file, the office secretary jotted down by a misspelling of his name (“Pressley”): “Good Ballad Singer. Hold.”5 Ballads remained a large part of his repertoire, all sorts of ballads. Presley too turned back the musical clock to the Tin Pan Alley period. In fact, his Sun Records impromptu tryout consisted of two 1930s ballads: “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin.” Presley later recorded the standards “Blue Moon” and “Harbor Lights” after being picked up by the studio. He also sang new pop ballads, although his recordings refrain from the plush studio glitz of contemporary pop sounds (“Young and Beautiful” and “My Wish Came True”). Many of his ballads kept to his country origins, be it more traditional numbers like “You Are My Sunshine” and “Old Shep” or newer pop-country blends like “Don’t” and “Playing for Keeps.” Presley overlapped country and blues, as heard in “My Baby’s Gone.” He even combined country and Tin Pan Alley, the result being his version of the 1928 pop tune “Are You Lonesome Tonight?,” which was his only ballad to reach #1 on the pop charts. As a rock and roll star and genre mixologist, he also added to that newest of genre compounds, the rockaballad (“I Need You So” and “Young Dreams”). These sundry ballads attest to how stylistically fluent Presley was. He could leap freely from one genre to another and not only that but he could adopt qualities of the different genres while all the time bringing out his own distinctive style. Such individualistic chameleons are rare in nature and popular music. Then there are those singers who traipse between genres while all the time sounding like themselves without taking on traces of genres that they visit. Pat Boone was such a case. He was often upheld as the musical as well as moral opposite of Presley in the press. Collier’s magazine, for example, billed a fight between the two: “Rock ‘n’ Roll 4

5

On the diversity of Presley’s early ballad recordings, see Richard Middleton, “All Shook Up? Innovation and Continuity in Elvis Presley’s Vocal Style,” in The Presley Reader: Texts and Sources on the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, ed. Kevin Quain (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 3–12. Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Presley (New York: Little Brown, 1994), 64.

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The 1950s

Battle: Boone vs. Presley.” For such a mainstream magazine, the outcome was never in doubt. The article scored the fight for Boone. There were first points for morality: “Where Elvis scorns marriage as a waste of time for a young idol with thousands of admiring girls beating at the stage door, Pat has been married for more than three years to Shirley Foley, and recently became a father for the third time.” The points for music were surprisingly drawn along lines of variety. The article praises Boone for being able to “sing anything in any style,” while dismissing Presley for failing to “produce anything to equal his success with rock ‘n’ roll,” despite mentioning his hit ballad “Love Me Tender.”6 Boone did sing a range of ballads, including pop, Tin Pan Alley, blues ballads, and rockaballads. They all, though, sound like Boone; the same milquetoast crooning was used for a pop ballad as it was for any other type of ballad. His recording of Ivory Joe Hunter’s blues ballad “I Almost Lost My Mind,” for example, has barely a tincture of the blues, be it in his voice or the instrumental accompaniment. Boone was the clearinghouse of 1950s popular music: All sorts of styles came in and a uniform product came out. His signature pleasantness made it a successful product, no better proof being the fact that his sexually oblivious recording of “Tutti Frutti” outsold Little Richard’s flamboyant original. Musical fights raged during the 1950s. Besides “Boone vs. Presley,” there was the ballad vs. rock and roll. The two were often presented as clashing opposites in debates over the current state and future of popular music. Journalists, for example, set ballads and rock and roll against each other in the cramped space of a headline, using the friction between them to draw in readers. “Big Beats Booming But Ballads Are Blooming” is the lead-in for a Billboard story about how rock and roll, or big beat, as it was called, and ballads were popular on both radio and in jukeboxes in the midSouth.7 Another Billboard headline: “Wide Diversity of Songstuff on Top 50, Ballads and R&R.” Dissecting the charts, the article observes: “Mixed in with the sides with the big beat are interestingly enough slow ballads.”8 The “but” in the first headline and the “interestingly enough” in the latter piece capture the surprise that the two could exist side by side, be it in a jukebox or on the charts. The surprise stems not only from the belief that the two were incompatible but also from the vision that rock and roll would sweep away ballads, which would become part of the flotsam and 6 7 8

“Rock ‘n’ Roll Battle: Boone vs. Presley,” Collier’s 138 (26 October 1956), 109–11. “Big Beats Booming but Ballads are Blooming,” Billboard (5 May 1958), 123. “Wide Diversity of Songstuff on Top 50, Ballads + R&R,” Billboard (31 March 1958), 4.

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jetsam of old songs and styles. Far from being wreckage, ballads remained popular. A few critics had a different vision. They saw the ballad overtaking rock and roll and reclaiming its place in popular song. Abel Green, editor of Variety, proclaimed that “rock and roll is passing out” and that the “pendulum is swinging” toward the ballad.9 In one of his regular Billboard columns on the R&B scene, Ren Grevatt was discussing the future of rock and roll and could not help but observe: “It seems to be the day of the ballad.”10 For some writers and listeners, it may have seemed to be the days of the 1920s and 1930s all over again. Tin Pan Alley ballads, as mentioned earlier, enjoyed a vogue during the 1950s (not that they ever went out of style). Quite a vogue it was, as singers of all stripes dug up the songs. Following the examples of elder crooners like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra who built careers on the songs, the newest generation of crooners embraced the numbers, including Boone, Eddie Fisher, and Vic Damone. Boone, in fact, recorded a whole album of Irving Berlin songs (Pat Sings Irving Berlin, 1958). As heard in the recordings of crooners young and old, Tin Pan Alley ballads could absorb and radiate vocal warmth, a point not lost on such doo-wop groups as The Platters (“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”) and The Sensations (“My Heart Cries for You”). Rock and roll singers too turned to yesteryear. Older ballads were one part of Presley’s diverse repertoire, a part that Sun Records owner Sam Phillips wanted little do with. He decided not to release Presley’s recordings of “Blue Moon” and “Harbor Lights,” fearing that they would turn away the young audiences galvanized by the singer. Fats Domino had a big hit with an up-tempo version of “Blueberry Hill” and settled into a slower groove with the chestnut “I’m in the Mood for Love.” According to the African American magazine Jet, he had turned into a “balladeer” and was recording a whole album of “romantic ballads” with a thirty-piece orchestra called Fats Digs the Love Bit.11 There would have been much to dig in the album, but unfortunately nothing ever came of it. Tin Pan Alley ballads became musty flashpoints in the debate roaring around rock and roll. The furor was part of an argument that has flared before and after the 1950s. In this recurring feud, a rebellious new genre, like rock and roll or hip hop, sets off a fight between defenders of the new and old. The former rhapsodize about the energy and youthfulness of the 9 10 11

Quoted in “Pat Boone—Soaring on Song,” Newsweek 50 (19 August 1957), 52. Ren Crevatt, “On the Beat,” Billboard (2 June 1958), 10. “Rock ‘n’ Roller Fats Domino Turns Balladeer,” Jet (13 March 1958).

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disputed genre, whereas the latter turn to stock lines about how such music is not music and how much better songs were in the good old days. What makes the 1950s staging of the debate so interesting is that usually the songs of the good old days remained locked in a memory chest, but not the revived Tin Pan Alley ballads, which were at the top of the charts, jostling the new rock and roll idioms. The songs heightened the debate, giving both hope and ammunition to critics of rock and roll. In a playful sketch penned in a New York Times editorial, an old man upholds the success of Tin Pan Alley ballads as a sign that “sanity is creeping back into popular music” and that rock and roll would be “elbowed aside,” replaced by “slow-tempo tunes containing an element current ‘pops’ so surely lack – romance accompanied by lyrics that are sung not shouted.” The songs did not have to be “ancient”; new ballads that preserved the lyricism and romance of the Tin Pan Alley songs would do.12 In another New York Times piece, critic John S. Wilson sees the “simple, straightforward melodic ballads,” including old and new songs, as making a welcome stand against rock and roll. The success of the songs was not a sign of “sanity” but rather “maturity.” Rock and roll was part of the indignities of puberty, something that young people would pass through on their way to an adulthood of ballads. He laid out a “theory” in which “13- and 14-year olds who reached out so eagerly for the exciting beat of rock ‘n’ roll three years ago, are now 16 and 17 and romance has suddenly loomed up large in their horizons. They are now looking for something more than a heavy beat in their music.” That “more” could be found in the ballad. Wilson, however, conceded that teenagers would never completely abandon rock and roll and that the music would endure. The ballad, as he sighed, was not an “elegy for rock ‘n’ roll, which nothing may kill.”13 The champions of rock and roll rarely signaled out the ballad, referring dismissively instead to old music and old people. When they did mention the songs, it could be part of a grandiose statement like this made by Don Robey, owner of the R&B label Duke-Peacock Records, about the power and longevity of rock and roll: Only when the giant pyramids of Egypt crumble in age and become part of the sand on which they stand, will this ‘giant’ trend in music succumb to a ‘softer’ trend. The softer ballad, the waltz, the lush instrumental, following 12 13

“Topics of the Times: Visitor with Harmonica,” New York Times (17 June 1957), 22. John S. Wilson, “What Makes ‘Pop’ Music Popular,” New York Times (8 December 1957), Sunday Magazine, 24–25, 28.

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vainly in the guerilla line, are trying to hold out. Outflanked, out-numbered, they too must bow and pay homage to the Mighty Khan of music.14

Worthy of Cecil B. De Mille, Robey’s prediction reveals how the ballad got lost in the dramatic rhetoric of the debates over rock and roll. The ballad was not kowtowing to rock; it was not being swept away; nor was it coming back, for that matter. The ballad had been a fixture in popular music long before rock and roll and has obviously continued to be one since the 1950s. Similarly, there have always been up-tempo rhythmic genres before rock and roll (ragtime, swing) and long after. As one 1950s critic put it: “along with the ballad, there will always be the beat.”15 Many writers overlooked that fact, or they contorted it. It is rare to have the ballad and the beat set as strongly against each other as they were in the 1950s. The tension captures how disruptive rock and roll was. It left some critics and listeners looking for a counterweight, which they found in the ballad. For an anxious few, the ballad could turn back rock and roll or serve as a much-needed antidote to the oppressive music. Most listeners, though, were not anxious at all. Like generations before and after them, they enjoyed both ballads and the beat. The ballad may have been a fixture in 1950s popular music, but it was a changing fixture. One reason that ballads are so enduring is because they always change, especially by merging with other genres. During the 1950s, they mixed with their supposed opposite, rock and roll. Those critics who brandished the ballad as shield of tradition were unaware of the new hybrid ballads popping up in their midst. The old-man character in the New York Times sketch smiles over “a number called ‘Love Letters in the Sand,’ as sung by a young fellow named Pat Boone.” As he chuckles, “some people of tender years” believe it “to be a contemporary number,” not realizing that it was published in 1931. He found it “encouraging” that “an ancient and tuneful item that neither rocks or rolls, with lyrics that make a certain amount of sense” could find its way back up the charts.16 Boone’s recording, however, did rock and roll, a point made by the Billboard review that praises the “solid rock and roll styled-backing.”17 What the geezer in the Times editorial could not hear, many industry insiders and critics did, and they found the rock and roll infusion of ballads to be a natural development, so much so that it had become unexceptional. Atlantic Records coowner Jerry Wexler noted: “There’s an amalgamation going on of rock and roll ideas and rhythm and applied to some of the ballads and great 14 16

“On the Beat,” Billboard (15 July 1957), 95. 15 “Music,” Time (23 December 1957), 60. “Visitor with Harmonica,” 22. 17 Review, Billboard (29 April 1957), 50.

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standards and there’s nothing wrong with that.”18 For Billboard editor Ackerman, the mergers were anything but “shocking”: “It [rock and roll] is so firmly integrated with the pop medium that backings on even so-called quality songs are scored with distinctive rock and roll figures – and today this is so common as to go completely unnoticed.”19 Those “figures,” as Wexler points out, are rock and roll rhythms. Typical of mergers with other genres, ballads grab hold of a new stylistic filament, something that is getting attention and that people want to hear more of. Rock and roll rhythms were just that, and singers, composers, and arrangers realized that they could be used to give the slow-tempo songs some kick. A ballad could have a catchy bounce without being any less heartfelt. Two “rock and roll figures” invigorated ballads: a steady triplet pattern in the piano or guitar and an emphasis on back beats in the bass and drums. The two appear across ballads in a range of styles, including the country pop of Patti Page’s “Trust in Me,” the pop despair of Paul Anka’s “Lonely Boy,” the crackle of gospel in Sam Cooke’s “Only Sixteen,” and the jazztinged crooning of Nat King Cole’s “Looking Back.” Different styles for sure, but for Billboard they were all one type of song: the rockaballad.20 Once again a new type of song gets a new name. These ballads were not the typical kind of ballad, and they had to be called something, a name that acknowledged the bond with rock and roll and separated them from the standard pop fare. As for the name, it is efficient, conjoining the two key musical terms. It was also not unique as there were a lot of such linkages with rock and roll going on, which spawned neologisms like rockabilly (rock and hillbilly or country music) and, believe it or not, rockahula. To get to know the rockaballad, we will turn to one of the big hits of the 1950s. In his comment on it being “the day of the ballad,” Ren Grevatt remarked that many of the hit ballads of the day were “reincarnations of older hits in new dress,” an apt way to describe this recording.21 The song is Connie Francis’ recording of “Who’s Sorry Now?” (1958), which launched her career and closely associated her with the rockaballad. In addition, it exposes the commercial scheming behind the merger of the two genres and how extensive the transformations of Tin Pan Alley songs could be. “Who’s Sorry Now?” is a song with a long and varied history, of which Francis’ recording is just one part, albeit the most famous part. With music by Ted Snyder and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Rudy, the song was 18 19 20 21

Quoted in Crevatt, “On the Beat,” Billboard (2 June 1958), 47. Ackerman, “Diversified Sphere,” 21. For his discussion of the rockaballad, see Zak, I Don’t Sound Like Nobody, 195–97. Crevatt, “On the Beat,” Billboard (2 June 1958), 10.

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first published in 1923 or, more to the point, two songs were published that year. “Who’s Sorry Now?,” as captured in the original sheet music, has two different musical and emotional personalities. The first is a waltz ballad, which, by the 1920s, was an old-fashioned type of number for the testimonies of the brokenhearted, like that of the man or woman who begged his or her lover not to leave and, having finally learned “how to smile again” after the breakup, taunts the belatedly suffering ex with the title question. The gleeful spite comes through in the optional “foxtrot” close to the song, a significant musical transformation from the slow tempo and triple meter of the waltz to the fast 4/4 and syncopations of the foxtrot. Through that change, an heirloom waltz ballad becomes one of the new, energetic dance styles of the day, a vivacity that George Gershwin bottled in his many foxtrots. The first recordings of the song in 1923 present either the waltz ballad or foxtrot, perhaps because it would have made it difficult to present both styles in the roughly three minutes available in a recording at the time. Marion Harris, a matron of woeful songs, not surprisingly took to the waltz ballad, playing up the woe through melodic swoons and a melodramatic recitation. Those vocal touches belie her claims of being “happy” and show us that she is just as mired in sorrow as her ex. “Happy” is one way to describe the recording by the Isham Jones band, an instrumental performance of the foxtrot version of the song that must have kept dancers jubilant with its vivacious beat. Recordings of the song up through the 1950s favored the peppy over languid “sorry.” The number could even be played for laughs, as in the recording by the Harry James big band featured in the Marx Brothers film A Night in Casablanca (1946). In the 1950s, both Johnnie Ray and Nat King Cole recorded the song as a fast swing tune and delivered the title line with swagger. Francis blends the two sides of “Who’s Sorry Now.” She gives us a ballad and rhythmic verve as well as sadness and elated vengeance. Her arrangement does away with the waltz of the original ballad and puts the song in four like the faster versions, although in an appropriately slower ballad tempo. Typical of the rockaballad, there are the pulsating triplets in the piano and the emphasis on beats two and four. Adding to the rock and roll aura is the electric guitar backing, in lieu of the sweet strings that were almost compulsory for heartache tunes sung by female performers at the time. Francis omits the verses and presents only the chorus, repeating the second half of that section to finish off the recording. She sings with a smooth, confident tone that betrays little misery, just relish in telling off her ex. There is apparently much to relish as heard in the restatement of the

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last half of the chorus. A brisk modulation up a half step along with a stronger backbeat in the drums stirs things up even more. Francis matches the intensity by belting in a high register. Instead of the octave ascent in the opening phrase (between “who’s” and “now”) she begins on the high pitch of the phrase and goes up from there (a move similar to what Johnnie Ray does in “Cry,” as we will see). She indeed sounds “glad” to tell off her lover. The forceful singing is another rock and roll touch allowed by the rockaballad. Even with the rock and roll trappings, there is still an old song in Francis’ recording. The mix of old and new was not a random chronological collision; rather, it stemmed from a cunning commercial calculation. Francis recalled that her father handed her “Who’s Sorry Now?” at the end of a recording session and suggested that she do it “with a slight rock and roll beat in the background.” He gambled that “it may appeal to the kids and the adults will remember it as a favorite of theirs.”22 The bet paid off as the song claimed the number-one spot on the charts and made Francis a star. Her story reveals that commercial cunning, as well as genre mingling, was behind the emergence of the rockaballad. Be it the union of a Tin Pan Alley song or a new ballad with rock and roll, rockaballads offered a way of connecting with both adolescent and adult listeners, which was difficult to do in a market that had been generationally split by rock and roll. As the Billboard reviewer of Boone’s rockaballad “Love Letters in the Sand” put it: “Here’s one for everybody. . . Sock nostalgia for older buyers and catnip, of course, for teenagers.”23 Francis worked over the rockaballad formula many more times, as heard in “Lock up Your Heart,” “I’m Sorry I Made You Cry,” and “Where the Boys Are.” Despite all of her success with the songs, she had qualms about rock and roll. The beat of the music, she admitted, is “contagious” and “will be here for a long time.” Nonetheless, she insinuated that the audience for the music was uncouth, stating that she was relieved to find that “people who buy the records may be getting more sophisticated,” the proof being that “they’re going for ballads with a touch of the rocking beat.” Such songs, as her father gauged, offered “a happy medium.”24 Francis feared that her turn to rock and roll could be dangerous, mortally so. After her father advised her to sing “Who’s Sorry Now?,” she balked: “People won’t take rock and roll from a girl. Those who’ve 22 23

Quoted in Dean Jennings, “Girl on the Glamour-Go-Round,” Saturday Evening Post 234 (23 September 1961), 41. Review, 50. 24 Quoted in Ren Crevett, “On the Beat” (16 June 1958), 9.

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done it are dead.”25 Francis never gave a necrology of female rockers, but her comment captures the unease many women had in performing rock and roll. With the physical and sexual frenzy of performances by Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and other male musicians, the music quickly developed strong masculine associations.26 Some women did take on the dynamic new style, notably Wanda Jackson and Janis Martin, who became known as “the female Elvis.” Rock and roll did not kill either one of them; far from it, as they outlived most of the 1950s male rock and roll stars. The two, though, did struggle to take on lives as independent female musicians in rock and roll, either being viewed as imitations of male stars, like Martin, or playing up the part of the sexually seductive and available woman who was the fantasy of male rock and roll fans, a role played by Jackson in her recording “Fujiyama Mama.” Female musicians, though, could thrive in rock and roll with the rockaballad, as seen in the success enjoyed with the songs not only by Francis but also by Patti Page, Brenda Lee, Sunny Gale, Eileen Rodgers, and the Gay Charmers. That success came by playing off the gender associations of both the ballad and rock and roll. As emotional songs, ballads have had longstanding connections to female singers, who, according to persistent gender stereotypes, have been seen as easily succumbing to strong feelings. Given that connection, it did not seem strange to hear women performing rock-tinged ballads, unlike hard-driving rockabilly numbers. The associations with the ballad also allowed them to avoid being seen as female knock-offs of male musicians. No one ever called Francis “the female Boone.” Boone or other male rock and roll singers, for that part, were never singled out as the “male Francis.” As often in the history of the ballad, some male ballad singers in the 1950s did get brushed with insinuations of effeminacy, more of a tar and feathering when it came to the emotionally effusive Johnnie Ray.27 Most male musicians could usually cast aside such innuendos, whereas female singers could become trapped in the feminine associations of the ballad. The rock side of the rockaballad, though, gave women the chance to step outside those confines, if only briefly. Published before the release of 25 26

27

Quoted in Jennings, “Girl on the Glamour-Go-Round,” 41. Elvis’ wild gyrations were inspired by burlesque, a point made by many writers, some of whom used it to question his masculinity. C.G. Burke, “Dig that Lurchin’ Urchin,” High Fidelity 7 (February 1957), 81. During his career, Elvis’ performance of ballads became increasingly viewed as signs of a softened masculinity. Freya Jarman-Ivens, “‘Don’t Cry Daddy’: The Degeneration of Elvis Presley’s Musical Masculinity,” in Oh Boy! Masculinities and Popular Music, ed. Freya Jarman-Ivens (New York: Routledge, 2007), 161–80.

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“Who’s Sorry Now?,” a Time magazine article mentions Francis’ “sadtoned ballad” “Faded Orchid” and the appeal that it would have for the “girdle set,” that is, women ages 30 to 45.28 Sad ballads, so the article suggests, were sung by sad female musicians and loved by sad women. Women, especially those of a certain age, it appears, languished in sadness. The rockaballad was a way out of this sisterhood of sorrow. The songs caught the listener’s attention with glints of rock, a genre that was new, exciting, not-so-sad, and not feminine. By taking up a little rock and roll, female musicians could get out of the girdle set. Histories of 1950s rock and roll have ignored the entree into the rock scene that the rockaballad offered women. Female musicians often appear as a sideshow in such histories, which briefly acknowledge women who helped put down the foundations of rock and roll, like Big Mama Thornton and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, or such gatecrashers as Jackson and Martin. Rockaballads do not fit into these accounts probably because they do not seem to have enough, or any, rock and roll in them.29 For later listeners, the ballad side of the songs predominates and disqualifies the rockaballad from being part of the dawning days of rock and roll. That dawn, as has been seen from later decades, revealed an up-tempo, heavily rhythmic music as well as one with strong masculine associations. This retrospective genre classification calls to mind what has happened in histories of early jazz. During the 1910s and 1920s, the term “jazz” applied to a wide variety of musical styles, as people pinned the new term and idea to any sort of music that seemed to capture a new rhythmic energy. Some of this music does not fit our present-day conceptions of jazz, particularly that by many white bands that tended toward smooth and less rhythmically driven numbers. Looks back to early jazz typically settle upon a view of jazz being primarily a hot music performed by African American musicians. Not fitting that bill, the recordings of white jazz musicians are often downplayed, if not ignored.30 A similar fate has befallen the women who performed rockaballads, as their songs and their identities do not 28 29 30

“Pop Hopefuls,” Time (2 September 1957), 43. On Francis, Gillian G. Gaar states that “her music was clearly more pop than rock.” Gaar, She’s a Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll (Seattle: Seal Press, 1992), 26. Broad strokes have obviously been used here in discussing the reception of early jazz. The topic, of course, abounds with complexities, which have been dealt with by jazz historians. The large points made here are in service of a general comparison between the usages of “jazz” in the 1920s and “rock and roll” in the 1950s and how those usages differ with later historical conceptions of both decades. For a detailed study of the role of white musicians in early jazz and the historical vacuum into which many of them fell, see Richard M. Sudhalter, White Musicians and their Contributions to Jazz, 1915–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

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conform to our conceptions of early rock and roll. It is important to remember, though, that as a new term for a new genre, “rock and roll,” like jazz, had a broad musical and cultural currency in the 1950s. It was applied to all sorts of performers and music, some of which we today may not consider to be rock and roll. Rather than dismissing such usages as historical oddities, we should see them as offering fresh understandings of 1950s popular music, like that of female performers using rock-laced ballads to step into the emerging world of rock and roll.

Lush Sounds This ballad can bring two of the screen’s most celebrated dancers to a halt. So overwhelmed by emotions are they when listening to it that they can barely move. The song is “Dream (When You’re Feeling Blue)” by Johnny Mercer. The dancers are Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron, and the film, Daddy Long Legs (1955). Like other screen lovers, the Astaire and Caron characters confront an obstacle, which, in this case, is his unease about the age gap between them (unspecified in the film but around thirty years in real life). Astaire plays a business executive who first sees the young girl Caron at a French orphanage, and, concerned about her, he becomes her anonymous benefactor. He later pays for her to attend a New England college founded by his family. The two lovers come face to face for the first time at a dance held by the college, and, as dictated by a dance card and fate, they dance to a band playing “Dream.” They start to dance but are cut off by Caron’s boyfriend, whose youthful bounding entrance discomposes the always-suave Astaire. The next time the two hear the song they are each alone and there is no dancing. Far from it, they sit and think about that night. We find Astaire in his office listening to a recording of “Dream” on his stereo. He sits behind a drum set (yes, he is not your standard tycoon or so old, after all) and listens and gently sings along, a contrast to the opening number in the film in which he bangs the drums and flies around his office. As for Caron’s character, she listens to a recording of “Dream” while sitting by her dorm room window and thinking about that dance and the unknown older gentleman. She eventually cries, flings herself on her bed and falls asleep. To show that love triumphs over age and that no song can keep two star dancers down, the film concludes with Astaire and Caron dancing to a recording of “Dream” played on his office stereo. The particular song is not so important to the dancer’s courtship or to the film. No offence to Mercer, but any tuneful ballad about romantic

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dreams could do. The song is not as important as the sound of the song. That sound is the rich, mellifluous blend typical of 1950s pop ballads, realized by the warm sound of the strings and vocal ensemble in the recording by The Ray Anthony Orchestra and The Skyliners in the film. The source of the sound is just as important. Both Astaire and Caron’s characters listen to the song on a record player, and we, in an unusual shot for a musical, watch them listen to it on a record player. As with the film lovers, the record player became the way of accessing the lush sounds made possible by the advent of high fidelity. Many writers and recording industry figures extolled the “emotional impact” of high-fidelity sound. It certainly has an impact on the couple in Daddy Long Legs, strong enough to make Caron curl up in a ball of melancholy. To get to know what that impact is, we need to dissect lush. Only then can we understand how ballads shaped the ways in which emotions were experienced not just by two Hollywood lovers but also by the millions listening to ballads on their own record players. Lush sounds are not unique to 1950s ballads. They have been an enduring sonic ideal for the ballad, lining songs before the 1950s and well after. During the 1920s, jazz orchestras like the Paul Whiteman Orchestra smoothed the spiky jazz band sound with strings. The big bands of the 1930s and 1940s may have blared in swing dance numbers, but they could also slow things down with ballads, the melting blends of which became a signature sound of the Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey bands. During the 1950s, the sounds become warmer, fuller, and more varied. Ballad recordings typically use orchestras rather than bands and draw upon the diverse sonic palette of that ensemble, including a string section as well as dabs of a plaintive oboe or distant French horn. Arrangers added a gleam to the sound by featuring shimmering instruments like the celesta and harp, the constantly unfurling glissandi of which became a standard, almost cliché, sound of the 1950s ballad. As captivating as these lush sounds may be, they ultimately serve the voice, forming a nimbus around that part. Ballads, after all, are all about voices, and 1950s ballads are about rich sounding voices, as rich as the orchestral glow surrounding them. Different vocal styles of the time refined that richness. For example, The Platters and other doo wop groups could equal the harmonic warmth and color of a symphony orchestra with just a few singers. The voice of a lone singer also could abound with warmth and color, as was the case with crooners like Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. Crooning had been around well before the 1950s and had changed considerably along the way. The first crooners appeared in the 1920s,

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among them Gene Austin and Rudy Vallée. They sounded like they were whispering, hence the name of another founding crooner, “Whispering” Jack Smith. Whispering was a new sound for recorded vocal music, made possible by a new piece of technology, the microphone. Only with a mic could the murmured romantic blandishments of the crooners be heard on a recording or in live performance. Crooning voices were instantly popular and controversial. In particular, crooners were ridiculed for being effeminate, for no real man cooed sentimental nonsense, especially with the high, light voices of Austin and Vallée. The ridicule grew out of fear, as the crooners were seducing hordes of female fans, a success that also made them a moral threat according to religious groups. In the 1930s, Bing Crosby, Russ Columbo, and other members of the new generation of crooners cast aside charges of effeminacy with their deeper voices.31 A decade later, the young Frank Sinatra, with his soft baritone, rekindled the uproar over the moral dangers of crooning as young, screaming women thronged his concerts. During the 1950s, Sinatra was one of countless crooners. The term “crooning” was used broadly to describe any male singer with a smooth, lyrical voice who sang ballads. The pervasiveness of the term shows how influential crooning had become and how closely it was linked to the ballad. Vocally, crooners were a diverse lot.32 Sinatra, with age and also a turn to more emotionally freighted songs, darkened his voice, but it was still a croon. Frankie Avalon, in contrast, beamed in sweet ballads aimed at a teenage audience. When singing ballads, Nat King Cole often played the part of a crooner, as opposed to a jazz singer, with his trademark “pussy willow” sound.33 Johnny Mathis broke from the baritone ranks of crooners with his floating falsetto, which was still as rich and romantic as the voices of his rivals. Cole’s and Mathis’ recordings reveal how the prominent racial line between blacks and whites in 1950s America played out in the ballad repertoire. For black singers, ballads were a way of crossing over that line and appealing to a large white audience. Their success with the songs reversed a familiar commercial and racial logic. As was the case with the 31 32

33

On the history of crooning, including controversies over the style, see Allison McCracken, Real Men Don’t Sing: Crooning in American Culture (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015). As vocally diverse as the crooners may have been in the 1950s, there was little interest in earlier crooning styles. Gene Austin, one of the first crooners, tried to make a comeback in the 1950s, only to be rebuffed as hopelessly out of date. Harry Allen Smith, “Crooner Comes Back,” Saturday Evening Post (31 August 1957), 25. Richard G. Hubler, “$12,000-a-Week Preacher’s Boy,” Saturday Evening Post 227 (17 July 1954), 30.

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emerging rock and roll scene of the time and swing music in the previous two decades, white musicians had success with a style of music that had strong black associations because they made that music seem less offputting and more approachable to white listeners. With the lush crooning ballads of the 1950s, African American singers drew upon a style that was familiar to white audiences and did not have strong African American resonances, the combination of which made the singers seem less offputting and more approachable. By winning over that audience, black singers could enjoy more financial success than they did with recordings aimed at the R&B market. As Cole bluntly put it: “The biggest all-around payoff comes from the solid love ballad.”34 Although both Cole and Mathis had won over a large white audience with their ballads, the racial line did not disappear. Quite the opposite, as the fact that a white audience loved their ballads eventually imposed that line. The image of a black male musician singing love songs to white female fans stoked the entrenched racist anxiety of black men seducing and sexually overcoming white women.35 Black ballad singers before Cole and Mathis had encountered that dread, most famously Billy Eckstine. A photograph of him in a 1950 Life magazine article surrounded by smiling white female admirers, one of whom has rested her head on his torso, outraged some readers. The scandal over the photograph set back the success that Eckstine had enjoyed with his polished ballad recordings of the late 1940s. A photograph featuring Cole with white female fans would lead to one of the most shocking moments in his career. Before a 1956 performance in Birmingham, Alabama, the segregationist group the North Alabama Citizen’s Council distributed such an image with the captions “COLE AND WHITE WOMEN” and “COLE AND YOUR DAUGHTER.”36 The photographs were warning shots for the concert, during which members of the Council rushed the stage and attacked Cole and his band.37 The sound that made Cole’s ballad recordings so upsetting to some white listeners was what made those recordings and crooning in general so loved by audiences. The style creates a sense of intimacy, of having a voice 34 35 36 37

Quoted in Mark Burford, “Sam Cooke as Pop Album Artist—A Reinvention in Three Songs,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 65 (2012): 141. For an illuminating discussion of the challenges facing “black balladeers,” see Burford, “Sam Cooke,” 141–55. Burford, “Sam Cooke,” 144–45. The 1956 Birmingham concert is discussed in Daniel Mark Epstein, Nat King Cole (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999), 252–56.

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so close to you, as if whispering in your ear. It was not just any voice, but rather a warm and smooth voice. The nearness of such an alluring voice singing sweet nothings creates a sense of emotional and physical intimacy. It is no wonder that crooning was viewed as sexually provocative, for these were the things heard across a pillow, but now sung seductively on a record. These tenderly intimate voices, it should not be forgotten, were made possible by new technologies. It all began with the microphone, which could capture once fleeting whispers and give them enough volume so that they still sounded soft but enticingly present. Recent developments in the 1950s would make those voices richer and more expressive. The recording studio during that decade became a magic room in which voices and sounds could be transformed. One of the techniques in that room was reverb, the manipulation of echoes in a closed recording space. The echoes were picked up by a mic and synthesized to make a voice fuller and more resonant. With reverb, crooning voices could become all the more entrancing. A mere whisper would no longer do. The voice perched at your ear could now be a lush and full whisper. Realizing how captivating the voices could become, producers liberally used reverb. There could always be more echo, or so believed Frankie Avalon’s producer, Bob Marcussi. Avalon’s ballads “always had a beautiful chorus” section with his “sweet voice,” but they could be even more beautiful, or so believed Marcussi. “Give it echo, more” was his repeated direction in the studio.38 The recommendation was clearly applied to Avalon’s “Where are You?” (1959). It begins with the chorus section, which, as Marcussi said, sounds “beautiful” with the lucent strings and pearly harp lines. Those parts, though, almost get obscured by Avalon’s voice, which is so resonant that it pours beyond the orchestral shine that is supposed to surround it. It also comes close to exceeding the intimacy of crooning, as it is a rather capacious voice to have by one’s ear. The popularity of Avalon’s ballads, though, shows that 1950s listeners enjoyed having such a voice close to their ears. A lover’s murmurs sounded better with echo. Some listeners, though, found these resonant voices to be unnatural. This would obviously not be the first or last time such a remark was made about recorded pop voices. Today, we bemoan the standardization of autotune, which gives any singer a sense of pitch as well as a robotic lilt. Reverb has been around so long that we do not even notice it anymore. Listeners in the 1950s, however, were not yet inured to studio 38

Joseph Lanza, Vanilla Pop: Sweet Sounds from Frankie Avalon to ABBA (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2005), 18.

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manipulations and responded both enthusiastically and warily to them. If the studio was a magic room, the magic was occult to some. Edgar M. Villchur, who taught courses in “sound reproduction,” railed against the microphone, which by the 1950s was a rather old piece of technology. He claimed that it turned what would normally be a “whisper” into the growls of a “monster,” so loud had crooners’ voices become.39 New York Times critic John S. Wilson decried how studio trickery could turn mediocre singers into passable and, worse than that, successful ones. His example was Fabian, a teenage streaking star. “Synthetic singers,” as he called them, were assembled from different procedures: A small, flat voice can be souped-up by emphasizing the low frequencies and piping the results through an echo chamber. A slight speeding up of the recording tape can bring a brighter, happier sound to a naturally drab singer or clean the weariness out of a tired voice. Wrong notes can be snipped out of the tape and replaced by notes taken from other parts of the tape.40

Wilson contends that “‘singing’ singers” did not require such manipulation. The talented group included Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Patti Page, Nat King Cole, Pat Boone, and Johnny Mathis. How interesting then to hear Mathis’ producer Frank Laico recall how he began a recording session by spending two hours “just developing a sound on [Mathis’] voice.” According to Tony Bennett, Laico used “the studio like an artist” to develop unique sounds for performers, even “singing’ singers” like Mathis. The procedures that he came up with for Mathis seem just as intricate as the tinkering lampooned by Wilson: “Once we honed Mathis’ vocal sound – i.e., the amount of echo, shades of EQ [timbral control], where the mic was situated in the chamber, etc. – we’d mark it down, and presto, that would be formula for him.”41 The microphone placements, studio artistry, and sculpted echoes were all part of the high-fidelity sound that beguiled 1950s listeners. High fidelity was not just a sonic ideal but also a faith practiced by those who sought the most vivid recordings and the newest equipment on which to play those records. The believers turned to the numerous books devoted to the new sound as well as the ultimate counsel, the magazine simply and authoritatively called High Fidelity. In his book, Edward Tatnall Canby defined high 39 40 41

Edgar M. Villchur, “Concert of Soft Moans,” Saturday Review 35 (30 August 1952), 63. John S. Wilson, “How No-Talent Singers Get ‘Talent,’” New York Times (21 June 1959), Sunday Magazine, 16. Zak, I Don’t Sound Like Nobody, 162.

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fidelity as “a high degree of faithfulness in the reproduction, as applied to sounds issuing from a loudspeaker that are facsimiles of other sounds heard by a microphone.”42 Charles Fowler, another home music systems expert, described high fidelity in similar terms: “the striving for a greater degree of perfection in the creation of that illusion of live music.”43 High fidelity, though, was more than the best turntables and speakers. In their definitions, Canby and Fowler quickly get to what they consider to be the essence of this new sound: emotions. Canby upholds high fidelity as “a means of emotional catharsis,” and Fowler proclaims that its “purpose” is “to derive the maximum possible emotional and/or intellectual satisfaction from sound.”44 Advertisements for records and audio equipment also touted the expressive dimension of high-fidelity sound. A 1957 ad for Audio Fidelity Records, for example, claimed to have created a modern sound that surpassed high fidelity: “. . . not merely High Fidelity, but something which contains the impact of an atomic age marvel – the miracle of High Fidelity combined with an overwhelming emotional impact.” Writers and ads may have had much to say about what equipment to buy, how to use it, and where to put it in a room, but they never elaborated upon the “emotional impact” of high fidelity. That there is such an impact goes unquestioned, but what it is remains unclear, even at Audio Fidelity Records, which claimed to have captured it. The company, though, did offer the following formulation: “PROPOSITION: People respond emotionally to sound. AXIOM: The more stimulating the sound, the greater the emotional response.”45 As vague as the axiom may be, it does give us something to work with. We need to isolate what makes the sound of a high-fidelity ballad recording so “stimulating,” and analyze the “emotional response” stirred by that sound. That response, as we will see, was part of the type of emotional behavior that high fidelity instilled in 1950s listeners. Those recordings not only gave listeners emotions to feel but also taught them how to feel. Recordings of pop ballads applied the Audio Fidelity Records axiom in a particular way. With such touches, an intimate voice is more intimate and warm sounds warmer – a powerful combination for a love song, as heard in Nat King Cole’s “When I Fall in Love” (1957) and Doris Day’s 42 43 44 45

Edward Tatnall Canby, Home Music Systems: How to Build and Enjoy Them (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1955), 3. Charles Fowler, High Fidelity: A Practical Guide (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956), 7. Canby, Home Music Systems, 4; Fowler, High Fidelity, 2. Sidney Frey, “The Emotional Impact of High Fidelity” (Advertisement), High Fidelity 7 (October 1957), np.

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“Secret Love” (1959). The beginning of Cole’s recording reveals how voices were placed in these luxurious sound worlds. A solo cello plays the opening phrase of the song and then elaborates upon that phrase while ascending almost three octaves, a climb that gave producers a chance to show how fidelity recordings could maintain sonic richness from the depths to the heights. The cello line serves as the perfect setup for Cole, as the two share a similar range and color. Cole enters with the same phrase with which the cello began and delivers it with a mahogany tone. From there on, the orchestra forms an aureole around Cole with high strings and harp. The contrast with his deep baritone makes him sound further out in front of the ensemble and therefore closer to us. It is more difficult to pull off that contrast with a lucent soprano like Day’s, but the arrangement by Percy Faith (a master of lush sounds) uses a higher and lighter glow, making her too sound closer to us. Both voices come across as even nearer after being placed up front in the audio mix. They also sound very rich, the result of studio sound sculpting, especially reverb. With both Cole and Day, the studio work does not give them a voice, as it did with Wilson’s “synthetic singers.” It does give them resonance, but it ultimately brings out what is unique about their voices, like the fluid movement between grit and softness in Cole’s voice (not to mention his melting vowels) and Day’s brightness, with which she could do what few singers can do, that is, to make bright tones sound vulnerable. Cole’s and Day’s voices become the musical and emotional centers of their recordings. How much so comes through in the sections where the singers rest and the orchestra takes up the melody. As is so often the case, the violins get the job, and they sound monochromatic compared to the singers. They also sound as if they are straining to create a sound rich enough to fill the vacuum left by the vocalists. As in nature, vacuums are filled, which happens when Cole and Day return after a few bars. Their absence may be brief, but it is felt. The recorded sound in both songs dims for a moment – what comes close to being a longueur for a highfidelity recording – however, the shine is quickly regained when the voices return. Stimulating sounds, as promised by Audio Fidelity Records, do produce a strong emotional response, which, for both Cole and Day, is having resplendent voices close to us to tell us about the joys of love. Those voices also tell us how to partake in the joys of love and other feelings. As pleasant as they may be, 1950s high-fidelity ballad recordings inculcated a certain kind of emotional behavior. The songs encourage

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listeners to be passive to enjoy their emotional pleasures.46 High-fidelity pop ballads have us repose in stretches of comfortable, mellifluous orchestral sounds, rarely disturbing us with dissonance or any other sort of harshness. The voice adds another layer of comfort. It is already close to us in the recorded mix, but it beckons us closer so that we can listen to its richness and warmth. As with the orchestral sounds, we can disappear into this sumptuous intimacy. Listeners rendered passive by seductive sounds may seem like a frightening scenario, but it was actually made out to be a desired one by advertisers. Ads of the time depict a listener sitting in a chair alone at home being absorbed by the sounds emerging from a stereo. And let’s not forget what happens to Astaire and Caron in Daddy Long Legs. A smooth ballad on a stereo is enough to bring those two hoofers to a stop. Instead of dancing, they each just sit there and listen to a song. Pleasant emotions, like pleasant sounds, can also instill passivity, especially when they are presented through pleasant sounds. What is often overlooked with lush 1950s pop ballads is how narrow the expressive range of the songs is. The numbers typically deal with the happy side of love, be it finding love as in Cole’s “When I Fall in Love” or declaring love as in Day’s “Secret Love.” This is not to say that darker emotions never pass over highfidelity pop ballads. Like ballads in general, they deal with heartache and loss. In the high-fidelity pop ballads, though, sorrow never turns forceful or unruly, qualities that would disturb the sonic pleasantness of the recordings. Rather than intense sorrow, many such recordings offer a suffused melancholy, as captured in Cole’s version of “Smile” (1954). His rich voice adds luster to that melancholy. It would be difficult to think of Cole breaking down and crying in this or any other song. “Smile” offers a lesson in emotions that was followed in many high-fidelity pop ballads. Just as the singer tells us not to give in to the urge to cry and maintain a happy exterior with a smile, so too should singers and producers forego the painful sounds of sorrow, which would only rip apart the beautiful sonic surface of the recordings. Emotions, according to 1950s high-fidelity pop ballads, are to be pleasant and predictable. They could also be decorative, a point made by another popular style of the day. Mood music, as it was known then, offered listeners what was ridiculed by some at the time as a “gush of lush,” with 46

Rebecca Leydon develops a similar idea in talking about 1950s mood music. Leydon, “The Soft-Focus Sound: Reverb as a Gendered Attribute in Mid-Century Mood Music,” Perspectives of New Music 39 (2001), 103–4.

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its velour instrumental arrangements of popular songs, a large number of them ballads, in a resonant, diffuse studio-produced sound.47 Despite or because of that superficiality, listeners loved mood music. It was estimated that a third of album sales by major labels were devoted to the style, including releases by such mood enhancers as The Mantovani Orchestra and The Somerset Strings.48 Many albums tailored music for specific occasions, like romantic dinners, sunrise, and “washing and ironing” (the title of one album). Mood, as these utilitarian roles convey, was something to be put on to embellish life and never to trouble it. Moods, though, can be troubling, and there was much effort in the 1950s to avert those troubles. The extent of those efforts comes through in Peter N. Stearns’ study of emotional life in mid-twentieth-century America.49 He describes the “cool” emotional style, which ruled white middle and upper class Americans for most of the twentieth century and endures in different forms today. Named after the idea of dispassion instead of hipness (although dispassion can be hip), cool dictates emotional restraint and moderation. Intense public displays of feelings were to be avoided, as they could not only unsettle the individual expressing such emotions but also the public or workspaces surrounding that person. The potentially destabilizing forces of emotions had to be controlled and, to that end, the mandates of cool were enforced through diverse channels, including psychiatric literature, etiquette manuals, men’s magazines, and guidelines for business leaders. High-fidelity pop ballads did their part by pacifying listeners with agreeable, undemanding feelings. Emotional restraints do not feel like restraints when they are as comfortable as those provided by lush ballads. Some listeners, however, wanted out of those restraints. They could free themselves by turning to other types of ballads. The rockaballad, to recall, gave the woes of the brokenhearted a rough edge. If Connie Francis could belt out her gleeful anger in telling off an ex, then perhaps so too could her listeners. Rockaballads took shots at the cool emotional style. A more significant challenge, as we will see, came from Johnnie Ray’s “Cry” and the debate it set off about how intensely feelings should be expressed. Both the rockaballad and Ray’s recording achieved their emotional muster by drawing upon styles beyond the pop ballad, which were rock and roll for the rockaballad and R&B for Ray. Frank Sinatra, on the other hand, worked from within the pop ballad to explore pressing, darker emotions, 47 49

Leydon, “The Soft-Focus Sound,” 101. Stearns, American Cool.

48

“The Mood Menace,” Time (12 August 1957), 61.

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ones that were especially kept private in the regime of the cool emotional style. He used the basic materials of the songs – the crooning voice and rich arrangements – to chronicle the despair of the lonely. There is little about Sinatra the bobby sox crooner of the 1940s that would give any indication of the musician who would turn out perhaps the bleakest ballads of the 1950s. The teenage girls who cried tears of romantic exasperation in front of the young singer would probably be struck silent if they would have been able to hear the 1950s songs, or they would have perhaps cried their first adult tears, having received a glimpse of how desolate life can become. The bleak songs fill two albums released by Sinatra after his signing with Capitol Records: In the Wee Small Hours (1955) and Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely (1958). At Capitol, Sinatra embraced the possibilities offered by the relatively new format of the album. He built recordings around certain themes and styles, creating the first concept albums it could be argued. Some, like Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! (1956), kick up romantic romps with fast, jazz-inflected songs, while the above two releases plot solitude through sad, pensive ballads. Such prolonged exposure to loneliness, then and now, is rare for popular music, but especially so in the 1950s, during which pop ballads tended toward amorous joy. Sinatra’s two albums stand out for the psychological scrutiny of loneliness. In the Wee Small Hours, for example, offers different case studies of the lonely figure. There is the man wrestling with pain during the depths of night depicted in the title song; the masochist who finds pleasure in his despair (“Glad to Be Unhappy”); the incipient stalker who promises his ex that he will be there no matter where she goes or what she does (“I’ll Be Around”); and the man tormented by visions of his ex (“Dancing on the Ceiling”). In the Wee Small Hours marks a significant turn in Sinatra’s career. It shows him setting out on darker emotional terrain and finding an escape, albeit an occasional one, from the uniform pleasantness of the pop ballad. To chart this new expressive course, though, he would need the ballad, the genre most closely linked to emotional reflection. If the ballad had to be used, it would have to be changed in order to confront loneliness. Sinatra employs the characteristic sounds of the pop ballad but to contrasting effect, using those sounds against themselves. The near, intimate crooning voice is still there, but now instead of the expected richness we hear a wounded, frail voice. The close micing reveals the etchings of pain. Nelson Riddle’s sensitive arrangements in Only the Lonely provide the conventional string sheen around the voice, but that glow sounds different

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with a wounded voice.50 In a typical recording, the voice and strings melt together into a lucent sound. Sinatra’s recordings contrast the two. The voice trembles in sadness; the strings shine in an expected bliss. The two appear far apart, a distance that brings out the isolation of the characters in the songs. The title track of Only the Lonely presents a striking portrait of solitude.51 The song begins as if it were a Romantic piano concerto, like one by Rachmaninov. A solo piano plays the melody with thick chords accompanied by a full string section and French horns. It would be easy to imagine a high-fidelity pop ballad keeping up the Romantic pose, as the singer would replace the pianist, his or her voice just as resplendent and the orchestration just as vibrant. That is what happens in Cole’s recording of “When I Fall in Love,” as he follows the solo cello of the introduction. Sinatra and Riddle, though, use this opening patch of Romanticism for contrast. When Sinatra enters, he quickly disperses the lush tone. His voice sounds vulnerable and hollow and comes across all the more so when heard against the preceding concerto-like splurge. Rhythm and tempo add to the scene of a lonely man lost in himself. The opening vocal section has no clear beat, as the orchestra follows Sinatra moving from word to word, sometimes slowly as with the gap between “sad” and “café.” The passage conveys something that we do not often hear in a pop ballad of the time: emotional deliberation. Sinatra weights each word, contemplating how to express his sadness and how much of it to share. When the beat is finally established, the tempo is slow, far slower than in a typical ballad. Sinatra and Riddle work over the equation discussed in the Introduction: the slower the tempo, the sadder the song. Just how slow? The recording takes four minutes to move through one chorus. Throughout the recording, Sinatra sounds unconnected to the orchestral shimmer surrounding him, which is much more faint and lower in range than that heard in Cole’s “When I Fall in Love” and Day’s “Secret 50

51

For a discussion of the place of the album in Sinatra’s career and how it captures a new more emotional vocal style, see John Rockwell, Sinatra: An American Classic (New York: Random House, 1984), 151–62. Roger Gilbert has discussed how Sinatra’s emotionally vulnerable performances in Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely and other albums from the time challenged ideals of masculinity in 1950s American culture. See Roger Gilbert, “Singing in the Moment: Sinatra and the Culture of the Fifties,” in Jeanne Fuchs and Ruth Prigozy, eds. Frank Sinatra: The Man, The Music, The Legend (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2007), 55–61 and “The Swinger and the Loser: Sinatra, Masculinity, and Fifties Culture,” in Frank Sinatra and Popular Culture: Essays on an American Icon, ed. Leonard Mustazza (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998), 38–49.

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Love.” The distance between him and the shine enhances the depiction of loneliness. Nowhere is that distance greater than when the arrangement swells to a high point at the beginning of the bridge to capture the singer’s remembrances of “fun times” with his ex. Such crests are common in highfidelity pop ballads, making the lush sounds even richer. In a conventional pop recording, singers usually stay at that high point and build from there. In “Only the Lonely,” however, Sinatra can barely hold on to that peak, as the arrangement dwindles down to the barest stretch in the recording at the beginning of the second half of the bridge. He now sings alone, without even the slightest shimmer around him. When the orchestra does reenter, it is with the solo horn section, another touch of Romantic music, although this one more in line with Sinatra’s loneliness. In Romantic music, horns were often used to suggest distance by presenting echoes of something far away or lost. In Riddle’s arrangement, they provide a distant and slightly altered statement of the opening to the phrases that Sinatra sings to remember happy days with his ex. The echo suggests how distant those days have become and how lonely Sinatra is. This passage exposes the singer at his most alone and anguished. To do so, Sinatra and Riddle create something unthinkable in the emotionally and sonically lustrous world of high fidelity. They open up a pit of despair.

Johnnie Ray, “Cry” A singer had to be pretty scandalous for Elvis Presley to keep a distance from him. Johnnie Ray was that shocking. In a 1956 interview, Presley recalled how a fan said that he reminded her of Ray, at which he “laughed” and told her “I don’t pull my hair and roll on the floor or anything like that. And I never intend to.”52 He surprisingly does not mention the one thing that Ray was most famous for, what incited the on-stage ruckus: Ray cried. He did so in his hit 1951 recording “Cry.” The title became a command for listeners to release anguished feelings and sob. And they did, especially Ray’s teenage fans. His wailing would bring them to crying with him at concerts, in addition to rushing the stage and trying to rip off his clothes. Presley’s miscreant midsection would similarly agitate fans a few years later. In another parallel, the crying, like the bump and grind, would be condemned as “signs of low moral status” in American youth.53 Such remarks were part of the debate that stormed around Ray and his 52 53

Jerry Osborne, Elvis: Word for Word (New York: Harmony Books, 2000), 72. E. Washington Rhodes, “Under the Microscope,” Philadelphia Tribune (20 May 1952).

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song for years. Caught between the worshipful praise of his fans and accusations of moral corruption, “Cry” was one of the most controversial recordings of the 1950s, just as contentious as any of Presley’s songs. The controversy surrounding “Cry” is part of an unfamiliar story that the song tells us about 1950s America. The familiar story is one that was told many times during the 1950s in television shows like Ozzie and Harriet and Leave It to Beaver. The shows take us into a blissful household, which is a single pod of bliss in a neighborhood, town, and nation of contentment. We still tell this story about the 1950s, although we know these idyllic suburban neighborhoods were Potemkin villages that hid all sorts of despair and dysfunction. Perhaps we want to believe that there was at least one halcyon decade in America’s past. But let’s rewrite an Ozzie and Harriet episode to imagine what might have gone on behind closed doors. The typical episode opens with Ozzie coming home from work and walking into some daily incident, like his sons roughhousing or his wife complaining about a problem at the store. He instead returns to his son Ricky crying loudly and messily. And Ricky will not stop. No simple “what’s wrong” or sitcom lesson will staunch his tears. He continues to cry in the next few episodes, telling his family, friends, and neighbors how sad he is and how he cannot keep his feelings trapped inside anymore. The crying only ceases when Ozzie sharply tells Ricky to shut up and keep his emotions to himself because that is what everyone should do. As impossible as these episodes would be in 1950s television, they capture a pressing tension in American society at that time, a tension that “Cry” exposed. There was a need to express emotions, especially painful ones like sadness and loneliness, more freely. That need, though, met the belief that such feelings should not be aired, or, if they were released at all, it should be done in private moments. “Cry” became a rallying cry for those people, especially teenagers, who wanted to do just that – cry. It was also a threatening breach of entrenched beliefs that placed limits on emotional expression. The furor over Ray’s song shows that it got at something deep in American society. “Cry” was not alone in digging into repressed pain and sorrow. Like Ray’s song, a famous 1950s poem did so with a one-word title that was both a command and an anguished sound: Howl.

******

The story that “Cry” tells us about the need to cry in 1950s America intertwines with that of Ray, the man who ministered to that need. According to Ray, the tears in “Cry” went back to “a lonely and unhappy

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boyhood.”54 That lonely childhood took place in Dallas, Oregon, where Ray was born in 1927. When he was twelve, Boy Scout friends accidentally dropped him on his head while tossing him around in a blanket, causing Ray to lose a significant amount of hearing in one ear. The condition went largely untreated for years, leading to difficulties and isolation in school. As Ray later recalled, he was “a sad and lonely boy.”55 Four years later, he was finally fitted with a hearing aid, which improved his hearing but never fully. An operation in 1958 only made matters worse, causing damage in the other ear as well. Ray wore his hearing aid off stage but rarely while performing. He was always open about using the device and even had pictures taken while wearing it.56 It is hard to imagine other celebrities at the time being so candid about a disability. Ray left Oregon and set out for a meandering tour of bars and lounges, or “upholstered sewers” as he would later call them.57 He eventually found his way to The Flame, a Detroit club open to both blacks and whites. It featured such celebrated African American performers as Louis Jordan and Dinah Washington. While there, he grew close to two local stars, Little Miss Sharecropper and Little Miss Cornshucks, who underneath the Southern bumpkin drag were LaVern Baker and Mildred Cummings, respectively. Baker later became known as “the girl who taught Johnnie Ray to cry.” Ray supposedly asked her how to sing the blues, to which she replied: “Man you don’t sing the blues; you either cry or shout them.”58 He chose crying, and some shouting, and learned his tearful trade in Baker’s dressing room. He must have been a quick and talented student, as he won over The Flame crowd with his sobbing. Danny Kessler, an agent for OKeh Records, the Columbia label aimed at black audiences, showed up at the club to hear another act and was taken by Ray. As he remembered: “All of a sudden out comes Johnnie, the only White on the bill. He had the audience moaning and whooping and yelling for more.”59 Kessler arranged for Ray to record two test singles for OKeh, believing that his style would appeal primarily to a black audience. Through radio play, the recordings caught on in Cleveland, and Ray began to perform there. His audience, though, was largely white, a point 54 55 56 57 58 59

Booton Herndon, “Why Johnnie Ray Cries,” Coronet (December 1952), 60–65. Johnnie Ray, “Negroes Taught Me to Sing,” Ebony (March 1953), 50. For a discussion of Ray and his hearing impairment, see Cheryl Herr, “Roll-over-Beethoven: Johnnie Ray in Context,” Popular Music 28 (2009): 323–40. Larry Wolters, “Johnnie Ray, Their Darling Cry Baby,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 16 March 1952. “‘Cry’ Girl Going to The Crest,” New York Amsterdam News (10 January 1953). Jerome Beatty, “Whose Crying Now?” The American Magazine, 154 (1952), 118.

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not lost on the executives at Columbia. Excited to have a “new sound,” they had to figure out how to package it for white listeners.60 As he so often did throughout his career, Mitch Miller, head of Artists and Repertoire at the label, matched the right singer with the right song (he had earlier hitched Frankie Laine to the no. 1 hit “Mule Train”). Given Ray’s knack for tears, he chose “Cry,” a song written by the African American night watchman Churchill Kohlman, and paired it with Ray’s own “The Little White Cloud That Cried.” Released at the end of 1951, both were hits, selling over two million copies. “Cry” made it to number one on the pop and R&B charts. With sales like that, Ray got placed in the publicity machine called at the time “the Big Buildup,” which put him in magazines, TV shows, and nightclubs. According to critic Anton Remenih, Ray’s buildup was bigger and quicker than the one that launched Frank Sinatra.61 By the end of 1952, Ray had left behind the years where he made $75 a week playing in dives, now bringing in $7000 a week headlining at leading clubs like the Copacabana in New York.62 With success came scandal and, as is so often the case, with scandal came more success. Everyone had opinions about Ray’s wellspring of tears, and articles about him appeared in all sorts of magazines and newspapers. Ray was a boon to critics, who not only had a shockingly new act to discuss but also a chance to flaunt wit, as with the sob sobriquets they coined for him: the Prince of Wails, Cry Guy, Mr. Emotion, and The Nabob of Sob. Dramatic literary muscles were exercised in describing his stage show and voice. Writers vied with each other to set the most vivid scene. No verb or adjective was big enough. If I had to pick a winner, I would go with Jerome Beatty from The American Magazine: Before an audience or in the recording studio, Johnnie’s performance is the same. Starting out by banging his own accompaniment on the piano, with the orchestra, particularly the drums, backing him up, singing at the top of his lungs, eyes closed, he twists his sweat- and tear-stained face in agony and pounds his palms on the piano top; he staggers erect, runs his hands through his hair, spreads his feet and wobbles his legs, and, finally overcome, drops, done for, to one knee and, as if he were looking down into the dead face of the woman he loved, shakes his fists and his entire body as he cuts loose with a final, long quadruple-fortissimo cry of excruciating pain. He’s Holly Roller out of Whirling Dervish. Once in a while, like a spent marathon 60 61 62

Beatty, “Who’s Crying Now,” 118. Anton Remenih, “Television News and Views,” Chicago Daily Tribune (24 January 1952). Wolters, “Johnnie Ray.”

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racer at the finish line, he collapses on the floor. As far as I can learn, nobody has yet had to throw a bucket of water on him, to revive him for the next round, but it can happen any day now.63

When it came to Ray’s voice, it was not often what it sounded like as much as who it sounded like. For many listeners, the voice by itself did not sound like that of a white man. Kessler, his manager at OKeh, had to convince sales representatives that not only was Ray not black but that he also was not a woman.64 In his feature article on the singer for The Saturday Evening Post, Robert Sylvester, threw out some other possible vocal identities. According to him, it was “reliably reported” that Ray was “an Indian, a polio victim, a female impersonator, a copyrighted myth and a fugitive from a Kinsey report who wore a silver plate in his skull and had only six months to live. Most startling of all was the widely circulated report that he was a deaf mute who could somehow sing songs.”65 As diverse and bizarre as this vocal cast is, it makes one point: Ray’s voice was so excessive in its emotionality that it could not possibly belong to a white man. Masculinity, according to views of the time, resisted such displays, as did whiteness. Together, the two made for an emotional sealed trap. Black male singers, on the other hand, were considered to be emotionally reverberant, as heard in the groaning pathos of a Muddy Waters or ecstatic wails of a Little Richard. Such an effusive voice as Ray’s would seem more at home in the mouth of a black singer than a white one. Ray was not the only white performer of the time to become a case of racial mistaken identity. With his passionate singing, Frankie Laine was also rumored to be black.66 Laine, though, was never rumored to be a woman, nor a polio victim or any of the others in the Saturday Evening Post lineup. That Ray could be considered to be all of those people shows how perplexing and transgressive the emotional qualities of his singing were. Some sense had to be made of that voice and one way to do so was to connect it to someone else other than a white man. A few of the identities have an actual connection to Ray. He was, for example, thought to be of Native American descent, although this does not appear to be the case. Beyond a possible ancestral link, the belief that he was “an Indian” touches upon stereotypes of wildness, a characteristic of his singing for many listeners. The “deaf mute” grew 63 64 65 66

Beatty, “Who’s Crying Now,” 116. Zak, I Don’t Sound Like Nobody: Remaking Music in 1950s America, 56. Robert Sylvester, “Million Dollar Teardrop,” Saturday Evening Post (26 July 1952), 112. Zak, I Don’t Sound Like Nobody, 50.

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out of exaggerated rather than “reliable” reporting. Ray’s hearing loss was known, so to call him deaf and mute only served to play up the idea of a voice of straining, inchoate sounds. The linkage with disability also appears in the “polio victim” character, which similarly conveys the idea of a body wracked in suffering that comes out as an anguished voice. The Saturday Evening Post article never listed a woman as one of Ray’s possible identities. As Kessler recalled, though, some listeners thought that Ray’s voice was that of a female singer. His high, reedy voice might have given a few listeners that impression, but his voice is very much in a tenor range, with a little bit of a baritone bottom to it. Range might not have been the issue for many as much as the mode of singing and the topics of the lyrics. Crying in a song about crying would have struck many listeners as sentimental fare, in other words, songs for a woman. That connection often led critics to depict Ray as effeminate, especially compared to his male rivals. New York Times critic Howard Taubman, for example, contrasted Ray with the “muscular style” and “vigor” of Laine’s delivery and Bing Crosby’s “manly” style.67 If Ray’s voice did not belong to a woman, it could, as The Saturday Evening Post claimed, belong to a “female impersonator.” That article was not the only one to put Ray in drag. One reviewer called him “a male Lillian Gish,” linking the overly dramatic singer to an actress known for her vividly dramatic performances in silent and sound films.68 Then there is the line in The Saturday Evening Post about “a fugitive from a Kinsey report” (as tempting as they are, I’ll put aside the “steel plate” and “six months to live” bits, which only gild the freakish lily). For the public, Kinsey reports meant aberrant sexuality. Put the drag queen and Kinsey report together and you get insinuations of homosexuality. Ray actually was gay or bisexual. On 8 June 1951, months before recording “Cry,” he was arrested for and pleaded guilty to soliciting sex in a men’s bathroom in Detroit, a charge that went unnoticed as the singer was still a nobody. Detroit police arrested him again for the same offence in 1959, and this time the earlier charge was reported. The headline in the tabloid Hush Hush was “Why Detroit Isn’t Home Sweet Homo for Johnnie Ray.”69 Ray was found not guilty by an allfemale jury. After the verdict was announced, he fainted, and the forewoman ran over to him and exclaimed: “O, that poor boy.”70 67 68 69 70

Howard Taubman, “Crooners, Groaners, Shouters, and Bleeders,” New York Times (21 November 1954). “Mr. Emotion,” Newsweek 39 (21 January 1952), 56. Included in Johnnie Ray, Clippings File, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. “12 Women Free Johnnie Ray and He Faints,” Chicago Daily Tribune (3 December 1959).

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Before the 1959 arrest, writers may have known about Ray’s sexuality and winked in that direction with lines like the Lillian Gish jibe and about him singing “sissy songs.”71 Ray, for his part, quickly pushed aside such hints. The only identity mentioned in The Saturday Evening Post article that he responds to is that of the “female impersonator,” which he tellingly referred to as “the worst” of those “crazy rumors.” In his defense, he says that he did appear in burlesque shows but that he “never even put on a woman’s hat.”72 Elsewhere, he was quick to mention his plans for marriage and a family: “All I want anyway is to have a wife and kids and a home, where I can sit down and sing for myself.”73 In 1952 with a surprising news flash, he married Marilyn Morrison, the daughter of a club owner in Los Angeles, who supposedly knew about Ray’s sexuality and claimed that she would “straighten it out.”74 The marriage lasted two years. The whole affair was a prelude to Rock Hudson’s nuptials. He would marry an unknown bride in 1955 and get divorced three years later. Of all of these imagined identities, Ray would have most likely been proud of being viewed as a black singer. After all, this is the man who wrote an article titled “Negroes Taught Me to Sing” for Ebony magazine.75 The article is stunningly unique for the time – a white singer proclaiming his musical, professional, and personal debts to African Americans in a magazine for a black readership. It is hard to imagine any other white musician of the time writing such a piece.76 Ray, as he declares, goes beyond the “some of my best friends are Negroes” routine. The rejection and mockery that he suffered because of his hearing loss gave him, he claimed, some idea of “the way a lot of colored people feel.” The music of African American musicians not only touched him personally, especially during his lonely adolescence, but also inspired him as a performer. He cites his musical influences, most of who are women, including Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Mahalia Jackson. The article opens with Ray describing how he wrestled with the decision of whether or not to cancel a show in a “certain Southern city” that “had Jim Crow entrances for colored folks.” Told by a friend that a cancellation would cost many people their jobs, he went on with the concert but promised Ebony readers that he 71 73 75 76

Herndon, “Why Johnnie Ray Cries,” 63. 72 Sylvester, “Million Dollar Teardrop,” 112. 74 Wolters, “Johnnie Ray.” Linda Rapp, “Johnnie Ray,” glbtq www.glbtq.com/arts/ray_j.html Ray, “Negroes Taught Me to Sing.” A similar type of article about Presley appeared in the African American magazine Tan. Presley did not write the article, nor did he contribute to it. Nonetheless, it reassures black readers that “Presley makes no secret of his respect for the work of Negroes, nor of their influence on his singing. Furthermore, he does not now shun them, either in public or private.” “What You Don’t Know about Elvis Presley,” Tan 8 (November 1957), 75.

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would “never go back to that city.” It is not clear whether or not he ever did perform in that unnamed town, but he did refuse to go on for a show in Mobile, Alabama, in 1952 until the police allowed blacks into the hall.77 Listeners today may hear some of Ray’s tutelage with black musicians, but they will most likely not hear a female impersonator or a polio victim. They will also most likely not be shocked by the emotional spillage of “Cry.” There has been many a tortured ballad since Ray’s recording, songs that have upped our sense of anguish. None of these songs, though, have set off the outrage that “Cry” did. To understand that furor, we have to get over our emotional jadedness and try to listen to the song with 1951 ears. Only then can we realize how challenging Ray’s invitation to cry was. The lyrics give us plenty of reasons to cry: a Dear John letter, “bad dreams,” a broken heart, and “blues.” They also promise “you’ll feel better if you cry” and implore listeners to do just that. The first sounds of the recording, though, give us no sign of these tribulations. The backup vocalists, The Four Lads, sing lush major chords, glistened with electric guitar lines and a celesta. This is the standard opening of many love songs. It is music for wooing, not crying. Then Ray comes in. His voice is not lush or glistening but rather wiry and pressed. It is the voice of someone in pain, not love, a point made by the juxtaposition between the sound of his voice and the romantic sheen of the backing. It is also the voice of someone who has to expel that pain, as brought out in both Ray’s delivery and composer Churchill Kohlman’s melody. In the opening two lines, the melody makes four large leaps. One such jump can suggest a singer pushing him or herself to get something out or feelings spontaneously exploding. Four such leaps in quick succession convey someone ready to burst into tears. Contrary to the title of the song, Ray never cries. He did so in live performances but not in the recording. Instead of tears, we get a voice on the verge of tears. Ray can barely spit out words; he is so overcome by emotions that he draws out the opening syllables of words. Comedian Stan Freberg exaggerated that effect into a sobbing stutter in his 1952 spoof of the song called “Try,” which exhorts otherwise happy people to try to be miserable. Ray also sings hollow, quavering tones that sound as if they may atomize into a sob but never do. LaVern Baker (Little Miss Sharecropper) may have taught Ray these vocal touches. As she told him, you either cry or shout the blues. Ray does both. For the concluding section, he shouts, belting out a repeated high note. With that note, he rewrites Kohlman’s melody, which had used wide leaps to suggest a voice struggling to get out 77

“New York Beat,” Jet (27 November 1952), 63.

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sorrowful feelings. No struggle here, as those feelings have been released. Instead of jumping to high notes, Ray begins on the pitch at the top of the leaps heard earlier. The R&B belting spins the song away from weepiness to fervor, and Ray closes the song by alternating between the two vocal styles. After returning to his tearful voice, he belts out the final line telling us to cry on the same high pitch he used earlier and ends the song at its most visceral point. With that final command, Ray gave listeners a new idea of what crying could sound like in song. To be sure, there had been countless ballads about tears before Ray’s recordings, and there was even some crying in the performances of those songs. As to be discussed in Chapter 3, well-placed weeping played into the sentimental aesthetics of nineteenth-century parlor songs. Tears, however, did not seep into crooning ballads, which valued vocal richness as well as emotional moderation. Those songs were the dominant ballads style when Ray released his recording, and it comes as little surprise then that critics and the public were so shocked by Ray’s performance. New York Times critic Howard Taubman used the crooning ballad as vocal and emotional standard by comparing Ray’s hit to Bing Crosby’s “I Cried for You” (1938).78 For him, Ray’s evocation of crying was “lacerating,” whereas Crosby’s was “poignant.” Like “Who’s Sorry Now?,” “I Cried For You” depicts the singer, happily in love with someone new, scoffing at the now-sorrowful ex who so cold-heartedly broke up with the singer. As delivered by Crosby, the word “cried” floats in his feathery upper register, seemingly untouched by tears or pain. If there was any crying, it was in the past, as the past tense in the title brings out. There is no residue of it now. His performance also does not give off the slightest sting of revenge. Neither sorrow nor scorn makes it far in the song. They never take on bare, raw forms; rather, they become part of the familiar sensations of warmth and intimacy produced by crooning.79 It is no wonder that 1950s listeners found Ray’s performance excessively emotional. He gave them a vociferous kind of crying unheard in the crooning ballads popular at the time. He also drew upon two of the most emotional singing styles of the day, tearful singing and shouting. The two

78 79

Howard Taubman, “Crooners, Groaners, Shouters, and Bleeders,” 54. Crosby, though, could dab his songs with tears, as heard in the tremulous sustained pitches on the word “sorrow” in his recording of “I’ve Got to Sing a Torch Song” (1933), which was recorded during the time that the torch song was still popular. The little wobble was probably Cosby’s nod to female torch singers, who, as to be discussed in the Interlude on Patsy Cline’s “Crazy,” could get weepy in their performances.

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may keep company in the blues but rarely in pop ballads, which had little to do with shouting. One alone was enough; two was excessive. It is not just that Ray combines the two but that he moves back and forth between them. To go from crying to shouting so quickly conveyed a loss of emotional control. It was this inability to govern emotions, be it Ray’s or those of the listeners he swept along with him, that stirred the singer’s fans and incited his critics.

To Cry or Not to Cry Ray’s fans and critics squared off against each other in the tempestuous debate over “Cry.” The debate, though, was much larger than a hit song. It fed off unease about the display of emotions. Underlying both the passionate defenses and mockery of Ray was a fundamental question. As the uproar over the song reveals, it was a question central to 1950s America: How openly and strongly should emotions be expressed. The question was never stated so bluntly; rather, people asked variations on it. For example, there was the always dependable “should men cry?” The answer to that question, though, has not been dependable. Responses have changed over time. For example, an eighteenth-century treatise on “Moral Weeping” claimed that a man moved to tears by strong emotions was “the sign of so noble a passion,” while those hiding in “stoical insensibility” “will never pass for virtue with the true judges of human nature.” As Tom Lutz discusses in his history of crying, attitudes changed in the nineteenth century with the dominance of industrial capitalism. The businessman dethroned the nobleman, and the rationality and efficiency demanded by big business vanquished tears, no matter how noble a passion they may spring from. Tears would only rust the gears of the capitalist machine. With men forsaking tears, crying became, as a 1948 issue of Ladies’ Home Journal put it, “a woman’s monopoly.”80 So by the time Ray’s song was released the answer to the question of whether or not men should cry would seem to be so settled that there would be no point in raising it. Yet the sights and sounds of Ray wailing put the question back into public discussion. The daily Reader Meter column in The Washington Post, for example, asked: “Do you think it’s unmanly for men to cry?” Who better to ask than that day’s “guest”: Ray. He assured readers that it is indeed “natural” for men to cry and made his 80

Tom Lutz, Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears (New York: W.W. Norton, 1990), 180–82.

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case through a barrage of masculine imagery, including hard labor, sports, and combat: It’s no more unmanly to cry than it is to laugh. Both are natural expressions of sincere emotions. In my family, there were no bottled up emotions. When we felt like laughing, crying, or what-have-you, we let nature take its course. I’ve seen my father cry, and he’s a sawmill worker, a pretty rugged guy. If you’ve ever played football, or any rough sport, you’ve seen some of the toughest men break down and cry. It usually makes them play their hearts out. And my friends and relatives who were in combat tell me that the same applies to some of the bravest soldiers.

Of the four reader respondents, only one answered “no,” stating “a man has as much human feelings as a woman does any day.” The replies of the other three show just how rigid the attitudes were that Ray challenged and how venomous the backlash could be. A female reader admitted that a man who cries “isn’t a weakling” but nevertheless concluded that “crying isn’t what you’d expect of a man – it just isn’t the sort of thing that’s done.” Two readers singled out Ray. One man responded: “Is that question supposed to be inspired by Johnnie Ray? I believe he stinks personally.” Joyce Wray took special offence: “There’s no excuse ever for a man to cry. By the way, don’t spell my name like Johnnie Ray’s. I’m no relation to him and thank goodness for that!”81 More troubling than weeping men were weeping teenagers. Many writers were struck by the spectacle of adolescents bawling at Ray’s concert and declaring how much they wanted, or needed, to cry. The question in this case was why are these teenagers crying? For Taubman of The New York Times, Ray “and his audience reflect a significant aspect of the country’s cultural pattern, and they both deserve study and analysis,” a task best taken up by “a social scientist.” Taubman never followed up on that lead, but he did proffer his own report: “This young man’s style speaks for young people beset by fears and doubts in a difficult time. His pain may be their pain. His wailing and writhing may reflect their secret impulses. His performance is the anatomy of self-pity.”82 But what made times so trying? To answer that question, Saturday Evening Post columnist Robert Sylvester did contact an expert, an anonymous “New York psychiatrist,” who just happened to be “a jazz buff.” His analysis touches upon both Cold War anxieties over cataclysmic warfare and private struggles with sorrow and loneliness. 81 82

“A Crying Question: Should, Shouldn’t He?” The Washington Post (30 June 1952), 16. Howard Taubman, “Cry With Johnnie Ray,” New York Times (27 April 1952).

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The 1950s Kids are simply lost today. A young boy can’t plan his life because the Army is about to grab him. Girls can’t marry who and when they want because of the same reason. And there’s always that potential war and potential violent death hanging over us. Plus the fact that we’re all upset financially. Kids feel that they have no place to go, nothing they can plan. They’re sad and frightened and lonely. And here’s a boy who’s also sad and frightened and lonely. He’s singing what they feel.83

And why not ask a singer? That is what the New York Amsterdam News, a black newspaper, did with African American “bobby-sox favorite” Larry Darnell. The newspaper never directly quotes him but reports that he, similar to Sylvester’s New York psychiatrist, believes that “world situations,” like “the confusion of war, taxes, and other ills,” “bring on a hysterical outlook.” One symptom of that outlook was the interest in singers “who gain fame by shouting in hysterical voices.” Darnell bases his analysis on singing styles, referring not only to shouters but also to crooners. As he saw it, crooning “went out of style years ago” in part because music lovers, beleaguered by economic and social woes, turned to crazed shouters. He, however, “predicted a return to normal sweet singers with good voices when the threat of wars are lessened and taxes are reduced.”84 What about the kids who were the subjects of these sociological and psychological ruminations? What did they have to say about themselves and their devotion to Ray? They actually had much to say, but little of it made it into the press. In the distant days before social media, young people had few ways of getting their opinions out there and into the public conversation. What we know about them comes from press stories about Ray, most of which were negative and mocking. In these reports, the teenage fans come across as the mindless, drunken followers of Bacchus in a modern-day version of Euripides’ The Bacchae, now drunk on the emotional wine poured by their “god” Ray. The connection with Euripides is not entirely fanciful for just as in the Greek tragedy, the followers or fans could turn violent if the god was demeaned. Bacchus’ worshipers, for example, ripped apart King Pentheus, who had imprisoned him. Nothing so grisly happened in the 1950s, but the fans did get angry enough to threaten violence. Such is the case in a Letter to the Editor of the Chicago Tribune, written by five female fans from Crandon, Wisconsin, in response to a review that lampooned Ray. Letters to the Editor were one of 83 84

Sylvester, “Million Dollar Teardrop,” 114. “‘Crooners Outmoded’—Darnell,” The New York Amsterdam News (19 July 1952).

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the few ways that Ray’s fans could get their views into the press, and these women took advantage of it. To critic Anton Remenih, one of the five raged: “It’s a good thing you’re not in range or else I and four of my friends would probably spend the rest of our lives in a penal institution for murder or assault and battery.” After the fist-shaking, the writer touches upon what about Ray moved them so strongly: “Johnnie is human enough to have emotions and humble enough not to be ashamed of them like so many of you so-called he-men. . . He doesn’t try to conceal his feelings.”85 Another fan taunted Remenih with some generational trash talk: “Just because you have ulcers and arthritis is no reason why you shouldn’t let us teenagers enjoy our emotional singers. Johnnie Ray is super.”86 As for the god himself, Ray described his “power” as this: “I make them feel. I disturb them. I exhaust them. I bring one or another of their buried and controlled emotions to the surface.”87 He believed that the free expression of emotions was a natural, childlike state. It was his mission to return his listeners – and possibly “the world” – to that state. Look, we human beings are emotional people. We love to laugh, to cry. Did you ever watch a child thinking? It’s a beautiful thing. The expressions move across his face like clouds – he hasn’t yet learned to plaster them with the layers of sophistication we develop. All I want to do is strip off some of those layers. . . How wonderful the world would be if we all could cast off our fetters, and laugh, and cry, and love – the way we did when we were children! That’s what I want do, that’s what my life is for. I’ll live in a hovel, dress in burlap – but just let me go on bringing laughter and tears, beauty, and love, to people!88

Ray was never pilloried for singing about love, laughter, and beauty. What pop singers are? Tears, though, were obviously a different story. They are something we would rather not hear or see, so tied are they to painful feelings. Crying violates the attitudes that strong emotions, especially distressing ones, should be quietly kept to oneself. Those attitudes were the “fetters” that Ray wanted to throw off and the restraints that his critics wanted to put back on him and his fans, whatever it took to make them stop crying. Those fetters were also part of the cool emotional style described by Peter N. Stearns. As he argues, the enforcement of cool extended through a broad range of channels, including, as the Ray uproar reveals, music 85 86 88

“Johnnie Ray’s A Hot Issue, Letters Prove,” Chicago Daily Tribune (2 February 1952). Wolters, “Johnnie Ray.” 87 Sylvester, “Million Dollar Teardrop,” 112, 114. Herndon, “Why Johnnie Ray Cries,” 62, 65.

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reviews. Critics did their part to reinforce cool by attacking Ray and his emotional displays. They also went after his overwrought teenage fans, chuckling at how childish the weeping teens were and how unprepared they were for the responsibilities of adulthood. A New Yorker piece quoted a policeman at a Ray concert sarcastically “snarling” at some overwrought girls: “future mothers.”89 Another critic joked that the singer’s wailing fans were not ready to be adults, let alone “junior misses” or “junior misters.”90 When it came to crying teenagers, though, precepts of emotional control took broader and more imposing forms than nasty reviews. Crying teenagers were actually a big concern during the 1950s, or it should be said that teenagers were a big concern, be they crying, dancing to a raucous Elvis tune, or getting into drag races. Surrounded by marketing for teens and now tweens, we do not realize how relatively new the category of adolescence is. It appeared around 1900 and arose from a need to create a transition between childhood and adulthood, as opposed to the previous plunge into adulthood when a boy started working on the farm or a girl got married.91 Now young people were eased into adulthood through education, high school and college, and other types of vocational and social training. Adolescence rested upon the idea that there would be a gradual, seamless transition between childhood and adulthood. As childhood beliefs and feelings waned, adult attitudes and responsibilities would take their place. That was the ideal but not often the reality, which unnerved the adults raising and teaching this new breed of adolescents. Childish behavior could upend maturation and leave society with young people unprepared to take on the duties of adulthood. A teenager bursting into tears seemed to turn back into a sobbing child. Tears could be forgiven as a passing fit with a child, but, with a young adult, they raised concerns about whether childhood would ever pass and a teenager continue to fall prey to such fits when he was taking on a job or she was trying to raise an infant. No wonder then that crying teenagers were a disturbing spectacle in the 1950s. Something had to be done with them and one way to handle them was to bring them into line with the mandates of emotional reserve. After all, adults conformed to those restrictions, so why not young adults. The sooner they learned, the better. The snarky reviews of Ray gave teenagers brief lessons as to what was expected of them in terms of 89 90 91

“Friends of the Weeper,” The New Yorker 28 (7 June 1951), 21. Cyrus Durgin, “‘Cry’ Fans S-c-r-e-a-m Welcome to Johnnie,” Daily Boston Globe (19 July 1952). Kent Baxter, The Modern Age: Turn-of-the-Century American Culture and the Invention of Adolescence (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2008).

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emotions. The fields of education and psychology, however, administered more substantial instruction in emotional restraint. Teamed together, the two offered actual instruction via both classroom films and books that told high-school students how to manage their feelings. Such films today are an easy laugh, their messages seeming just as out of date as the rickety projectors used to play them in the classroom. Making them even more laughable is the monotone delivery of the “experts” narrating the films, melodramatic scenarios, and bad acting. Yet during the 1950s, educational films were considered new technological tools to deal with pressing concerns for teenagers, including dating, hygiene, cliques, manners, and how to get along with parents. There were also films about emotions. The titles alone make clear the lesson that they delivered: “Control Your Emotions,” “Understand Your Emotions,” “Act Your Age (Emotional Maturity),” “Don’t Get Angry,” “Snap Out of It (Emotional Balance),” and “Toward Emotional Maturity.” “Control Your Emotions” opens with the frightening statement that emotions can be just as dangerous as fire, a point backed up by a shot of a forest in flames. Emotions, as the emotion-less actor playing the psychologist narrator tells us, can be “your greatest enemy.” Yet just as man learned to control fire, so too can teens learn to control their emotions. How? The lesson, as in other films, involves a simplistic psychology lecture. All you have to do is “modify” either the stimuli that set you off or your response to those stimuli. The film concludes with a shot of teens roasting marshmallows above a campfire with the reassurance: “You can control the fire of your emotions. You can balance your emotions and use them so that your personality becomes more pleasant and you and those around you are a great deal happier and healthier.” The teens at the campfire had attained emotional maturity, a psychological term that was a mantra in the films and books aimed at adolescents. How to Be a Successful Teen-ager tells young readers: “One of the prize goals in life is emotional maturity.”92 Blueprint for Teen-age Living concurs and defines emotional maturity as the ability to “handle fears, tension, and anxiety.”93 The classroom film “Toward Emotional Maturity” assures teens that “no matter how deep the emotion is, you don’t have to let it take you over.” The lesson is learned by the girl in the film who uses “calm reasoning” to brush off anger after losing to her fencing opponent and then 92 93

William C. Menninger and others, How to Be a Successful Teen-Ager (1954; New York: Sterling Publishers, 1971), 43. William C. Menninger and others, Blueprint for Teen-Age Living (New York: Sterling Publishers, 1958), 11.

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fights off lust to let her boyfriend know that she does not want to go to make-out point. The concept of emotional maturity, of course, implies that certain kinds of emotional behavior are immature, none more so than crying. In the educational films, crying teens are signaled out as especially childish. Poor Phyllis in “Act Your Age (Emotional Maturity)” is “worried” and comes close to crying when called upon in class, “just like a little girl” as the film says. Then there is “the girl who cries over trifles,” an “infantile reaction” according to a teacher in the film. It is easy to imagine Ray’s crying fans as case studies in these movies. There is Ted who weeps as he listens to Ray’s records over and over again, much to the shock of his father as he peers through the crack in Ted’s bedroom door. Or Susan who tells her parents – and maybe even a reporter – how sad she is and how listening to Ray’s songs makes her want to pour out her feelings. As with the sobbing teens in the educational films, press articles reduced Ray’s adolescent fans to childish figures, the kids who, as one critic mentioned above put it, were not yet ready to be “junior misses” or “junior misters.” Ray’s adolescent fans needed to buck up and control their feelings. They needed to find emotional maturity.

Tears and More Tears In popular culture, scandal quickly fades into the background. Sounds and images that shocked loose that power and settle into songs, television shows, movies, magazines, fashion, and such. They become part of the show, different enough to tantalize but no longer enough to stir outrage. In his groundbreaking study of subcultures, Dick Hebdige calls this process incorporation.94 He focuses on punk and how the disturbing elements of the punk look – the ripped clothes, safety pins, spiked hair – got placed in the fashion pipeline, making their way from runway shows and high-end stores to clothes and looks for the masses. Now anyone could look like a disheveled freak. Like freakish hair, tears can be incorporated. After “Cry,” tears began to flow in 1950s popular culture. Ray did not remain the lone man crying in the wilderness. Singers realized how profitable his weeping was and started to weep themselves. Paul Anka was one of Ray’s most ardent disciples. As a child, he amused adults by imitating Ray’s sobbing.95 By the time he 94 95

Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (New York and London: Routledge, 1979). “Paul Anka, Kids’ Wonder Singer,” LIFE (5 September 1960), 68.

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was a teen star in the late 1950s, he had mastered Ray’s emotional to and fro. In “Puppy Love,” he weeps on the plea “help me, help me, please” and later belts out the words “tears” and “cry.” Just how moving his delivery was for teenagers comes through in the film Girl’s Town, in which he holds the girls in a Catholic school for delinquents and their nun overlords rapt by singing “It’s Time to Cry.” The success of Ray’s tears was especially not lost on black singers. Jet magazine reported on “the rash of ‘cry singers’ who have sought to vault to Johnnie-Ray like fame.”96 Among them was Tommy Brown, who went beyond “Cry” with “Weeping and Crying” (1952). In the recording of the song with The Griffin Brothers, he provides a continuous underscore of sobs to a standard blues vocal. As captured in photographs in Jet, he also fell to the floor and wailed in performance. African American singers had teared up well before Ray, but they took it further after his hit song. No better proof being Roy Brown. In his “Hard Luck Blues” of 1950, he makes sorrowful sounds but never cries. How different from “Laughing but Crying” of 1953, in which Brown plays a rejected lover who laughs on the outside but cries on the inside. Crying, of course, wins out. The cry records of black singers offer an interesting twist on racial appropriation in American music. The typical scenario involves a white musician drawing upon a style developed by black musicians, which Ray, to his credit, admitted to doing with his “Negros Taught Me to Sing” article. Usually, the exchange stops there, but, with Ray’s song, there is a boomerang. He came up with an affected rendition of Africa American vocal styles and then, inspired by him, black singers, like Tommy and Roy Brown, developed an even more exaggerated style. As with most other cases of appropriation, white musicians enjoyed more financial success than African Americans. None of the black crying singers came anywhere near Ray’s, or Anka’s, sale numbers, not even the woman who taught Ray how to cry, LaVern Baker. She had a minor hit in 1958 with the song “I Cried a Tear.” Deepening the pool of tears in 1950s popular culture were the weeping teenagers that appeared in Hollywood films. These kids not only wept but they also fought with switchblades, brandished guns, and got drunk. Moreover, they could quickly go from handkerchiefs to knives. That is how unstable they were. These teen portraits were both intriguing and worrisome – two ways to describe general views of adolescents during the 1950s. When it came to emotions, we have already seen how adults were 96

“New ‘Sob Singer’ A Big Hit,” Jet (19 November 1953), 60.

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both fascinated by the emotional development of teenagers and concerned about how awry that development could go. Another concern was a perceived increase in delinquency. Teens were often portrayed as a cast of thugs and floozies. Psychiatrists and social workers tried to set them straight, while magazines and television shows tantalized people with this new antisocial menace. Crying delinquents then were all the more frightening and fascinating. No wonder Hollywood turned the camera on them. We meet three such characters in the opening scene of Rebel without a Cause (1955), a film that glorified the figure of the turbulent teen with the star performance of James Dean. Where else to meet these three wayward adolescents than in a police station? Jim (Dean) is there because of “public drunkenness”; Judy (Natalie Wood) for wandering around at 1:00 AM; and Plato (Sal Mineo) because of killing puppies with a gun. To show just how dangerous teenagers are and how much help they need, all three meet with both the police and a psychiatrist. Jim also has to deal with his parents, whose bickering leads him to start crying and scream out the memorable line: “You’re tearing me apart.” Judy weeps while telling the psychiatrist how her father treats her coldly now that she is no longer a little girl. Surprisingly, Mineo’s Plato does not cry in this scene, but he will several times later in the film. With his saucer-like eyes, Mineo was ideal for big-screen crying. He does just that in The Young Don’t Cry (1957), another film that dealt with weepy rough adolescents, in this case teens in a boy’s orphanage. The title, of course, is a teaser, for the young do cry and will do so many times in the film. After all, who would want to watch a film about a bunch of stoic, wellbehaved teenagers? One of the early scenes has Mineo telling a young bawling boy to stop crying because “crying doesn’t help.” The boy says that it does and that “crying is like hugging yourself in the night when you are scared” – the wisest words in the film. Forsaking his own advice, Mineo’s character spends much of the film on the verge of tears or crying. Rebel without a Cause and The Young Don’t Cry draw a connection between crying and delinquency: They are signs of how troubled teenagers are and behaviors that need to be corrected. The films do correct them. In the final scene of Rebel without a Cause, Dean’s character pulls himself together after his emasculated father finally stands up to his shrewish mother and restores paternal order in the family. There are no parents to save Mineo’s character. The father has left the family, and the mother is always traveling. Beyond family salvation and the most unsettled of the three adolescents, there is seemingly no other plot choice than to have him

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die. He is shot by the police in the final scene, becoming just like the puppies that he killed. Mineo’s character in The Young Don’t Cry, though, fares much better. Throughout the film he is caught between two unsound father figures: A chain-gang prisoner who befriends him and then kidnaps him in an escape attempt and a wealthy graduate of the orphanage school who has never been able to put behind the anger and cutthroat mentality that he developed there. The former is shot and killed, and Mineo’s character rejects the job offer of the wealthy businessman, realizing that he must make his own way in life. In other words, he finds emotional maturity. With that in mind, the Hollywood movies about weeping teenagers are not so different from the educational films. Both make it clear to teenagers that crying is childish behavior that needs to be controlled and stopped on the path to adulthood. The films are also like “Cry” in that they were part of the incorporation of tears in popular culture. Unlike “Cry,” though, the films never encourage teenagers to bawl. Undoubtedly, some adolescents did find emotional kinship with their weeping cinematic peers and perhaps also the courage to express their own sorrow, but they also found a stern message not to cry.

“Cry”: The Legacy So what happened to Ray, the musician who emboldened Americans to cry? He has gone down in popular music history as a one-hit wonder. If he is remembered at all, it is for “Cry.” A look at the charts from the 1950s, though, reveals that he had several hits, none as big “Cry,” but still successful records. His last push toward the top of the charts was his 1957 recording of “You Don’t Owe Me a Thing,” which made it to no. 10. In these following hits, we get little of the sobbing that made him famous. He most likely backed off from wailing because he feared that he could become known only for tears. A singer can only cry so much. His subsequent hits give no quarter to the rock and roll styles that took over the charts in the mid-1950s. Ray rejected rock and roll, later calling it “a bastardization” of R&B.97 Putting away the tears and shunning rock and roll, Ray tried to develop a new type of act. It would be more about thinking than crying. As he told a reporter: “All I do out there on the floor is make them excited or uncomfortable or upset. That’s not enough. The day that I make people 97

“Music Concerts and Recitals,” New York Times (12 February 1982).

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think that will be the day the whole Johnnie Ray act changes into something different.”98 It is not clear exactly what kind of music he thought would get his audience thinking, but Ray did start doing songs that had a nightclub sophistication to them, particularly standards like his 1952 hit recording of “All of Me.” Ray’s story after his last top-10 record in 1957 is bleak. His disdain for rock and roll cut him off from the young audience he once enthralled. Although he was acquitted, the 1959 arrest for soliciting sex from a man may have pushed him further out of the spotlight. A failed second ear operation the year before distressed him. Around 1960, he entered a period that could be best described as career decrepitude. There were failed comebacks and minor resurfacings, like a few concerts with Judy Garland a year before her death. Personal troubles also waylaid him, including a torturous professional and romantic relationship with a manager and alcoholism. Ray died of liver failure in 1990. “Cry,” though, has had a legacy. It has not been completely forgotten, having a life beyond Ray. Country singers like Crystal Gayle and Willie Nelson recorded the song in the 1980s. Country is perhaps the only genre that would take the song in. The genre features numbers called “country weepers,” tunes that tell stories of heartache and, as the name says, have made both singers and listeners weep. “Cry” can easily splash around in that pool of tears. The song has had another life as a nugget of nostalgia. It was featured in the musical Forever Plaid (1990), which celebrates the luscious sounds of 1950s male quartets, like the Four Lads backup singers in “Cry.” The legacy of “Cry,” though, goes well beyond a few covers and a musical. The song figures prominently in the two histories chronicled in this book: those of emotions in popular culture and the ballad. The tears uncorked by Ray’s recording tell us much about the types of emotional experiences in 1950s America. In particular, the song reveals those experiences to be more varied than those described by Stearns in his study of the cool emotional style. He would most likely consider “Cry” to be one of the sanctioned “outlets” allowed for in cool, vents typically found in what he calls “leisure,” which includes sports, films, and popular music.99 Besides a few vague references to sad country songs and wild rock styles, he has little to say about music. Those country and rock songs along with other types of leisure, according to him, offer only moments of release that never “imperil” the “emotional control” of cool.100 98 100

Sylvester, “Million-Dollar Teardrop,” 114. Stearns, American Cool, 280–81.

99

Stearns, American Cool, 264–84.

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“Cry” was more than a fleeting outlet. The song set off extended arguments about the limits of emotional expression, a debate that got to the heart of the values enforced by cool. More than that, tears became incorporated into popular culture. There were now songs and movies that featured crying adolescents and that tapped into a desire of teenagers as well as many adults to cry. Rather than being isolated fissures in the cool emotional style, those recordings and films reveal a significant resistance to cool. While cool did have a strong hold over American society, it is important to note that there were challenges and with those challenges, the authority of cool was weakened. No matter how many classroom films on emotional control that they watched, teenagers were going to cry, and they found encouragement to do so from Ray’s song and film stars like Dean and Mineo. “Cry” has a significant place in the history of the ballad. As mentioned in the Introduction, ballads, beginning in the 1950s, grew more emotionally intense, both in terms of how forcefully performers expressed feelings and the depths of the emotions being conveyed. That escalating intensity is another reason to question Stearns’ argument about the uncontested dominance of cool, which he depicts as lasting well beyond the 1950s. A whole genre, and very popular genre at that, can be seen as taking a stronger and stronger position against the restraint dictated by the cool emotional style. As for “Cry,” it played an important role in the turn to more emotionally dynamic styles of ballads. No single song, of course, makes such a large transition. Ray’s hit, though, did a lot to start that turn. “Cry” broke through the conventions of emotional moderation ruling the performance of ballads. It also got people talking about the larger social conventions regarding the limits of emotional expression. With his wails, Ray helped free in both popular song and his listeners that most immodest of feelings, the sorrow that demands tears.

Interlude I Patsy Cline, “Crazy”

Ballads often go overlooked in histories of popular music, especially those of the 1950s. As we have seen, much has been made of the big bang of rock and roll but little about how the ballad was both poised against the new genre and mixing with it to create the rockaballad. When it comes to country music, one of the major developments of that decade was the emergence of the Nashville sound. From the way it was described at the time and later by historians, you would not know that ballads were fundamental to the new sound lustered in Nashville studios. The Nashville sound was largely built around ballads, as heard in the recordings of one of the creators of that sound: Patsy Cline. Nashville was a musical city in flux during the 1950s.1 The sound and commercial scene that defined the city at the beginning of the decade would be very much of the past by the end. The dominant styles of country music in 1950 were honky-tonk and string band music, both of which kept strong connections to rural life. The music was largely promoted through live performance, be it in taverns or at the Grand Ole Opry, from which radio and television programs broadcasted performances. Music Row, the commercial spine of country music, arose during the 1950s and with the studios and labels clustered there, the business of country music shifted to recordings. Music Row may have been growing quickly, but the country music business was shaky. The music found itself crowded out in a diverse scene where listeners bought recordings of different genres, including new rock and roll styles. In particular, urban listeners, be it in southern cities like Nashville or those throughout the United States, had little do with rustic honky-tonk or string band music. There were also fewer radio stations devoted to country music. To hold on to listeners and attract 1

For a history of the Nashville Sound, see Joli Jensen, The Nashville Sound: Authenticity, Commercialization, and Country Music (Nashville: The Country Music Foundation and Vanderbilt University Press, 1998).

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new urban ones, country music artists and producers needed to come up with a new sound. They found it with the Nashville sound. Owen Bradley, one of the producers who shaped that sound, described it this way: “Now we’ve cut out the fiddle and steel guitar and added choruses to country music.”2 Gone were the traditional and piquant sound of country, the scraped twang of the fiddle and sliding twang of the steel guitar. Now it was all about warm blends, which were made from the dulcet ooh-and-aah’s of backup singers (Bradley’s chorus) and chords played by violins, the demure sibling of the fiddle. The Nashville sound smoothed down the gnarls of country music. If the backing was soft, so too were the singers’ voices. The nasal burr and rustic accents of traditional singing gave way to rich, silky voices. As one Nashville executive put it, this was the sound that urban audiences wanted: The hillbilly fiddle and the wailing electric steel guitar either repelled the musical sensitivity of listeners or created “rural” images that urbanites wanted to avoid. If these instruments were replaced with more conventional items – and electric takeoff guitar and drums for the teenagers, or a piano and strings for the adults – even the country singers would be accepted, providing he did not sing in too nasal a fashion or did not perform a song that was too “backwoodsy.”3

Neither Bradley nor the Nashville executive mentions that the pop ballad was a key part of the Nashville sound. Country songs may never have used the large orchestra with gilt edges of harps and celesta that appear in Nat King Cole and Doris Day recordings, but they still puffed up pillows of lush with backup singers and strings. The turn to the pop ballad sound shows how popular it was. If country musicians and producers wanted to widen their audience, then this was the sound that could do it. Rock and roll, as the executive said, might entice teenagers, but the piano and strings of a pop ballad won over adult listeners and many younger ones as well. It was not just the velvety sound but also the ballad itself that appealed to this wide audience. Even during the onslaught of rock and roll, ballads remained popular. That the pop ballad was adopted by country artists and thrived in its new country stylings show that it, not rock and roll, had become the lingua franca of popular music in the late 1950s. The pop ballad was there from the beginnings of the Nashville sound. Considered to be one of the first recordings of that style, Jim Reeves’ “Four Walls” (1957) opens with a bit of steel guitar and then pushes the 2

Jensen, The Nashville Sound, 122.

3

Jensen, The Nashville Sound, 125.

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instrument aside, except for a few notes at the end. The steel guitar bookends were perhaps an attempt to convince listeners that this was indeed a country song. Some might have wondered. Reeves does not sound like he did in the 1954 ballad “Then I’ll Stop Loving You.” His voice there sits high and has a thinner, more nasal quality to it. In “Four Walls,” Reeves gives us a plummy baritone that would make any pop crooner jealous. Then there are the backup singers, whose gliding oohhs supplant the steel guitar. After Reeves, the pop ballad became such a fundamental part of the Nashville sound that the biggest hits of the singers most closely associated with it were ballads, including Ferlin Husky (“Gone”), Don Gibson (“I Can’t Stop Loving You”), Brenda Lee (“I’m Sorry”), and Eddy Arnold (“Make the World Go Away”). Add to that group Patsy Cline and her hits “I Fall to Pieces,” “Sweet Dreams,” and “Crazy.” That she had success with those songs is surprising given that she had doubts about both ballads and the Nashville sound. As a young singer, Cline built her career on up-tempo honky-tonk songs. She later remarked: “The beat’s kept me eating.”4 When she began working with producer Owen Bradley in 1960, the two bickered over repertoire: she favoring the fast, driving songs, and he the slow, soft ballads. As loyal as she was to the beat, Cline from early on sang ballads, most of which fit conventional country styles, with no dashes of pop. “A Church, A Courtroom, and Then Goodbye” (1955), for example, knows only the old Nashville sound of nasal singing, fiddle, and steel guitars. Like many country ballads, it tells a story, moving from the opening scene of wedding day bliss to the final one of divorce (Tammy Wynette later abridged both that story and song title with her “D.I.V.O.R.C.E” [1968]). Pop touches, though, began working their way into her ballad recordings, like the mix of steel guitar and backup singers in “Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray” (1957). When introduced to the full plushness of the Nashville sound, Cline was skeptical or, more to the point, nervous. She wondered if it suited her and whether or not she could pull it off. And then what would her fans think? Bradley guided her into the Nashville sound. He heard the pop potential in her voice and encouraged her to drop the “crazy things” like “yodeling and screaming” in her early recordings.5 He wanted her to sing with a softer and richer voice and flow between notes and phrases, like a pop singer would do. To make things all the softer and richer, she would be surrounded by 4 5

Joli Jensen, “Patsy Cline: The Search for a Sound,” Journal of Country Music 9, no. 2 (1982), 46. Jensen, The Nashville Sound, 102.

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a halo of backup singers and strings. Ray Walker, a member of the backup group The Jordanaires, recalled the struggle involved in recording “I Fall to Pieces.” Cline was “scared,” because “she didn’t consider herself that kind of singer.” At the end of the first take, she was so uncertain that she fell back on the big ending that she used in her more conventional country songs. She jumped up an octave and started singing faster. Walker stopped the recording, and he and Bradley convinced her take a more pop approach, which she did by slowing down slightly at the end, singing more softly, and dropping into a lower register (appropriately on the word “fall.”) When the song became a hit, Cline thanked Walker, telling him “they’re all talking about that ending.”6 With “Crazy,” Cline needed more coaxing than coaching. She did not like the song, but her husband and manager, Charlie Dick, did. He got to know it after meeting composer Willie Nelson in a bar. Dick asked him if he had anything that would suit Cline, and Nelson played a demo of “Crazy,” which he had been unsuccessfully pedaling around Nashville studios. Nelson got lucky this time though, or barely did. Dick was so taken by “Crazy” that he decided to drive the recording and Nelson back to his house – at 1 AM. Nervous about meeting Cline, especially at that hour, Nelson decided to wait in the car outside. Having woken her up, Dick played her the recording, and she told him that she hated it. She was even more irked when she found out that Nelson was sitting outside and decided to drag him into the house. A persistent husband/manager, a meek, talented composer, and the early morning hour must have been too much for Cline, who agreed to record the song, which she did in August 1961.7 Before talking about her recording, let’s take a look at Nelson’s “Crazy.” For Dick was right, Nelson had written a great song. What makes it so is how succinct the song is – not a word or note is wasted. There are only two words, or two types of words in the song: the title word and a series of verbs, the activities that are driving the singer mad: “feeling,” “worry,” “wondering,” “trying,” “crying,” and “loving.” The lyrics, of course, feature other words, but these are the ones that you remember because of the way that Nelson sets them in the melodies. They either occur at the beginning of a phrase or at the end (“feeling” occurs at a midpoint), and in such a position, they take on weight. 6 7

Jensen, The Nashville Sound, 108. For two different versions of that night, see Ellis Nassour, Honky Tonk Angel: The Intimate Story of Patsy Cline (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2008), 163–65 and Willie Nelson with David Ritz, It’s A Long Story: My Life (New York: Little Brown and Company, 2015), 144–45.

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There are also two types of melodic phrases in the song. The first is a two-note descending line, which can be heard on “crazy,” “worry,” and “wondering.” The second is a line that rises to a peak an octave or higher from the opening note and then falls to a note between those two (it can be heard after the opening “crazy.”) The melody of that line stands out as does the rhythm. Nelson has the singer sing three notes against the two beats in the band. That type of rhythmic contrast is typical of jazz, but not country or pop, and it gives the line a flowing flexibility. In the final section of the song (1:46–58), Nelson expands upon the descending melody. There are three lines that begin with “crazy” and end with a verb. Each is sent to a descending phrase, now more than two notes, and not only that but each one goes lower than the previous one. Talk about a spiral into madness. And also talk about economy of means. Nelson makes the most out of a small group of ideas, repeating them and changing them as the song goes along. His songwriting efficiency comes through when you compare “Crazy” to Nelson’s “inspiration.” As he later pointed out, the opening two-note descending melody recalls a similar phrase that begins Floyd Tillman’s “Gotta Have My Baby Back” (1949). They are similar but not exactly so, as Tillman’s line drops further (an octave) than Nelson’s phrase does. Nelson, however, does not mention another similarity. Tillman follows his opening two-note phrase with a line that ascends to a high point and then descends. Again, though, it is not the same line as in Nelson’s song. All of this is not to accuse Nelson of stealing material. After all, he mentions the parallel and defends it by saying that it was not “intentional.” He may have had the song in his head when composing “Crazy,” which is understandable because Tillman’s song too deals with an obsessive lover. Nelson adds that Tillman had no problem with the similarity. The older singer told him that he probably got his idea from some other song.8 It is not just that the songs have similar lines but how they use them. The Tillman is not as economical as “Crazy.” It repeats lines right away, like the opening “Baby” and also breaks away to material that has little to do with the two lines evoked in Nelson’s song, whereas Nelson sticks with those ideas throughout the song. The tight repetitions are the signs of good songwriting in two ways. First, they show Nelson getting so much out of two basic ideas. Nelson also uses the repetitions of the ideas to bring out the madness of the singer, someone who keeps thinking the same hopeless 8

Nelson, It’s A Long Story, 146, 357.

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thoughts over and over and then constantly berates herself for being “crazy” for thinking them. Not a good combination. There are two types of words and phrases in “Crazy” and, adding to those pairs, Cline uses two styles of singing in her rendition of the song: pop vocals and torch song. We are familiar with the former, the creamy vocals of 1950s pop ballads that Bradley was schooling Cline in. As for torch song, it has become a general term for standards sung by the sad and broken-hearted, but back in the 1920s and 1930s when the term arose, it referred to a particular type of sadness and singing used to convey that woe. These were the songs for women (and they were almost always women at that time) who remain devoted to, or carry a torch for, a lover who has treated them roughly and has abandoned them. This masochism of sorrow called for a special type of singing. A simple sigh would not do; rather, “repeated wailings,” “emotional gurgling,” and “chin quivering” were what were needed.9 Among the first torch singers, Helen Morgan, Ruth Etting, and Libby Holman won over audiences by crying in those three ways and so many more. Cline admired Morgan, which may account for her choice of songs that, like “Crazy,” are about women who love guys who do them no good.10 Pop vocals and torch song do not usually go together. 1950s singers like Doris Day never wailed or gurgled, while torch singers did not let splendid tones quell their weepy fluttering. Cline, however, mixes the two to dramatic effect. She begins with pop vocals, heard in the full-bodied sound on the opening “crazy” and also the smooth delivery used to glide through Nelson’s tricky ascending and descending line that follows. The rich vocals suggest a woman trying to put on a brave face. She tells us that she is troubled but does not want to let us know how much. Everything is more or less fine in her life, but it is not. As in Helen Morgan’s recordings, Cline’s voice wavers on the concluding words of phrases, giving us an idea of how anguished she is. As the song goes along, those torch song tremors build. Compare the opening “crazy” with that at the beginning of the third section (1:28–1:35). Cline sinks into that word with an aching descent from the “do” that finished off the previous section and an anguished “oh.” With that set-up and a softer, more vulnerable tone, this “crazy” sounds more so than the opening one. The singer’s brave face is gone by this point, as captured in the trembling over the three “crazy’s” that finish this section. 9 10

Gilbert Seldes “Torch Songs,” New Republic (19 November 1930), 20 and Charles Collins, “Libby Holman’s Brief, Brilliant Career as a Muse of Torch Songs,” Chicago Defender (17 July 1932), F1. Jensen, “Patsy Cline: The Search for a Sound,” 41.

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Nelson’s song ends there, but not Cline’s version. As heard in her country numbers, she likes a big finish. Either through her urging or producer Bradley’s arrangement, she got one in “Crazy.” Cline repeats the final section, this time a half step higher. Such sudden ascents usually convey how the singer has been emboldened, as we heard with Connie Francis giving her ex one more kick with the final chorus in “Who’s Sorry Now?” No such relish here. If anything, Cline sounds more wounded, singing more softly and with more quiver. It is a big ending of another type: bigger despair. It is remarkable to think that Cline delivered this ballad mad scene in one take. The recording that we treasure is the only take she ever did in the studio. More hours, though, were spent on the song. Bradley worked in the backup vocals by The Jordanaires and other instrumental tracks. In other words, he surrounded Cline’s voice with the Nashville sound. That sound enhances the mad scene, as Cline comes across as even more desperate against the lushness. Beside that dramatic touch, the Nashville sound did what Bradley believed it could: It created hits and won over a larger, noncountry audience. “Crazy” made it into the top ten of both the country and pop charts, and placing at number nine, it was Cline’s highest-ranking song on the pop charts. It was not just the Nashville sound that appealed to listeners but also the powerful combination of that sound and a ballad. The Nashville sound might not have been possible without ballads, let alone reach such a big audience. Of course, that combination was even more powerful with a ballad as insightful as Nelson’s song and as touching as Cline’s performance.

chapter 2

The Soul Ballad

Soul. As Sammy Davis, Jr. says, or sings: “Everybody’s talking about soul. Everybody’s asking about soul.” He could not think of a “better time” to talk about soul than on a 1968 episode of the TV variety show The Hollywood Palace, and he could not think of a better person to ask than Aretha Franklin.1 The two take up the question: What is soul? As they quickly, and gleefully, conclude, standard reference sources are of no help. “Forget” Webster, Funk and Wagnalls, and Roget, they joke. Franklin at first surprisingly demurs from the question, responding: “It’s very hard to say.” Davis persists, this time in rhyme: “How can you explain it? How can you attain it?” Franklin throws back a few ideas about soul being “the real you” and “how you really feel.” Davis elaborates with a line about a “hungry, yearning, burning inside of me,” to which Franklin exclaims: “That’s soul.” They sum up by performing a medley of “Think,” “Respect,” and “What’d I Say?” As one of the leading African American radio DJs of the 1960s, Nathaniel “Magnificent” Montague spun recordings of those three tunes countless times. But when he was asked to define soul, he came up with a definition that would have never made it on to a hit recording or TV show: “[Soul] is the last to be hired, first to be fired, brown all year round, an in-the-back-of-the-bus feeling. . . You’ve got to live with us or you don’t have it.”2 Comedian Godfrey Cambridge seconded him: “Soul is getting kicked in the ass until you don’t know what it is for. It’s being broke and down and out, and people telling you you’re no good. It’s the language of the subculture; but you can’t learn it, because no one can give you black lessons.”3 So what is soul? There was no unanimous answer during the 1960s. The reason why is the same reason that “everyone,” as Davis put it, “was 1 2 3

The episode aired on 2 November 1968. “The Magnificent Puts Soul Behind His Work,” Billboard (23 May 1964): 14. “Lady Soul: Singing It Like It Is,” Time (28 June 1968).

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talking about soul”: race. Soul was tied to African American culture, the two being synonymous to some. To talk about soul then was to talk about race and to do so during the turmoil of the Civil Rights movement. There were, it goes without saying, sharply different ways of talking about race at that time, and those differences found their way into conceptions of soul. For some, soul was the newest and hottest musical style, and that is pretty much all it was. The music was clearly black in style and origins, but above all it was entertaining. Such a view acknowledges the African American foundation of soul and applauds black musicians – how could it not – but it hides away from the distressing realities faced by blacks in American society. This view was ideal for a TV show like The Hollywood Palace, which offered its audience two popular black singers dueting about soul without veering anywhere near politics. Montague and Cambridge, on the other hand, used soul – the idea, the hit tunes – to draw attention to entrenched racial injustices. Soul could be an emblem of protest.4 Soul, though, was never just one or the other – catchy hit song or political front. It was both, and much more. How much more can be seen in a 1968 article by African American critic Albert Murray, which puts forward 32 definitions of soul.5 The article is not only proof of how much people were talking about soul but also all the things that they were talking about. Soul, as Murray breaks it down, can be found in different facets of African American culture, including food, down-home roots, wit, and jargon. There was also the new exciting music (“the secularized gospel music originally for the Negro pop music trade,” as he put it) and racial struggle (“young Afro-Brillo civil rights militants and separatists”). Murray realized that the two were integral parts of soul. In his lexicographic forays, he returns to both topics, as did most people who talked about, or defined, soul.6 The two topics also come up when defining the soul ballad. Otis Redding placarded that phrase on the cover of his second album, The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads (1965). So tantalizing was the 4

5 6

The discourse of soul was riddled with contradictions during the 1960s, including political/apolitical and racially inclusive/exclusive. On the “competing notions” running through conceptions of soul, see Michael Awkward, Soul Covers: Rhythm and Blues Remakes and the Struggle for Artistic Identity (Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Phoebe Snow) (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2007), xiv–xv. Albert Murray, “‘Soul’: 32 Meanings Not in Your Dictionary,” Book World (23 June 1968): 6. Another important contemporary discussion of soul is that in Charles Keil’s Urban Blues. Keil views soul as an ideology, one that offered a way of affirming past values and resisting currents stresses in American society. Keil, Urban Blues (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 164–90.

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word “soul” that it pops up in the titles of around 3000 albums during the 1960s, but Redding, it appears, was the only one to attach “soul” to “ballad” on an album cover.7 By doing so, he was telling listeners that there was something different about the ballads on his album. There certainly was, and the same goes for ballads sung by the other three singers discussed in this chapter: Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, and Aretha Franklin. How different can be appreciated by doing some of our own lexicographic work on “soul ballad.” With it, “soul” is much more than an adjective. Rather than “soul” modifying “ballad,” the two are equal partners. There is an exchange between them, in which they share certain impulses and enhance each other. One thing that they have in common is that they are both hybrids. Soul was born from the mixing of genres, particularly pop and gospel. As the 1960s progressed, the combinations became thicker and more varied. Ballads draw upon the distinct qualities of different genres. Given the propensity for mixing bits of genres in each, soul ballads are some of the most intricate stylistic mosaics of the 1960s. They are also some of the most emotionally moving songs of the decade. Soul and ballads both reach for moments of expressive richness. One thing to take from Davis and Franklin’s colloquy is that soul is about emotions, how one “really feels” as Franklin put it. For Downbeat magazine, she added: “Soul to me is feeling. . . It’s just the emotion and the way it affects people.”8 With these shared impulses, soul ballads reinforced the two primary ways by which people defined soul. If soul was a captivating new style yielding hit after hit, then the stylistic blends and emotional ardor of the music were the stuff that made for one hit soul ballad after another, like Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” Otis Redding’s “Try A Little Tenderness,” and Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman.” If soul was a stand against racial inequality, then soul ballads could bolster that defiance. The songs added to the reservoir of emotional strength and comfort that sustained the Civil Rights movement, so it is not surprising that the ode of the movement was a soul ballad, Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Soul ballads are one of the most significant bodies of song in the history of the ballad. The songs changed the genre. With their stylistic amalgams, they mixed African American genres more deeply into the ballad repertoire. Black idioms were, of course, entwined in the ballad before the soul revolution of 7 8

David Dachs, American Pop (New York: Scholastics, 1969), 157. Valerie Wilmer, “Aretha—Lady Soul: An Interview with Valerie Wilmer” Downbeat 35 (8 August 1968): 38.

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the 1960s. Going back to the previous decade, Charles Brown and Ivory Joe Hunter won over audiences with blues ballads, songs that combined the 12-bar structure of the blues with melodies and vocals that sided with pop styles. James Brown and Little Richard raised some of the vocal and emotional ruckus of R&B and rock and roll in their ballads. Gospel was a large part of the musical spark that ignited soul music. Traces of gospel appeared in the vocals of such 1950s singers as Clyde McPhatter and Roy Hamilton, but, compared to other African American genres, gospel had not made it that far into the ballad repertoire. That would change with the late 1950s recordings of Sam Cooke and Ray Charles, who incorporated gospel styles in their ballad performances and would inspire 1960s soul singers like Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin to draw upon their own gospel upbringings in creating the soul ballad. With soul ballads, we have thick and varied mixes of African American styles that would have been unimaginable in ballads of the 1950s or earlier decades. Since the 1960s, though, it is no longer surprising to hear peals of gospel or moans of R&B in ballads. Adding to the historical importance of the soul ballad is the role of the songs in changing the emotional tone of ballads. Bursting with gospel cries and blues hollers, the songs shifted the genre away from the mellifluous restraint of the 1950s and fueled the larger historical move to more emotionally forceful and effusive experiences. Gospel, once again, is a key component in this transition.9 It not only brought new levels of emotional intensity to ballads but also new emotional values. The gospel impulse, as historian Craig Werner calls it, infuses music, be it ballads or other types of songs, with experiences of transcendence, redemption, and community.10 Those values gave soul ballads an appeal that went well beyond that of a touching love song and turned them into testaments of solace and resolve that were sought out by listeners during the social unrest raised by the Civil Rights struggle and other far-reaching changes in American society during the 1960s.

Sam Cooke and Ray Charles With Sam Cooke, the claim was made on the cover of a posthumous album: The Man Who Invented Soul. For Ray Charles, claims were made in 9

10

On the musical and cultural significance of gospel in early soul music, see Brian Ward, Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 183–216. Craig Werner, A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race, and the Soul of America (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 28–31.

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obituaries – “the father of soul” – and in a compilation of his early recordings, The Birth of Soul. The rival claims of being the founder of soul, either as an inventor or father, have never set off a patent fight. How could there be such a dispute when no one person ever invents a genre, especially one as diverse as soul, and when the two singers undoubtedly and indelibly molded what would become known as soul. Both Cooke and Charles also shaped the songs that would become known as soul ballads. For that reason, there is no better place to begin a discussion of the songs than with their inventions. Like Sammy Davis, Jr., Aretha Franklin, and many other singers in the 1960s, Cooke had a definition of soul. His, though, contained no words, just pitches. During a 1963 interview with the singer, DJ “Magnificent” Montague told Cooke that “every day I try to describe soul” (as he did with his own definition of soul being “an in-the-back-of –the-bus feeling”) and asked him to “hum eight bars of what soul represents.”11 The melody that he hums briskly ascends an octave through an e minor chord then floats down, suspended on the way by languid turns around the individual notes of the triad. Defying musical gravity, as Cooke does by drawing out the descent, can indeed be moving, or soulful. Besides that expressive touch, Cooke’s melody defines soul in that it lays out the materials and ideas behind his approach to that music. The materials come largely from gospel, as this phrase does. A wordless drawn-out melody could be used in a reflective moment during a gospel song or church service. Pop songs do not include such melodic lines, but Cooke’s pop songs do, or, to be more specific, they feature small phrases from such lines. Cooke’s “definition” melody builds upon a few of his stock phrases, including scoops from below or drawn-out stepwise descents. Most prominent is a triplet figure created by singing a pitch above or below the initially sung note. The figure became known as Cooke’s yodel. In a 1958 magazine interview, he referred to it as his “‘Oh, oh, oh’ gimmick,” which, as he added, “is now becoming so popular.” According to Cooke, the figure comes directly out of his gospel training, particularly that with S.R. Crane, his “old mentor” from the gospel troupe The Soul Stirrers, who “taught me to use my voice the way I do.”12 As with many soul performers, Cooke began his career singing gospel, which is not surprising given that he, like Aretha Franklin, had a minister 11 12

Excerpts from the interview are included on the CD Sam Cooke: Portrait of a Legend, 1951–1964 (ABKCO Music and Records, 2003). “The Private Life of Sam Cooke,” Tan (April 1958), 24.

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as a father. At age 14 in 1945, he joined the teenage gospel group the Highway QC’s, named after his home parish, The Highway Baptist Church in Chicago. Five years later, he became the lead singer in The Soul Stirrers, a longstanding gospel quartet formed in 1926. The group was known for its emotionally rattling performances, and Cooke added to the fervor. He also brought star power to the group. He not only had a captivating voice but also captivating looks, a combination that not surprisingly won the gospel group young female fans. The combination, of course, is a potent one in pop music. Many a career has been built upon it. The point was probably not lost on Cooke, who was pondering what do with his career, particularly whether to stick with gospel or to cross over to pop. In 1956 at the age of 25, he took his first steps across that line. He did not make it that far, musically speaking. Rather than coming up with a new pop song, he reworked a gospel number. With a change of lyrics, “Wonderful,” a song he recorded with The Soul Stirrers, became “Lovable.” Praise to the strength and benevolence of the Lord was now praise for a girl sweeter than both candy and honey. While the lyrics swerved from the sacred to the secular, the singing did not. Cooke for the most part sticks to his original phrasing, although he does soften the color of his voice for “Lovable.” One of the biggest changes was the singer’s name. Cooke released the recording under his brother’s name, Dale Cook – “Cooke” being a later name change. The alias exposes how timid Cooke was about breaking away from The Soul Stirrers and recording pop songs, a move that he feared would upset his gospel fans. Some did disapprove, but most of them followed him on his way to pop success.13 The alias lyrics of “Lovable” show how musically unsure Cooke was about how to make the move to pop. A lyrics change is a rather simple way to do so and one that would not require him to mix and calibrate different genres.14 It, though, was not a commercially successful way to break into pop. A Billboard reviewer enjoyed the “church touches” in “Loveable,” but the song made little impression on pop or R&B listeners.15 In the same session in which he recorded “Lovable,” Cooke tried out another type of number: the pop ballad. The three ballads he recorded that day (“Forever,” “That’s All I Need to Know,” and “I Don’t Want to 13 14

15

Burford, “Sam Cooke as Pop Album Artist,” 138. Cooke would do another sacred/secular flip later in his career. His “Somewhere there’s a Girl” (recorded in 1961, but never released during his life) is a secular version of the Womack Brothers’ “Somewhere There’s A God,” which Cooke produced. “Reviews of New R&B Records,” Billboard (9 March 1959): 62.

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Cry”) fared little better than “Lovable” did on the charts, but his approach to the ballad would soon reward him with the breakthrough hit “You Send Me” (1957), for which Cooke wrote both the music and lyrics. The qualities that made it a success, though, first led to a studio outburst. Art Rupe was the white owner of Specialty Records, a label devoted to gospel and R&B, or, as he later put it, music that captured “the black experience” with the “so-called black sound.” That sound and experience is what Rupe thought he was going to get from Cooke only to be shocked when walking into the studio and realizing that Cooke was doing pop ballads, backed up by a white vocal group, the Lee Gotch Singers. The song was what arranger and guitarist René Hall called “something new in the creative world. . . pop music with a gospel flavor.” Asking “who the hell is going to buy” “this stuff,” Rupe stormed out of the studio and refused the recording. Keen Records later released “You Send Me,” and the song became a no. 1 hit.16 “Pop music with a gospel flavor” is an apt way to describe “You Send Me.” Gospel is a flavor added to what is very much a pop ballad. The lyrics about being won over by a sweetheart, a basic 32-bar aaba chorus form, and a memorable melody are pop building blocks. There is also the rich sound created by the backup singers, not as lush as that heard in 1950s highfidelity ballad recordings, but still the warmth expected of a pop ballad. Cooke slowly adds in the gospel flavor. The first taste comes through in the opening word “you,” which is sung to Cooke’s triplet figure. That figure was so much part of his melodic thinking that Cooke makes it part of the main melody of the song; it is not a gospel lick spontaneously added to the song. The melody in the eight-bar a sections is similar to the eight-bar melody that Cooke sang to define soul. Both cover the range of an octave (from a low E to a high one), linger around some of the same notes between those outer pitches, and conclude on the pitch G. With underlying G major harmonies, the “You Send Me” melody comes across as more effervescent, while the “definition” melody is more rooted in a melancholy E minor, although with a suggestion of G major made by the conclusion on G. The similarities between the two melodies suggest that either Cooke had hit upon his definition of soul as early in 1957 with his first no. 1 song or more likely that in 1963 he defined soul by looking back to “You Send Me,” the song that captured soul before it became the musical and emotional phenomenon that everyone tried to define. Cooke enriches the gospel flavor in the song by inserting runs between phrases. At first effusive asides, they become more and more part of the 16

The above quotations are taken from Burford, “Sam Cooke as Pop Album Artist,” 142.

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song. The recording is at both its most gospel and pop at the beginning of the second statement of the chorus, where the backup singers present the melody in the opening two a sections. They sing with the harmonic sheen characteristic of pop ballad recordings, and Cooke responds with his gospel-inspired runs, which typically begin in a higher register. The passage recalls moments in The Soul Stirrer recordings when Cooke would bandy with the other members of the group, turning a melody that they just sang into rapturous strands and dancing a little before or after the beat around them.17 It is no wonder that with this double dose of pop and gospel that “You Send Me” became such a success. The song was Cooke’s first and last recording to reach no. 1 on the pop charts. It was also his only ballad to get anywhere near those heights. Instead of ballads, Cooke ascended the charts with a variety of up-tempo numbers, including dance tunes that named the dances in the titles (“Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha” and “Twistin’ the Night Away”) and novelty songs like “Chain Gang,” which turned the grunts of prisoners into a dance tune. Rather than move away from ballads, Cooked continued to release them, particularly on his albums, not so much as single recordings.18 Ballads play an important part in the development of his soul style, much more important than a cha-cha-cha. In particular, it is with ballads that he started to explore the varied stylistic blends that thrived in soul music. The album Mr. Soul (1964) fittingly features many of these hybrid ballads. The songs on the recording step beyond the gospel/pop blend of “You Send Me” and draw upon blues and jazz styles as well. How much further Cooke would have gone with these blends or how, and if, his music would have changed when soul became a popular culture phenomenon in the late 1960s will always remain unclear. On 11 December 1964, he died at the age of 33 after being shot during what remains a mysterious conflict at a Los Angeles hotel. Four years after his death, Cooke went from being Mr. Soul to The Man Who Invented Soul. The title of the posthumous album acknowledged what several star soul performers had acknowledged: Cooke was one of the singers who created soul music. Both Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding made that pronouncement by covering several Cooke songs, including “You Send Me,” the ballad that glinted with the new soul style way back in the 1950s. In their 17

18

Richard J. Ripani points out the similarities between one of the runs in this final section of the song and one heard in The Soul Stirrers’ 1953 recording of “I Gave up Everything to Follow Him.” Ripani, The New Blue Music: Changes in Rhythm & Blues, 1950–1999 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006), 74. For a discussion of Cooke’s turn to albums, see Burford, “Sam Cooke as Pop Album Artist.”

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own hit recordings, they tried to do what Cooke did, that is, to invigorate pop songs with gospel and, by doing so, make them much more than pop songs, both musically and emotionally. As for Ray Charles, the brand of soul that he invented was significantly different from, but just as influential as, Cooke’s brand. The differences have much to do with the musical educations of the two singers. As a minster’s son, Cooke was born to gospel and largely stayed in the orbit of church services and gospel groups before venturing out into pop styles. In a school for the blind and through performance opportunities here and there, Charles learned to play in a range of genres, including classical, blues, gospel, R&B, and jazz. The results of these contrasting educations can be heard in a similar gamble made by the two singers. Both tried to gain a larger audience by releasing disguised gospel songs. With “Lovable,” Cooke’s masquerade goes as far as changing the lyrics. He sticks with what he knows. Drawing upon the various genres he grew up playing, Charles has more musical masks at his disposal. He builds a new song upon The Southern Tones’ “It Must Be Jesus.” As with Cooke, the divine becomes a cute girl, hence the new title “I Got a Woman” (1954). Charles, however, goes well beyond a lyrics swap. He changes the genre of the song. The original is an up-tempo number that, with its rhythmic guitar strumming, could be used to extend an ecstatic moment in a church service. Charles keeps the verve but makes it more jazz and R&B-like with steady jazz-styled drumming, sax and horn riffs, a sax solo, and a stop-time chorus. Gospel still comes through with Charles’ rousing delivery, but now the exuberance of the genre is taken much further by the energy of jazz and R&B. As “I Got a Woman” reveals, the young Charles not only had a command of different genres but also an inclination to mix them together. Those blends defined his idea of soul. While Cooke wove together gospel and pop and started to draw upon other genres in later recordings, Charles went well beyond those combinations. Working with a stock of gospel, jazz, R&B, blues, pop, and country, he constantly created new mixtures. He could also easily move between genres, as happens on the album The Genius of Ray Charles (1959). The genius is partly Charles’ ability to speak so many different stylistic languages. The album is polyglot when it comes to genre, including R&B tributes to Louis Jordan (“Let the Good Times Roll” and “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying”), the 1911 oldtimer “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” some more sprightly old-timers from the 1920s (“It Had to Be You,” “Deed I Do,” and “Am I Blue?”), a Frank Sinatra number (“Come Rain or Come Shine”), and songs linked to blues

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balladeers Charles Brown and Percy Mayfield (“Tell Me You’ll Wait for Me” and “Two Years of Torture,” respectively). The Genius of Ray Charles and other albums offer another way of understanding soul, one that does not come up in the manifold definitions from the 1960s. Charles’ recordings reveal soul to be a musical and emotional energy that excites all sorts of different songs. We need to hear different types of songs in order to perceive that power. It is surely there in a Charles R&B recording, but it is not identifiable as a unique force since it is so much part of R&B. The energy emerges more distinctly in pop and country numbers because the musical means of generating it involve R&B and gospel touches foreign to those genres. Pop songs do not usually take joyous flight with gospel runs, nor do country songs contract in sorrow around an R&B wail. The energy of soul is even more apparent when Charles moves between R&B, pop, and country numbers on his albums. It comes across as a force of its own that can animate songs in diverse genres. Not being connected to any one genre, this intensity was given a new name, a name that does not refer to a genre but rather speaks of musical breadth and emotional depths: soul. It is no coincidence that one of Charles’ best-selling albums is a recording in which the energy of soul is vividly at work. The album is Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music (1962). That energy is more perceptible the further a song gets away from R&B or gospel, and the country songs that Charles covers are surely remote from those two genres. Besides the energy of soul, the album features the genre mixes typical of that music. The title draws attention to one part of the mix – country – but it does not acknowledge an equally important part: pop. Charles was not performing traditional country songs but rather “new” country numbers typical of the Nashville sound. As described in the Interlude on Patsy Cline’s “Crazy,” the Nashville sound emerged in the late 1950s. It put aside the rustic fiddles and vocal twangs of country for the sleek strings, gliding vocals, and high-fidelity sound of pop. The “new” country, though, still has plenty of “old” country in it, including the homespun language of the lyrics and simple, direct melodies. Those treasured bits were to be enjoyed as part of a mix of genres that gussies up country with pop. Charles enjoys that mix. It is doubtful that he would have ever recorded an album of old-school country. He adds something different to the mix – his voice, which is a kaleidoscope of African American genres, shifting between gospel, blues, and R&B. The blend between his voice and “new” country styles is not a smooth one, and it never could be. The grit and strain in the voice clash with the insistent mellifluousness of the strings and

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backup singers. Charles plays up the clash. In the cover of Don Gibson’s ballad “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” he responds to the backup singers’ fulgent renditions of the melody with more and more coarseness in his voice, a friction that creates sparks of woe. Charles also adds blues notes to the country mix. For example, in his version of Eddy Arnold’s “You Don’t Know Me,” he throws in a run with a blue note (:53) to capture the pain of admitting that he will never kiss the woman who is unaware of how much he loves her. Throughout the album, Charles never takes up the resigned sorrow typical of country, becoming the guy sitting next to us at a bar telling us how he cannot get over either the woman who walked out on him or who does not know that he loves her. He instead takes us to church. Midway through “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” he responds to the backup singers’ harmonically opulent versions of Gibson’s lines with gospel exhortations and runs and by making his voice sound even more strained.19 Rather than the long-suffering guy at the bar, Charles is the preacher crying over how deep and dark the sadness in the world is. In his hands, the stoic heartache of country gives way to the vibrant suffering of gospel and blues. As Etta James said about her treatment of pop ballads like “At Last,” he puts “a gospel and blues hurting on” these country songs.20 However, as if things were becoming too bleak, Charles concludes the recording with one of his playful winks. Donning the minister’s robe once more, he preaches to the backup singers: “Sing the song children.” Charles’ voice by itself sounds pained, crinkled by sorrow and schooled in the blues. He makes it sound even more woeful through the disparity between his singing and the lush pop backing, “like sandpaper on velvet” as one critic put it.21 Not only does he sing about being rejected and heartbroken but his singing also shows that he will remain alone and beyond consolation. With his raspy voice, he can never be part of the warm glow that surrounds him, a glow that could provide some comfort but that is out of reach. All he can do is scrape against the sonic plush. How different from Cooke, whose rich voice burnishes the rich pop sounds of his ballad recordings. He works from within a song, becoming part of its sound. Only then can he let loose the gospel runs, which, although foreign to pop 19 20 21

Ripani discusses uses of blue notes in an earlier passage in the recording. Ripani, The New Blue Music, 85. Etta James and David Ritz, Rage to Survive: The Etta James Story (New York: Villard Books, 1995), 103. Eddie Gallaher, “The Top in Pops: New German Hit is Wunderbar,” The Washington Post Times Herald (13 November 1960).

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composure, do not violate it but only momentarily rouse it. The runs are brief gushes, the release of feelings so valued by soul. Charles, in contrast, works against a song, or the sound of a song. His voice defies the geniality insisted upon by pop and “new” country styles. If only there was a release as there is in Cooke’s recordings. Charles’ misery never lets up. His voice insists upon a distress seemingly unknown to the music around him. Rather than the brief gospel flashes of elation that Cooke sneaks into his ballad recordings, Charles offers an unrelenting sorrow, an abiding pain as old and soulful as the blues.

Otis Redding If Sam Cooke and Ray Charles gave ideas of how ballads could have soul, Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin abundantly realized those ideas. With the latter two singers, the ballad became part of the soul phenomenon of the late 1960s. Redding and Franklin offered two different kinds of soul ballads, as contrasting as Cooke’s and Charles’ numbers. The differences reveal how diverse the young genre of the soul ballad had already become. In his early career, Redding followed a path similar to that taken by many soul singers. His father was a minister, and he sang gospel in his youth. Redding then jumped to popular music, joining The Pinetoppers, a R&B group active around his hometown of Macon, Georgia. As so often is the case in these stories, there is the lucky break. In 1962, Redding drove with guitarist Johnny Jenkins to Memphis where Jenkins was going to record tracks at Stax Studios. Supposedly there was time left over in the session, so Redding sang his ballad “These Arms of Mine,” which won over the musicians and Stax staff. With that impromptu demo, he began his career with the flagship soul studio, joining a roster of stars that included Rufus and Carla Thomas, Booker T and the MGs, and Isaac Hayes.22 “These Arms of Mine” not surprisingly made it on to Redding’s first Stax album, Pain in My Heart (1964). The album produced a few minor hits, including the ballads “These Arms of Mine” and the title track. Redding also recorded Cooke’s “You Send Me” for the disc. It is one of many Cooke songs covered by Redding; indeed, all of the albums that he released at Stax feature at least one Cooke number. Redding’s covers paid tribute to a singer, who, along with fellow Maconite Little Richard, was one of his idols when he was growing up. The songs were also a response to 22

For an ample history of Stax, see Rob Bowman, Soulsville, U.S.A.—The Story of Stax Records (New York: Prentice Hall, 1997).

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Cooke’s early death. Four weeks before his own untimely passing at age 26 in 1967, Redding said that he “would like to fill the vacuum that was created when Sam Cooke died.”23 What he most likely meant was that he wanted to be the next African American singer who could build a large audience of both white and black listeners with his mix of pop and black genres As much as Redding may have revered Cooke, he created a strikingly different style than his idol. Cooke percolated pop with gospel, while Redding pared down his ballads. The best way to describe Redding’s style is through a formula. The imagination and expressivity of a musician like Redding, of course, cannot be reduced to a simple scheme, but nonetheless there are consistent patterns between recordings that suggest a basic design, which, in turn, can allow us to appreciate how imaginative and expressive he was. For Redding, the formula has two parts: reduction and repetition. The first part comes through in the instrumental accompaniment of his ballads. Stax studios did not have an orchestra or a large ensemble. A few horns, guitar, piano, bass, and drums were it, and Redding did not use most of those instruments, at least when he was singing ballads. The horns appear in the introduction and conclusions and sometimes throw in responses to Redding, but during the vocals, it is usually the piano or guitar playing chords as arpeggios (one note at a time) with the bass and light drumming. Redding referred to the arpeggios as “church chords,” a name that reveals a link between his ballads and gospel upbringing.24 While such chords were used in gospel, they were also a familiar undergirding in 1950s pop, especially in doo wop recordings. As common as such arpeggios may have been, very few acts used them as consistently as Redding did or presented them in such a sparse way. The process of reduction extends beyond the accompaniment to the vocal lines. Redding’s ballads usually begin with long melodic lines, but as the songs progress they become shorter and shorter, having little or no arch by the end. The shearing of the vocal lines is offset by repetition. Throughout his ballads, Redding repeats phrases over and over. Most insistent are the repetitions in the concluding out sections, in which he restates a phrase on top of a recurring chord progression. R&B and gospel performers typically wind things up with such passages, but few singers 23 24

“Otis Redding: King of Soul,” New York Amsterdam News (23 December 1967). Dreams to Remember: The Legacy of Otis Redding, dirs. David Peck and Phillip Galloway (2007: Reelin’ In The Years Productions).

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bring the music down to the point that Redding does. At that point, melodies become speech-like lines on repeated pitches or they are boiled down even more to a single word sung again and again to a single pitch. Rather than producing monotony, Redding’s reduced repetitions become impassioned and varied. He constantly changes the color of his voice, from rasps to falsetto whirs, as well as the loudness of his voice, from murmurs to ringing shouts. The constant vocal changes convey mounting emotions. Redding returns to the feeling in a word or phrase over and over, each time treating it in a new way and all the time building up intensity. Reduction and repetition offer simple and direct means of creating the emotional heat of soul music, and it is that simplicity that Redding valued. As he described it: “Basically I like any music that remains simple. I feel that this is the formula that has made ‘soul music’ so successful.”25 “My Lover’s Prayer” (1966) shows how reduced and repetitive Redding’s ballads can be. The song consists of just a verse, no chorus, and the verse is short, eight bars, and repeated six times. The verse consists of two phrases, which work over the same melodic figure, a winding octave descent. With the eight-bar out section, Redding puts aside the two main phrases and recites his prayer by almost speaking on one or two pitches. The shifting vocal colors and the squeals of “come on” give his prayer some passion, but, so stripped down and repetitive is it that it comes across more as a litany than a love song. “My Lover’s Prayer” rarely makes it on anyone’s list of top Redding songs, probably because it is so bare. Redding’s brother Rogers, though, said that “it just might be Otis’s favorite recording.”26 If so, Redding perhaps favored it because it distilled his ideals of repetition and reduction. Most of Redding’s ballads could be called “My Lover’s Plea,” because pleading is what he often does in love songs. As the lyrics of “Remember Me,” succinctly put it: “I’m pleading, pleading, pleading.” In his ballads, Redding implores his lover to take him back or to let him hold her. Reduction and repetition lend themselves to begging. Pleas are not, or should not be, long and elaborate. Redding’s surely are not. He beseeches in short phrases, no more than one or two notes. The begging grows most persistent, or terser and repetitive, in the out sections, the last chance for Redding to win over his lover. The pleading and heartache in his ballads got to the point that Redding mocked himself in the song “Mr. Pitiful.” He earned the title, as he tells us, by singing so many “sad songs.” An up-tempo, 25 26

“Otis Speaks Out on Georgia, Kids & Soul,” SOUL (18 September 1967): 3. Rob Bowman, Liner Notes, Dreams to Remember: The Legacy of Otis Redding.

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playful number, “Mr. Pitiful” was the perfect ending for The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads. The last thing that album needed was another slow, sad song. It may come as a surprise that one of Redding’s most celebrated ballad recordings is neither pitiful, pleading, or reduced, although it is repetitive. The recording is “Try A Little Tenderness” (1966). Also not typical of Redding is that the song is a Tin Pan Alley number dating back to 1932. With its lyrics about comforting a “weary” girlfriend, the song was luscious fare for crooners with their tenderly intimate voices, as heard in recordings by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. The song made it into the soul orbit through versions by Sam Cooke and a young Aretha Franklin. The chorus of the song follows the standard Tin Pan Alley 32-bar aaba form, although Redding, like Franklin, doubles the length of the chorus. In the opening a section, Redding takes up the solicitudes in the lyrics not with a warm crooner voice but with his gritty high voice. He also has little to do with the original melody, fashioning his own lines that are longer than those in the original version so as to leave room for the melodic descents that he emphasized in his own songs. Redding’s recording also completely recasts the rhythmic language of the song. Things get a little funky in the second a and b sections with a heavier beat in the drums and grittier vocals. In the last a section, the guitar introduces a Latin-flavored Habanera rhythm, a touch that enhances Redding’s sensual ministrations of tenderness. Redding adds on a new section to the song, an R&B out chorus, which repeats an eight-bar phrase that builds upon chromatically ascending chords. This passage is much faster and energetic, so much so that the song is no longer a ballad by this point. It is not exactly clear what the song is, as, typical of soul, it mixes genres. Even by soul standards, though, this is an imaginative concoction, including Tin Pan Alley, gospel, Latin music, and R&B. Rather than stripping down the song as he does his other ballads, Redding expands upon it, making it thicker in terms of both the blend of instruments and mix of genres. He may have put aside the reduction side of his ballad formula, but he plays up the repetition side. His short repeated phrases (“you gotta to” “love,” “squeeze,” and “hold” her) add even more bustle to the out chorus. With the closing frenzy, Redding turns “Try A Little Tenderness” into a song that would have been unimaginable in the 1930s. As he put it, “I cut that motherfucker. It’s a brand new song.”27 27

Rob Bowman, “The Determining Role of Performance in the Articulation of Meaning: The Case of ‘Try a Little Tenderness,’” in Analyzing Popular Music, ed. Allan F. Moore (Cambridge: Cambridge

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Redding gave a celebrated performance of “Try A Little Tenderness” at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. The Festival featured new, cutting-edge acts, including The Who, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, and, in a bit of psychedelic-inspired cross-cultural exchange, Ravi Shankar. Redding wanted to be such an act, and one way to do so was to work with the newest styles and songs. For Monterey, he performed a version of The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction,” which was not only a way of reaching out to the young rock audience at the festival but also returning the favor to the Stones, who had recorded his “That’s How Strong My Love Is” and “Pain in My Heart.” Redding had a strong interest in what he called “the English sound,” meaning the blues-based rock of The Rolling Stones and other British groups. He talked about his plan “to start a new field,” which he called “Otis Redding Sings All English Stuff.”28 Some of that stuff included his covers of The Beatles’ “Day Tripper” and “A Hard Day’s Night.” Back in the United States, Redding praised Bob Dylan – “my favorite singer now.” According to Redding, Dylan “gave me two songs that he wrote just for me – I have the dubs right here – and I’m gonna record them.”29 Redding later claimed that one of the songs was “Just like a Woman,” but that he chose not to record it: “Bobby is the greatest though. He gave me ‘Just like A Woman’ to make a record, y’know. But I can’t do it because I just don’t feel it. Mind you, I dig his work like mad.”30 As he told producer Phil Walden: “I like it but it’s got too many fuckin’ words.”31 Dylan was a political singer in the 1960s. Soul was a political idea and music, a point made by many of those who defined soul. So what about Redding? Was he a political singer? Was his version of soul music political? If being a political singer means addressing contemporary struggles like Dylan did with his Civil Rights and anti-war songs, then Redding was not a political singer – that is, with one exception, his cover of Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” which will be discussed at the end of the chapter. Redding also had no strong ties with any black political organizations. Moreover, he rarely brought up issues of race in his interviews, preferring to keep it all about the music.

28 29 30 31

University Press, 2003), 124. Bowman’s article provides illuminating analyses of Franklin’s, Cooke’s, and Redding’s recordings of the song. Terrence Olson, “A Real ‘Soul’ Singer Tells What It Means,” SOUL (5 May 1966): 3. “My favorite singer now” quoted in Fred Brown, “Soul Showdown in England,” SOUL (13 October 1966): 13; “A Real ‘Soul’ Singer Tells What It Means,” 3. Brown, “Soul Showdown,” 13. Scott Freeman, Otis! The Otis Redding Story (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001), 149.

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What a surprise then to see that Redding gave an interview in 1966 with Muhammad Speaks, the mouthpiece of the Nation of Islam.32 With its leader Elijah Muhammad and firebrand speaker Malcolm X, the organization was one of the more radical factions in the racial upheaval of 1960s America. The Redding that we meet in the interview is unlike the man who appears elsewhere in the press. Gone is the entertainer who tosses off hip quips to describe his music and the new soul sound. This is not the lovable King of Soul who made it on to TV shows and charmed white and black audiences. Here is a singer who curses “whitey” for “making money” off of black performers. So uncharacteristic is the language in the article that we should keep in mind the possibility that the paper may have altered Redding’s remarks. If anything, they chose the most controversial bits and probably cast aside the more benign comments. The author of the article, Darryl Cowherd, clearly loved polemical lines, adding his own into the mix, like his raging against “heartless shysters” for exploiting black singers. The Nation of Islam must have viewed the interview as a coup. It already had one high-profile celebrity, Muhammad Ali, in its ranks, now it could say that a popular singer was an ally and use his fame, as it did with Ali’s, to reach out to a larger black following. The article claims that Redding was in “agreement” with the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, an assertion not supported by any biographies of the singer, none of which, though, mention this article. According to the article, Redding gave a copy of Elijah Muhammad’s Message to the Blackman in America to “a whitey” and as he puts it: “That fool read it. He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me. Well, he didn’t have to say anything because he knows he’s a devil.” Redding’s single comment about fellow musicians is just as inflammatory: “The Beatles can’t sing. That’s just another case of whitey making money. Negroes don’t go in droves to see the Beatles. That says something right there.” It is a strange remark coming from a singer who covered two Beatles songs and admired the British scene. There is one point in the interview that does conform to what we know about Redding. The same point comes up in the teachings of the Nation of Islam as well as the views held by many African Americans at the time. That point is that blacks need to be more self-reliant and to take control of their own social, civic, and financial decisions. In the article, Redding advocates: “Black entertainers ought to get together and form a union or something so 32

Darryl Cowherd, “Redding: Saga of a Black Singer from the South,” Muhammad Speaks (23 September 1966).

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we can protect ourselves and get back some of the money we’ve been making for whitey.” Redding and many other musicians believed that white-run publishing and booking companies were taking a large share of the profits made by them. As a way of avoiding that exploitation, he formed his own publishing company, Redwal Publishing, and recording company, Jotis Records. The publishing company had a major success with “Respect,” a tune that Redding wrote and originally recorded before Aretha Franklin turned it into a hit.33 With his two enterprises, Redding was once again following in the footsteps of Sam Cooke and Ray Charles, both of whom also started their own publishing and recording companies in order to manage more closely their careers and music.34 Drawing attention to Redding’s businesses and the high fees that he set for himself, The Muhammad Speaks article praises him for displaying “the pride and dignity of a man who is trying to control his own destiny.”35 It never bothered to ask where the name “Jotis” comes from and most likely would not like the answer if it did. “Jotis” spells out the partnership between Joe Galkin, a white producer and friend of Redding’s, and Otis. Also involved in the company was Phil Walden, another white producer. “Redwal” stitched together Redding and Walden. Contrary to the separatist beliefs of The Nation of Islam, Redding had strong business and artistic relationships with whites, even in his new companies. Those close bonds take some of the sting out of the taunts of “whitey” that fill the Muhammad Speaks interview and make us even more skeptical about how accurately the article captures the singer. Doubts aside, the article does place Redding in political contexts, settings in which we usually do not view him. By granting the interview, he associated himself with the Nation of Islam, an apparently brief connection but one that reveals his desire to raise a political voice during this tumultuous time. The interview also brings out another political dimension of soul music. With the entrepreneurial undertakings of Redding, Cooke, and Charles, soul became an important stage in a larger movement underway in the music business, one in which black musicians assumed more control over their careers and work. The small, and ultimately short-lived, companies of the three 33 34

35

“Otis Speaks Out on Georgia, Kids & Soul,” 3. Cooke founded his publishing company, Kags Music, in 1958 and two recording companies, SAR Records (founded in 1960) and Derby Records (founded in 1963). He also established his own production company, Tracey Ltd. Charles began his recording company, Tangerine Records, in 1963. On the entrepreneurial side of soul, see Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 253–88. An article in the less-political SOUL magazine also praises Redding for forming his own recording and publishing companies. Olson, “A Real ‘Soul’ Singer.”

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musicians helped lay the foundation for the retail empires of hip hop moguls Sean Combs and Jay Z. After forming his companies, Redding started to imagine a new musical style, the results of which would be his most famous song, “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.” When he played a tape of the song for his wife Zelma, she remarked “but that’s so different for you.” As he told her, “Well, I think I’m gonna be a little different. I’m gonna change my style.”36 Redding’s colleagues did not know what to make of this new sound. Manager Phil Walden said that it was “a little too pop,” and it is easy to see why. The lyrics about the tranquility of nature and the paths taken in life are more fitting of pop and folk than soul. The long, lyrical melodies also fit pop. They remain long and lyrical throughout the song, as Redding foregoes his formula of reduction and repetition. There are, though, some soul touches, especially the bluesy guitar lines thrown in by co-composer Steve Cropper. Cropper had to complete the recording after Redding’s death on 10 December 1967. Redding and members of his band The Bar-Kays died in a plane crash on the way to a gig in Madison, Wisconsin. “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” was released the following month and went to no. 1 on both the R&B and pop charts. With Redding’s death, we are left, as with his idol Cooke’s early passing, to wonder what he would have done next. For Redding, the question especially hangs in the air because “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” gives us a tantalizing idea of what his next step might have been. Postmortem prognostication, though, should not distract us from assessing what both Redding and Cooke did accomplish. In the history of the ballad, the two share an achievement. They helped create a new type of ballad, one more effusive and full of African American idioms than before. The title of one of Redding’s albums would provide a name for that type of song: soul ballad.

Aretha Franklin “Now I ask you, what’s wrong in singing the blues and popular type of music?” That is what 19-year-old Aretha Franklin asked readers of the African American newspaper New York Amsterdam News in 1961.37 She was making her case for “switching over” from gospel to popular styles. Some 36 37

Bowman, Liner Notes, Dreams to Remember: The Legacy of Otis Redding. Aretha Franklin, “‘From Gospel to Jazz is Not Disrespect for the Lord!’” New York Amsterdam News (26 August 1961).

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readers felt that there was something indeed “wrong” with gospel singers making that switch. Only four years earlier, gospel fans had turned their backs on Sam Cooke for singing pop songs. Franklin never faced such rejection, more disappointment than anything else. A common response, as she wrote, was a resigned “it’s a shame” as well as some “suggestions” that “I should give up my church membership.” It was her membership that made Franklin’s decision upsetting for gospel lovers. She was the daughter of the Rev. C.F. Franklin, one of the leading black ministers of the time, and had sung with her father and family in their home church in Detroit and across the country. If church royalty could start singing pop songs, then who would sing gospel and lead from the musical pulpit of the church? Franklin’s tossed-off question about singing the blues was intended to disarm such anxieties. She held that her “changeover” was “not disrespect for the Lord” and “that the transition from gospel to the blues” was for her – and should be for her fans – rather simple, “no different from switching from white bread to rye bread.” If those remarks did not win over detractors, Franklin assured readers that her father “encouraged” her to make the move to popular styles. As too had John Hammond, who furthered the careers of Benny Goodman, Count Basie, and Billie Holiday, among others. Ever alert to striking young talent, Hammond had his eye on Franklin and signed her to a contract with Columbia Records, where he was part of the A&R division. In the New York Amsterdam News article, Franklin lauds Hammond for doing “more than any other individual in the business to give [African American musicians] prominence and status in the music world.” She also mentions her Columbia albums; after all, she had albums to sell. Franklin was indeed a quick learner in not only “switching over” to popular music but also in jumping into the popular music business. Six years later, Franklin had a new album to sell on a new label, Atlantic Records. This time, though, there was no article upholding her or any other gospel singer’s “right to sing the blues” (to quote a Harold Arlen favorite). If anything, such an article would have been an anachronism in 1967. Soul music flourished that year, and it fused sacred and secular styles. It set the stage for Franklin to reemerge after her years at Columbia, and it ultimately gave her the title “Queen of Soul.” During the first years of her reign, she released a series of hit albums on Atlantic, which abound with such classics as “Respect,” “Think,” and “Spirit in the Dark,” all of which are up-tempo numbers. There were also ballad hits, including “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” “Do Right Woman,” and “Ain’t

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No Way.” These three songs emerge at the point of a powerful convergence between Franklin, soul, and the ballad. The union inspired some of her most moving performances and brought out new sides of the ballad, revealing how emotionally vigorous and stylistically profuse the songs could be. Franklin was not immediately crowned the Queen of Soul. There was a period of waiting, particularly the six years at Columbia under Hammond’s direction (a CD re-release of some Columbia recordings was called Aretha Franklin: Queen in Waiting). In histories of her career, the Columbia years are often dismissed as lost ones. The wait was for the soul sound that Franklin would epitomize in the latter half of the 1960s. While the Columbia albums give no quarter to the down-home styles that Franklin would later embrace, they do have flashes of that elusive quality of soul in them. More than that, they laid a foundation upon which Franklin would build. Soul music, as we have heard with Cooke, Charles, and Redding, takes in all sorts of genres, from blues and gospel to pop songs. Whatever the genre, soul singers charge a song with the effusiveness of gospel and other African American styles, and Franklin did just that in her Columbia albums, which skip across genres, including Tin Pan Alley standards, recent pop songs, blues, jazz, and R&B. She could not only move between genres but also mix them. In her recording of Hoagy Carmichael’s classic “Skylark,” for example, Franklin delivers the song in a relaxed jazz-tinged performance, a style that Hammond thought would suit her. By 1963, an intimate, soft jazz style was a conventional way to deliver a ballad standard, but it apparently did not suit Franklin, at least not for the entire recording. She lets loose with a gospel gush near the end of the song, jumping up an octave for a piercing cry and then achingly repeating the words “my heart.” With that closing pang, Franklin joins genres, welding together gospel, jazz, and Tin Pan Alley. Franklin recalled, “I cut a lot of good stuff at Columbia.” She certainly did, but nonetheless her time there was one of growing disappointment. There was the frustration over being “classified” as a jazz singer and lethargic sales. Franklin had “turntable hits,” or frequent radio play, but they did not yield retail success.38 So when her contract expired in 1967, she left the label. Waiting for her was Jerry Wexler, the man who claimed to have coined the phrase “rhythm and blues” and became a leading critic of that music. He also helped found Atlantic Records and signed Ray Charles, 38

Craig Werner, Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul (New York: Crown Publishers, 2004), 99.

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among other acts. Wexler offered Franklin a sound and role different from that at Columbia. Recognizing the popularity of southern soul, particularly that of Redding and other artists at Stax Studios in Memphis, he wanted Franklin to make that energy her own. The plans to record at Stax were put off after Wexler decided to work at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, another soul hothouse. He also gave her a liberty in performing and arranging that she did not enjoy at Columbia. As Wexler succinctly put it: “I took her to church, sat her down at the piano and let her be herself.”39 Listeners of Franklin’s Columbia recordings would have little idea that she was a talented pianist, schooled in both gospel and blues. At Atlantic, she would play piano on the tracks, giving herself another vibrant voice in the mix. From the piano, she could also build arrangements rather than using those written for her. The music was, as Franklin later said, “raw and real and so much more myself.”40 As successful as the collaboration with Atlantic would turn out to be, it almost never turned out to be. In what has become a legendary studio blowup, Franklin left Fame Studios after the first day at work on her initial album for the label, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (1967). She headed back to Detroit, leaving Wexler with one completed song, which was the title track. As with many legends, the facts behind the grand exit are not exactly clear. It appears that a trumpet player made inappropriate remarks to Franklin, which led Franklin’s husband and manager Ted White to call off work at Fame Studios and leave town. After several weeks of isolation, Franklin contacted Wexler, and the two rescheduled the recording sessions without ever talking about that day in Alabama. The album was completed in New York with several of the musicians from Muscle Shoals.41 If the move from Columbia to Atlantic “was about commercial success,” as Franklin later claimed, that goal was achieved.42 I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You reached no. 2 on the pop album charts and went gold. If a new sound was needed to gain that success, then that goal too was achieved. True to Wexler’s vision, southern soul did sell. The sound suffuses the album, including songs written by Stax musicians, notably 39 40 41

42

Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 341. Aretha Franklin and David Ritz, Aretha: From These Roots (New York: Villard, 1999), 108. On the “incident” and the recording of the album, see Matt Dobkin, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You: Aretha Franklin, Respect, and the Making of a Soul Music Masterpiece (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004). Werner, Higher Ground, 99.

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Franklin’s cover of Redding’s “Respect,” and several slow blues numbers. This is one vision of soul, but it is not the vision that the following Atlantic albums pursue. Southern soul claims space on later releases, but those albums, like the Columbia recordings, open up to a broad range of genres. The second Atlantic album, Aretha Arrives (1967), for example, crosses the genre map. It includes a Rolling Stones song (“Satisfaction”), a country favorite (“You Are My Sunshine”), a 1950s pop ballad (“Never Let Me Go”), a country/blues tune (“Night Life”), a 1940s blues ballad (“I Wonder”), and an old-time blues song (“Goin’ Down Slow”). Subsequent albums grew increasingly diverse, as Franklin embraced the idea of soul as a musical and emotional energy that could be applied to all sorts of genres, including those, like 1950s pop songs, not considered to be soulful. Franklin’s ballads have as broad an emotional range as they do a stylistic one. The songs deal with feelings from despair to effervescent romance. The scope and brunt of emotions separates the Atlantic albums from the Columbia recordings. The latter brim with ballads – Wexler thought that they were one of the strongest parts of the Columbia albums – but the songs, so beholden to pop and lighter jazz styles, could not amass the expressive weight that the slow blues and R&B tunes on I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You possess.43 The focus on a particular emotional scene in the Atlantic albums adds to that weight. Track after track presents a woman who confronts how her feelings for her lover have ruled her life. The ballads in I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You stage this scene in different ways. There are moments of despairing dependency, like the repeated cries of “I need you” in “Baby, Baby, Baby” and the realization that she is a “fool” for holding on to a “liar” and a “cheat” (“I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You”). Sometimes the woman in this scene takes a stand, as happens when she tells her partner that he must treat her as well as she treats him in “Do Right Woman,” a dulcet echo of the demands in “Respect,” the opening track on the album. Then there is the woman who boasts about the sexual rapture that her lover can bring her to (“Dr. Feelgood”), not grasping that such bliss, as fleeting as it is, keeps her enthralled to the man who mistreats her. The sensuality so prominent in her work at Atlantic is largely missing from her Columbia records, on which Franklin comes across as an ingénue. Played out over several albums, the scene of the despairing woman takes on a dramatic and emotional power, so much so that, as we will see, audiences 43

Werner, Higher Ground, 99.

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felt compelled to believe that Franklin was the long-suffering woman she sang about in her songs. In order to see what makes Franklin’s ballads so moving and distinct, we have to take on a task that many writers consider impossible: capturing Franklin’s voice and art in prose. According to venerable pop music critic Robert Christgau, her voice “is so ineffable that no one has ever satisfactorily described it in words.”44 He and other critics admit that words fail in capturing her talents, yet that does not stop them from pouring out words, lots of words. I will add some to the flow, but I will bring something new to the discussion – a formula. Just as we have seen how Redding’s performances adhere to certain tendencies, so too do Franklin’s. These tendencies form the musical logic at work in her songs. For Redding, the formula is repetition and reduction; for Franklin, it is the opposite: change and expansion. Franklin’s 1971 cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge over Troubled Water” reveals how fully Franklin could build upon those two tendencies. As for change, covers do – or should – change the original song. Franklin’s version, though, is a metamorphosis, giving the song a new structure as well as a new stylistic and expressive existence. As for form, the Simon and Garfunkel song consists of a brief introduction followed by three verses. The transformation in Franklin’s recording is immediate – it begins in a church service. Like a choir, the backup singers deliver individual lines, to which Franklin, similar to the choir soloist, responds with floating pitches and short declarations, which offer a homily about how faith can create “still waters” that “run deep.” The opening recalls the buildup to the big solo or testifying moment in a service. That moment will come, but not right away. First, there is a solo of a different sort. Rather than singing the first verse, Franklin lays out Simon and Garfunkel’s melody on the electric piano, backed up by and responding to an organ (another church touch). She holds to the original melody at first but gradually wends it toward the blues by stretching it out with blues licks. Simon and Garfunkel’s recording gives no hint of either gospel or the blues. Franklin does not need a hint. For her, the two genres enhance the ideals of suffering, faith, and friendship extolled in the song. They also add to the flow of change. Genre fluctuates in the recording, sliding back and forth between blues and gospel as well as evoking the folk and pop qualities of the original version. 44

Dobkin, I Never Loved a Man The Way I Love You, 11. On the difficulties of transcribing Franklin’s voice, see Peter Winkler, “Writing Ghost Notes: The Poetics of Transcription,” in Keeping Score: Music, Disciplinarity, Culture, eds. David Schwarz, Anahid Kassabian, and Lawrence Siegel (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1997), 186–92.

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The movement between the different genres creates a sense of expansion, as the song branches out from the opening gospel dialogue to other genres. After the piano solo, the initial exchange between her and the backup singers returns, leading us once again to anticipate that Franklin will sing Simon and Garfunkel’s melody. She will this time, but the fact that it has taken two minutes to do so shows how much new territory has been added to the song, particularly a gospel-like dialogue as well as a bluesy dialogue between electric piano and organ. Starting with the lyrics of the second verse, Franklin renders the melody in a gospel style, while throwing in blues punctuations on the piano. Typical of gospel, she lofts key words in a high register, where they either shimmer or ache. As the verse proceeds, individual syllables and words are extended through runs, and there is a ringing exhortation on “yes.” Midway through the verse, the rhythm section slows down the beat until there is a brief rest and then builds up from there. These wind-downs appear in R&B tunes, and as such add some R&B to the gospel vocals. There is one last bit of change and expansion, as Franklin throws in a new section. The recording concludes with an out section, which builds upon and repeats the opening eight-bar dialogue between Franklin and backup singers. As in a similar section in an R&B song, the bass and drum lines are double-timed while the rhythm section extends a single chord. Like an R&B singer, Franklin delivers short, repeated lines over a dynamic groove. Groove is not the endpoint – or any point – in Simon and Garfunkel’s recording. Their version pursues a different path from Franklin’s, but while the two may veer off in contrasting stylistic directions they do reach similar emotional destinations: emboldened feelings of resolve and companionship. Simon and Garfunkel open with Garfunkel’s faint voice and solo piano, which convey loneliness and frailty. Their recording gradually builds to the third and final verse featuring an orchestra, pounding drums, and Garfunkel’s resounding vows, all of which suggest that solitude has been overcome. Franklin never touches upon as stark a loneliness as Simon and Garfunkel do. From the beginning, she communes with her backup singers, but the blues that she limns on the piano gets at a sorrow that must be “bridged.” Instead of Simon and Garfunkel’s steady escalation, Franklin’s recording proceeds by changing and combining genres and appropriately concludes by bringing one more genre into the fold, the driving R&B close. The groove in that section picks up on the elation in the gospel vocals, both adding a feeling of effusiveness to the reassurance promised in the original song. Franklin’s ecstatic close caps off the emotional expansion of her recording, the feelings of the end being

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much more dynamic than the quiet hopefulness evoked by the opening hushed vocal exchange. Her ballads typically end bigger than they begin, the result of Franklin restlessly building upon feelings. Even by her standards, though, the emotional swell in “Bridge over Troubled Water” is large. Granted she is covering a song that already has a swell, but she makes it more sweeping through the means of change and expansion. In “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” (1967), Franklin’s biggest ballad hit, the play of change and expansion is rather subdued.45 She surprisingly does without her usual gospel runs, although there are ample gospel touches elsewhere, like the interaction between her and the backup singers. Most listeners may not notice the absence of the runs because Franklin relies on other means to bring out the evaporation of wistfulness into contentment in the song. She gradually changes the color of her voice, moving from the lighter sound of the opening to darker, heavier tones. The darker the tones become, the more they stand apart from the gloss of the orchestral accompaniment. Such a clash was by now an old soul trick, used shrewdly by Charles in his Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music album. Charles’ rasp scrapes against the lush Nashville sound, a contrast that adds a “modern,” or soulful, type of heartache to country music. Franklin’s gradually darkening voice, on the other hand, suggests feelings of earthiness and pleasure. What “natural” means remains unclear–the song leaves it satisfyingly enigmatic – but whatever it is, Franklin’s dusky voice captures it. If writers have made protestations about how difficult it is to portray Franklin’s voice and style, they have had no such qualms about describing the emotional qualities of her performances. Either in the 1960s or today, Franklin’s music has been depicted as abundantly expressive. A look at articles from the 1960s and 1970s reveals how listeners understood the expressive power of her music, particularly the impact it had on them and its connection to her own life. For many listeners, Franklin, as young as she may have been at the time, was a sage when it came to feelings. She knew how to draw upon them, render them in music, and strike listeners with them. As was often implied, she knew listeners’ emotions better than they did, and, through her wisdom, she could have them reckon with their own feelings. New York Times critic Clayton Riley crystallized this perception in a review of a Franklin concert. The article is more tribute than criticism, part of the 45

Franklin’s recording of “Bridge over Troubled Water” made it to no. 1 on the R&B charts and no. 6 on the pop charts.

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homage being his gratitude for Franklin bringing him and others to emotional epiphanies: Last Sunday, she spent time with us. Spent time helping us to know what the days and nights are all about – the good ones and the other ones. . . Because she seems to sense – more completely than any singer I know – exactly where the elaboration of joys and sorrow are bound to take us (closer to ourselves) and just how long she should keep us there. (Never long enough).46

Riley brings out another way that listeners experienced the expressive command of Franklin’s music. Running through the concert that he attended was an emotional energy that overtook him and others. Franklin was often held up as some sort of dynamo capable of unleashing feelings that enthralled and united listeners. That is how her own brother, the Rev. Cecil Franklin, described her performances. For him, that current, as is so often the case in discussions of Franklin and other soul singers, goes back to the church. It’s a combination of electricity and empathy. She generates the electricity and the empathy comes with her being able not only to feel what all those people are experiencing but able to really experience the same things that they are experiencing. You listen to her and it’s just like being in church. She does with her voice exactly what a preacher does with his when he moans to a congregation. That moan strikes a responsive chord in the congregation and somebody answers you back with their own moan, which means I know what you’re moaning about because I feel the same way. So you have something sort of like a thread spinning out and touching and tying everybody together in a shared experience just like getting happy and shouting together in church.47

The emotional effects of Franklin’s performances may indeed go back to the church, but the specific emotions, especially the anguished and sensual ones, ultimately went back to her. Listeners pinned the feelings evoked by Franklin’s songs to her, hearing them as part of her life. If she is singing about it then she must have lived it. The same thinking is behind a lineage of female singers running throughout the history of popular music. These are women whose difficult personal lives were heard in their songs and whose suffering became the theme of their lives and music for audiences. 46 47

Clayton Riley, “No Thing Quite Compares to Sister Aretha Franklin,” New York Times (1 November 1970). Charles L. Sanders, “Aretha: Close-Up Look at Sister Superstar,” Ebony (December 1971): 126, 128.

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Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf, Judy Garland, Dinah Washington, and, most recently, Amy Winehouse are part of that lineage. Then there is Aretha Franklin. Several writers of the time put her in that sorrowful company. A 1970 Soul Illustrated article holds her up as “one of the greatest tragic figures since Billie Holiday” and predicts that her trials will be too much for her, concluding: “Aretha is finished.”48 In her “Poem for Aretha,” Nikki Giovanni asks: Aretha doesn’t have to relive billie holiday’s life doesn’t have to relive dinah washington’s death but who will stop the pattern.49

Giovanni tries to “stop the pattern” by shaming audiences for demanding so much of Franklin, professionally, personally, and emotionally. The singer obviously did escape the fate of early death that befell Holiday and Washington. She was, contrary to the claims in Soul Illustrated, far from “finished.” While Franklin may have gotten out of that pattern of decline, she fell into another pattern in which troubled female performers were trapped, that of a loop of sorrow. In that ring, a female performer sings about tortured feelings so she must have a tortured life. She actually does have difficulties in her life, which makes the emotions that she sings about all the more anguished thereby suggesting even more personal sorrow – and so on. Franklin got caught up in this loop, and, as has largely been forgotten today, it shaped how listeners knew her and experienced the emotional weight of her music during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Male singers rarely get placed in that loop, although there are exceptions, notably Johnnie Ray. None of Franklin’s fellow male soul pioneers were put on the wheel of sorrow, despite their own tribulations. Ray Charles, like Billie Holiday, battled addiction, but that struggle during the 1960s was not held up as a key to his music and life as it was with Holiday (although it later was in the 2004 film Ray). Sam Cooke lost a young son, but the grief was not assigned to his music or ever shrouded his suave public persona. Like both men, Otis Redding had marital troubles, but they were not made public or linked to his performances, which, if anything, were praised for being so sensual. All three singers were 48 49

Carol Deck and Rochelle Reed, “Soul: A Sound for the Seventies,” Soul Illustrated 2 (February 1970): 30. Nikki Giovanni, The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1996), 76.

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guarded by the culturally enforced view that emotions do not rule men, a view encapsulated in the maxim “real men don’t cry” that Johnnie Ray was attacked for violating. Even with an expressive style like soul, male performers would supposedly not lose control of their feelings, spilling out their woes in their music or ever letting them become their music. Women, in this crude gender scheme, possess no such control and are associated with emotional excess. It was that excess that turned female performers like Holiday and Piaf into emotional spectacles, whose torrents of suffering fascinated the public. Audiences raptly watched these women crumble on and offstage and heard their anguish overtake their songs. Franklin got stuck in that loop of sorrow. She did not do much to stop it, say by denying connections between her life and songs. If anything, she linked the two, but up to a point. One type of connection was an idea central to soul music, particularly that of the music releasing a performer’s inner emotions. Franklin, as mentioned above, defined soul as “feeling, a lot of depth and being able to bring to the surface that which is happening inside.”50 The definition suggests that through her performances she was revealing what was “happening inside” her, just what many listeners thought they were getting from Franklin. She put things in more personal terms in an interview for Ebony magazine: “Well, it’s true that I have to really feel a song before I’ll deal with it, and just about every song I do is based either on an experience that I’ve had or an experience that someone I knew has gone through.” When pushed to talk about her experiences, she backed off. Asked about the “story” behind “Spirit in the Dark,” she responded: “Hmmmh. . . that’s one I’d rather not talk about and I don’t want to get into it right now.” Having closed the door on her personal life, she opened it up again, although just a bit: “But let’s take ‘Brand New Me.’ That’s one that expresses exactly how I felt when I recorded it, and actually how I feel right now – like a brand new woman and brand new me.”51 The interviewer Charles L. Sanders wanted to know more about this “new me” and in trying to do so got shut down by Franklin. There were limits to how much she would reveal about herself or connect her life to her music. He “hints” at her recent separation with husband Ted White, a suggestion that Franklin “ignores” as she goes on about talking about being a “new woman.” It is surprising that Sanders dared to raise White’s name. After Time ran a cover story about her mentioning that White physically abused her, Franklin made it clear to the press that she would 50

Wilmer, “Aretha—Lady Soul,” 38.

51

Sanders, “Aretha,” 132.

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not discuss her personal life, including both her marriage to White and the two children she had as an unwed teenager.52 No matter how emphatic her silence, the topics kept coming up, especially in reference to her music. The Ebony and Time articles made that connection. After reporting that White had “roughed her up,” the Time piece concludes that one “can only speculate on the significance of her singing lyrics like these: I don’t know why I let you do these things to me/My friends keep telling me that you ain’t no good/But oh, they don’t know that I’d leave you if I could. . . /I ain’t never loved a man the way I love you.”53 That speculation stemmed from the belief that there had to be some source, or explanation, for such driving emotions. Franklin could not just be singing about heartache; she had to have felt it at some time and relive it while performing her songs. The search for that source led many writers to tramp through Franklin’s personal life, searching for pain and often ignoring the ample joy. What they found – or what they wanted to find – was a real-life version of the portraits of suffering women in Franklin’s albums. Those women must be Franklin, so vividly have they been depicted. Any song about romantic and sexual dependency could be traced back to her marriage with White, so too could those about new beginnings as Ebony writer Sanders tried to do with “Brand New Me.” According to him, Franklin’s female portraits offered not only a picture of her but of black women in general. The songs were best appreciated by those women, who lived the back and forth between wounded despair and sexual enthrallment, the two poles to which Sanders tellingly limited Franklin’s and black women’s lives. To make his point, he draws upon a description of Franklin’s fans by her road manager Manny Tinsley: . . . she talks nothing but straight life to them in her songs. It’s like she’s saying ‘Now girls, let’s get down and talk some life talk about these men and the way they’re treating us.’ She starts rapping and the girls start relating to her and saying to themselves ‘Damn right. That bastard treats me just like that.’ They get very emotional and start jumping and screaming. Then Aretha comes right back and whips on ‘em something like Dr. Feelgood or You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman and those same girls start saying to themselves, ‘Yeah, he’s a mean so and so, but he sure knows how to take care of business,’ and then they get emotional in another sort of way.54 52

53

“Lady Soul: Singing It Like It Is,” 62–68. Franklin enforced a silence about aspects of her personal life in the reporting on her for decades. David Ritz broke that silence in his biography Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin (New York: Little, Brown & Company, 2014). “Lady Soul: Singing It Like It Is,” 68. 54 Sanders, “Aretha,” 128, 130.

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Sanders uses Tinsley’s account to turn Franklin into a goddess of suffering for these women. He elevates her further by offering more of her travails: “Anyone who knows Aretha knows that she has wrestled with the problems that she and Ted had. She wrestled. . . hard. . . and, depending on the viewpoint, either lost or won.”55 The “viewpoint” for most listeners was that Franklin had lost: A defeat that made her music richer and allowed them to feel what they believed Franklin felt. Both Tinsley and Sanders bear witness to Franklin’s emotional suffering with individual songs. Tinsley holds up two ballads, the numbers that typically set Franklin’s female portraits. He presents songs about sexual serenity, a pleasure that, as other ballads make clear, distracts from a surrounding misery. For every “Dr. Feelgood” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” there has to be a “I’ve Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You.” That ballads could play such contrasting roles and be linked so closely to Franklin’s life shows how much she had made of the songs both musically and emotionally. The ballad was transformed in soul music, and perhaps no more so than by Franklin. She turned them into songs in which the music constantly changes and expands as it flows between genres and burgeons with fervor. With her, ballads push toward deeper and deeper emotions. These are the depths that so many of us have rapturously plumbed along with Franklin.

Soul Ballads and 1960s America: Politics and Emotions For Nikki Giovanni, it is all “revolutionary music,” not soul, funk, or Motown. All of those types of songs were part of the revolution at the heart of the Civil Rights struggle. Her 1968 poem “Revolutionary Music” calls up such diverse acts as James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, The Impressions, and The Supremes. The songs did not even have to be about politics to be political. As Giovanni rhapsodizes, an inimitable beat by Sly and the Family Stone made a revolutionary statement all by itself, conveying a joyful, resilient energy that could never be extinguished and was distinctly black. In other songs, the lyrics did not have to be political, but, with some revolutionary hearing, they could become so. Giovanni holds up Martha and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street,” which turned into more than a fun dance song when African Americans linked it to inner city riots. Aretha Franklin, of course, is also on Giovanni’s roster of revolutionary musicians. Giovanni surprisingly does not bring out 55

Sanders, “Aretha,” 130.

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“Respect,” which became the “Negro national anthem” when black listeners turned its demand for respect on whites.56 She instead takes up “Ain’t No Way to Love You” (composed by Aretha’s sister Carolyn). Similar to the double hearing with “Respect,” a lover’s plaint that there “ain’t no way to love you” if you “won’t let me” could be directed at whites. As Giovanni puts it, “you know she [Franklin] wasn’t talking to us.”57 It is not clear who knew that about the song. No one else singled it out as “revolutionary,” which is not surprising considering that the song is a ballad. Ballads, after all, are usually understood to be anything but political. The songs deal with moonlight kisses and broken hearts, not racial unrest and protests. Some of the most politically committed African American musicians of the time held such a view. Marvin Gaye, for example, considered ballads to be politically irrelevant, if not irresponsible, asking: “How could I sing love songs when the world around me explodes?”58 Curtis Mayfield dismissed “love songs” as fleeting pleasures compared to his “message songs”: “I’d rather have my tunes be felt and remembered forever because the performance of a love song is a passing thing, but a strong lyric is like a piece of history; it can be appreciated even when styles change.”59 How surprising then to consider that both Gaye and Mayfield’s “political” songs (as Mayfield put it) are in part ballads. Gaye’s “What’s Going On” has a similar feel to R&B ballads of the early 1970s, as does Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” with the pop ballads of the mid-1960s. Ballads, as both singers proved in their love songs, are emotional songs, the expressive power of which could be used to enhance political messages. Mayfield remarked: “I believe that just as you can sing of love and romance and touch a heart, you can also sing of the times’ trials and tribulations and also touch a heart.”60 It does not have to be one or the other. As his songs show, musicians could draw upon the means of a ballad to sing of “trials and tribulations.” Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” makes that point.61 He was inspired to write the song by Bob Dylan’s Civil Rights protest numbers. If a Jewish folk singer could unite people against racial injustice, Cooke 56 57 58 59 60 61

Phyl Garland, “Aretha Franklin—‘Sister Soul’,” Ebony 22 (October 1967): 47. Giovanni, “Revolutionary Music,” Selected Poems, 52. David Ritz, Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye (New York: Da Capo Press, 2003), 106–7. Judy Spiegelman, “Curtis Mayfield: Poet or Philosopher?” SOUL (5 April 1971): 3. Judy Spiegelman, “The Impressions: Sermons or Songs?” SOUL (22 September 1969): 16. On the history of the song, see Peter Guralnick, Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke (New York: Little, Brown & Company, 2005).

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believed that he, as one of the leading African American singers of the day, should also be able to do so. Dylan’s songs range from the allegorical (“Blowin’ in the Wind”) to the shockingly specific (“The Death of Emmett Till”). In “A Change Is Gonna Come,” Cooke took up both strains. He chimes the allegorical with lyrics about the passage of time, the hope for change, and faith. That belief, though, wavers, as he admits that he fears death and wonders if there is a heaven. The song veers toward the specific with a brief scene of the marauding prejudice that finds blacks wherever they are: “I go to the movies and I go downtown/Somebody keeps telling me, don’t hang around.” Cooke included those lines in the initial version of the recording done for the tribute album The Stars Salute Dr. Martin Luther King. Perhaps fearing how polemical they could be for a wider audience, he removed the lines from the single release.62 Dylan may have inspired the creation of the song, but not the music, which could not be more different than his folk style. Instead of a strumming guitar, Cooke’s recording opens with shimmering strings, a French horn, and timpani. The introduction sounds symphonic, and Cooke and arranger René Hall most likely wanted that quality to give the song gravity. The opening also calls to mind a lush ballad, the one popular genre that used such orchestral finery. There are other ballad touches, particularly the lyrical melody that curves around a wide range, a melody more befitting a love song than either a folk song (not many people at a rally could sing Cooke’s melody) or a gospel number, another type of song on the front lines of the Civil Rights struggle. Gospel, though, has a presence in any Cooke recording, and “A Change Is Gonna Come” is no exception. Cooke extends his melody with the vocal runs he learned as a gospel singer. He also rejects the smooth vocal lacquer that he used in his pop ballads in favor of a coarser, rougher tone, like that heard in rousing performances with the Soul Stirrers. Cooke could have easily made “A Change Is Gonna Come” a gospel number. Many musicians and listeners at the time would have expected him to do so, given his pedigree and the linkage between gospel and the Civil Rights movement. He, though, chose to emphasize the ballad. A reason for doing so was that a ballad could carry the message of his message song. Ballads offered Cooke a way of reaching out to a larger audience, both white and black. The genre was familiar to both types of listeners and, in particular, unthreatening, or not so identifiably black, to white listeners, who would especially take to the resplendent orchestral 62

Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 291.

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sound similar to that in their favorite pop ballads. Through that sound, Cooke could draw listeners into his song. Just as he used the quality of sonic warmth to sink listeners into the romance of a love song, he could use it to bring them into his dreams about social change. Having made them comfortable in the song, Cooke could then confront them with unsettling scenes of prejudice. Both Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin not surprisingly covered “A Change Is Gonna Come.” After all, they each had recorded Cooke’s breakthrough hit “You Send Me,” so why not pay tribute to him with performances of his Civil Rights ode. As with any cover, the interest comes from hearing what a musician will do with a song. With Redding’s and Franklin’s covers of “A Change Is Gonna Come,” the particular question is what will they do with the ballad in the song. Do they find the ballad as relevant to the message of the song as Cooke did? They both do, but the two give us not Cooke’s plush version of a ballad but rather their own ideas of what a ballad, or a soul ballad, could be. Redding’s soul formula, to recall, was reduction and repetition, that is, stripping down arrangements to a few parts and melodic lines down to a few notes, which are repeated over and over in small phrases. “A Change Is Gonna Come” gets that treatment. In other words, it is turned into a Redding soul ballad. Typical of such songs, Redding concludes with an extended close over repeated chords in which he pares down Cooke’s melodic arches to speech-like phrases that are repeated, especially the title line. Those repetitions enhance Redding’s beseeching ballads in which he asks a woman to stay with him, and they serve a similar purpose with the lyric about asking a “brother” for help in Cooke’s song. Even with that overlap, though, a pleading love song may not seem the most appropriate setting for a Civil Rights number, but, as delivered by Redding, the pairing works. For him, ballads were all about conveying feelings with urgent sincerity, and that is how Redding treats the ballad in his cover, the most personal and direct way to voice his hopes for change in American society. Franklin follows her own soul formula, which is the opposite of Redding’s. Where he reduces and repeats, she changes and expands Cooke’s song. True to her way, she begins her cover of “A Change Is Gonna Come” by adding an introduction, in which she mentions an “old friend,” a touching reference to Cooke who she knew since she was a teenager, and shares how that friend said “something that touched my heart.” Franklin also adds genres to the song. There is a ballad in her version of “A Change Is Gonna Come,” brought out through her sticking more or

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less to Cooke’s melodic lines and the slow tempo with the beat divided into smooth triplets, the rhythmic hallmark of an R&B ballad. Gospel, of course, is in there too, announced right away in the testifying introduction and the exuberant vocal runs throughout the song. Add to this some blues touches, like the prominent blue notes in the vocal line and Franklin’s piano playing, and a spirited R&B, gospel-like close. In the close to his recording, Redding winnows down to a few repeated notes, while Franklin expands, moving into a higher range and singing more passionately. Redding concludes by pleading for “change”; Franklin by filling “hope” with optimism and belief.63 What made the soul ballad a trusted witness of the Civil Rights era was the emotional mettle of the songs.64 They were an ardent and optimistic voice during troubled times. That strength also made the songs an important part of the emotional culture of 1960s America. Soul ballads reveal a significant change in the range and depth of feelings conveyed in popular culture since the previous decade. In three minutes, they offered a new type of emotional experience for popular song, one in which the musical and emotional intensity exceeded that typical of 1950s ballads. Feelings, according to soul ballads, swell and change. As heard in Redding’s and Franklin’s recordings, the songs end more passionately than they began, often much more passionately, which is not surprising given all that happens along the way: a cry pours out of nowhere, a one-syllable word like “love” becomes a sonnet through vocal runs, and a romantic mood gives way to the elation of gospel or the grit of the blues Soul ballads also brought new emotional values into pop ballads, particularly those of transcendence and authenticity. As far back as spirituals and the blues, those two qualities had accrued to African American music, but not to the ballad. If anything, the ballad was considered a light, romantic diversion. Despite Johnnie Ray’s emotional ruckus, such was the case with 1950s ballads. The defining emotional values of those songs were sincerity and pleasantness, conveying feelings cordially with little, if any, expressive demands. With soul styles, ballads rejected the emotional courtesy of 1950s ballads and insisted upon the more genuine and challenging fare of transcendence and authenticity. The connection with gospel bestowed upon soul ballads the promise of transcendence, that is, of rising above suffering and attaining a more elevated emotional state. For Craig Werner, the “gospel impulse” at the 63 64

As Cooke did in the single release of the song, both Redding and Franklin dropped the verse about being harassed at the movies and downtown. For a far-reaching discussion of the role of soul music in the Civil Rights Struggle, see Ward, Just My Soul Responding.

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heart of soul music imparts “the belief that life’s burdens can be transformed into hope, salvation, the promise of redemption.” It “holds out the possibility that that tomorrow can be different, better.”65 In her 1969 history of soul, Phyl Garland also evokes the idea of transcendence. She describes the experience of listening to Franklin as uplifting and transformative through both sacred and sensual imagery: “To hear her is not to be entertained; it is to undergo a baptism of emotion that leaves one weak and yet fulfilled, as in the aftermath of good sex.”66 Garland’s discussion of Franklin’s performances evokes the rhetoric of authenticity that was strongly applied to soul music. Authenticity is a concept that returns throughout the reception of popular music and has been defined in various ways, many of them relevant to soul music.67 For example, in the remark above, Garland states that Franklin’s music is not mere entertainment but an art that is much deeper and meaningful. The line repeats the view that music for entertainment is lighter and, more importantly, tied to commercial interests rather than being a music that arises out of a singer’s artistic vision. Or more to the point, music that arises out of a singer’s emotional struggles and tells us what he or she truly feels. The idea of emotional authenticity is crucial to soul music.68 Indeed, there could be perhaps no more concise slogan of authenticity than “soul,” the inner essence of an individual. As Franklin pointed out in her TV colloquy with Sammy Davis, Jr., soul is about “real” feelings. Those “real” feelings were released in her performances, and done so with immediacy and directness. Accounts of 1960s soul musicians often reinvigorate an older nineteenth-century ideal of interiority, that is, the idea that the artistic work is a conduit of the emotions that reside within the artist.69 Such a view comes through in critic Arthur Goldman’s review of a Franklin concert: “The sound of the soul as it soars through the roof of the mouth, whooping with some urgent message from below.” That emotional message was made with “spontaneity” and “naturalness.”70 Franklin herself 65 66 67

68 69 70

Werner, A Change Is Gonna Come, 28, 31. Phyl Garland, The Sound of Soul (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1969), 191. For a discussion of different conceptions of authenticity running throughout the reception of popular music, see Allan Moore, “Authenticity as Authentication,” Popular Music 21 (2002): 2009–23. On the concept of emotional authenticity, see Moore, “Authenticity as Authentication,” 212–18 and Timothy Taylor, Global Pop: World Musics, World Markets (New York: Routledge, 1997), 23–26. Hegel expounded upon this idea of interiority. Hegel, The Philosophy of Fine Art, trans. F.P.B. Osmaston (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1916), vol. II, 283, 295, vol. III, 358. Albert Goldman, “Aretha Franklin: She Makes Salvation Seem Erotic,” New York Times (31 March 1968).

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upheld interiority as a defining feature of soul, claiming that it was about “a lot of depth and being able to bring to the surface that which is happening inside.”71 Another marker of authenticity for soul music was its connection to older, “folk” styles, in particular the blues and gospel. In fact, Garland and other 1960s writers went further back, linking the hits of the day to spirituals.72 Folk traditions are often upheld as authentic because they come from the people and have been supposedly untainted by commercial interests or artistic refinement. With soul music, the ideals of emotional authenticity and folk traditions intertwined, because black traditions like the spirituals, blues, and gospel were viewed as capturing the emotional suffering and resiliency of a people that had confronted centuries of racial injustice. Both the connections to those traditions and the clashes of the current Civil Rights struggle made the emotional experiences of soul music seem all the deeper and stronger. In his study of authenticity, Allan Moore confronts readers with a new question. Besides asking what type of music is authentic, we should, he says, ask “who” is being authenticated.73 In 1960s discussions of soul music, performers were turned into fonts of emotional authenticity, individuals who revealed the essence of their souls. Listeners also became part of the aura of authenticity surrounding the music. Garland, to recall, believed that Franklin’s listeners experienced a “baptism of emotion” that left them “fulfilled” and more aware of their own selves. In his review of a Franklin concert, Goldman picks up on that idea, making Franklin to be a mentor: “What we want from Aretha Franklin is just what she has taught us to desire – the solid, natural music of the body as it moves to the rhythms of our most basic emotions.” Listeners could become attuned to those basic emotions and come to know, like Franklin did, the feeling of the “sound of the soul” and “urgent messages” from within them being released.74 How different from the 1950s, when Johnnie Ray was attacked for wanting to “bring buried and controlled emotions to the surface.”75 No such uproar greeted soul singers; if anything, critics and listeners praised their robust performances. They did so with rhetoric of transcendence and 71 72

73 75

Valerie Wilmer, “Aretha—Lady Soul,” 38. Both Garland and A. Grace Mims connected soul music to earlier periods and, in doing so, used “soul” as a rubric for centuries of African American music. Garland, The Sound of Soul; A. Grace Mims, “Soul: The Black Man and His Music,” Negro History Bulletin 33 (October 1970): 141–46. Moore, “Authenticity as Authentication,” 210. 74 Goldman, “Aretha Franklin.” Sylvester, “Million Dollar Teardrop,” 112, 114.

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authenticity that was rarely applied to ballads in the 1950s or earlier decades. There were, of course, songs that were praised for being touching, but the terms of that praise had changed with soul ballads, as now ballads were connected to transformative and deeply truthful emotional experiences, a truth steeled by centuries of suffering. The critical discussion surrounding soul ballads taps into a larger desire to break away from the emotional moderation of 1950s ballads and to embrace songs that promised emotional release and truthfulness. Critic Chris Welles described how a market had developed around that desire: “Soul music is particularly popular because it hooks into the sincerity bag, in which a large number of record buyers currently reside.” Those buyers, according to him, were driven by the need to “turn inward, introspect, irrigate your conscience, go back to the fundamentals like love and God and grab for what is sincere and believable amidst the turmoil.”76 “Sincerity bag” has not become one of the enduring slogans of the 1960s. “Flower power” and “Make Love, Not War” still proclaim the decade. They fit a conventional understanding of the 1960s as sharply breaking away from the social mores of the 1950s. We should dust off “sincerity bag,” for it gets at another profound change from the previous decade, the need for deeper and more dynamic emotional experiences. It is difficult to track this change; it occurred below the surface, so to speak. There were obviously no demonstrations for emotional rights; no communes for people devoted to achingly sad songs. The change, though, comes through in two new musical movements. One was soul, and the other was the blues revival underway during the 1960s. Rock musicians turned back to blues styles of the past, like those of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and Bessie Smith. Among the blues archivists were such counterculture stars as Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Janis Joplin. The revival stemmed in part from a search for the origins of rock and roll, a source that was not polluted by the commercialism of late 1950s and early 1960s rock styles. Like soul, the blues revival also grew out of a need for emotional authenticity, to tap into a music that distilled pain and sorrow (the two feelings upheld by blues revival musicians, who tellingly downplayed the humorous and sensual strains of the genre). Older blues styles could offer musicians draughts of those feelings, and many of them drank deeply. As Joplin described the blues: “That’s what the music is all about. It’s about feeling. It’s about wanting. It’s about needing and cramming yourself full of it.”77 76 77

Chris Welles, “The Blues Turned Blue-Eyed: The Righteous Brothers,” LIFE 61 (1 July 1966): 18. Paul Zimmerman, “Rebirth of the Blues,” Newsweek (26 May 1969): 84.

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What led to this turn to deeper, more expansive emotional experiences? Some writers circled around that question. For Welles, the “sincerity bag” was the result of “society” “getting too big and complicated and impersonal” and “the individual” “getting so small.”78 Richard Schickel described how soul music reckoned with “the existential terror and loneliness that is a universal of this tragic time.”79 For both critics, the social and political upheaval of the decade overwhelmed many, leaving them to think that they had become “smaller” in a “complicated” society or that these were times of “terror” and “tragedy.” Responding to this darkness, many individuals sought out emotional moments that they considered timeless and transcendent. They found those moments in African American music, be it old blues styles or new soul songs. Schickel argued that whites turned to soul music because blacks, drawing upon their “unique and tragic experience,” knew how to “express” “existential terror.” Through African American music, whites could find not only shelter from the bleakness of modern life but perhaps also learn how to confront it and express it themselves. Such views, it should be said, risk reducing blacks to stereotypes. They can become stoic sufferers ennobled by past wrongs, a perpetual sadness that kept them tethered to the days of slavery. Another prevalent stereotype in writings on soul was that of black musicians as spouts of feelings, musicians who spontaneously and effortlessly conveyed grief. That conception was a twist on the older and obdurate image of the black jazz musician as someone, who, out of natural rhythmic and melodic gifts, could simply play, no arduous training or compositional craft required. Now musicians freely released strong feelings from their souls; they never spent years learning how to draw upon the emotional arsenal of African American music or labored over writing a sad song. The stereotype of the untutored black musician brings up an impulse running throughout the reception of both early jazz and soul music. The interest of whites in both stemmed in part from a self-perceived lack. In the case of early jazz, the lack was that of physical and sexual vigor, qualities that blacks were perceived as brimming with but that had been depleted in whites, who had lost that vigor in an increasingly mechanized and cerebral world. Langston Hughes skewered this view in his delightful 1934 short story “Rejuvenation through Joy,” which has wealthy white Manhattanites going in for jazz cures provided by black musicians. In the nonfictional world, those same wealthy etiolated whites 78 79

Welles, “The Blues Turned Blue-Eyed,” 18 Richard Schickel, “Making It with Soul,” LIFE 66 (10 January 1969): 92.

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could have also gone to the Cotton Club to hear Duke Ellington’s band play “jungle” jazz in shows catering to white fantasies about “primitive” blacks.80 With soul music, the lack is an emotional one. White listeners were now caught up in, as Richard Schickel put it, a “complicated” and “impersonal” society, which left them bereft of the emotional strength to deal with those complications or connect with other people. Soul music, as he believed, could provide such strength. In the 1960s, there was no Hughes to mock such views; however, black journalist Phyl Garland dissected them. Similar to Schickel, she sees the interest in “the inviting warmth and genuine feeling embedded” in soul as a response to a contemporary emptiness, that of “the cold, computerized society of today where the need to dominate and to acquire things for oneself has squeezed out a deeper consideration of human values.” Add to this “rigid rules of self-expression” that dominated society. Soul was prized as an “antithesis” to those cultural forces. Garland, however, backs off from the fantasy of emotional replenishment by emphasizing the realities of racial inequalities obscured in that fantasy. The “dominant nine-tenths of the population,” as she puts it, turned to “the oppressed black tenth” so as to “reclaim a rejected portion of the self” and assuage guilt over that oppression. She also points out that while white listeners may embrace the emotional power of soul music, they failed to perceive the suffering and injustices that stirred the strong feelings in the music. They turned to “the reassuring sound of dark laughter and song, but without regard to dark tears.”81 The fascination with the emotions of African American singers, as reductive as those views may have been, does convey a desire by whites to form connections with blacks. Given the social barriers of the time, such bonds, even friendships, were difficult to create. Soul music, though, could provide a bridge. Such is the case with Richard Bailey, a white navy deserter in the Vietnam War. As he told novelist Robert Stone: “One of the things I want to get with is soul music, the whole soul thing. I had a few friends among the Negro guys aboard. I used to hang out with them sometimes to listen to music and just talk about how it is.” An officer, however, warned 80

81

The Hughes story is in his collection The Ways of White Folks. The depiction of blacks and jazz as wellsprings of physical vigor fits into the larger primitivist fantasies running through early twentieth-century arts. On such fantasies see Marianna Torgovnick, Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991) and Glenn Watkins, Pyramids at the Louvre: Music, Culture, and Collage from Stravinsky to the Postmodernists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 63–212. Garland, The Sound of Soul, 10–11.

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him: “In this division we don’t hang around with niggers.”82 Even without racist commands, many whites kept apart from African Americans. They might not have been as brave as Bailey was to befriend blacks, but they could use soul music to form an emotional kinship with them, albeit from a distance. The popularity of soul with whites suggests that they wanted to connect to the source of the powerful feelings in that music. In addition, the Civil Rights movement and the songs linked to it sustained an aura of emotions, and some whites wanted to be part of that glow, if not marching on the streets with black protestors. There was a desire to draw near to a people who were seen to be driven and elevated by emotions and perhaps to share, or simply be moved by, their sadness and courage. Partaking in the lifting sorrow of a soul ballad was one way to form such a relationship. Writers in the Black Arts movement, though, rejected any such emotional bonds with whites. That movement rested upon the belief that African American culture was distinctly black. Drawing upon the experiences of blacks in America as well as their African heritage, the fruits of that culture could be only truly understood by them. Along those lines, Nikki Giovanni and other Black Arts writers extolled an emotional energy in African American culture that they upheld as richly black, a force that energized black arts and that strengthened blacks in coping with the ravages of racism and emboldened them in pushing toward equality. In other words, whites could not fully experience such emotions or recognize their political potential. Amiri Baraka, for example, referred to a “Black emotionalism,” which “came directly out of, and from as far back as, pre-church religious gatherings” and took the form of “an antiphonal rhythmic chant-poemmoan” between a single person and group, later the interaction between “preacher-congregation” or “leader-chorus.” The “emotional patterns” created by that interaction became just as enduring as the call-andresponse dynamics described by Baraka. Those patterns could be heard in spirituals, early jazz, the contemporary R&B of singers like Redding and James Brown, and the “New Black Music,” Baraka’s term for 1960s innovative jazz styles by such musicians as John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and Cecil Taylor. Whatever period or style of African American music, “Black emotionalism” “seeks freedom” and rings with “protest,” qualities that made it so vital during the Civil Rights struggle.83 In a manifesto-like 82 83

Who We Are: An Atlantic Chronicle of the United States and Vietnam, eds. Robert Manning and Michael Janeway (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1969), 236. Amiri Baraka (formerly Leroi Jones), Black Music (1968; New York: Da Capo, 1998), 195, 203, 207.

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article for Ebony magazine, editor Larry Neal preached how the “feeling” of black music could lead to “liberation”: “That is, the feeling and love sense of the blues and other forms of Black music. The feeling of a James Brown or an Aretha Franklin. That is the feeling that unites us and makes it more possible for us to move and groove together, to do whatever is necessary to liberate ourselves.”84

******

What is soul? Many people asked that question during the 1960s, from Sammy Davis, Jr. and Aretha Franklin on a TV show to the famous radio DJ “Magnificent” Montague. Lots of people asked the question, and they came up with lots of different responses. The lexical buzz is not surprising given that soul was a new and almost instantaneously popular idiom and also that it touched upon such fundamental, and vexing, areas of American life as race and ideals of emotional expression. The question is also pertinent to the history of the ballad. Soul music broadly transformed the songs. With soul, African American idioms infused the ballad more deeply than ever before, and, through those idioms, the emotional range and values of the songs changed. What began as sparks of gospel in Cooke’s 1950s recordings turned into something that neither he nor anyone else could have foreseen. Ballads could become Civil Rights testaments, as Cooke himself would realize, and, as brought out by Redding and Franklin, they could also serve as fonts of emotion during a time when so many people wanted to, or needed to, feel emotions in bolder ways. 84

Larry Neal, “Any Day Now: Black Art and Black Liberation” Ebony 24 (August 1969): 56.

Interlude II It Still Hurts. . .

And it has hurt for a long time – that is, if the titles of ballads are to be believed. From fifty years of this litany of hurt: “It Hurts Me So” (Jerry Lee Lewis), “I Love You So Much It Hurts” (Patsy Cline), “Oh, How It Hurts” (Barbara Mason), “It Hurts to Be in Love” (Gino Vannelli), “It Only Hurts When I’m Breathing” (Shania Twain), “When It Hurts So Bad” (Lauryn Hill), “What Hurts the Most” (Rascal Flatts), “Truth Hurts” (Usher). In ballads, the only titular verb to rival hurt is obviously “love.” The two are a pair; they are ubiquitous in titles and lyrics, and they are also both verbs and nouns, one reason that they are pervasive. As subject and verb, the two are also united as a couple. The wedding works only one way – as in “Love Hurts”; we are still waiting for a song called “Hurt Loves.” There are, though, songs by Elvis, Nine Inch Nails (and the crepuscular cover by Johnny Cash), and Christina Aguilera simply called “Hurt,” where the single word plays so many roles: noun, verb, and adjective. By now, “Love Hurts” has become a pop standard, as has R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts.” The two have a lot to tell us about hurt, the verb and noun. They offer contrasting accounts of hurt, differences that say much about the changes in how we have understood and conveyed emotions in the thirty-some years between the debut recordings of the two songs. The notions of hurt in R.E.M.’s song, for example, would have been unthinkable in the early 1960s when the Everly Brothers first recorded “Love Hurts.” The two songs are even more of a duo in that they have been covered frequently. The covers prove that it still hurts. Musicians keep turning back to the songs not just for the indelible melodies but also for the feelings that they have crystallized. Through their versions, performers tap into a familiar patch of hurt, remember it, have us remember it, and make something out of it, possibly something more anguished or maybe something even comforting. “Love Hurts” was written by the husband-wife team Boudleaux and Felice Bryant. The title is pretty much what a teenager would conclude 127

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after a breakup, and that is whose thoughts the Bryants give us. “I’m young” states the singer and then tells his or her ex that he or she has “really learned a lot.” The lesson is that love inflicts. It not only “hurts” but it also “scars” and “burns.” The “blissfulness” of love is something in which only “fools” believe. To capture these youthful pangs, the Bryants rely on a centuries-old melodic figure, the descending two-note sigh motif that we heard in “Crying.” As in Orbison’s song, we get a string of them, four of them in the opening line. Instead of the trickle of tears in “Crying,” they form a chain of romantic stigmata. The Everly Brothers were the first to record the song in 1960, following up on their success with the Bryant’s “Bye Bye Love” and “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” As recorded by them, “Love Hurts” is a rockaballad, possessing enough rhythmic kick to call to mind rock and roll along with the mellifluousness of a ballad. It eschews the shimmering string orchestra aura of the typical pop ballad recording of the time in favor of a strippeddown guitar backing, another feature consistent with rock and roll as well as the country origins of the brothers. Although the string orchestra may not be there, the recording still musters sonic luster through the singers’ trademark close harmonies and washy guitar tremolos. In his 1961 recording, Roy Orbison did the song as a proper pop ballad, using a string orchestra and solo trombone. He even vocally respects the emotional restraint of the lush pop ballad. There are none of the “drama ballad” vocal flights heard in songs like “Crying,” which is especially surprising given the catalogue of hurt in the song.1 Orbison’s recording is one of the first in a long sequence of cover versions. The song called out for different interpretations, a call answered by The Everly Brothers themselves. They recorded the song again for their 1965 album Rock n’ Soul, which is a collection of covers of songs from different genres, including 1950s rock and roll, R&B, and country. “Love Hurts” is the only one of their own past recordings that they cover and is perhaps the most surprising genre transformation on the album. Instead of a rockaballad, they give us a rock song, no ballad. The song is performed at a fast tempo with heavy drumming and guitar chords and a guitar solo. Continuing with rock versions, The Who played the song at concerts during the late 1960s, giving it a hard-driving and rough rock sound. In their recording, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris restored the song to a ballad but brought it into a new genre, country (the recording was 1

“Drama ballad” was a name given to Orbison recordings like “It’s Over.” “Singles Review,” Billboard (4 April 1964), 26.

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released in 1974, a year after Parsons’ death). To capture hurt, they relied on the trusted country means of tremulous vocals and weepy steel guitar solos. In 1975, the Scottish group Nazareth recorded what has become the most famous rendition of “Love Hurts.” The band came up with a new genre approach for the number, the combination of hard rock and the ballad, as opposed to the rock-tinged rockaballad. It was not just a new approach for the song but for rock in general. “Love Hurts” is one of the first such genre alloys, one that would set the stage for the rock power ballads of the 1980s. The terms of the mixture are laid out in the introduction, which punctuates soft guitar arpeggios, a standard ballad opening, with two crashing guitar chords, a sound largely unknown to ballads at the time. The workings of the ballad are there, but they set up distinctly rock expressive touches. For example, the opening arpeggios usually prompt a subdued voice; now they cue Dan McCafferty’s abraded rock voice. Another rock moment is the brief guitar solo. Lead guitarist Manny Charlton concentrates on the descending melodic teardrops of the opening vocal line. In a rock ballad, they are no longer teardrops but rather sonic cascades. Charlton plays them in the high, steely register typical of a rock solo and instead of sighing into the second note, he swoops into it from above. With their rock-ballad alchemy, Nazareth made “Love Hurts” a worldwide hit. The recording also inspired more covers, which, as heard in the performances by Cher, Rod Stewart, Pat Boone, Sinéad O’Conner, and Heart, have broadened the genre travels of the song. The seemingly unending versions of “Love Hurts” tell us much about both covers and hurt, especially why musicians and listeners keep returning to songs about hurt. To turn back to commanding feelings is a natural instinct, be it through songs, memories, or some other means. Those returns can become obsessive with hurt. When a romantic wound is at its freshest, we cannot leave it alone, incessantly thinking about the rejection or infidelity that opened it. Even when removed by years or happy in a new romance, we may still go back to a past wound, so much has it become part of our lives, something that we will always remember and something against which we can see how far we have come or not come since the original blow. Whether it be in the initial few days or years out, there is a need to measure the intensity of hurt, how much it still pains us, and to give it a form that captures our individual experiences of anguish. We do those same things when listening to “Love Hurts.” All it takes is a few seconds to have us think about some past romantic blow, what caused

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that sorrow, what that pain has become to us, and how much it continues to hurt. Something similar happens with cover versions of the song. Covers arise, or should arise, out of a musical inspiration, a performer showing what he or she can do with a well-known melody and lyric. Emotions also inspire, as a performer shows what he or she can do with the feelings evoked by a song. Musicians especially return to songs that, like “Love Hurts,” have become strongly connected to a particular feeling. What they do with that song and feeling is not so different from what a rejected lover does after a breakup or what a listener does when coming upon “Love Hurts” on the radio. Musicians too make something out of hurt. They wring a new experience of pain from it, one that can enhance our own. Working with that feeling, they, like us, make decisions about how to understand and present hurt; that is, how intense the song should be, what the vocals describing those scars should sound like, and how the song, or the scene of hurt, should end, weighed down even more by pain or perhaps a little lighter. As the covers of “Love Hurts” show, one way to shape hurt is through the choice of genre. Each genre inflects hurt differently, like the comforting melancholy of pop or the aching simplicity of country. That the song has been presented in so many genres attests to how much musicians have returned to hurt and how much they have looked for different ways to capture it. Out of all these ways, one rendition has stuck – Nazareth’s recording. For many listeners, it is the treasured version of the song, perhaps the only one that they know. With it, rock has become the genre to capture the pain in the song. Either in the 1970s or now, hurt comes through in a wailing voice, crashing cymbals, and a whirring guitar solo. As the disregard of the 1960 Everly Brothers recording makes clear, dulcet harmonies will not do. Hurt is to be raw, a quality best found in rock. That grit keeps us coming back to the Nazareth recording, finding there a hurt that still clamors. If “Love Hurts” has a rival as a beacon of hurt, it is R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” (1992). Twenty-some years after its release, listeners keep returning to the song, and performers keep covering it. Both groups did so en masse, for example, with the charity single version used to raise money for the victims of the 2010 Haitian earthquake. Twenty-three artists sang for the recording, which raised millions of dollars in sales. That same year, the R.E.M. recording topped a list of the songs that were most likely to make men cry.2 2

Eleanor Barkhorn, “10 Songs that Make Men Cry,” The Atlantic (29 September 2010) www .theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/09/10-songs-that-make-men-cry-tracks-by-rem-eric -clapton-leonard-cohen-and-more/63769/.

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“Love Hurts” and “Everybody Hurts” may be both enduring beacons of hurt, but they draw us to contrasting types of hurt, differences spelled out in the grammatical bluntness of the titles. They share the same verb but put it in the service of different subjects. “Love Hurts” tells us what causes the pain; “Everybody Hurts” tells us who feels it. In the earlier song, hurt has a specific source and a target, young hearts, while in the R.E.M. number, hurt touches everyone and has no one source, or any identifiable source. Hurt, as it exists in the song, binds despair, anger, and loneliness. We have a name for that mix of feelings, a name that R.E.M. never mentions but one that many listeners have connected to the song. That name is depression. In everyday usage, depression clusters the emotions described in the song. Adding to the despair is another word that goes unstated – suicide. The lyrics reach out to people who have “had enough” and “feel like letting go.” R.E.M. already broached the idea of suicide in a preceding song on the Automatic for the People album containing “Everybody Hurts.” “Try Not to Breathe” depicts an elderly person contemplating ending his or her life, or so the song seems to suggest. Typical of the group’s elusive lyrics, the scenario is never clearly laid out. The song can be heard as a making a case for the right-to-die for the elderly or terminally ill or it could be heard as collecting an elderly person’s bleak thoughts before death. Compared to the band’s other songs, the lyrics to “Everybody Hurts” are direct. The image of endless, solitary nights conveys a depression that could build to thoughts of suicide. The song is also emphatic in the need to rebuff such thoughts, telling listeners to “hold on.” That repeated phrase offers comfort and the hope that such darkness can be traversed, a point reinforced in the video. It opens with shots of people caught in a traffic jam, their worries rattling them even more in the confines of a stuck car. Subtitles flash their thoughts of frustration and hopelessness. After lead singer Michael Stipe leaves his car and climbs on top of another one to make his plea to “hold on,” the others get out of their vehicles and walk away from the traffic jam and presumably hurt. As with “Love Hurts,” “Everybody Hurts” begins with guitar arpeggios, the way for a rock band to announce a ballad. Stipe delivers the first lines about long days and isolated nights in a pure yet fragile voice. As frail as it might sound, his voice offers solace, an effect enhanced by the guitar rocking back and forth between two major chords. In the chorus, the harmonies alternate between minor and major chords, but a sense of comfort still emerges as the pitches for “hurt” always land on a major chord. In the bridge, the comfort is slightly coarsened by

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ringing electric guitar chords (not played as arpeggios), which are the first pronounced sound of rock so far. Nazareth shoved loud rock chords between the opening guitar arpeggios; R.E.M. make us wait for around two minutes to hear them and then, having introduced them, turn to other means to confront hurt. Ascending string lines answer those chords and bring into the song a feeling of uplift. In the close, those lines circle around a variation of the opening vocal phrases, a melodic transformation that underscores how far the song has moved away from the opening scenes of despair. The end of the song has the ring of a power ballad to it. There may not be the full shebang of a final modulation and vocal runs, but there is still an effusive sweep, created, as in so many power ballads, by soaring strings. Power ballads, as we will see in Chapter 3, create vibrant mixes of different feelings, often opposing ones like hurt and boldness. There is some of that here, as the song alternates between the writ of depression, “everybody hurts,” and the promise of solace, “hold on.” So in terms of emotions there is a lot to sort out in “Everybody Hurts,” and that is what the many cover versions of the song have been doing. The musicians performing “Love Hurts” concentrate on one feeling, albeit a large one, hurt, but those performing the R.E.M. number have had to deal with two contrasting emotional states, depression and comfort. Some performers, like Patti Smith and Ariane Moffatt, delve into hurt, keeping the music sparse, the vocals wounded, and the comfort reassuring but not rousing. Others have emphasized solace by priming the pump of uplift in the song and turning it into a power ballad. Contestants on American Idol and X Factor, for example, begin with a few bare phrases of the tune but then leap into energetic, fervent conclusions. With singers like Paul Potts and David Hobson, the song has even become a classical crossover power ballad. Cover versions, as we have learned, are full of surprises. A performance can amaze us by transforming a song into what appears to be a new song, like the genre metamorphosis of “Love Hurts” from a country-fringed rockaballad to a hard rock song. The transformation of emotions in a familiar song can be equally striking. The protean “hurt” in “Everybody Hurts” has taken on many forms. Some of them, I have to say, are not so surprising or moving. That the hurt in the song became fodder for power ballads does not shock me. If anything, it seemed inevitable, so dominant have the rousing emotional experiences of power ballads become in popular culture. The euphoric dross in the power ballad covers of “Everybody Hurts” hides from the reality that hurt hurts.

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How surprising and moving then to see that reality reinforced by a performance of “Everybody Hurts” on Glee, a show that has its high school choir sing many a power ballad. The version sung by the character Ryder is anything but. With the school in a blackout, the choir members perform songs “unplugged,” which for “Everybody Hurts” means an accompaniment of harp, strings, and drums.3 The strings, as to be expected, build, but the song only builds so far. At the moment where power ballad versions take off, this rendition cuts off. Power ballad singers soar with the closing repetitions of “hold on.” Ryder, on the other hand, stops at one statement of that phrase, bringing the song to a sudden and subdued close. The glee club instructor tells the choir that Ryder chose to sing the number to “unplug his feelings” (an unfortunate screenwriting moment). Ryder introduces the song by telling his friends that it is about the social rejection that they have experienced as glee club geeks. Appealing to the high school loner in all of us, Glee has “covered” that particular type of hurt many times and in many ways. After the performance, Ryder says that he has used the song to “connect” with the hurt of having been molested as a child. This is a new type of hurt for both the show and the song. Nothing in the R.E.M. lyrics or video hints at that trauma. It may seem limiting to pin the hurt in the song to such a specific ordeal, but Ryder’s confession has the opposite effect. By hearing about his pain in his performance, we can identify with his hurt and use it to fathom our own. As “Everybody Hurts” and “Love Hurts” teach us, hurt is a universal experience. No matter how it is musically presented and felt, it is something that we all know. 3

The “Lights Out” episode first aired on 25 April 2013.

chapter 3

The Power Ballad

A housemate of mine once played Whitney Houston’s recording of “I Will Always Love You” a few times a day for about a month. Then one day, he suddenly stopped. I’m not sure why, nor do I know why he ever put the song into rotation. Perhaps he was going through something. I never asked. As annoying as his melancholy loop may have been for me, it was nothing compared to what other people have been through with the song. In 1993, less than a year after the recording was released, a woman from Stockton on Tees spent a week in jail for playing the song nonstop at full volume in her apartment, amounting to what was called “psychological torture” in court.1 A few weeks later, a London teenager also decided to burrow into loud, repetitions of the song. A neighbor snapped. She got into the kid’s apartment and threw his stereo out the fourth-floor window. And then the boy’s mother snapped at the neighbor and attacked her. After a court appearance, the mother was released on bail and ordered to stay at a residence away from the neighbor.2 Twenty years later, people are still getting stuck in “I Will Always Love You.” On a flight from Los Angeles to New York, a woman began loudly singing the song and would not stop. There was no throwing her out the window, so the flight made an emergency landing and the passenger was removed from the plane – while still singing the song. She was released without charge, but she suffered a more ignominious, modern-day punishment: Videos of her singing and being taken off the plane were posted on YouTube.3 1 2

3

John Vidal, “A Pain in the Ears,” The Guardian (8 September 1993). “Britons Go to Blows, Show Little Love Over Houston Love Song” (17 September 1993) www .deseretnews.com/article/310260/BRITONS-GO-TO-BLOWS-SHOW-LITTLE-LOVE-OVER -HOUSTON-LOVE-SONG.html?pg=all. Suzannah Hills, “‘I will always love youuuuuuuu’: Woman kicked off plane for refusing to stop singing Whitney Houston song,” Mail Online (13 May 2013) www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2323692/I-loveyouuuuuuuuu-Woman-kicked-plane-refusing-stop-singing-Whitney-Houston-song.html

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As grating as I may have found my housemate’s vigils with “I Will Always Love You,” they never turned me against the song. I could still appreciate the virtuosity of Houston’s performance and the solid foundation of the Dolly Parton song covered by Houston. The neighbors and airline passengers above might not have reached that point of equanimity, but they confronted one reality about Houston’s recording: It is a moving, dare I say, powerful, performance that can take listeners to rapturous emotional points or extreme ones for those who have played or sung the song over and over. I would not normally hesitate to use the word “powerful” to describe a song, but I do here because it serves as an awkward segue to the topic of the power ballad. The powerful power ballad is, to be sure, groan-worthy word play. Yet the redundancy does have a point, for these types of ballads have captured emotional experiences that have been upheld as especially intense, or again powerful, in popular culture. Emotional climaxes in films and television in the last four decades have often been scored to power ballads, a role played by Houston’s recording in The Bodyguard. The uses of power ballads in popular culture and the endless repetition of the songs by a few troubled souls do raise a question that I never asked while my housemate kept playing “I Will Always Love You”: What makes these ballads emotionally powerful? Another way to ask that question is what is so different about these ballads that they got stamped with a name that touts emotional and musical “power.”

What Is a Power Ballad? A short answer to that question is that a power ballad is a ballad that exceeds the emotional scope typical of ballads. That answer jibes with the colloquial uses of “power” as an adjective that tells us that something has been taken up another level. A power suit is not just a suit but rather one that will impress people and get you the job you always wanted. You do not merely rest during a power nap; you instead build up energy that will get you through an all-nighter. As evocative as this popular understanding of “power” may be, it only tells us so much about why one ballad has power and another does not. To make that distinction, we can turn to the central idea in the colloquial spin on “power”: that of taking something up another level. For that is what happens in a power ballad. They are songs that build and build. But what are the levels – of both a typical ballad and a power ballad? Power ballads begin like any other ballad; however, they quickly initiate

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a process of continuous escalation. That process amounts to a formula that defines the songs. The starting point is usually soft vocals with a few acoustic instruments like piano or guitar; in other words, the opening of most ballads. Most ballads do not stay at that level; rather, they too build. The vocals become more impassioned, and few more instruments may join the accompaniment. A more romantic or wistful presentation of the opening is the point that the average ballad reaches. Power ballads, on the other hand, leave the opening behind, well behind. The escalation formula begins quickly. In terms of instruments, a brash electric guitar may depose the acoustic guitar of the opening or a whole orchestra may suddenly appear. The drums and bass underneath the ensemble provide a light beat so as not to disturb the introspective opening, but as the instrumental ensemble gets bigger so do they, fueling the growing intensity with more dynamic beats and bass lines. The singer, as to be expected, is at the center of this buildup. He or she abandons the hushed tones of the opening and puts on ecstatic displays, including elaborate runs and catapulted high notes. The apex of most power ballads is a sudden modulation to a key a step higher. These ascents have been called “truck driver” modulations, because it sounds like the harmonic gears are quickly shifting. With those abrupt modulations, the whole song is actually taken up another level, moving up to a higher key. The effect of the modulation is one of release.4 Musically and emotionally, things have gotten to such a point that the only thing left to do is push through the governing key. Some brazen ballads like Michael Jackson’s “You Are Not Alone,” however, mount one more modulation, pushing the song up another level. Many power ballads conclude not at those heights but rather by returning, albeit briefly, to the opening quiet passages, a look back that does not so much reestablish the opening mood but rather reveals how towering the song had become. Regarding the modulations, they are a hallmark of the power ballad, but not all of the songs use them. Some, like the early 1980s rock songs discussed later, refrain from them. Nor do these key changes appear in only power ballads. Popular songs have long exploited them, using them to convey not just release but also suspense, surprise, and anger, among other effects. We have already heard a song with a sudden key change as far back 4

In a brief remark on power ballads, Simon Frith describes them as “songs of feeling bottled up and bursting out; musical, emotional, and sexual release somehow all equated” Frith, “Pop Music,” in The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock, eds. Simon Frith, Will Straw, and John Street (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 101.

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as the 1950s. Connie Francis’ recording of “Who’s Sorry Now?” employs one to give the final posing of that bitter question a little more kick. As the modulations make clear, not all power ballads follow this scheme exactly. It is not a master plan. There are numerous exceptions to the formula; there always are with such designs. Nonetheless, the scheme of stepwise escalation provides a consistent, yet flexible, formula for the songs. Nor does this scheme offer an identification guide to help you know if the song that you are listening to is a power ballad or just a regular ballad. That might seem like a strange question, but I have found myself asking it, as have many of the people with whom I have discussed power ballads. The source of the confusion emerges from one of the main arguments of this book: That ballads have become bigger and more effusive since the 1950s. Power ballads are, of course, signs, if not the culmination, of that development. The rank-and-file ballads on the charts, though, have also gotten bigger, many of them drawing upon parts of the power ballad formula. So no wonder there is confusion, but we should not worry about sorting songs into the power ballad and regular ballad baskets. Insistence on strict categories will always undo you, if not drive you mad, when it comes to popular music. The important thing is to focus on the larger historical picture and to observe that ballads have become more emotionally forceful and to recognize the characteristics of the songs, the power ballads, that took the whole genre up a level. To illustrate the power ballad scheme there is perhaps no clearer, or bigger, example than Houston’s recording of “I Will Always Love You.”5 Even by the standards of the power ballad, the scale of the recording is imposing. Instead of the standard opening for voice and acoustic instruments, it begins at the even more reduced point of voice alone and the use of a free tempo, a starting point that allows for additional steps up the power ballad ladder as the ensemble enters and the steady pulse begins later on. With no beat to harry her, Houston moves from word to word in the opening verse and takes her time to ornament each one. After around forty seconds of this a cappella section, the song finally arrives at the point that the typical power ballads begins, the quiet acoustic instruments, soft singing, and light beat heard in the first chorus. From there on, the recording relentlessly expands. In the following extended statement of the chorus, strings and guitar enter and provide a harmonic backdrop and 5

A comparison of the Parton and Houston recordings can be found in Richard Rischar, “A Vision of Love: An Etiquette of Vocal Ornamentation in African-American Popular Ballads of the Early 1990s,” American Music 22 (2004), 419–22.

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a slight rhythmic underpinning. The beat grows firmer with the appearance of the drums in the second verse and becomes more emphatic, along with Houston’s vocal delivery, in the following chorus section. A sax solo provides a break for Houston but not to the overall escalation, as the sax adds a rough, soulful tone color to the mix and, like Houston, indulges in melodic runs. The ensemble and Houston’s vocals actually relax somewhat in the third statement of the verse that comes after the solo, but the section is only a setup for the climactic close. A cavernous pause makes us wait for the finale, which does not disappoint. It pulls out all the power ballad stops: A spontaneous stepwise modulation, vocal belting, the highest notes in the vocal part, and the full ensemble. Like many power ballads, the song quickly winds down with a return to the peaceful opening mood, but even here Houston intensifies things. She closes with another high note, which, although sung softly, gleams like those just heard in the climax. This is the second time that I have brought out Houston’s recording to exemplify the power ballad. Some of you may be wondering why that song. For many people, “power ballad” calls to mind ballads sung by 1980s rock and heavy metal bands, like Mötley Crüe’s “Home Sweet Home” or Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.” Houston’s recording, though, is also a power ballad and has been called such by many fans and writers. So once again the question of genre emerges when discussing ballads. Power ballads may be puffed-up ballads, but they are still ballads. Like ballads, they cross genre lines. So it is possible to have rock power ballads and pop power ballads as well as R&B and country ones. During the 1980s, the glory days of rock and heavy metal power ballads, the term was applied to a variety of genres. Billboard magazine, for example, referred to power ballads in reviews under its pop, country, and adult contemporary headings. A 1985 songwriting manual by Sheila Davis uses it as a pop category. Evoking a higher authority, she mentions that legendary industry executive and producer Clive Davis uses the term and then lists power ballad hits by Barry Manilow, Melissa Manchester, Dionne Warwick, and Air Supply released by Davis’ Arista Records during the 1970s and 1980s.6 I always thought that the term “power ballad” itself was a product of the 1980s, but then I came across this bit from a 1970 Billboard article by Gus Gossert, an “authority in oldies”: 6

Sheila Davis, The Craft of Lyric Writing (Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1985), 225.

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Both [Tom] Jones and [Engelbert] Humperdinck continually draw upon “power ballad” tracks that were first brought to us via Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison in 1960 and a little later, Gene Pitney. The “new” arrangements, however, are less dramatic and less original than their decade-old counterparts.7

What to make of this? First, Gossert’s article provides an etymology epiphany. It is the type of find that dictionary editors love to make, as it allows us to take the term further back, twelve years before the 1982 source cited in the Oxford English Dictionary. The 1970 date also suggests that the power ballad has a contemporary cousin. The phrase may have emerged from the same slang smithy that “power pop” did in the late 1960s. That label was applied to songs by groups like The Knack and The Romantics, who fortified pop lyrics and catchy melodies with the boisterous guitar riffs and drumming of rock. Pop, in other words, had been given more power. As had some ballads at that time. The Billboard article also shows that “power ballad” early on was applied to pop, or, to be specific, different stripes of pop, including the smooth and country-styled ballads emphasized by RCA after Elvis was discharged from the military, the interlacing of pop, rock, and country in the songs of Orbison and Pitney, the R&B and rock-tinged mid-tempo ballads of Jones, and the mellow, lush arrangements of Humperdinck. None of these types of song may fit our idea of “power,” but they do build. It is not clear what 1960 Elvis songs Gossert had in mind, but the singer turned out passionate numbers like “It Hurts Me” (1964) later in the decade. Orbison and Pitney’s ballads push to fervent exclamations. Jones thrived on bravado, and Humperdinck could whip up his confectionary sound into peaks. The key thing is that Gossert recognizes that there are some ballads that are more effusive or dynamic than the average ballad, and he has acknowledged that through a name. That type of naming had been going on for a while in the popular music press. During the 1950s, critics employed the phrase “big ballad” and even “big, big ballad.” Orbison and Pitney’s songs were often called “drama ballads.”8 “Power,” “drama,” “big,” and “big, big” all get at a need to 7

8

“Programmer Speaks Up,” Billboard, 21 November 1970, 30. Prior to digging up the Gossert review, the earliest use of “power ballad” that I could find was a 1981 Los Angeles Times review of REO Speedwagon. Robert Hilburn, “REO Speedwagon Finally Hits the Rock Jackpot: A Classic Story of the Pop Business: After 11 Albums, Suddenly They’re Millionaires,” Los Angeles Times (14 June 1981). On the names for earlier ballads that exceeded the conventional musical and emotional scope of the genre, see Metzer, “The Power Ballad,” 443.

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separate the fervent ballads from the herd and brand them with a name, so different are these emotionally monumental songs.

Power Ballads: The 1970s Having discussed the history of the term “power ballad,” it is now time to turn to the history of the songs. That history begins in the 1970s and continues on to the present day. The songs have become a fixture in the charts, but a changing fixture. For any type of song to last for five decades or so on the charts, it has to change. The power ballad has done so by playing up that defining quality of the ballad, the mixture with other genres. The songs have taken on new lives by emphasizing different genres, being more pop at one point and more rock at another. The history of the songs can roughly be divided into decades, each of which brings out a different genre side of the power ballad. Barry Manilow invented the power ballad – or so say some journalists.9 Manilow concurs: “I seemed to have invented the power ballad.”10 At the time Manilow was supposedly devising the power ballad in the mid-1970s, the term, it appears, was not applied to his songs, at least not in print.11 Soon, however, it would stick to him. As mentioned earlier, Sheila Davis’ 1985 songwriting manual refers to songs like “Mandy” and “Weekend in New England” as power ballads, and she suggests that Clive Davis used the term. While Manilow’s songs may not have been billed as power ballads in the 1970s, they captured the qualities of what was emerging as a new type of song, not only in the pop scene of the time but also in the history of the ballad. The musical formula employed by power ballads was constructed in Manilow’s recordings. That scheme, called the “big-bang formula” by one reviewer, facilitated the expressive sweep from soft openings to soaring conclusions, or, as a disparaging critic put it, from “wispy bits of sentiment” to “raucous, grandiose production numbers.”12 The breadth of that 9

10 11 12

Lina Das, “Barry Manilow: Why We Still Love the King of Kitsch,” Mail Online (14 July 2008) www .dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1030585/Barry-Manilow-Why-love-King-Kitsch.html and Tim Williams, “Barry Manilow Brings the ‘70s Back to Life,” TV Guide (3 December 2007) www.tvguide .com/news/barry-manilow-seventies-41599.aspx. Charles Passy, “Manilow Indulges His Jazz Man’s Soul,” Wall Street Journal (4 April 2000). I have not found any reviews or articles on Manilow from the 1970s that use the term, which, of course, is not to say that term was not applied to his music during that time. Stephen Holden, “Pop: Barry Manilow on Broadway,” New York Times (24 February 1983) and John Rockwell, “Barry Manilow Sings Ballads and Pop in 2-Week Run at Uris,” New York Times (23 December 1976).

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sweep distinguishes the numbers from contemporary ballads that also pushed to passionate peaks, like Barbara Streisand’s “The Way We Were” (1973), and Paul Anka and Odia Coates’ “(You’re) Having My Baby” (1974). Even with swirling strings, those songs never reach for the “climactic” Manilow moment, the final ascending modulation. The modulations became a “habit” for Manilow, who used them in almost all of his 1970s power ballads (and some up-tempo songs too).13 Manilow has said that he “refused” to leave the songs that Clive Davis gave him “alone and play the piano and [put] icky violins behind them.” He always wanted to create “huge” songs.14 Lots of violins and the closing modulation were one way of doing that. Just how big can be heard by comparing “Mandy” (1974) with the song that it covers, Scott English’s “Brandy” (1971) (Manilow came up with a new rhyming title).15 “Brandy” opens with a folk-like feel created by acoustic guitar and other plucked instruments to accompany English’s plaintive voice. The recording fortifies the singer’s despair over a lost love by adding strings and backup singers as well as more aggressive rock-like drumming in the choruses. In a 2007 interview, Manilow described his version of English’s song: “It started with a little tinkling piano. . . then it got crazy, with this big backbeat, these big guitar-driven chords and this big ending.”16 A warning should come with that interview: Songs may appear bigger in hindsight. Manilow, as he claims, does begin with just piano and builds from there. Each verse and chorus is fuller than the last. There is not, however, much of a backbeat. The entrance of the drums does provide a kick, but the accents fall solidly on beats one and three, not the two and four of a backbeat. Nor are the guitar chords that prominent or driving. While the song may not “get crazy,” the ending is “big,” especially the signature modulation. Manilow sets up the finale by adding a bridge in a minor key that leads back to the chorus in the opening key, which is dispersed by the abrupt modulation to a key one step higher. The closing modulation and octave vocal leap would have been unthinkable in English’s pop-folk number, but they perfectly suit Manilow’s “huge” ballad.17 13 14 15 16 17

Robert Palmer, “Manilow Returns to New York After Years Recording, Touring,” New York Times (23 December 1978). John Soeder, “Barry Manilow Plays it BIG in Cleveland,” Cleveland Plain Dealer (8 December 2007). The song was co-written by English and Richard Kerr. It was released in the UK in 1971 and the United States a year later. Soeder, “Barry Manilow Plays it BIG in Cleveland.” It should come as little surprise that there has been a power ballad, or more powerful ballad, remake of Manilow’s “Mandy.” Westlife’s 2003 recording of the song exceeds Manilow’s through yearning

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In subsequent songs, Manilow would take these gestures further. “Weekend in New England” (1976) becomes symphonic, using strings as well as harp and oboe to create a sonic swirl, and whisks into the final modulation with a crescendo and brief pause. “I Write the Songs” (1975) features two modulations, both set up just as dramatically. Turning again and again to the “big-bang formula,” Manilow released several other successful power ballads during the next few years: “Could It Be Magic” (1975), “Trying to Get the Feeling Again” (1975), “Looks Like We Made It” (1977), “Even Now” (1978), “Ready to Take a Chance Again” (1978), “Somewhere in the Night” (1978), and “I Made It through the Rain” (1981). That he placed nine power ballads in the Top 20 over a sevenyear period (from “Mandy” to “I Made It through the Rain”) shows how quickly the songs pervaded the charts. His recordings were joined by other early power ballads, including Melissa Manchester, “Don’t Cry Out Loud” (1978) and “Through the Eyes of Love” (1979), Dionne Warwick, “I’ll Never Love This Way Again” (1979) (both singers were Manilow’s studio mates at Davis’ Arista Records), Debby Boone, “You Light Up My Life” (1977), Dan Hill, “Sometimes When We Touch” (1977), Neil Diamond, “Hello Again” (1980), and Kenny Rogers, “Through the Years” (1981). Not only did power ballads proliferate in the charts, but, even in this early stage, they had spread into the larger popular culture realm. Several of the songs made their way into films, including “Ready to Take A Chance Again” (Foul Play), “Through the Eyes of Love” (Ice Castles), and “Hello Again” (The Jazz Singer).

Power Ballads: 1980s Rock Having become a recognizable type of number in the 1970s, power ballads have changed since then while all the time adhering to the defining formula. The transformations are the result of the various genre blends formed by the songs. The first prominent blend was the rock power ballads of the 1980s. As mentioned earlier, these songs are the power ballad for many listeners, who keep them preserved in the day-glo amber of 1980s rock. What has been lost in the nostalgic tributes to the songs is how controversial they were at the time. They set off debates about the solo and group vocals, bigger orchestration, and, as seen in the video, fireworks to mark the final modulation.

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boundary between rock and pop as well as the types of emotional expression appropriate for male rock singers. Before getting to the 1980s rock power ballads, we should turn back once again to the 1970s. There are some songs from that decade that have been celebrated as power ballads in CD compilations and websites, including Led Zeppelin, “Stairway to Heaven,” Queen, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and Styx, “Come Sail Away.” They are great rock songs, but they are not power ballads. Nor are they ballads. During the 1970s, rock musicians became interested in how to use slow tempos, especially finding alternatives to the slow rock-blues songs that were common during the previous decade. One alternative was to include slow sections in larger songs built around different, contrasting sections, as with the Led Zeppelin, Queen, and Styx recordings. Those sections were not ballads but rather patches of ballads, patches that were eventually mowed over when the songs turned to faster and vigorous rock sections. Some rock acts did release actual ballads, like Kiss, “Beth,” and Alice Cooper, “You and Me,” but these songs, with acoustic guitars and strings, were the non-rock songs put out by those artists, songs that were seen as having – and did have – crossover appeal to a pop audience. What makes the songs by 1980s rock bands power ballads are that they are, first of all, ballads and that they also draw upon the power ballad formula stamped out by 1970s artists, a scheme to which 1970s rock acts were seemingly oblivious. REO Speedwagon and Journey were the two groups who first figured out ways to bring rock and pop power ballads together. They did not so much adopt the formula as adapt it, departing from it in key ways. The musical and emotional climb in the rock songs, for example, is not as steep as it is in earlier pop power ballads. While the 1970s numbers open with reflective acoustic passages and conclude with large symphonic forces and a climactic modulation, the rock songs start with acoustic instruments, or a blend of acoustic and electric instruments, and move onto the blare of electric guitars and a driving rock groove, which is drawn out for the rest of the song. REO Speedwagon’s “Keep on Loving You” (1980), for example, begins with piano and accents provided by a high bell sound. Blaring chords on the guitar soon replace the bell sound, and midway through the first verse, the drums enter and put down a vigorous rock beat. A second verse leads to the chorus, which colors the rich rock sound by adding synthesizer licks. In songs like “Who’s Crying Now” (1981) and “Open Arms” (1982), Journey contrast softer verses for acoustic instruments and light drums with choruses set for ringing electric guitars and forceful drumming.

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Despite the differences, the songs by both groups push into a sustained propulsive rock idiom, which strikes the emotional sweet spot. As heard in extended rock songs of the 1960s and 1970s, numbers in which both REO Speedwagon and Journey were schooled, that intensity can be drawn out to create an energy into which listeners can disappear. The two bands seek out that energy, using it to build expressive crests. In most long rock songs from the previous two decades, that momentum leads to a guitar solo. REO Speedwagon and Journey follow suit. “Keep on Loving You” punctuates the first chorus with a solo that features a distorted downward slide and pushes well beyond the range of the vocal melody, and “Who’s Crying Now” ends with a solo that lasts for the length of two choruses and begins a third before the fade out. Guitar solos are primed with associations of release and transcendence, two qualities that work well in a power ballad. The solos take a song up another level in the power ballad ascent. None of these songs cap off the ascent with a modulation. The guitar solo remains a truer expressive goal in a rock power ballad. Although set on that goal, the REO Speedwagon and Journey numbers do take on pop elements, which include the lyrical contours of pop melodies and the use of conventional verse/chorus forms. Regarding the vocal lines, one critic attending a Journey concert remarked upon the mix of “paint-blistering rock pieces” and melodies that “would do Melissa Manchester proud,” a reference tying the songs to the 1970s pop power ballads18 For his part, vocalist Steve Perry claimed that he was being “melodically indulgent”19 And romantically indulgent too, as the lyrics of the songs entertain romantic topics that would be anathema in most contemporary rock. All of those bedtime whispers and dreams of domestic bliss are pop banalities, not rock cries of anger or rebellion. Bands even penned what one critic called “greeting-card lyrics: Live every moment – love every day/’Cause if you don’t you just might throw your love away”20 With the success of REO Speedwagon and Journey, rock power ballads quickly multiplied. The songs by the two groups, though, served as more of an inspiration than as a model. The progeny tilted the mixtures formed by the two bands further to the pop side. Like them, the newer acts quickly 18 19

20

Liam Lacey, “From Barnstormers to Ballads: A Journey into the Rock Show Basics,” The Globe and Mail (1 May 1982). Dave DiMartino, “Journey as a Way of Life: Still No Rain in California,” Creem, 13 (September 1981), 47. Robert Hilburn, “REO Speedwagon Finally Hits the Rock Jackpot: A Classic Story of the Pop Business: After 11 Albums, Suddenly They’re Millionaires,” Los Angeles Times (14 June 1981) and Hilburn, “Pop Music,” Los Angeles Times (23 August 1981). Jon Young, “REO Speedwagon, Wheels Are Turnin’,” Creem 16 (April 1985), 52

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stride from subdued openings to a steady rock intensity, but they rarely move beyond that point to a guitar solo. If they do play one, it is usually brief and tied tighter to the vocal melodies than in the REO Speedwagon and Journey songs. Moreover, the solo guitar is often part of a varied, and less classic-rock, ensemble, one in which synthesizers can be just as prominent as guitars. Singer Ann Wilson of Heart described the “gel” of “big synthesizers” in “What about Love,” a glutinous sound that replaces the old roar of electric guitars.21 This later stripe of rock power ballad also relies heavily on standard verse/chorus forms, usually repeating a chorus over and over at the end of a song rather than concluding with a guitar solo. The thicker pop-oriented blends are not surprising given that the acts who released them straddled the line between pop and rock, with some more on the pop side (Corey Hart, Mr. Mister, Air Supply, and Bonnie Tyler) and others on the rock side (Foreigner, Loverboy, and Survivor). Heart, they of the “big synthesizers,” was a rock group converted to the power ballad. A “wonder band” of the 1970s, the group came close to breaking up in the early 1980s.22 A new producer, Don Grierson, encouraged them to play “outside songs,” that is, power ballads, in their resurrection album Heart (1985), which includes two such hit numbers, “What about Love” and “These Dreams.”23 If individual songs shifted the weight between rock and pop, so too did opinions of the power ballad. The words “power” and “ballad” formed two sides of a scale, which was rarely in balance in views of the songs. How the scale tilted depended on what one thought of the numbers. Musicians performing them emphasized the rock – or “power” – side in an attempt to fend off jibes that they were turning out pop blather, in other words, pop ballads. REO Speedwagon lead vocalist Kevin Cronin, for example, upheld the group’s rock credentials: “REO Speedwagon has always been a rock & roll band, but we learned we could play ballads and still have them be real powerful.”24 Grierson, the producer who brought Heart to the power ballad, held that “the very emotional [power ballads] retain enough of a rock edge so that album radio programmers don’t think that they are wimpy.”25 Radio play comes up frequently in the 1980s reception of the power ballad. Beginning in the late 1960s, rock settled into the Album Oriented 21 22 23 24 25

Charles Aaron, “Don’t Fight the Power,” in Da Capo Best Music Writing 2002, ed. John Lethem (New York: Da Capp, 2003), 129–30. Celina Bell, “Beating Hard, Beating Soft: A New Heart Attack,” Graffiti 3, no. 2 (1986), 31. Stephen Holden, “The Pop Life,” New York Times (11 May 1988). James Henke, “REO Speedwagon’s Big Breakout,” Rolling Stone (19 March 1981), 48. Holden, “The Pop Life.”

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Rock format mentioned by Grierson, which embraced the length and complexity of 1960s and 1970s idioms, and, in doing so, attracted small, but loyal, audiences. These bastions became increasingly smaller and less commercially viable as FM stations grew more and more pop-oriented, exemplified by the Contemporary Hit Radio format that emerged in the early 1980s. Under commercial pressures and out of their own musical interests, some rock musicians cultivated styles that could find their way on to those stations. The power ballad perfectly suited such programming. Hearing the songs thrive on bigger stations, rock loyalists dismissed the numbers as “bland corporate fodder for the FM masses” and as “tailormade” for the “conservative” playlists of FM radio.26 The familiar cry of “sellout” rings once again in rock criticism. It is a cry that reinforces notions of authenticity that define rock, particularly those ideals based on anti-commercialism and the artistic distance kept from pop styles.27 According to these views, rock is a music that resists the pelf and clichés of pop. Commercial temptations, though, increased in the 1980s with the prominence of music video and Top 40 radio, and not all musicians could resist them, or so thought some reviewers.28 About that decade, one critic remarked: “Artists seemed to be tripping over themselves in their eagerness to sell out.”29 For many, the power ballad was the anthem of commercial eagerness. Then there were the heavy metal power ballads that emerged in the 1980s. Such songs may seem to be an aberration, so far apart are heavy metal and ballads. Yet not only do the songs exist, but they also made it all the way up the pop charts.30 Rolling Stone writer Jeffrey Ressner tallied that with their ballads Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, and Guns N’ Roses “delivered as many Number One Hits in four months [fall 1988] as the entire hard-rock and metal field had in the preceding two 26 27

28

29 30

Dave DiMartino, “Hot Nights in Puerto Rico: Canadian Loverboys Work for Their Weekend,” Creem 13 (April 1982), 41. Robert Hilburn, “REO Speedwagon.” On notions of authenticity in rock, see Simon Frith, Sound Effects (New York: Pantheon, 1981); Frith, Music for Pleasure: Essays on the Sociology of Pop (New York: Routledge, 1988); Allan Moore, “Authenticity as Authentication,” Popular Music 21 (2002), 209–23. Some of those same reviewers could not resist overlooking commercial success as they did with Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A (1984), which was one of the most popular albums of the decade. Those same critics viewed Springsteen as a paragon of rock authenticity. On that inconsistency, see Frith, Music for Pleasure, 99–101. Anthony DeCurtis, “The Eighties,” in Present Tense: Rock & Roll and Culture, ed. Anthony DeCurtis (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1992), 5–6. Discussing Bon Jovi’s 1986 album “Slippery When Wet,” Robert Walser sees a peaceful, and even “transcendent,” union between heavy metal idioms and the “romantic sincerity of a long tradition of pop.” Robert Walser, Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1993), 120–24.

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decades.”31 To that successful lineup could be added the American groups Mötley Crüe, Poison, Whitesnake, and Warrant as well as the German groups Scorpions and Accept. The songs also flourished on video. Mötley Crüe’s “Home Sweet Home” (1985) became so frequently requested that MTV devised the “Crüe Rule,” which stated that no video could hold the status of most-requested for more than three months.32 One reason for the popularity of the songs is that they won over a new audience for heavy metal, particularly a large female one, or, as critic David Fricke put it, “the Top 40 housewives and their daughters.”33 The remark snags the gender issues that abound in heavy metal. Throughout his article, Fricke attempts to cordon off a masculine rock from the feminine. In general, it is a foolhardy undertaking to draw gender lines in heavy metal, as the genre has long wrapped itself in the androgynous.34 The wrap was particularly tight with the 1980s hair metal groups that put out power ballads. That scene flaunted glam excess, the outfits brocaded with sequins, calligraphic eyeliner, and, of course, halo-like blowdried hair. If that description does not conjure up a clear enough mental picture, then try this one from a 1984 article on Mötley Crüe: “Art-wrecko cherubs squeezed into dead black cow, looking like lifesize ads for Frederick of Hollywood’s fetish department, their heels stilettoed, their wrists studded, their chests chained, their crotches armored, and, topping the lot like a maraschino cherry on a chocolate gateau, the most unacceptably glorious brightly-dyed shag-cuts this side of the early ‘70s!”35 Besides the heels and hair, these groups played up another kind of androgyny: A mix of types of emotional expression considered to be masculine and feminine. The strutting, screeching singers and, of course, long solos on the phallic guitar are all part of the pageant of extravagant masculinity put on by heavy metal acts.36 Singing about love and loss in 31 32 33

34 35 36

Jeffrey Ressner, “Metal Romances Radio,” Rolling Stone (9 February 1989), 22. Aaron, “Don’t Fight the Power,” 133. David Fricke, “Heavy Metal Justice,” Rolling Stone 12 (12 January 1989), 46. Cliff Burnstein, manager of Metallica and Def Leppard, used a similar phrase in referring to Metallica’s “One,” which is about a double-amputee veteran and starts off slow and then builds from there: “This is no Robin Zander-Ann Wilson love theme from some current movie. We’re not exactly going for the housewives and daughters on this.” Jeffrey Ressner, “Metal Romances Radio,” 22. As offensive as these remarks may be, they do touch upon the commercial reality that women made up the biggest part of the Top 40 audience. Sean Ross, “Fems Take To Hard Rock, Radio Call-Out Suggests,” Billboard (8 October 1988), 1. On androgyny in heavy metal, see Walser, Running with the Devil. Sylvie Simmons, “Motley Crue Calling,” Creem 15 (February 1984). 44. On the associations of masculinity raised by heavy metal performances, see Susan Fast, In the House of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and The Power of Rock Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

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highly emotional ways, on the other hand, have long been considered feminine pursuits. Men, according to these surprisingly obdurate views, do not entertain such sentimental thoughts or lose control of their feelings and sing in vulnerable ways. Having violated those ideals, male ballad singers, as we saw with Johnnie Ray, have often been referred to as either effeminate or gay. With his 1970s power ballads, Manilow sometimes attracted such crude innuendoes, or sometimes outright homophobic attacks as in a Creem magazine review by Lester Bangs. He mocks the “sheer pap appeal” of Manilow’s songs and mentions how the “faggots love it.” According to Bangs, the giddy emotionality of Manilow’s music is “like being told that you can suck cock at Disney World.”37 The rock and heavy metal press lashed power ballad groups with misogynistic and homophobic taunts. One critic said that members of Mötley Crüe “are often mistaken for ugly women.”38 A writer for the heavy metal magazine Metallion compared the band Accept to Manilow for having “the world slavering in puddles of happy drool.” As if the connection with Manilow was not enough, the article insinuates that the lyrics and looks of the group seem gay, but then surprisingly downplays those aspersions and assures readers that the music is indeed heavy metal.39 Heavy metal groups offered similar reassurances, and there was perhaps no better place to do so than in videos. As seen in Mötley Crüe’s “Home Sweet Home,” Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain,” and Warrant’s “Heaven,” the videos typically divide a band’s life into two worlds. There are sentimental scenes of romantic love, weddings, sepia shots of past times, and the domestic life left behind by traveling musicians. Talk about sentimental: “Home Sweet Home” is more the stuff for embroidery on a throw pillow than the title of a rock song. Mötley Crüe and other bands put out the sentimental trappings, making it seem, as critic Ann Powers put it, that “sentimentality was all right.”40 Yet it was not completely all right. The bands played up sentimental themes but also distanced themselves from them. The domestic scenes in the videos were pushed aside by shots of the bands performing before an ecstatic crowd, indulging in the expected masculine romps and phallic stage play. 37 38 39 40

Lester Bangs, “Barry Manilow: Fifth Reich Kitsch,” Creem (September 1974), 22. Morgan Gerard, “Iron Maiden: And Now Kneel Before the Metal Kings,” Graffiti 3, no. 3 (1987), 34. Sylvie Simmons, “Accept No Substitute: Metal Heart’s a Powerful New Beat,” Metallion 1, no. 5 (1985), 17. Ann Powers, “The Male Rock Anthem: Going All To Pieces,” New York Times (1 February 1988). Powers mentions later power ballads by Pearl Jam and Matchbox 20 and how those songs turn away from the sentimentality of the earlier 1980s songs.

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The stage shows come across as overcompensation, using the masculine antics of heavy metal to fend off rumblings about effeminacy and homosexuality. Heavy metal groups also turned up the musical formula of the power ballad. They adapted the formula in a manner similar to 1980s rock groups, but did so in an appropriately much bigger way. “Home Sweet Home,” for example, heightens the standard transition from acoustic instruments to louder, thicker forces. The solo piano of the opening verse meets not just electric guitar chords but also the ringing “power” chords characteristic of heavy metal.41 As to be expected, heavy metal groups gave the guitar solo a more prominent role than in many of the rock power ballads. Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” (1988) features two solos, which contrast with the earlier acoustic rock sections and take the listener into what is an euphoric moment for metal, one that can be just as exhilarating for a power ballad. Some bands even utilize the final stepwise modulation. Warrant’s “Heaven” (1989) gets closer to heaven with two harmonic ascents in the last minute of the song. Commercial success proved just as contentious in the heavy metal scene as it did in the rock world, perhaps even more so as heavy metal was further removed from mainstream markets. Having staked out the fringe, its core audience identified itself through contempt for pop styles. As Metallica lead vocalist James Hetfield said, fans “freaked out” when hearing a ballad on an album, asking “what the fuck is this doing here.”42 The songs were not, as Accept guitarist Wolf Hoffman succinctly stated, “pure metal.”43 For many, they were pure profit. Lonn Friend, executive editor of heavy metal magazine R.I.P., upbraided bands for putting out “toned-down, wimped-out stuff” so as to get on the radio.44 Some honest industry figures and band members admitted as much. PolyGram Records (label for Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, and Cinderella) executive Steven Kleinberg remarked: “Our bands aren’t stupid. You don’t have to say to a band ‘These songs are 41 42 43

44

“Power” chords refer to chords that are built upon a fifth and octave (no thirds). The name is also applied loosely to ringing, distorted guitar sonorities. Stunner Crunch, “Metal Masterbeaters: Metallica Takes Heat from No One!,” Metallion (April/ May 1986), 17. Simmons, “Accept No Substitute: Metal Heart’s a Powerful New Beat,” 17. Hoffmann is pointing a finger at fellow German band Scorpions, which released several successful ballads. For his part, Scorpions singer Klaus Meine did not see ballads as antithetical to heavy metal but rather as intrinsic to the group’s sound and history: “We have two very strong directions in our music. The one direction, the very strong, powerful, hot and heavy side, and the other one is very gentle, melodic ballads side. They were always two very important directions of Scorpions.” Sylvie Simmons, “Scorpions: Stinging Scorchers or Virgin Killers?” Creem (August 1984), 22. Ressner, “Metal Romances Radio,” 22.

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great, but give us a ballad.’ They know what singles are going to motivate album sales.”45 George Lynch, guitar player of Dokken, called power ballads “a necessary evil” to sell records.46 Moving beyond the financial realm, Metallica’s Hetfield thought that ballads were soul destroying: “That shit just limits you, and your world gets smaller and smaller.”47 As with the rock power ballads, there were defenders. Surprisingly the line of defense was built along an aspect of the songs most despised by some: their emotional appeal. A review of Mötley Crüe’s Theatre of Pain album (1985) in Metallion, for example, praises the “soulful” qualities of “Home Sweet Home” and calls the song “a grabber that has a good chance of crossing over to a wider audience.”48 In a discussion of the appeal of heavy metal power ballads for women, a Rock & Roll Confidential critic argued that as “dissolute” as Guns N’ Roses may be, their “Sweet Child of Mine” (1988) is “as sensitive as anything that Tracy Chapman has to offer” and that the evocation of loneliness and comfort in the song “speaks to every latch-key kid and latch-key parent in America.”49 The song obviously touched more than the latch-key contingent, as it became yet another number-one heavy metal power ballad. The popularity of the numbers, though, would not last. By the early 1990s, the austere gloom of grunge entranced rock-friendly mainstream audiences. In heavy metal, bands turned away from the lavishness of hair metal and pursued a myriad of stripped-down styles, including grunge and the thrash metal style shaped by Metallica. Some bands lampooned ballads. Anthrax’s “Nice Fucking Ballad” (1991), for example, recites one romantic cliché after another to the accompaniment of acoustic guitar before abruptly ending with the not-so-cliché line “she got hit by a truck” and the ludicrous wailing of the band members. However, despite the sharp turn away from the songs, the heavy metal power ballad never died out. In the 1990s, Aerosmith enjoyed success with the songs “Crazy” (1994) and “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” (1998). The heavy metal power ballad even experienced a revival in the 2000s, with the success of bands like Creed and Staind.50 45 46 47 48 49 50

Ressner, “Metal Romances Radio,” 22. Glam, episode 5 of Metal Evolution, director Scot McFayden (2011). Crunch, “Metal Masterbeaters,” 17. Steve Gett and Lenny Stoute, “Theater of Pain: Motley Crue’s Latest Title Is More Than Empty Words,” Metallion, 2, no. 6 (1985), 23. “Ladies Choice,” Rock & Roll Confidential (December 1988), 1. Bryan Reesman, “Hard Music: Sustaining the Success,” Billboard (23 June 2001), 25, 30, 34.

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Power Ballads: 1980s–1990s R&B The 1980s brought about another power ballad genre coupling. This one, though, was not the apples-and-oranges mix of heavy metal and the pop ballad. During that decade, R&B musicians took to the power ballad, which is not surprising given that such musicians had long been interested in the ballad, as heard with African American singers like Charles Brown and Ivory Joe Hunter in the 1950s and 1960s soul artists. Nor is it surprising where the connection with the power ballad was made: Whitney Houston. Clive Davis was so taken by the young singer that he signed her to his label Arista Records. With her first two albums, Whitney Houston (1985) and Whitney (1987), Davis astutely decided to market several different Houstons so as to appeal to a large audience. For the R&B crowd, there were R&B songs, both ballads and up-tempo numbers, which were produced by leading R&B talents like Kashif and Jermaine Jackson. Then there were the power ballads, the in-house song of Arista, which turned out so many of them with hit recordings by Manilow and other artists during the 1970s. If you wanted to bring in a large, diverse audience, power ballads were the way to do it. Houston proved that calculation right with “Greatest Love of All,” “Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go,” three of the most successful tracks on the albums. As with the succession of pop power ballads inspired by Manilow’s hits, many acts followed Houston’s lead. The champions of the new R&B power ballad were a diverse group, including R&B divas Mariah Carey and Toni Braxton, white R&B singer Michael Bolton, and black and white boy bands like Boyz II Men, Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, and 98 Degrees. No classic R&B lineup here. Many of the acts – Bolton and Backstreet Boys, for instance – are better described as pop with touches of R&B. The same could be said about R&B power ballads. Whenever the power ballad is taken up in another genre like R&B, some parts of that genre are enhanced and others downplayed. It is all about what can add to the power of the power ballad, and what cannot is diminished. With R&B, the capital R, or rhythm, wanes. Songs by Al Green or Isaac Hayes use the individual rhythmic lines of bass, drums, and horns to construct elaborate rhythmic lattices. Such involved structures would only get in the way of the constant escalation demanded by power ballads and would probably crumble during the buildup if they were ever used. When it comes to rhythm, power ballads keep it simple: A basic beat that becomes more and more emphatic as the song marches toward the climax. The rhythmic lines in songs by

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Green and Hayes, on the other hand, multiply and intertwine. That will not do for a power ballad. The recording of “One Sweet Day” (1995) by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men, for example, rests upon a pattern consisting of an emphasis on beats one and three in the bass and hits on two and four by higher-range percussion. During the choruses and conclusion, more layers are added, but they nest within that pattern and never grow as independent as they might in an R&B song. The rhythmic lines become heavier and more forceful, though, as the song reaches the big final statement of the chorus. For power ballads, the most valuable R&B resources were the ecstatic vocal displays of elaborate runs, spontaneous high notes, and growls. Those resources were, of course, not limited to R&B. They appear throughout the history of African American music and increasingly became part of popular music around the middle of the twentieth-century, most notably in 1960s soul. From early spirituals and blues songs to soul music, such vocal gestures convey bursts of emotions so effusive that words melt into melody and notes leap into the air and resound. Power ballads not only use them for expressive gushes but also to sustain the grinding emotional escalation, as more and more of them are heaped on as a song progresses. In particular, the vocal runs became so common in R&B power ballads and, through their example, other types of songs that critic Andrea Rosen claimed that they were “rampant” in contemporary popular music, most notably in performances on American Idol.51 What better way for a singer to show off his or her chops than by reeling off one run after another. A comparison of regular R&B ballads with their power ballad kin reveals how excessively the latter have employed those runs. Al Green, for example, judiciously applies them to highlight key words or to round off phrases. In his “Let’s Stay Together” (1972), he adds them to the opening lines, where they highlight the two characters in his romantic petition: “I” and “You.” The opening “I” gets a small melodic shake and the “me” that concludes the second line gets drawn out with a run to capture a little rapture. With the following line about spending a life together, languid descending lines tie together the “I” at the beginning of the phrase and the “you” at the end. In R&B power ballads, the runs become filler, added to any word, even utilitarian prepositions and articles, and often result in distended phrases. With significant exceptions like the a cappella opening of Houston’s 51

Andrea Rosen, “The State of American Singing as Heard on ‘I-I-I-I-I-I-Idol’,” New York Times (18 May 2003).

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“I Will Always Love You,” they have become a rather cheap means of expression, as singers unfurl them so as to make a song seem more emotional. “One Sweet Day” compensates for its restrained rhythmic groove with a profusion of vocal runs. Carey and Boyz II Men’s lead singer, Wanya Morris, try to outdo each other in stretching out those runs. Both singers, though, surpass Green when it comes to spinning out a word with a melody. In the exchange at the beginning of the song, Morris adds runs to the opening and closing words of the lines as does Carey, although her runs are longer than his. Those runs, however, are tasteful compared to the frippery in the chorus. In that section, Carey and the band members sing the main melodic lines, on top of which runs by both her and Morris are dubbed. Sung to syllables and not words, the runs are drawn out more and more by each singer. Carey, as to be expected, lets loose with the longest and most swirly lines. She is the star, after all. Even with Carey and the band members singing the unadorned melodies in the chorus, those melodies are difficult to hear with all the runs whirring around them. That the song is one of mourning and reflection also gets lost in the melodic tinsel.

Power Ballads: 2000 and Beyond Ubiquitous in the early 1990s, R&B power ballads have remained a prominent part of the pop mix since then. During the 1990s, all of the different kinds of power ballad genre blends could be found on the charts, proving how adaptable and popular the formulas of the songs had become. Rock power ballads were still out there, and the 1970s pop power ballad was thriving, largely thanks to one performer. In songs like “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” (1996) and “My Heart Will Go On” (1997), Céline Dion bounds each step of the power ballad musical formula to reach splendiferous vocal finales. Around 2000, two other types of power ballad emerged, those involving classical crossover and teen pop. Although never as widely popular as the other blends, the two are worth discussing for they tell us much about the status of the power ballad at the time. Both genres depend on recognizable, even cliché, types of songs and by 2000 the power ballad was surely that. Moreover, classical crossover and teen pop use the musical and expressive formulas in bald ways, barely modifying them so as to make clear to listeners what kind of song they are getting. The power ballad had not only become a familiar type of song but it had also become a dependable emotional script.

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Classical crossover mixes elements of classical music, especially the operatic voice, use of foreign languages, and orchestral arrangements, with other distinct genres like sacred music, folk, and pop. The latter genres make the classical idioms more accessible by providing a familiar context, while allowing listeners to partake in the valued sophistication of classical music. That sophistication in turn polishes the other genres, making them more than hymns, folk tunes, or pop songs. A similar exchange occurs with the power ballad. The songs render operatic stylings less off-putting to listeners. Moreover, the numbers welcome operatic pretense; big voices can find a home in a kind of song designed for big voices and expressive moments. Operatic, or opera-like, voices make the already dramatic power ballad all the more so. The results can be new power ballads with operatic vocal stylings, like Josh Groban’s “You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up)” (2006), or operatic versions of existing power ballads, Il Divo’s “Regresa a Mi” (2004, a Spanishlanguage cover of Toni Braxton’s “Unbreak My Heart”). Even with the operatic posturing, both songs stick to the power ballad path, following it step by step to euphoria. Teen pop refers to music played by teenagers for teenagers or, as more and more gauged by the industry, tweens (ages 8–12). Adults, of course, have also fallen for this music. Young and old cannot resist catchy melodies. Teen pop emphasizes genres with clear musical and expressive characteristics, which allow young, relatively unschooled listeners to know immediately what they are getting. Rock idioms, for example, convey anger and grit, perfect for the displays of punkish pique in Avril Lavigne songs. The power ballad provides expressive songs, the biggest and most expressive songs there are, or so suggest the use of the songs in movies and television. Through the rote use of the formula, the recordings let listeners know that they are hearing a kind of number that has proven to be moving. The songs can balloon all types of feelings, particularly those of self-esteem. Miley Cyrus’ recording of “The Climb” (2009) hits all the right notes for both teen pop and the power ballad. Sung by the then 16-year old star, it first appeared in a film aimed at teens and built around Cyrus’ fictional alter ego, Hannah Montana: The Movie. The most successful teen pop songs, though, do not stay in that adolescent orbit. They also win over an adult audience, as “The Climb” did. So successful was it with a multigenerational audience that it went triple platinum. What drew in adults was not the story of Hannah Montana but rather the story of overcoming struggles told in a language of clichés. Power ballads take up these banal paeans of uplift, and it comes

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as little surprise then that “The Climb” made it to the reality talent TV shows that celebrate stories of average people climbing to success. In the 2009 season of The X Factor, the two finalists sang the song in a power ballad duel, and the winner, Joe McElderry, released the song as his first recording. Unlike Cyrus’ recording, McElderry’s stages the full power ballad finale, a dramatic modulation and the sudden appearance of a backup choir.

Emotional Power If the music of power ballads can be reduced to a formula, the emotional intensity of the songs can similarly be broken down, not to a scheme but rather to two parts: sentimentality and uplift. Each is key to the expressive spell of the songs, but it is the interaction between them that is crucial. It is also pretty much new, for sentimentality and uplift do not usually cooperate let alone share quarters in popular song. The two, however, come together in the power ballad, making the songs not only emotionally enthralling to listeners but also a new expressive voice in the history of popular music. After singing the ballad “Out Here on My Own” in the film Fame (1980), Irene Cara’s character shrugs off a compliment by calling the song “sentimental shit.” She should have accepted her friend’s praise, for it is, as he put it, “really nice.” Once again, “sentimental” is used to dismiss feelings that make us uneasy for being too much – too cloying, too easy, and, as with Cara’s character, too personal (I used it in similar ways to poke fun at the romantic clichés of heavy metal power ballads). The word has long served as a synonym for emotional vulgarity, but it was not always that way. Sentimentality has had, as one scholar put it, a long and “strange career.”52 In the eighteenth century, it honored ethical rectitude and “elegance of emotion.”53 By the nineteenth, it became a term for strong, edifying emotions, but it eventually was used to impugn works considered to be mawkish and manipulative.54 To see what sentimentality brings to the power ballad and the songs to sentimentality, let’s begin with characteristic features of that enduring 52 53 54

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 160. Robert C. Solomon, In Defense of Sentimentality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 6. The path from eighteenth-century conceptions of sentiment to later ones of sentimentality is expertly charted in James Chandler, An Archeology of Sympathy: The Sentimental Mode in Literature and Cinema (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013).

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emotional strain.55 First among them is excess. Sentimental works turn to a collection of trusted topics replete with strong emotions. The stock list includes lost love, talks to God, childhood innocence, and painful farewells, none more so than the final farewell of death. If the topics already overflow with feelings, the works add to the spillage through heightened language and dramatic touches, like tears and faints. To be expressive in sentimental works is to be conspicuously so. The effort to express is so strong that it forces a character or performer to cross the closely monitored line between private and public. Feelings that are normally kept to oneself can no longer be locked inside; they break free through effusive gestures, most notably crying. The rupture adds to the emotional display, which only further pulls in the audience. Sentimentality depends on a vicarious relationship between a performer and the audience. The latter is to feel the emotions put forward by a performer and in doing so audience members may also find themselves crossing the line between private and public through their own effusive responses. In other words, they too may cry. The sentimental foundations for popular music were laid down by nineteenth-century parlor songs. The songs were the cornerstone of domestic music making and public entertainments in American musical life during the last half of the century and into the twentieth century. The lyrics catalogue the emotionally profuse topics central to sentimental arts, particularly those of death and loss. As one early twentieth-century popular song historian said of parlor songs: “Nothing had surer sales appeal than a nice dank grave with an errant son or faithless lover adding his tears to the already considerable humidity.”56 The lyrics of parlor songs were saturated in sorrow, as were the performances. Another early twentiethcentury historian observed: “Circumstances [of performance] permitted exaggerations of sentiment which might not otherwise have been possible.”57 Those exaggerations produced tears, lots of tears. Sobs that would normally be kept private were allowed to flow at a performance. Singers would cry, and listeners would respond in kind. Charles K. Harris, composer and lyricist of the huge hit “After the Ball,” instructed one 55

56 57

A discussion of such features can be found in such key studies as Ann Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture (New York: Anchor-Doubleday, 1977); Jane Tompkins, Sensational Designs (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); and June Howard, “What is Sentimentality?” American Literary History 11 (1999), 63–81. Edward B. Marks, They All Sang: From Tony Pastor to Rudy Vallée (New York: Viking Press, 1934), 43. Sigmund Spaeth, The Facts of Life in Popular Song (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1934), 84.

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vocalist that she must “cry every line.”58 Vaudeville singer Lottie Gilson was praised for getting “that tear in her voice” and having “her audience bawling after the first chorus.”59 Composers even cried while writing the songs. Paul Dresser, composer of the classics “My Gal Sal” and “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away,” “would often break down when composing his melodies” and when presenting the songs to performers in his office “he would sing them with tears in his eyes and his voice.”60 So before Johnnie Ray commanded his fans to wail in the 1950s, there once was a time in American popular music when tears were allowed, even encouraged. We might not be listening to parlor songs in the twenty-first century, but sentimentality is still with us, as are the emotional topics and theatrics of parlor songs. Far from being a Victorian antique, sentimentality thrived in the twentieth century and continues to do so in this one.61 The longevity results from sentimentality taking on different forms in popular culture, like the power ballad. The songs have embraced treasured sentimental topics at a time when most pop songs have dropped them. In Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” for example, a deceased lover comes to her from “far across the distance” and they assure each other that their love will last forever.62 Charice’s “A Note to God” (2009) revives another hoary sentimental scene.63 A child, the young Charice, writes to God to plead for love for all and an end to war. Power ballads too uncork tears. Shots of a Dion concert usually show rapt audience members weeping, just like nineteenthcentury listeners gathered around the piano for a parlor song. And as with her teary parlor song forebears, Dion too often cries during a performance. When asked to sing Jacques Brel’s “Ne me quitte pas” during her 2011 Las Vegas show, she initially refused, claiming that “it was so intense and emotional that I didn’t feel comfortable. . . It made 58 59 61

62 63

Charles K. Harris, After the Ball: Forty Years of Melody, An Autobiography (New York: Frank-Maurice, 1926), 254. Marks, They All Sang, 17. 60 Marks, They All Sang, 126. On the enduring qualities of sentimentality in twentieth-century American popular culture, see Lauren Berlant, The Female Complaint: The Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008). For a discussion of aspects of sentimentality in the music and reception of Dion, see Carl Wilson, Let’s Talk about Love: A Journey to the End of Taste (New York: Continuum, 2008), 127–34. The song was composed by Dianne Warren, a master of the power ballad genre, for R&B star JoJo’s 2006 CD The High Road. Charice, it should be mentioned, was an adolescent, not a child, when she performed the song; however, her presentation in the media has linked her with childhood, as she has appeared on several television programs devoted to talented children, like the Oprah Winfrey show mentioned below.

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me cry to sing it.” Of course, she performed the song, adding: “I cried almost every night.”64 During her concerts, Dion does something that a parlor song singer would have never done. She gets so whipped up by the surging music of a power ballad that she makes what has become her signature move: forming a fist, bouncing it off her chest, and throwing her arms out into the air. The energy behind that ricochet is the other part of the power ballad emotional experience, the part not found in a parlor song: uplift. When it comes to uplift, historical or scholarly definitions are not needed. It can instead be understood in the general sense of the term: stirring emotions of elation and release. Power ballads can surely stir things up. Whitney Houston’s “One Moment in Time” and Kelly Clarkson’s “A Moment like This,” for example, transport us into rapturous moments where all our troubles seem to collapse. Power ballads also deal with another side of uplift, that of self-empowerment. Yes, anything can be taken up a level these days – suits, naps, and even you. Self-empowerment has become a mantra in recent decades, crystallizing the belief that we can discard our difficulties and bolster ourselves through resolve and confidence. All we have to do is believe. There is a whole literature that dishes out dollops of self-empowerment like this: “Let today be the day. . . You shake off your self-defeating drama and embrace your innate ability to recover and achieve.”65 Power ballads have dished out some big helpings too, made all the more inspiring through soaring music. Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” tell listeners not to feel “insecure” or “ashamed” and that they are indeed “beautiful.” The one word title of Mariah Carey’s “Hero” similarly says it all. Our true hero is inside each one of us. Finally, R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” encourages listeners to fly away from their problems and limitations. What about songs like Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” and Houston’s recording of “I Will Always Love You?” They are not odes to empowerment and joyous feelings. Far from it, the songs deal with death, breakups, and tearful departures. Yet, the music for these songs is just as rousing as it for the ones about becoming a hero and soaring free of your woes. Isn’t that a contradiction? Shouldn’t sad songs be quiet and introspective? Not in the world of the power ballad. 64

65

Don Waller, “Making Celine Dion Cry: How Ken Ehrlich Impacted Her Performance,” Variety (28 January 2015). http://variety.com/2015/music/news/ken-erhlichs-ideas-made-celine-dion-cry -1201412209/. Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free. Quoted in www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/selfempowerment.

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That world is all about strong emotions, and these three songs have those. Intense feelings, be they sad or joyous, are what are needed to release the musical swells of the power ballad. The result is the unique combination of the sorrowful feelings attended to by sentimentality and the exhilaration stoked by uplift. When brought together in the three songs mentioned above and the majority of power ballads, the combination produces a mix of emotions, involving contradictory ones, like regret and elation. Rather than clashing with each other, these disparate feelings become part of a charged cloud of emotions. In that cloud, no single feeling clearly emerges. On the contrary, listeners often point to different emotions in the same song, some saying the song makes them feel sad, others emboldened. How different from those archetypes of sentimentality, the parlor song. Those songs present clear emotional scenarios, like the crying son perched above the grave of his father. The scenarios were made all the clearer through the tears and other dramatic performance touches. Power ballads, in contrast, stir together different feelings to fuel the equivalent of an emotional adrenaline rush. Rather than giving us the sensation of a particular emotion, the songs produce the sensation of intense emotionality. If the emotional experience of power ballads could be summed up in one word it would be euphoria, a state of frenzy and exhilaration. Charice’s performance of “Note to God” on the Oprah Winfrey show provides an example of this euphoria.66 During the performance, she whirls around stage and throws out her arms (she is a student of Dion), lights flash like fireworks, a gospel choir joins in, and a massive stepwise modulation energizes Charice and the music even more. While she is singing, audience members, including Oprah, rise to their feet. All this for a girl’s letter to God about war, peace, and love? Would not feelings of penitence or humility and reflective music be more appropriate? Rather than build upon any one such feeling, the performance throws out several emotions through propulsive music and gestures. Viewer comments on a YouTube clip of the show reveal the variety of emotions that are to be had in the performance. Some viewers talk about how the song makes them cry; some say that they are buoyed by the performance; some praise the power of Charice’s voice; some are angry about the state of the world; and some feel closer to God. That all of these feelings and more could be experienced 66

The show aired on 18 May 2009 and was the finale program to Oprah’s “Search for the World’s Most Talented Kids” series.

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only shows how multifarious the emotional spells created by power ballads can be.67 For another example of the emotional euphoria of the power ballad, let’s turn to the recording that served as our example of the musical formula of the songs: Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” The recording is especially illuminating because it offers us the chance to compare a power ballad with a sentimental song, that is, Parton’s original recording of her song. It is what has been called a country weeper, a sentimental name if there ever was one. Inspired by her parting with her mentor Porter Wagoner, “I Will Always Love You” sets a scene in which Parton, realizing that she will “only be in [his] way,” decides to leave her lover and tells him not to cry (a hollow injunction in a country weeper) and that she will always love him.68 Parlor song composers turned to such sad scenes of parting and self-sacrifice. In Charles K. Harris’ “I’ve Just Come Back to Say Goodbye” (1897), a husband realizes that his wife has fallen for his best friend (whom he asked to watch over her while he was away) and accepts that he must let them be together, but not before coming to say a final tear-drenched goodbye. As with parlor songs and other country weepers, “I Will Always Love You” wells up with tearful sounds, like Parton’s quivering voice and the liquid moans of the steel guitar, which become only more tremulous and lachrymose as the song progresses. Both country weepers and parlor songs move to moments where feelings are expressed in bare, simple terms. With Parton’s recording, that moment comes in the third and final statement of the verse. For that section, she speaks, a common turn in country weepers as it suggests someone speaking from the heart in the most direct terms about the emotions that have seized him or her. It is through speech that Parton concludes her farewell and wishes her lover “joy” and “love.” She resumes singing by the end of the verse, a preparation for the closing chorus in which, joined by the full ensemble, she aches over each of the country-styled melodic lilts on the words “I” and “you.” The lilts are indeed heartfelt, but, through the alembic of sentimentality, it is the few spoken words before them that bring about a more refined sadness and a deeper ache. 67

68

Music is, of course, far from emotionally precise, and listeners respond to pieces with a great deal of latitude. What stands out here, though, is the difference between older sentimental repertoires that used specific and highly conventional means to target particular emotions and the power ballad, which whip up euphoric sensations to offer sensations of emotionality. Parton revived the song for the 1982 film adaptation of the musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. After Houston’s success with the number, she recorded a new power ballad version of the song with Vince Gill in 1995.

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Houston’s recording, as we know, follows the power ballad mandate of constant escalation. With that design, the expressive highpoints occur at different moments in the song than they do in Parton’s recording and are defined by different vocal styles. Parton’s original tellingly places that point in the third verse, an undistinguished section that is usually not set aside for emotionally rich moments. Her performance, though, finds tender feelings in that unassuming section and appropriately marks it with the humble recourse to speech. Houston’s version, on the other hand, draws out the escalation and waits for the typical structural highpoint of a song, the final chorus, which is ushered in by a modulation and delivered with fullthroated singing. The contrasting musical means, of course, yield different emotional resonances. Parton’s speech speaks to resignation and sacrifice, the two feelings that led the singer to make her tearful farewell. Houston’s belting is enigmatic. It is surely emotional, but, as is often the case with power ballads, it is more about the sensations created by a throng of emotions than a particular emotion. Within the rush of sensations, resignation and sacrifice do not stand out. Houston appears to have moved beyond those emotions and to have been elevated rather than chastened. And what about listeners? Placed in the emotional sprawl of the power ballad, some may feel buoyed, some saddened, and others will come to an array of individual responses. Whatever they take from the song, listeners, willingly or not, become caught up in the euphoria of uplift. The impact of the song is one of sheer emotionality. Another significant difference between the two recordings is the approach to genre. Parton’s recording is a country song through and through. It is hard, though, to pin down the genre of Houston’s version. Power ballads, like ballads in general, draw upon the expressive resources of other genres in order to enhance their emotional might. One other genre is usually enough, but not for Houston’s recording, which combines four different ones. Syncopated rhythms, a prominent bass line, vocal runs, and a sax solo give the song an R&B cast. The recording also appeals to gospel idioms, which is not surprising given Houston’s roots in that genre. The ebullient leap on the word “joy” (a word that Parton tellingly speaks) comes right out of a church service and brings with it feelings of strength and transcendence tied to gospel. The string orchestra, lyrical singing, and pure vocal timbre are trademarks of pop ballads. Finally, some country residue can be heard. Although Houston foregoes Parton’s yodel-like tremor on the melodic lilts in the chorus, she brings out the lilts, and they, along with the acoustic guitar in the opening verse, hark back to the country origins of the song. These genres all bear strong emotional

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associations. By drawing upon musical elements of each one, Houston taps into those associations. R&B evokes soulfulness; gospel conjures rapture; pop suggests warmth and pleasantness; and country adds a plaintive touch. Like any other power ballad, the song already exudes different emotions. With the different genre associations, it conveys even more.

Power Everywhere Power ballads have become a prominent part of the soundtrack of popular culture. Reality TV talent shows like American Idol, X Factor, and The Voice feature the songs. They treat power ballads like grist, using them throughout the early rounds and then showcasing a particular one during the final episode. American Idol had a new song composed to crown the winner, usually a power ballad appropriately about dreams and victory. Power ballads have also claimed a spot on the big screen. Houston’s recording of “I Will Always Love You” brought many viewers to tears in The Bodyguard, and Dion’s “My Heart Goes On” prolonged the tears of moviegoers during the closing credits of Titanic. Disney has long stocked its animated-musical films with power ballads. Beauty and The Beast (“Beauty and The Beast”) and Mulan (“Reflection”) present soft ballads midway through the film and bring in a power ballad version for the grand finale during the credits. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (“Out There”) and Frozen (“Let It Go”) skip the introspective first number and get right to the power ballad during the film. Finally, the background music in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City comes from the radio station Emotion 98.3, which spins power ballads 24/7, including Foreigner’s “Waiting for a Girl like You” and Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian.” Short bursts of intense emotions explode in other forms throughout popular culture, not just in power ballads. The previews for actionadventure films are among the most combustible. In one to two minutes, there is a frenetic montage of action sequences and special effects, clips of dramatic dialogue, and, of course, propulsive music. Add to this a mix of disparate emotions. The sorrow, resolve, fear, and joy to be felt throughout the course of the two-hour film are now quickly whisked together in the preview. As in a power ballad, that swirl of strong feelings adds to the stimulation, and individual emotions get lost in the overall impression of euphoria. Sports programs set off similar bursts. Games and whole tournaments can be recapped in one to three minutes, with captivating moments of struggle, tension, and triumph all welded together by exalting music.

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Even life stories can be told through such emotional crescendos, as is often the case of individual athletes who leap from adversity to triumph. The contestants on American Idol not only sang power ballads, but their lives became one on the show. To draw in viewers, the program built life “journey” stories around certain singers. Although those narratives unfolded throughout the season, compressed versions of the stories for individual singers were presented when he or she left the show, be it as a loser or the victor. In either case, their life became a blurry, stimulating rush through the ordeals they suffered before coming on the show and the doubts, setbacks, and successes they had while in front of a national audience. The climax of the tale is the euphoric emotional whirl of a power ballad, which is intoxicating enough to make viewers not think of the obscurity to which most of the contestants returned. So common are these bursts of feelings that they form an emotional style, historian Peter N. Stearns’ term for the ways that feelings are experienced and understood at particular historical moments. Stearns, to recall, examined the rigorous dispassion of the cool emotional style that swayed Americans during the early and middle twentieth century, like that confronted by Ray’s fans. It is hard to come up with a term as concise and evocative as cool, but let’s call this new emotional style “euphoric.” In that style, emotions are to be immediate, indiscriminate, and large. That is how we experience them when galvanized by a power ballad or movie preview. We are quickly caught up in a splurge of intense, mixed feelings, which only become more intense and mixed. Rather than follow the cool edict to control feelings, we throw ourselves into rushes of emotions, where, if anything, feelings control us, sweeping us along in their propulsive, escalating currents. In that exhilaration, emotions become a form of escapism. The popularity of the euphoric style may seem to suggest that it has vanquished cool. Emotional styles, though, are never that simple. They endure and overlap. Cool is still around, perhaps not as perniciously as it was in popular culture in the 1950s, but there are obviously moments in our lives when we encounter pressures to keep our feelings in check. As for the euphoric style, it is far from being a governing emotional style. There is no such thing today, nor was there ever in the past, even in the era covered by Stearns. Different emotional styles compete against each other, some prominent in particular areas and situations of society and others in different contexts. The euphoric style largely exists in popular culture. It does not have the expansive reach of cool, which, as Stearns shows, infiltrated such established sectors as business, medicine, and education. Business people are still being instructed to keep focused and calm during

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meetings and never let their feelings get the best of them. The last thing they should do is break out and sing a power ballad like “Let It Go,” the hit number from Disney’s Frozen. “Let It Go,” however, reveals that although the euphoric style may not have as broad a cultural reach as cool did, it still has a reach and is not just emotional fizz bottled up in power ballads. Cool, to recall, was inscribed in professional discourses. The concept of emotional maturity, for example, was taken up in education and psychology. Through stilted educational films, the idea of controlling your emotions, and above all not to cry, was indoctrinated into young people. But many more kids have seen Frozen than ever saw those educational films, and they too have received a lesson about emotions, a lesson made through a power ballad. Songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez claim that the inspiration for the song was from a lesson for their two young daughters: “We wanted to write a song that would instill in them the idea that fear and shame shouldn’t prevent them from being the magical people they really are.”69 In the Disney film, the character Elsa sings the song as she embraces her magical power of turning things into ice, a power that her family forbade her from using in fear of the danger that it could do. As she sings the tune in the film, she builds a gleaming icy palace out of mere chill and snow. The palace gets bigger as the music gets bigger. For kids and adults, the lesson of the song is to accept yourself and become the person who you want to be. It has become a pervasive message in American society over the last several decades and has taken many different names and forms. We have already discussed one of them: selfempowerment. The idea of self-empowerment has been increasingly intertwined with notions of cultural identity, as individuals find confidence and pride in declaring themselves part of a particular racial, gender, or sexual group. The mixture of the two goes back to the days of 1960s soul and was captured in rallying cries like “Black is Beautiful.” “Let It Go” has told girls that they do not have to conform to ideas about what a “good girl” is. With its message of self-acceptance, the song has also become an “LGBT anthem” for youth.70 YouTube has clips of queer kids (and adults) singing or lip-syncing the song. Like Elsa, they are no longer hiding who they really are. 69 70

Amy Kaufman and Oliver Gettell, “Oscars 2014: Robert Lopez Joins EGOT Club with ‘Frozen’ Win,” Los Angeles Times (3 March 2014). Dorian Lynskey, “Why Frozen’s Let It Go is More Than a Disney Hit—It’s an Adolescent Aperitif,” The Guardian (10 April 2014).

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Self-empowerment has, as we know, been well served by power ballads. The uplift in the songs can instill in listeners the confidence and courage that they need to become their real selves. Moreover, the songs, through sentimental touches, play up the feelings of sadness and struggle that must be overcome. Those feelings, however, are always there, a point that “Let It Go” makes with the minor chords in the opening, prominent minor chords throughout the song, and a stark, unresolved chord at the end. The sorrow evoked by those chords adds to the swirl of different emotions in a power ballad, as intense as that of the snow and ice raised by Elsa while singing “Let it Go.” From that swirl, a new Elsa emerges. For many listeners, the headiness of a power ballad make a new self – difficult to claim in real life – seem ever so close and attainable. What about all the children who play “Let It Go” over and over and dance, sometimes wildly, to the song? Do they become new, selfempowered kids? As we know from the poor souls trapped in “I Will Always Love You,” incessant repetitions of a song are not necessarily a good thing. These kids may not be mired in the sorrow afflicting Houston’s obsessive-compulsive devotees, but the fact that a power ballad has gripped them tells us something about “Let It Go.” Their devotion speaks once again to how much power ballads rely on the effect of stimulation. For the dancing children, that stimulation amounts to a musical and emotional sugar high. A playing of the recording quickly energizes them, but then after four minutes, the rush is over. Another fix is needed. All a kid has to do is push play again. “Let It Go” is one of the most discussed ballads since Johnnie Ray’s “Cry.” Critics, educators, psychologists, fans, and anyone with a blog have weighed in on the song and film. They turned to it for the same reason that 1950s writers spent so much time on Ray’s “Cry”: The songs had a strong impact on young people. With Ray’s recording, everyone wanted to know what it meant that so many teenagers took up the song’s command to weep. “Let It Go” has raised different questions. The most basic one is, why do kids like the song so much? The answers usually settle on the observations that it inspires them to be themselves or that they develop a bond with Elsa while watching the film. Some commentators, though, have turned to the same topic that came up in the coverage on Ray’s song: emotional release. The title “Let it Go” is another command about pouring out your feelings, but one that is much broader than the imperative to cry. What exactly should you let go? The lyrics refer to a “swirling storm inside,” but what are the feelings in that storm? Psychologists Maryam Kia-Keating

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and Yalda T. Uhls claim that Elsa’s “internal struggle” is similar to “a preschooler’s emotional world” – emotions that “are strong, passionate – and seem uncontrollable.”71 Again the particular feelings in a child’s “emotional world,” let alone those in the film or song, are not specified. As far as the song is concerned, that does not come as a surprise. Power ballads, as we know by now, do not take up a single feeling. On the contrary, they mix different ones to whip up an emotional frenzy. “Cry” specified an emotion and response – sorrow and tears – but “Let It Go” allows kids and adults to decide what feelings they are going to release and how they are going to do it. A significant difference between the reception of the two songs, of course, is that with the latter song, no one is being scolded for pouring out their feelings, whatever they may be. If anything, children are being encouraged to do so. How times have changed. Or maybe they have not changed that much. If Disney ever released a song that had children weep as they played it twenty times, there would most likely be a backlash. We still do not deal well with raw sorrow, but nor do power ballads. As in “Let It Go,” the emotional mixes stirred by the songs have traces of sorrow. Those traces, however, become part of an emotional froth, which is all about the invigoration of taking in many different emotions at one time. That invigoration is one more example of how times have changed since the 1950s. During that decade, ballads did not get anywhere near, let alone aspire to, the musical and emotional grandiosity of power ballads. Having heard those songs since the 1970s, the grandiose has become the norm for us. The differences in scale between earlier ballad styles and power ballads reveal what has been gained and lost with the latter. Power ballads have offered us new types of emotional experiences, the thrill of becoming part of the adrenaline rush of feelings and music created by the songs. At the same time, we have lost the interest, or perhaps even the ability, to concentrate on a particular emotion, to linger over sorrow. Power ballads do not give us the opportunity to do so, nor does it appear that many listeners seek out those opportunities, so accustomed are they to power ballads. One of the things that sets ballads apart is that they are the genre that has offered moments for emotional reflection, those times that you think about how the strands of sadness in a song intertwine with those in your own life. The rich, individual feelings in a soft, piano ballad can 71

Maryam Kia-Keating and Yalda T. Uhls, “The Science of Why Your Kids Can’t Resist Frozen,” Time (6 January 2015).

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become part of your life, rather than you becoming part of the churning of many emotions in a power ballad. I do not mean to damn the power ballad and say that ballads were more moving in the 1950s and 1960s. Far from it, I readily admit that power ballads have enraptured me. Even those who scorn them would probably admit, if pushed, that they have succumbed to one of the songs. It is hard to resist the power. Rather than dismiss it as cliché or revel in it, I have tried to explain how that power works, the musical means used to generate it and the emotional energy and effects that it creates. That power, yes, can be used to produce cliché songs (any type of song based on a formula does), but what should not be lost is how talented individual performers like a Whitney Houston can command that power to create memorable songs. Nor should we lose sight of what power ballads tell us about ourselves and the kinds of emotional experiences that we seek, particularly our desire to disappear into a four-minute world in which music and feelings are always growing bigger and bigger.

Interlude III Sarah McLachlan, “Angel”

I will start with what Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” has meant to me. My strongest memory of 9–11 is driving home that night through a forested stretch of Vancouver. There were no streetlights or other cars on the road, just the blackness of night. Darkness deepened reflection on that morning’s events, as did the song on the radio. I had heard “Angel” many times before, but on that evening, the lyrics about being “pulled from the wreckage” and finding “comfort” in “the arms of the angel” took on a new meaning. “Angel” did not offer only me a balm that night. In the week after the attacks, radio stations across the United States played the song. One service ranked it fourth of the most programmed “crisis-related” songs, falling behind “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “God Bless America.” Enrique Iglesias’ “Hero” was third.1 Unlike “Hero,” McLachlan’s song has become part of the legacy of 9–11. Numerous tributes on YouTube play the song behind montages of that day’s devastation. On the tenth anniversary of the attacks, McLachlan performed the song at the memorial for United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Away from the grand stage of national mourning, “Angel” has found a place in private funeral services. A Kentucky funeral home put the song at the top of its list of “the ten best funeral songs.”2 It is difficult to think of a top-10 list when it comes to funerals, but other online surveys about funeral music confirm that “Angel” has become part of services across the country. The song is played during such occasions for the same reason that radio stations programmed it after 9–11. If only briefly, “Angel” stills sorrow, be it the woe of the daughter who has lost a mother to cancer or the clangor of grief after 9–11. So much is found in the promise of comfort made in the 1 2

Ken Barnes, “Radio Stations Play Music To Soothe, Inspire,” USA Today (17 September 2001) http:// usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/music/2001–09-18-radio-stations.htm. http://creechfh.com/what-are-the-10-best-funeral-songs/

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song. Solace can be extended to the deceased, who may find the spiritual rest offered by an angel. Mourners can also repose in the sounds of McLachlan’s soothing voice and lulling piano chords. If there were a list of ballads used in television dramas, “Angel” would be near the top of it. Such shows often cut to a ballad when dialogue is not enough in capturing the emotional plight of characters. Plus, a well-known song can pull viewers further into a scene. “Angel” has been that ballad from early on. Months before being released as a single, it appeared in the final episode of the first season of Dawson’s Creek.3 The season leaves its teen characters in a weepy puddle. After visiting her dying grandfather in the hospital, Jen turns to ex-boyfriend and now-friend Dawson and cries in his arms. The tears start and so does “Angel.” Elsewhere in Capeside, Joey visits her father in prison; actually, this being a small town with a small prison, they meet at the fence outside the prison. She scolds him for not being there when she was growing up, and then their fingers interlock through the fence and they say how much they love each other. As their hands meet and tears fall, “Angel” begins again. Three crying characters, two plot lines, and one song: “Angel.” Missed that episode of Dawson’s Creek? Then you could catch “Angel” on Cold Case, Alias, In Justice, Modern Family, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, New Girl, and Felicity.4 Eleven years after the Dawson’s Creek episode aired, “Angel” could get you crying during the commercials. In 2009, the SPCA released a fundraising ad featuring both McLachlan and the song. We make our way through what could be an SPCA shelter and see one abused animal after another. The commercial is two minutes long, but many viewers were already crying after around thirty seconds or they had grabbed the remote to escape the misery, their own, not the animals. Tears flowed as well as donations. The spot raised $30 million dollars, an unrivaled achievement that made it simply known as “the Ad” in the charity world. These scenes show some of the ways that “Angel” has been used in everyday life and popular culture. The song has actually been used in one way. Like many ballads, “Angel” serves as an emotional backdrop. Characters on television shows cry, embrace, and pensively stare out windows with ballads playing behind them. YouTube abounds with videos of weddings, anniversaries, or memories of loved ones unfolding to a ballad. As a backdrop, ballads enhance the feelings of the moment and also add new emotional strains to them, like the hope of comfort 3

“Decisions” (19 May 1998).

4

www.tunefind.com/artist/sarah-mclachlan.

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raised by “Angel.” Unlike fixed theatrical scenery, those moments can change the backdrop, or how we hear a ballad. With 9–11, for example, the anguish conveyed in the lyrics became more pressing and dark. “Angel” has proven to be an adaptable backdrop. It is hard to imagine other ballads that could accompany shots of 9–11, melodramatic scenes with weeping teenagers, and abused animals. “Angel” has been that song – but why and how?

******

“Angel” appeared on McLachlan’s 1997 album Surfacing. True to the title, she had emerged from the creative exhaustion that set in after the almost two years on the road promoting her previous album, Fumbling towards Ecstasy (1993). Travel had so depleted her that she wrote on a blackboard in her studio: “Making Record = Touring. Therefore Never Make Record.”5 It is hard to write songs for a new album staring at that message every day. So she stopped trying and decided to enjoy domestic life and undertake psychoanalysis. When she resumed writing, the songs came quickly. “Angel” was one of the first and took three hours.6 The inspiration was the struggles of musicians with drug use, particularly the overdose death of Smashing Pumpkins touring keyboard player Jonathan Melvoin in 1996. There are, of course, many songs that deal with drug use, but none like “Angel.” These songs usually fall into two camps. Some despair over lives crumbled by drugs, be it the singer’s own life, as in James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain,” or those who have overdosed, as is the case with Pearl Jam’s “4/20/02,” which commemorates Alice in Chains singer Layne Staley. Other songs, such as Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” and Jefferson Starship’s “White Rabbit,” slide listeners into the sensory plenitude and oblivion of a high. “Angel” does both. Which type of song it is depends on how you hear the word “comfort” that closes the song. “Comfort” is mentioned in the lyrics, but never addicts or drugs. With McLachlan’s inspiration in mind, the sparse, anonymous scenes in the verses become that of a touring musician trapped in a hotel room, who wants to be “empty,” purged of the thoughts of the day, even of “memory.” A hit of heroin provides “peace” and “comfort.” Those are the last two words that would describe how a high has usually been presented in 5 6

Kurt B. Reighley, “Sarah McLachlan in the Garden,” CMJ New Music Monthly, no. 48 (August 1997), 23. “VH1 Storytellers: Sarah McLachlan” (29 January 1998).

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popular music. Ecstatic and pulsating are the terms that 1960s psychedelic rock set, as heard in the sonic whirs in Hendrix’s solo in “Purple Haze” and John Cale’s amplified viola solo in the Velvet Underground’s “Heroin,” which also uses a pounding drum to capture an addict’s accelerating heartbeat. “Angel,” in contrast, gives us rich piano chords and McLachlan’s warm voice. A high may indeed be this tranquil. Most of us will never know, but we get to know this particular high. The serenity draws us in, which is more disturbing than consoling. We become absorbed in an addict’s high, enraptured by the same “peace” that he or she is. An enraptured addict shooting heroin was not one of the scenes presented in the opening of this Interlude. Not even the backdrop of “Angel” would probably be enough to convince a director to put such a shot into a television drama, especially one aimed at teens. It is, I admit, an unexpected interpretation, but it does fall in line with McLachlan’s inspiration for the song. Addiction may have been her inspiration, but she welcomes other views of “Angel”: “I don’t mind at all that the song gets used for many different uses. I think that once an artist puts a song out there, it becomes open to interpretation, and I purposefully leave a certain amount of ambiguity in songs so that people can relate the songs to themselves and their stories.”7 I have brought up the story of a blissful high because it is unexpected and, as such, will push listeners out of familiar ways of hearing “Angel.” In those ways, comfort is extended to the innocent. The innocence of an addict enjoying a high, or dying from a high, is not so clear. The addict can be viewed as suffering from the disease of addiction, but then, some may argue, the addict made choices that have led to drug use, not to mention the hurt that he or she may have inflicted on others while taking drugs. The point to be made by raising the topic of innocence is that addicts typically do not come across as innocent as victims of violent attacks do, like those killed in 9–11. “Angel” has often been linked to such victims, including those of school shootings. Mourners, for example, turned to the song after the attacks at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech. The youth of those victims adds to the pool of innocence. Then there are the animals in the SPCA commercial. Our insistence on unalloyed innocence reveals a desire to avoid more morally complicated situations. “Angel,” though, does not shy away from such cases. By embracing the figure of a drug addict, it has embraced 7

www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/24v498/sarah_mclachlan_here_on_reddit_ask_me_anything/

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those complications and been enriched by them. Comfort can be fuller when offered to those whose suffering may make us turn away from them, for it is that unease, and possibly rejection, that makes the need for succor more desperate and the acceptance of it all the more consoling. Perhaps we insist on innocence because linking “Angel” to more complicated forms of distress could trouble the comfort that we get from the song, like that resplendent, yet all so innocent, image of a benevolent angel in the lyrics. We must remember, though, that angels are there to comfort all. As reassuring as the images in the lyrics may be, it is the music that creates the sensations of comfort that have captured us. It instills that feeling through different touches. First, there is the basic setup of voice, piano, and standup bass. A hug from a loved one can abound with solace, and that is what you get from “Angel.” With McLachlan singing from the piano, the song becomes as intimate as that hug. Her voice captures the two emotional sides of the song. Fear and pain come through in darker and pressed tones, and relief through warm, floating ones. The piano alone soothes us. The song opens and closes with two chords that rock back and forth. The chords sound like they could be used in a lullaby. In fact, they call to mind one of the best-known lullabies, that by Brahms, which begins with the line “Lullaby and good night.” Brahms’ song moves between different chords, but it keeps the same bass note throughout, which suggests steadfast parental love. McLachlan also alternates between two chords above a repeated bass note, a rocking that suggests being cradled by an angel. Comfort is found when you realize that no matter how painful things become or how far you wander away there is a place where you are always welcome and can find rest. The melody in the chorus of “Angel” traces such a path. The chorus consists of two sections (compare 1:00–1:22 with 1:25–1:51), which present pretty much the same melody. That melody begins on the home note then moves to a higher note (1:07) before returning to the home note and then goes higher again (1:14) before descending to the opening note. The second section slips further away from the home note. In the first section, the words “dark” and “cold” were sung to the highest note in the song, and the one furthest away from the home note. Now in the second section, McLachlan moves up a halfstep from that highest note, a shift that creates tension and that makes us want to go back to the melody that we know and eventually to the home note (compare 1:14 to 1:38). She, however, draws out the return to the home note with a slow, descending melody that makes the arrival at the

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note all the more consoling (1:44–1:51). To add to that feeling, she concludes the song by repeating the phrase with the half-step shift and the descending melody (3:47–4:01). We have come back to a warm, secure place. Comfort – emotional and spiritual – has been found, and made all the deeper with the three statements of the rocking piano chords that close “Angel.”

Interlude IV Hip Hop Ballads

For the man who declared himself “the greatest living artist and the greatest artist of all time,” it did not come as a surprise when Kanye West struck a kinship with Picasso in his album The Life of Pablo.1 That bond, like most of his braggadocio, met with derision. We should not, though, be so quick to laugh off the connection with Picasso. There is a bond there, not just with West but rather with hip hop in general. Picasso scavenged. He collected newspaper scraps for his collages and stove pipes for his sculptures. The debris, of course, became art, but it also remained debris. Picasso could wield it so that we can both read a newspaper headline and become entangled in a collage. Hip hop artists scavenge far and wide. They dig into street noise and the beats and vocals of classic recordings. Talented musicians like West can pull off Picasso’s double feat. They are so sure in handling sampled sounds that we can hear the singular wail of James Brown and at the same time a prick of ecstasy in a packed mix. Then there are ballads. Whether it is in sampling a past song or creating a new one, ballads are not easily controlled. They resist. What makes ballads unwieldy is that hip hop had little to do with them in its original bedrock forms. Smooth melodies, romantic lyrics, and warm voices were not part of that foundation. Yet they have found their way into hip hop through ballads, and it is because they are so different that difficulties arise. The ballad bits in a track can stick out, being more ballad than hip hop. It is as if we see more a stove pipe than a Picasso sculpture. For hip hop musicians, ballads pose risks. It is rare that we can unearth the exact origins of a type of song, but those of the hip hop ballad are not hard to find. With his 1987 recording “I Need Love,” LL Cool J brought together what no one else had brought together or thought could be brought together: hip hop and ballads. In his rap, he 1

Kanye West, Twitter (@kanyewest) 14 February 2016.

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does not boast about beats or rage against rivals, he instead tells us that he has found a girlfriend and that he is ready for – no, that he needs love. As for the music, LL Cool J had no models upon which to draw and turned to slow jams by such artists as Isaac Hayes and Barry White. In their songs, they talked over repeated sultry grooves. LL Cool J gives us a repeated fourbar groove, played not with the slinky bass lines of 1970s slow jams but rather with 1980s trappings of drum machines and synthesizers. In lieu of a growled sermon on seduction, we get a rap, which has all of LL Cool J’s flow. It is fitting that this rarity for hip hop at the time was also a rarity for the ballad: a ballad without singing. The singing would come, as would more ballads. Inspired by the success of “I Need Love” on the pop charts, LL Cool J put three ballads on his following album Walking with a Panther (1989). “One Shot at Love” goes a step beyond “I Need Love” by having the title line sung as a hook in the chorus by a female backup singer. When it comes to singing, “Two Different Worlds” lives up to its title. It puts LL Cool J’s rap side by side with extended vocals by Cynde Monet. A division of labor takes shape that would become standard for most hip hop ballads: rap in the verse and vocals in the chorus. LL Cool J would build upon that plan in “Hey Lover” (1995) and “Luv U Better” (2002), two of his biggest hits. The all-rap rap ballad was an original but quickly forgotten plan. Like “I Need Love,” though, the later ballads deal with LL Cool J’s struggles to accept or prove his love for a woman. The success enjoyed with ballads was probably reason enough for LL Cool J to take on the risks that came with using the genre. At the time that he released “I Need Love,” another unexpected genre grafting was taking place, one that raised similar challenges: heavy metal power ballads. As hip hop and heavy metal show us, the further a genre is away from the ballad, the greater the challenges in drawing upon it. One danger is sinking into sap. As we saw in Chapter 3, heavy metal musicians spun out clichés about sweethearts and home sweet home. LL Cool J dipped into sap: kisses, flowers, and an “ocean of love.” Such lyrics may not seem treacly in a pop ballad where they are at home, but they come across as such in genres that had kept romance at bay. Worse than sap, romantic lyrics and tuneful melodies could amount to blasphemy. They not only supposedly had no place in either heavy metal or hip hop but they also violated the ideals of both genres. Heavy metal fans mocked the romantic strains of ballads and also railed against bands that took them up the pop charts for selling out. LL Cool J never faced such harsh opposition, but questions were raised about his ballads. A Rolling

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Stone review of Walking with a Panther accused of him hiding from all the stuff “happening on the streets,” like the difficult social issues taken on by Public Enemy and N.W.A.2 LL Cool J confronted such accusations and perhaps his own unease with ballads by playing up his hip hop credentials. His albums surround ballads with tough tracks, including battle songs. Just as heavy metal bands flaunted their metal mastery in videos for their ballads, those for LL Cool J’s ballads pitch plenty of woo but with winks at all the women he could have if he wanted to and shot after shot of the bling fruits of celebrity. Ballads are not just love songs. They are also spickets for painful emotions. The same goes for hip hop ballads, especially those of Jay Z. He turns to ballads to express feelings that he believes that he cannot or should not express. He finds himself in that predicament with “Song Cry” (2001). His wife has asked for divorce, and he can understand why. She helped him build his career, and then having ascended to stardom, he has enjoyed all that comes with it, including other women. Finally recognizing what he has lost, he wants to break down and cry, but he cannot. All he can do is imagine the tears running down his face. Tears do not fit the rough, street persona that he has created. He cannot even cry by himself or in front of his wife, let alone his fans. Johnnie Ray – where are you? If Jay Z cannot cry then he will make a song cry. Or songs. There is the ballad that he is performing, which has a loose medium-tempo beat on top of which he raps about how he failed his wife. Then there is Bobby Glenn’s “Sounds like a Love Song” (1976). Jay Z does not sample Glenn’s recording. He instead has a female R&B singer perform lines from it. Glenn’s song is the first thing that we hear, as if Jay Z had been listening to it before breaking out into his rap. The recording gives us the title line and then a four-bar melody that appears throughout the track. So there is a ballad in this ballad, and one well suited for “Song Cry.” Both “Seems like a Love Song” and “Song Cry” deal with feelings inside us and the songs that they could become. Glenn hears a melody inside his girlfriend and to him it “sounds like a love song.” Jay Z dwells on the sorrow in him, and unable to release it through tears, he turns it into a sad song. Jay Z continues to lament the woes of fame in “Holy Grail” (2013) and once again uses a ballad to do so. Actually, he uses a lot of ballad. “Song Cry” took bits from “Sounds like a Love Song.” “Holy Grail,” in contrast, consists largely of a new ballad sung by Justin Timberlake. We do not get 2

David Browne, “LL Cool J: Walking With a Panther,” Rolling Stone (7 September 1989) www .rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/walking-with-a-panther-19890907.

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just a hook thrown into the chorus of the rap. This ballad actually has verses and choruses. If anything, Jay Z is slotted in between those sections. Ballad and rap describe a tortuous relationship with fame. Its glories and luxuries are a reprieve from an ongoing ordeal. The ballad appropriately depicts fame as a love relationship, in which Timberlake puts up with his partner’s abuse for a few moments of bliss. Jay Z rattles off his suffering: betrayal, lack of privacy, and a hounding fear that he will end up like other victims of fame, MC Hammer, Mike Tyson, Kurt Cobain, and Michael Jackson. “Holy Grail” reveals another danger for hip hop musicians in using ballads: they can take over. Timberlake’s song does just that in terms of territory, making up around two thirds of the recording. The bigger danger is that ballads can be more musically and emotionally compelling than the rap sections. Such is the case with “Holy Grail.” Jay Z’s rap is an uninspired entry in what has become a tiresome refrain in contemporary hip hop: the tortured genius and mega-celebrity rap artist bearing the burdens of fame. He adds to that litany rage and shout-outs to other suffering celebrities. The Timberlake ballad, in contrast, draws us in through minor chords on the piano, passionate singing, and scenes from an abusive relationship. Another way for a hip hop artist to do a ballad is to do what neither LL Cool J or Jay Z do – sing. Some hip hop musicians do sing, but few have mixed singing and rapping as consistently as Drake. His albums ricochet between sung ballads and rap tracks. It is usually one or the other, but he combines singing and rapping in songs. In “Marvin’s Room” (2011), he not only sings and raps but also speaks, all part of the musical, emotional, and psychological layers that show how rich a hip hop ballad can be. “Marvin” evokes Marvin Gaye. The song was supposedly recorded in a studio owned by him. The title is not so much a musical homage as it is a way of setting the scene for a troubled musician. Gaye struggled with mental illness and addiction. Nothing as dire in this song, but Drake plays a musician coiled in need and doubt. Drunk at a club, he calls an ex to hook up with her for the night. He tells her to forget the guy that she is seeing and that she can do better with him. Or is that better than him? “Marvin’s Room” may be the only drunk dial ballad. It is a welcome addition to the woe-is-me celebrity rapper tale, giving it rare moments of vulnerability. Drake tells us about how many women he has had and all the parties he has been to, but those boasts give way to insecurities. Loneliness stalks him and makes him question the excess in his life and his own behavior, like how he turns women into “monsters” after he breaks up with them.

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The move from rapping to singing tracks the slide from brashness to vulnerability. Drake begins the third verse by rapping for the first time, appropriately so as he brags about all the porn he has and the “bitches” at fabulous parties. He realizes, though, how meager all of that is and that he actually has little to “believe in.” When he tells his ex that he needs her, he switches to singing. Rap will not do here. Singing has the intimacy and directness that he wants in begging his ex to stay on the phone with him. As he tells her, he has slept with several women that week, but he realizes how empty that is compared to talking with her and telling her about his problems. Vulnerability is one of the risks of singing – yes, singing – a hip hop ballad. People can hate you for it. In the days of social-media hyperbole, “hate” has become the word to express that you do not like someone, usually a celebrity. There are websites that list all the reasons that people hate hip hop stars. Drake has several such sites. His singing is often singled out, not just whether it is good or bad but rather that he sings at all. Hip hop artists should not sing, or to get to the heart of the hate, they should not sing about tender feelings. Drake is just too sensitive. A posting on a mock Twitter account has him always crying: “whats so cool about getting teardrop tattoos i get teardrops on my face every time i leave my bedroom.”3 As we have seen with Johnnie Ray, Barry Manilow, and 1980s heavy metal bands, singing highly emotional ballads can lead to swipes about being effeminate and gay. The swipes get especially nasty in hip hop, which, from the beginning, has been filled with masculine bravado, the womanizing and gangsta lore. Not fitting into the tough guy crew of hip hop, the vulnerable balladeer is mocked. Drake has been accused of putting out “bitchmade” stuff and has also been called “sus,” or gay.4 The Genius website devoted to hip hop listed Drake’s most emotional or “girly” songs, the two terms being synonymous.5 The Twitter site drakethetype has readers put in a punch line to the lead-in “Drake the type of nigga that.” For one contributor, the answer is the one who comes on to other guys in bathroom stalls.6 Radio personality Charlamagne Tha God said that there are “three sexual orientations”: gay, straight, and Drake. As for that new category, “Drake” means sensitive.7 3 4 5 6

https://twitter.com/drake_thoughts. http://ca.complex.com/music/2013/08/why-do-people-hate-drake/his-background. http://genius.com/discussions/83047-Drakes-most-emotional-girly-lines. https://twitter.com/drakethetype. 7 www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UJW8RGyLn0.

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“Marvin’s Room” has been caught up in that flak. DJ Supreme joked that Drake must have been wearing “panties” when he wrote Take Care, the album featuring the song. He targets the line in the chorus in which Drake tells his ex to forget the guy she has been dating and that she must still be remembering him. According to DJ Supreme, that is “lame,” typical of the “soft” lyrics on the album.8 A history of the ballad, though, tells us that far more people love soft, romantic ballads than those who mock them. Such is the case with “Marvin’s Room.” Some of the haters love the song too, a point made by critic Ernest Baker. He admits that it is “entertaining” “to make fun of how soft [Drake’s] songs can be,” but that his soft stuff can get to everyone. To make his point, he sets the stage for an archetypal ballad scene – a moment when we need a ballad. The “dudes” who may ridicule Drake online are the same guys “who listen to ‘Marvin’s Room’ and cry out their eyes at 4 a.m.”9 8 9

DJ Supreme, “Drake Wins DJ Supreme’s Most Emotional Rapper Tiara” (14 November 2011) http:// wblk.com/drake-wins-dj-supremes-most-emotional-rapper-tiara/. Ernest Baker, “The 30 Most Sensitive Drake Lyrics,” Complex (20 November 2011) http://ca.complex .com/music/2011/11/the-30-most-sensitive-drake-lyrics/.

chapter 4

Indie Ballads

Ballads collide. The 1998 Academy Awards Show. The category: Best Original Song. Elliott Smith sings “Miss Misery,” which he wrote for Good Will Hunting. He stands on stage by himself playing guitar with some lines thrown in by the pit orchestra. The song is a wistful waltz that steps from alcoholism to “oblivion.” In a fittingly cinematic scene change, an orchestra all dressed in white playing on the deck of an ocean liner surrounded by dry ice fog brings in Céline Dion to perform “My Heart Will Go On.” Needless to say which song won. As Madonna joked before announcing the winner: “What a shocker.” It was a shocker that Smith performed his song on the show. It is so different from the other nominated songs, which, like “My Heart Will Go On,” are power ballads: “Go the Distance” (Hercules), “How Do I Live” (Con Air), and “Journey to the Past” (Anastasia). Hollywood had obviously figured out that audiences loved power ballads. Rather than being the odd man out, Smith and his song have taken on a larger significance. Unlike most other Oscar shows, the song performances that evening have not been quickly and mercifully forgotten. People still talk about that show and when they do they pit “Miss Misery” against “My Heart Will Go On.” There was more at stake than an Academy Award. As Randy Reiss wrote in his report on the show for MTV News, Smith took a stand, albeit a brief and doomed one, against the formulaic products celebrated by Hollywood and the corporate recording industry, like Dion’s “super-schmaltzy tearjerker.” He “soared above the hackneyed awards ceremony for a few memorable, if improbable minutes.” Reiss captured Smith’s resistance in one of the first words he used to describe him: “indie.”1 1

Randy Reiss, “Elliott Smith Gives Surreal Oscar Performance,” MTV News (24 March 1998) www .mtv.com/news/150004/elliott-smith-gives-surreal-oscar-performance/.

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The idea of Smith battling commercial blandness under an indie banner would grow in the following years. Writing in 2014, blogger Noah Lieberman upheld Smith’s Oscar performance as “one of the most symbolic live performances of all time.” As short as it was, it “vastly increased the world’s awareness of the indie scene.” Smith revealed the “craft” of indie music, as opposed to Dion’s “over-the-top histrionics.”2 For critic Brad Shoup, the Oscar showdown between Smith and Dion exposed “the fundamental incompatibility of the underground with commercial artistry.” Besides “underground,” Shoup also refers to Smith as “indie,” which, as represented by Smith’s performance, he sees as part of a ceaseless struggle between “art and commerce.”3 One word that does not appear in the chronicles of this now legendary night is “ballad.” “My Heart Will Go On” is surprisingly not dismissed as a power ballad, a synonym for schmaltzy and histrionic for some writers. Neither does anyone identify “Miss Misery” as a ballad, which it is. Smith is called indie, but not his song. Perhaps for these chroniclers, “indie” and “ballad” are incompatible; the latter, as represented by “My Heart Will Go On,” considered too commercial or pop to be indie. Yet the two do converge, especially given that musicians labeled as “indie” sing ballads. But what makes those artists and their ballads indie? It is a difficult question to answer because indie has meant many different things. So let’s begin our discussion of indie ballads with a look at those various meanings and having done that we can ask what indie means for ballads and what ballads mean for indie.

Indie I start my lecture on indie rock with the question “what is indie?” It brings the class to a long and stymied stop, more so than my other question: “What is a ballad?” At least with a ballad, the students know that it is a type of song. They have to tell me what kind of song it is. With indie, they have to figure out what it is. That “it” can be different things, as their responses reveal. In their taxonomy, indie can be a genre, a movement, a fad, artsy music, or hipsters. Carrie Brownstein, member of the (indie) rock trio 2

3

Noah Lieberman, “Mister Misery: Why Madonna and Celine Dion are Two of the Most Important Figures in Indie Rock,” A Month of Sundays (11 January 2014) https://noahliebermanmusic.wordpress .com/2014/01/11/mister-misery-why-madonna-and-celine-dion-are-two-of-the-most-important-figures -in-indie-rock/#comments. Brad Shoup, “Elliott Smith Albums from Worst to Best,” Stereogum (11 February 2014) www .stereogum.com/1649431/elliott-smith-albums-from-worst-to-best/franchises/counting-down/.

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Sleater-Kinney, asked the same question to friends and colleagues and also got diffuse replies. Two smart alecks responded “nothing,” which actually might be pretty wise in the sense that the term means so many things that it means nothing, but that is far from the case, as we will see. The more cooperative respondents described indie as a music released by independent labels, DIY, and music made for music’s sake, among other things.4 These surveys make clear that it is hard to pin down indie, difficult not so much for it being elusive but rather manifold. It is many different things, which form the large, flexible, and influential compound that we have called indie. We keep using the term because it means so many things to us and does so many things for us. In order to understand what indie is and what makes it pertinent to contemporary popular music, we need to break it down. My class’ responses and Brownstein’s mostly fall into three categories. The first of these is industry related, particularly the idea of musicians whose recordings are released by independent labels. This conception of indie, though, is rather old. Back in the 1950s, “indie” referred to such small labels. A Billboard article, for example, announced: “Indies Get Hotter: Trade Growingly Aware of Small Diskeries’ Importance.”5 That same headline could have appeared in the 1990s, when several prominent groups broke through on independent labels. Some of them later moved on to larger corporate ones. The classic example is Nirvana, which stepped up (or down) from the local Seattle label Sub Pop to DGC Records (David Geffen Company), which has had ties to both Warner Brothers and MCA. The Nirvana label saga reveals that the lines between independent and corporate labels are not always clear, as either bands move from the former to the latter, or larger labels buy out and oversee smaller labels. Then the Internet happened, and, with the rise of MP3s and internet distribution, the recording industry forever changed. Labels, small or large, were rattled and no longer held the sway that they once did. Now anyone could release their own songs online, no label needed. With the changed industry landscape, the connection between indie and independent label is not as prominent a part of the indie compound as it once was. Another way to understand indie is as a genre. Students in my class get at this idea by saying that indie is a style of music that sounds a particular way, 4

5

Carrie Brownstein, “What Does ‘Indie’ Mean to You? Even More Survey Answers!!” (18 November 2009) www.npr.org/sections/monitormix/2009/11/what_does_indie_mean_ to_you_ev_1.html. “Indies Get Hotter: Trade Growingly Aware of Small Diskeries’ Importance,” Billboard (20 June 1953), 23.

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just like folk and funk. But then there was no consensus as to what that style or sound is. It is hard to find a stylistic thread in the acts that they mentioned: The National, Vampire Weekend, Mumford and Sons, Arcade Fire, and Bon Iver. Rock may be such a thread, especially given that “indie” and “rock” seem to go together, as in “indie rock.” Yet even rock does not cover all that variety. Indie, though, does, and it can because it is a new type of genre, one suited for contemporary popular music. Indie confronts the wide variety of music around us. Like my students, we listen to all sorts of music. We are often told that we live in a time of unprecedented stylistic plurality. Indie helps us deal with that reality, and it does so by fulfilling the basic need that genres have met: to place different works in categories. That role is age old, but indie gives it a modern twist. The works in conventional genres have some sort of stylistic consistency, but not so much in indie. It is not defined by style but rather by different parameters, like industry placement and the other ones discussed here. Shaped by those qualities, indie opens up a space that can hold diverse styles. When it comes to style, it has a flexibility that makes it perhaps the ideal type of genre for the present day. Indie accommodates a broad range of styles but is not dependent on style. If we still need genre boxes with all the different types of music that we listen to, we can find a new and handy one in indie music. Indie also reveals what is going on in genres today. In particular, a significant line is being drawn within genres. That line separates styles that are considered to be serious, artistic, edgy, and ambitious from those viewed as more commercial and conventional. To bring out that line, I will have to sketch a broad historical picture. The line became increasingly part of the rock scene in the 1980s (although it was initially etched in the 1960s with groups like The Velvet Underground). Bands like The Replacements and R.E.M. put out recordings that were viewed as standing apart from more commercial and popular rock fare, like recordings of REO Speedwagon and Journey. To use a word that stuck, the former offered an “alternative.” That word is even more vague than “indie,” which, at least, points to a particular industry designation. The vagueness of the term, though, gets at an idea that was becoming clearer and clearer: That there was an alternative, or other type, of rock. It might be hard to define stylistically what that alternative was, but it meant a lot that there was a different type of rock, one that was considered to be more challenging and serious. “Alternative” captured that idea. The idea would grow, but the term would disappear, replaced by indie in the 1990s. The rise of “indie” may have to do with the prominence of independent labels at that time,

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which provided a haven for bands that expanded the territory lying on the other, or alternative, side of a line becoming more entrenched in rock. That line, however, runs through other genres. It goes by different names, like alt-country, underground hip hop, and alt-folk. Even pop, a genre beholden to mass appeal, has another side: indie pop. Whatever the name, the line claims a more artistic and innovative space within a genre. For Claudia Gonson, a member of The Magnetic Fields (a group to be discussed below), indie means “somewhat under the radar, or difficult to find, or left of center, or difficult to grasp.”6 So what to call this line? I will propose indie/ mainstream. Indie obviously stands for the side with more challenging works. As for mainstream, it refers to popular culture works that both create and reinforce conventional tastes through the reliance on formulaic materials, be it a standard romantic-comedy plot or the ramp-up design of power ballads. It is not just that the works are formulaic but that they are also seemingly ubiquitous, the unending issue of corporate pipelines. They appear inescapable too, as there is yet another superhero film a month away or another Katy Perry or Rihanna song a turn away on the radio dial. No wonder then that a ten-minute rock song with an unusual form or a hip hop song that bluntly deals with racial topics and builds upon an abrasive mix offer a refuge from mainstream mass production. The need to escape the expected is strong for many musicians and listeners, so strong that it has dug the indie/mainstream line within different genres. The border between the two sides, though, is not closed. Musicians and listeners cross the line all the time, taking up a song in a more commercial, familiar style one moment and then one that upends conventions the next. For those who do traverse the line, it is important to know that there is that other, more adventurous side. Beyoncé crossed over to that side, and when a star enshrined in the mainstream does so, it catches attention. The material on her Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016) albums departs so significantly from her hit singles fare that critics reached for words like “experimental” and “avantgarde.”7 The difference comes through in the ballads, if that is what you can call “Flawless” from Beyoncé. Whatever it is, it is not like her previous ballad chart-toppers “If I Were a Boy” (2008) and “Halo” (2009), both of which used conventional forms and hook-barbed melodies. 6 7

Quoted in Mark Oppenheimer, “Who Needs Poetry?” The New York Times Magazine (16 September 2012), 49. Carrie Battan, “Beyoncé, Beyoncé,” Pitchfork (6 January 2014) http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albu ms/18821-beyonce-beyonce/ and Erin Vanderhoof, “Beyoncé with the Good Art,” The Nation (9 May 2016) www.thenation.com/article/beyonce-with-the-good-music-lemonade-review/.

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Far from having a standard form, “Flawless” combines two songs into one: the up-tempo “Bow Down,” a homage to trap music from Beyoncé’s home town, Houston, and the ballad “Flawless.” As if that was not enough, the song is framed by spoken-word samples from a reality TV talent show on which the young Beyoncé and friends appeared (and lost), and the halves are separated by an interlude using a sample from a TED talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which lists various ways that society holds back the progress of women, including the unrelenting emphasis on appearance. Beyoncé takes up that theme in “Flawless,” which targets the fantasy of celebrity glamor. She may look flawless, Beyoncé tells us, but she is not. More important than an illusory standard of beauty are the values that her family gave her. As for the ballad, “Flawless” is built upon a slow, jittery hip hop beat with dense layers, including melodies that continue over from the interlude. Beyoncé often delivers her lines on a repeated note, like the hammering away on the word “flawless,” which grounds down both the word and the fantasy. She twice breaks out into rapid-fire, rap-like sections. The form, vocals, beats, and destruction of a popular culture fantasy are hardly the stuff of a mainstream ballad. The desire to stand apart from the mainstream gets at a third understanding of indie: a sensibility. Decamping to the indie side says a lot about you or says what you want to say about yourself. To return to Claudia Gonson’s definition of indie, the indie fan has no difficulty finding or grasping interesting works. In other words, a dedication to indie announces how discerning a fan is and how easily and contemptuously he or she can shoo away the massively popular. The chroniclers of Elliott Smith’s Oscar performance did just that. Far from producing an objective account of that evening, they pride themselves on appreciating the refined beauty of Smith’s song and mocking the banality of both “My Heart Will Go On” and the Oscars. The indie sensibility comes down to taste, particularly French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of taste as an unending campaign of distinction.8 In his study of 1960s French culture, taste serves as a means for the upper classes to distinguish themselves from the middle and lower classes through their appreciation of elite arts like opera or modern painting. With indie, we do not have the tuxedo-clad operagoer but rather some 8

Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987). For two studies that connect indie to Bourdieu’s work, see Ryan Hibbett, “What is Indie Rock?” Popular Music and Society 28 (2005): 55–77 and Michael Z. Newman, “Indie Culture: In Pursuit of the Authentic Autonomous Alternative,” Cinema Journal 48 (2009): 16–34.

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guy in skinny jeans who knows the great band that no one else knows. The times, fashions, and valued objects may have changed but the desire for distinction has not. These three conceptions reveal indie to be a form of opposition: independent labels versus corporate ones, innovative, unconventional songs versus formulaic hits, and distinguished versus common tastes. Indie ballads reinforce those lines of opposition and also open up a new one. That line deals with emotions. To go back to that Oscar night, Smith’s supporters jeered “My Heart Will Go On” for being schlocky and bombastic and praised “Miss Misery” as heartfelt. As biased as they may be, those accounts get at a tension between the emotional experiences offered by indie ballads and power ballads. Smith and other musicians called indie or alternative have offered alternatives to the emotional experiences erected by power ballads. Their songs emphasize restraint and reduction and concentrate on individual emotions as opposed to building the mingled mass of feelings in a power ballad. As we saw in the 1950s, ballads get at larger musical and cultural conflicts over levels of emotional expression. Back then, you could either wail with Johnnie Ray and be mocked for doing so or you could repose in the comfortable emotional moderation of a high-fidelity pop ballad. Decades later, you can ponder the fine grains of feelings in a fragile ballad or climb the emotional ramparts of a power ballad. If you choose the former, you can also walk away from the mainstream where power ballads thrive and cross over to the indie side of popular culture. The turn away from power ballads gives us another Beyoncé parallel. While her two biggest ballad hits, “If I Were a Boy” and “Halo,” do not fit exactly the power ballad mold (no final seismic change in key), they are among the big, impassioned ballads that have become standard issue on the pop charts and have blurred the lines between ballads and power ballads. With her “avant-garde” Lemonade, she took up more intimate, reflective ballads, like “Pray You Catch Me” and “Sandcastles.” The two do build, but a grand finale is never in sight. If anything, emotional fragility serves as a climax. Beyoncé may have parallels with indie, but she does not fit into most, if any, conceptions of that category. Still, it is worth mentioning her in a definition of indie because her music reveals how defining features of indie are occurring well outside of what we label indie music. So prevalent are these outside maneuvers that we will probably drop the term “indie” in the future, perhaps replacing it with a new one that captures the different stances taken by musicians across genres against mainstream expectations.

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Yet for the time being, “indie” is handy and more than relevant. After all, indie musicians are the ones who have fortified such a stance. The term is especially helpful when it comes to describing what is happening with ballads. Indie and ballads are so in sync that we can talk about indie ballads. First, a few words to define that type of ballad. It might seem that here is another case of ballads being taken up in a genre, like rock and soul ballads. It is not that simple, though. Rock and soul have clear, identifiable styles, and, as mentioned earlier, indie does not. It is a genre defined more by taste and attitude than by style. Indie is more what people think it is rather than a recognizable, specific sound. No one has identified indie ballads as a particular type of song, but they have, of course, named some artists as indie. Following that lead, a good place to start in looking at indie ballads is with songs performed by musicians called “indie.” Many of them have favored ballads, including Elliott Smith, Sufjan Stevens, Regina Spektor, Cat Power, Tori Amos, and Stephin Merritt. These artists only prove the rule about how broad the category of indie is. The challenge in discussing indie ballads is to appreciate the distinct styles of these musicians while drawing out the musical and emotional qualities shared by their ballads. Those qualities reveal a new type of ballad emerging in a new type of genre, one that does away with familiar stylistic categories and is instead defined by musical, cultural, and even emotional lines of opposition.

Elliott Smith Elliot Smith’s life story has been taken down a familiar biographical road in popular music history: that of the brilliant young musician felled by addiction. Other travelers on that road include Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Kurt Cobain. There are the expected narrative landmarks in Smith’s biography. Coming from a broken home, he had a traumatic childhood, including an apparently abusive relationship with his stepfather before leaving to live with his father in Portland as a teenager. There were problems with alcohol and drugs, which gripped him tighter with growing fame. Then there is the early death at age 34. Smith stabbed himself twice in the chest. Having locked herself in the bathroom to escape one of his paranoid outbursts, his girlfriend ran out after hearing screams and called an ambulance. The coroner’s office, though, did not officially list the death as a suicide, citing inconsistent or inconclusive

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evidence; however, homicide charges against the girlfriend or any other party have never been pursued.9 The facts may support a well-known biographical plot, but we should avoid viewing Smith and his music in that light, particularly the romantic figure of the tortured young genius that goes along with it. Smith threw off that mantle when it was placed on him. According to him, he was asked to wear a t-shirt covered with bloodstains for a Spin magazine cover shoot (an eerie foreshadowing of his death). He refused, saying that he did not want to play the role of the ever-suffering artist.10 Smith’s songs have been heard as annals in the doomed young musician story. There are indeed autobiographical allusions in the songs, and they do tap into Smith’s anxieties. Yet we should not be so quick to hear them exclusively as the testimony of a troubled artist. There are more to the songs than that. As Shon Sullivan, a musician on Smith’s Figure 8 tour, put it: “I kind of felt that a lot of the complexity of who he was got erased after he was gone because people wanted an easy way to understand it.”11 With that in mind, let’s turn to some of Smith’s ballads and get at that complexity, especially the idea of songs that are stripped down yet build layers of emotions. What better song to begin with than the Oscar-nominated “Miss Misery”? It is a breakup song, but one that lists a lot more woe and damage than a broken heart. It could be called “Miscellany Misery.” There is the “poisoned rain” of alcohol, the debris of collapsed romantic plans, and loneliness, captured in the image of the flashing lights of a TV on a wall in a neighbor’s house with no idea of who, if anyone, is watching it other than the singer staring at the stray glow of someone else’s TV. We not only get a bigger inventory of ache than we do in most breakup ballads but we also get questions about that pain. No simple she-did-mewrong song here. How did his ex earn the name “Miss Misery”? Did she cause misery? Or did she bear all the pain that he created until she could not carry it anymore? On top of that, the chorus throws in a question: “Do you miss me, Miss Misery/Like you say you do?” It raises more questions. Is she mocking him? Or does she actually miss him? Or is he mocking her by asking her that question? Or does he believe that she is mocking him when she honestly does tell him that she misses him? Rather than asking his ex a question, the chorus in an earlier version of the song 9 10 11

On Smith’s death and the coroner’s report, see William Todd Schultz, Torment Saint: The Life of Elliott Smith (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013), 318–28. R.J. Smith, “. . . you’ve got to hide your love away,” Spin 20 (February 2004), 86. Heaven Adores You, DVD, directed by Nickolas Rossi (London: Eagle Rock Entertainment 2015).

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concludes with the lines: “Because it’s all right, some enchanted night/I’ll be with you.” No such grand delusions in the later version, rather something more painful: mockery. But it is not all so bleak. Things may not be as dire as the singer thinks. A man reading his palm tells him that he is “strong.” He has doubts but then again he has managed to persevere with a “good attitude.” He also sees himself going back to his girlfriend if she asks him, a more realistic conception of a reunion than the “enchanted night” together in the earlier version of the song. Misery, as typical of the feelings in Smith’s songs, is an emotional concoction. A large draught of sorrow would never do for him. He instead stirs together painful feelings with bright, hopeful ones. There are many emotional sides to his songs. In “Miss Misery,” the lyrics restlessly turn from one feeling to another, misery here, the bitterness of mockery there, and then some gleams of optimism. The music adds to these emotional turns. His songs capture the shifts between sorrow and hopefulness by keeping both minor and major keys in play, often without concluding firmly in one or the other.12 In “Miss Misery,” the verses are in a minor key and so it appears would the rest of the song be. The question in the chorus, though, moves into a major key, which only adds to the questions about that question. The major key could be heard as conveying hope that she does miss him and may ask him back, but it could also add an ironic kick to the mockery underlying his question. Whatever the case, the question does not have an answer. And without one, we are left hanging at the end of the song, not only in terms of what she would tell him but also in regard to key. Searching for an answer, the singer could go back to his woe in another verse, which would return us to the minor key in which the song began. It never happens, but it is easy to imagine that it could. Then there is the rhythm in “Miss Misery.” The song is in ¾ time, not a common meter in popular music, but it is in Smith’s music. So common that he has two songs named waltzes, with the appropriate titles “Waltz #1” and “Waltz #2.” As to be expected, neither is ballroom fare. The rhythms are steady enough, but the harmonies do not fit your typical waltz. Both blend major and minor keys, although they, like “Miss Misery,” end in major keys. Nonetheless, there is enough minor in the two songs that we get that exquisitely melancholic number, the minor-key waltz. What makes these numbers so touching is how the minor key sashays the waltz 12

For more on Smith’s floating of two keys, see Rob Schultz, “Tonal Pairing and the Relative Key Paradox in the Music of Elliott Smith,” Music Theory Online 18, no. 4 (December 2012).

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away from the vivacious dance it should be and to a more plaintive place. Chopin captured this blend of vim and melancholy in his minor-key waltzes, and Sibelius wrote one that gave such pieces a memorable title: Valse triste. With his own blends of hope and sorrow, Smith not surprisingly took to the sad waltz. He adds to the mixture through his lyrics. For example, “Waltz #2” looks back at his troubling years with his mother and stepfather in Texas, depicting his mother as emotionally deadened and asking his stepfather, “Mr. Man,” to “leave him alone.” Yet, the song concludes with the line “XO Mom,” offering hugs and kisses to her years later. In “Miss Misery,” the waltz propels the singer to push himself to maintain that “good attitude.” The ballad “Between the Bars” waltzes around a bottle of booze. The singer encourages his girlfriend to “drink up” so that she can escape the “push and shove,” the pressure she and others exert on her to stop drinking and probably end her relationship with the singer. The steady waltz suggests both the “push and the shove” as well as the couple’s dance toward alcoholism. The fact that “Miss Misery” evokes a waltz is not what separated it from the other four, all in 4/4, Oscar-nominated songs. Smith, the man and his career, was different enough, as was his song. These differences have been captured in the word “indie.” So having discussed some of Smith’s ballads, we can begin to appreciate how the indie ballad is different from other songs, particularly the power ballad. The two obviously contrast when it comes to levels of emotional intensity and the types of emotional experiences that they create. Power ballads get ever more intense and exhilarating. Indie ballads, on the other hand, open up a quiet, reflective space and stay there. If anything becomes more intense it is emotional reflection, as we ponder and feel how the emotions in a song change. Power ballads also deal with emotions, not just one feeling, and those emotions change too during the course of a song. The way that power ballads and indie ballads present those feelings, though, could not be more different. “My Heart Will Go On,” to return to the Oscar rival of “Miss Misery,” takes up loss, but that feeling disappears into a charged cloud of emotions that stimulates listeners to such a degree that they experience all sorts of feelings, from loss to boldness. “Miss Misery,” in contrast, intertwines different emotions, which, through the growing connections between them, enrich each other. In Smith’s song, hopefulness eases melancholy while melancholy tinges brighter feelings. There is a constant give and take between them, an exchange that is not possible in the frantic swirl of a power ballad.

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Sufjan Stevens and Regina Spektor The interplay between different feelings is not only common in Smith’s works but also ballads by other indie artists, who similarly favor the hushed, introspective realms in which subtle emotional dramas unfold. Sufjan Stevens has staged many such dramas. He is the type of artist for whom the word “indie” seems to have been invented. His works are aloof to mainstream expectations, and they sprawl across different genres, from classical-leaning pieces (BQE) to austere ballads. Indie not only captures an indifference to the formulaic, but, being a category indifferent to stylistic slots, it also accommodates the variety in Stevens’ music. Let’s turn to the song “To Be Alone with You” from the 2004 album Seven Swans. It depicts two men who bridged loneliness to fall in love with each other. One was married to a woman and had children but left that life behind him. The other presumably was always out but lived in an emotional solitude in which he never felt that another man loved him. The first chorus of the song repeats the title phrase, and the second takes up the counterpart phrase “to be alone with me.” The word “alone” returns over and over and each time is weighed emotionally. It returns the lovers to the pain of the isolation that they once suffered and is accordingly played with a minor chord underneath, and it also represents the joy of being together and apart, a relief captured with major chords. The singer concludes by stating: “I’ve never known a man who loved me.” A minor chord underscores “me,” suggesting an ingrained pain from his previous relationships or doubts about his new one, that even this man cannot love him. The song ends with a major chord, a hopeful turn away from the singer’s apprehension. “To Be Alone with You” can be heard as a song about two men falling in love or it can also be understood as a song about accepting Christ. Seven Swans takes up Christian themes and stories, directly and indirectly. The song “Abraham” offers an almost haiku version of the story of Abraham and Isaac, and the title song of the album prophesizes with ecstatic images like those in The Book of Revelation. In comparison, “To Be Alone with You” is a subtle parable, depicting the sacrifices made by the Christ-like man who was in the heterosexual marriage (the marriage being one of his sacrifices, but obviously not one of Christ’s) and the ordeal of the other man, a believer, to find him and accept him, along with the doubts that come with faith. The rich ambiguities, the Christian themes, and the sparse but tender emotional dramas of the songs inspired

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one critic to quip that the album sounded “like Elliott Smith after ten years of Sunday school.”13 Regina Spektor’s “Samson” (2001) is another ballad as biblical exegesis. Her version of the story of Samson and Delilah is, as the lyrics say, one that did not make it into the Bible. And why would it? This version deals more with the course of love in an everyday relationship rather than a grand story of seduction and ruin. The singer tells us that she did cut Samson’s hair and that he was fine with it. After the trim, they went to bed and kissed until the break of day. They then settle into a relationship so comfortable that he eats in bed with her. The modern-day Samson does not bring down a temple to kill himself and his Philistine enemies. Quite the contrary, the singer mentions that they could not make a single column fall. If anything is going to collapse, it is their relationship. She calls him her “sweetest downfall” and follows that up with: “I have to go.” That line stands out in the emotional to-and-fro of the song, giving us hints at what is behind that “downfall.” The same melody and chords are used for two other lines, one about how she “loved [him] first” and the other about stars, which, far from being romantic, are “just old light.” The melodic line is stated once and then immediately repeated to form a pair. The first line ends on a minor chord, and the second time on a major chord. The minor chord suggests the pain that causes her to leave him or that will come when she does. It adds to the questions underlying her strange way of declaring love – if she loved him first then whom has she loved after him and is that second love the reason she is leaving? The minor chord also brings out the “old light” of stars dwindling into darkness. The second line ending on a major chord allays her regret, but only briefly. Spektor concludes the song with the coupled lines, or only the first line, which symbolizes her departure. She sings the line about loving him first and ends on the minor chord. No follow-up line or major chord to resolve those doubts; just the emptiness of her departure. In this version of the biblical story, Delilah leaves Samson, and the relationship is her downfall, not his. We could never get such a story in a power ballad. The emotional plotting of those songs is too fast and intense for the scenes from a relationship presented by Smith, Stevens, and Spektor. Indie ballads not only differ from power ballads in terms of emotional intensity but also musical intensity. One way to measure the latter is through volume and the number of instruments. Power ballads push toward 10, as they 13

“Breakdown,” Spin 20 (May 2004), 108.

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wind up with either a big orchestra or blaring rock band, not to mention full-throated singing. Indie ballads, on the other hand, keep it at around 2 or 3. Usually, one or a few instruments underlie the quiet singing. All Stevens needs are two guitars for his tale of breached loneliness, and Spektor accompanies herself on piano with electronics adding resonance to chords now and then. As with most of his songs, Smith usually performed “Miss Misery” by himself on guitar, but, for the Good Will Hunting soundtrack, a larger ensemble was used. All three musicians keep their voices soft, the better to bring out the fragility and intimacy crucial to their songs. Power ballads typically open like a soft, acoustic ballad but then constantly build. Indie ballads, in contrast, begin hushed and stay there. By starting at such a point, the songs suggest that there has been a change in musical intensity, a reduction. When we hear a piano ballad like “Samson,” we are struck by how sparse it is. The instruments that we expect to hear – guitar, bass, and drums – are not there. They have been removed in the sense that the performers decided not to use them. The song begins with the act of reduction, of taking the ensemble down to a basic point. While pop singers have sung piano ballads, like Adele’s “Someone Like You” discussed in a following Interlude, those songs are special numbers in their repertoire, as with Adele’s song. This is not the case with indie musicians, who have settled into these quiet acoustic spaces. The idea of stripping a song down is crucial to indie ballads as well as larger ideals of indie. Indie ballads not only do away with bass and drums but they along with other indie styles shed the slick studio sounds, swelling orchestras, layered beats, and the reverbed, auto-tuned voices that make mainstream pop so familiar and immediately accessible. One way to stand apart from the mainstream is to step outside its glossy, fabricated sound world. Reduction, though, can yield much, a paradox upon which indie ballads capitalize. The songs enhance the “unplugged” effect. Rather than substituting acoustic instruments for electronic ones like a rock band might do, they use just one or two acoustic instruments. The plucked strings of a lone guitar or the soft chords on a piano add to the aura of authenticity and naturalness. There is even less to separate us from the musicians, no drums, no big amplifiers. Moreover, the solo instruments can seem as direct and intimate as the voices that they accompany. The quiet ensembles also set an ideal stage for the chamber dramas of emotions presented in indie ballads. The instruments can bring out the delicate changes in feelings. As heard in “To Be Alone with You,” a few chords on a guitar

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can tell us so much about the comfort and fear found in being alone with a lover.

Covers: Cat Power and Tori Amos A handful of songs, of course, is never enough to represent a genre, especially one as elusive as indie, but Smith, Stevens, and Spektor’s works give us an idea of the emotional qualities of indie ballads. We can get a clearer idea by looking at songs that are not indie ballads, or, to be more precise, ones that were not originally indie ballads but were turned into them through the metamorphoses of cover versions. Stuck on originality and its ranks full of singer-songwriters, indie would seem to shun cover songs. Yet some indie artists have championed them, namely Cat Power and Tori Amos, both of whom have released albums of covers. The two transform songs in striking ways, often creating what seem to be new songs. The vocals and instrumentation are all changed, as too are the feelings of the original songs. Soul music worked similar emotional alchemy. Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and Otis Redding sang lots of covers, and they never left the songs as they found them. Far from it. We heard Charles scratch ache into the new country sound of Eddy Arnold’s “You Don’t Know Me” and Franklin buttress Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge over Troubled Water” with bluesy resolve. Their recordings reveal soul to be a musical and emotional energy, which emerges most clearly when applied to songs in genres that have few connections to African American styles. It may be hard to isolate soul in a cover of an R&B song given how the two genres build upon African American musical practices, but soul comes to the fore in a country or pop song. Indie similarly stands out in covers of distant genres, like the heavy metal, hip hop, pop, and soul songs covered by Power and Amos. Soul and indie, though, apply their transformative energies in different ways. Soul adds to a song, imbuing it with the exuberance of gospel or the woe of blues to reach a passion unknown to the original version. Indie, in contrast, reduces a song, taking it down to a soft, acoustic essence. The singers also strip down the emotions in a performance, a restraint that creates its own kind of passion. Power’s and Amos’ covers create striking mutations. One way to transform a song is to do the opposite of the signature touches of the original. Power does just that with her version of “Wild Is the Wind,” a 1957 highfidelity pop ballad by Johnny Mathis. As with its ilk, his recording bedazzled stereo listeners with gleaming sounds, including the requisite

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violin luster, a female choir singing wordless siren calls, an accordion put through so much reverb that it sounds like a synthesizer, and Mathis’ voice touched up with warm reverb. Power recorded the song as part of her 2000 album The Covers Record, and her version is just as blunt as the album title. No sonic glitz here, just voice and piano. And with the piano repeating two chords over and over, the song comes across more as a dirge than it does a rhapsody about the wildness of love. In her 2001 album Strange Little Girls, Amos offered her version, that is, a woman’s version, of songs from artists and genres strongly identified as masculine, like thrash metal. She covers Slayer’s “Raining Blood.” The original pelts listeners with the frantic guitars, drumming, and vocals of thrash metal. Amos, on the other hand, eases her listeners in a slowmoving sonic drift of piano and electronics into which her voice comes and goes. With these two covers and others on Power’s and Amos’ albums, doing the opposite means reduction. As different as high-fidelity pop ballads and thrash metal may be, they both thrive on sonic abundance, which Power and Amos deplete in their recordings. Reduction does not mean only stripping down a song but also slowing one down as well. Musicians often talk about reducing the tempo, or playing a song more slowly. Power and Amos perform this type of reduction in their covers, and it is an important part of the metamorphoses that they create. The high velocity of thrash metal becomes dreamy in Amos’ version of “Raining Blood.” Songs that are slow also grow slower as with Power’s cover of “Wild Is the Wind.” The dialing down of the metronome is a common ploy in cover songs. Jazz musicians have long slowed down up-tempo songs so that the vivacious becomes reflective. In other words, a sprightly song, like “If I Only Had a Brain,” mentioned in the Introduction, becomes a ballad. Amos works similar transformations, but she does not focus on sprightly songs but rather frenetic, dark ones, such as “Raining Blood.” She finds a ballad in Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” a piano ballad, at that. The nihilistic, nonsense romp of the original does not become a love song by any means; rather, it turns into a rare kind of ballad, a foreboding, brooding song. The slow tempo brings out the despairing babble in the lyrics, especially the insistent repetition of the word “hello,” and Amos makes the song all the more bleak by adding minor chords to it. Slowing down the tempo not only gives a song new emotional guises but it also creates rich emotional effects. In particular, the slow tempos produce the restraint that is characteristic of indie ballads. It is hard to let go in

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a slow tempo, to release a torrent of notes, to hold a high note, to build up an emotional crescendo. No wonder that power ballads are sung at medium tempos, which often get a little faster at the climax of the songs. Indie singers have embraced the melodic and vocal restraints demanded by slow tempos. The melodies in the songs by Smith, Stevens, and Spektor keep to short phrases, and Smith and Stevens often level off the melodies to repeated notes, as it would be difficult to build long melodic arches over slow moving beats. The feeling of restraint comes through in the cover versions of Power and Amos, which are typically at much slower tempos than the songs that they cover. At such tempos, it is difficult to sing faithfully the melodies of the original songs. A singer has to hold back and resist the melodic elaborations of the original. He or she has to capture the same gestures, the same feelings but with less. In the case of Power’s “Sea of Love,” it is a lot less. Written and recorded by Phil Phillips in 1959, the song, with its backbeats in the drums and triplets in the piano, is a rockaballad. No such rhythmic bounce in Power’s version. She not only gives us the opposite of Phillips’ recording but also a sound unimaginable in it: autoharp. It is just Power and the autoharp, the awkward strumming of which is done to a slow, and often unclear, beat. That beat does not welcome Phillips’ extended melodic lines with their descents that get longer and longer and the sustained notes at the end of phrases. Heeding the beat and inspired by her characteristic restraint, Power does away with those touches. Her lines are full of short phrases and pauses, enough notes though to sketch Phillips’ melody – but not all of his melody. Power does not sing the bridge (“Come with me/To the sea of love”), in which almost all of the words, even the passing “to” and “of,” are held out on long notes. No such drawn-out pleas for her. A few dabs of melody are all she needs and all that she gives. The restraint in indie ballads can be heard as another rejection of the emotional outpouring of power ballads. Even though the songs do not gush, they are still expressive. Restraint can be as moving as a swell, just in a different way. Feelings may be held back, but there are still feelings. The attempt to hold them back often makes them more intense, as strong emotions well up in the short phrases in which they are released. Power and Amos use the colors of their voices to suffuse those phrases with emotions. Power scales gradations of ache. Her voice has a moan to it that is at once soft and with an edge. As heard in the opening of “Wild Is the Wind,” she softens the moan here and sharpens the edge there, using the more incisive moan for shorter phrases and haunting words (“hungriness”). Amos measures vibrato, the trembles of which can convey sorrow as in her version of

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10cc’s lush “I’m Not in Love” or fear, the cover of ‘”Smells Like Teen Spirit.” In both musicians’ recordings, the brief phrases not only brim with emotions but so too the open silences, which harbor the felt but unsaid and also invite contemplation. In indie ballads, restraint is far from restrained. It is a means to many ends. There is a musical logic to restraint, that of constant reduction. A song is taken down to one or two instruments. Big gestures are shunned, and phrases pared. As is often said about a master painter, a single beautifully executed line can do so much. The same could be said about the melodic lines in indie ballads. Feelings can be distilled into the refined phrases, giving the songs an emotional concentration. That concentration makes a point. Indie ballads tell us that feelings are richly experienced in restrained, quiet ways. You do not need – should not need – the excess of a power ballad to stimulate you to experience emotions. All you have to do is listen to the calligraphy of sorrow and love in an indie ballad.

Irony Loves Sincerity I have placed indie ballads in a larger debate over how intensely emotions should be expressed and experienced. In their hushed way, indie ballads insist that feelings are the richer in intimate, restrained settings. The songs, though, figure in another debate that has sprung up around emotions: irony versus sincerity.14 The sincerity side is pretty straightforward, the idea that feelings should be heartfelt and direct. But what does irony have to do with emotions? More importantly, what is irony? The last question has kept scholars busy for millennia. The ancient Greeks tried to capture the elusive term and academics today are still after it. Quintilian, a Roman scholar of rhetoric, came close to boxing it in a sentence with the claim that irony arises when “the intention of the speaker is other than what he actually says.”15 The idea of words not meaning what they appear to mean is a kernel of many conceptions of irony, and it is this duality that has made it so difficult to nail down. I will not weigh in with a definition. I am more interested in how the term has been used, particularly when it comes to the battle pitched between irony and sincerity. The two terms alone reveal one way that irony has been understood. In particular, it comes across as the opposite of 14 15

Here I will be following R. Jay Magill Jr.’s way of referring to this tension. R. Jay Magill Jr., “We’ve Been Arguing about Irony vs. Sincerity for Millennia,” The Atlantic (26 November 2012). Quoted in Wayne Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 49.

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sincere feelings, that is, a mode of declaring emotions that is feigned and affected. Who wants that over true feelings? Indeed, the debate is stacked against irony, a fate that is typical of the negative light in which it has often been presented in popular culture. Irony has taken on a retinue of darker qualities, including cynicism, sarcasm, detachment, and hollow cleverness. It comes as little surprise then that there have been calls for the end of the rule of irony over American life. These calls echoed after 9–11, and writer Roger Rosenblatt made one of the most forceful ones in an essay for Time. One good thing could come from this horror: it could spell the end of the age of irony. For some 30 years – roughly as long as the Twin Towers were upright – the good folks in charge of American intellectual life have insisted that nothing was to be believed in or taken seriously. Nothing was real. With a giggle and a smirk, our chattering classes – our columnists and pop culture makers – declared that detachment and personal whimsy were the necessary tools for an oh-so-cool life.16

The trauma of 9–11 was apparently not enough to dethrone irony. Writing in 2012, scholar Christy Wampole declared that irony is “the ethos of our age,” in which “life had become a competition as to see who cares the least.”17 The calls for the end of irony are a plea for authenticity, particularly for genuine emotions that we feel with depth and passion. For Rosenblatt, the “grief,” “anger,” and “pain” that flared after the attacks were “real,” “too real.” “Sincerity” has become the banner for those railing against, as Wampole puts it, the “vacuity” and “vapidity” of irony. She hoists the flag of the New Sincerity, a loose movement arising in the 1990s. David Foster Wallace’s 1993 essay “E Unibus Plurum: Television and U.S. Fiction” has been upheld as the call to arms of the movement. Worried about the glib cynicism in contemporary arts, it concludes by imagining young artists whose rebellion would be something as fundamental as “to treat old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction.”18 Far from an organized campaign, the New Sincerity has become a heading under which artists have been placed, including many indie musicians. Wampole enlists Cat Power into the movement. Cultural critic R. Jay Magill Jr. does not call up the New Sincerity, but he does 16 17 18

Roger Rosenblatt, “The Age of Irony Comes to an End,” Time 158, no. 13 (24 September 2001). Christy Wampole, “How to Live Without Irony,” New York Times (18 November 2012). David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1997), 81.

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mention that “ours is an age of increasing sincerity,” one shaped by musicians like Elliott Smith and Sufjan Stevens.19 Magill’s work offers a needed history lesson to those who have been bewailing the rot of irony in American culture. As he argues, irony never defines an age; nor is it an ethos. Irony and sincerity instead have vied with each other throughout history, the one keeping the other from being ascendant.20 As illuminating as Magill’s historical survey is, indie ballads offer us another way to think of the relationship between irony and sincerity. For Magill, it is one or the other, but what if the two could work in tandem? What if irony could be sincere and sincerity ironic? Stephin Merritt weds the two in his love songs, which abound with ironic wit as well as tender romance. Before we get to that holy union, there is one more point about irony to cover. Foes of irony dismiss it for being a barrage of popular culture references, a wink to a sitcom here and a television commercial there. These references, though, can be more than a wink. They can usher a whole genre or a voice from an existing work into a new piece. For example, many television shows have put on special musical episodes in which the characters break out into song. The shows take on the qualities of the musical, from campy dance numbers to the interior reflection brought out through a ballad. Rather than a whole genre, a few lines from an existing film or song will do, as a character can gloss the lines made famous by someone else with his or her own feelings. The idea of speaking through another genre or work evokes the twosidedness key to conceptions of irony. Instead of saying one thing and meaning another, now you can say one thing through a line or melody from an existing work to mean something new, be it slightly similar to the original line or altogether different. Umberto Eco considers this type of irony typical of postmodernism, which, rejecting the modernist rejection of the past, returns to earlier works and genres for material, like plots or dialogue. He makes his point with a line at the heart of ballads: I love you. The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited; but with irony, not innocently. I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows he cannot say to her, “I love you madly,” because he knows that she knows (and that she knows that he knows) that those words have already been written by 19 20

Magill, “We’ve Been Arguing about Irony vs. Sincerity for Millennia.” R. Jay Magill, Jr., Chic Ironic Bitterness (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007).

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I do not know how romantic I would find that particular “I love you,” but I would enjoy the irony of it and would not accuse my lover of cynicism and vapidity, as detractors of irony might do. I agree with Eco that there is a lot of pleasure in the game of irony, although, when it comes to ballads, I do not see that game taking place in the emptiness of the modernist hollowing out of the past. Quotation marks can be romantic, which is perhaps not a surprise coming from me, someone who wrote a book on the many things that musical quotations can do.22 Stephin Merritt shares this point of view, as heard in his kaleidoscope of references to other genres and songs. In his ballads, quotation marks provide original and heartfelt ways of saying “I love you” – and also “I don’t love you.” The dos and don’ts of love are part of the sweeping treatment of the subject in 69 Love Songs. The 1999 3-CD set was written for Merritt’s band, The Magnetic Fields, and impressed audiences and critics with all it has to say about love. Originally, Merritt had planned to say even more with an opus of 100 love songs but then scaled it down to a more manageable and sexy number.23 Even at 69, the album is near three hours long. At that length, Merritt’s discourse on love defies summary. There are, though, prominent themes in the collection. We learn that love is a form of madness (“Absolutely Cuckoo” and “A Chicken with Its Head Cut Off”), cruel if not deadly (“Boa Constrictor” and “I Shatter”), ecstatic (“When My Boy Walks down the Street”), tender (“Book of Love” and “Time Enough for Rocking When We’re Old”), a site of loneliness (“Parades Go By”), unknowable (“The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure”), and a separate world (“Queen of the Savages” and “Love in 21 22 23

Umberto Eco, Postscript to The Name of the Rose, trans. William Weaver (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), 67–68. Quotation and Cultural Meaning in Twentieth-Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields, DVD, directed by Kerthy Fix and Gail O’Hara (Fix Films, 2010).

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the Shadows”). There are all the things that love is and then all the things that we do when we are in love. Merritt has us dancing, singing, dreaming, and crying. As with the grand Encyclopédie of eighteenth-century France, no tome is without biases, especially one made up of love songs. The album has songs about sensuality (“Sweet Lovin’ Man” and “For We Are the King of the Boudoir”), but they are more the stuff of pop smiles than a slow jam. The title of the CD may be one of the sexiest things about it. The songs inside deal more with the sorrow of love. Some songs may extol the joy of falling in love, but others make it clear where that joy is headed. If you are going to present 69 of anything, you need variety. Merritt not only gives us different sides of love but also different genres. The original plan was for 100 genres but that too got trimmed, much further down than the 100 songs.24 There may be less than 69 genres in the album, but there are still plenty of them. The genre that presides over the recording is Tin Pan Alley, the name for the songs written by such august composers as Gershwin, Berlin, Porter, Kern, and Rodgers from the 1920s to the 1940s. Merritt knows this repertoire well (he named his Chihuahua Irving Berlin) and has been guided by it as a songwriter. Tin Pan Alley songs are like a game of tag. In a real game, children run around in a group, and when one touches another, there is a burst of excitement and the game changes. In a Tin Pan Alley song, the children are lyrics, rhymes, melody, and rhythm. They move around each other in a song, but there are moments when two or more of them come together in a striking way. These are the moments that grab our attention, making us smile or dip into sorrow. A catchy rhythm, for example, can bring out the rhythmic play of the lyrics or set off a delightful choice of word. The resonance of a witty rhyme is especially captivating when the final syllable is landed by a capricious melodic turn. Finally, a slow melodic descent can draw out the ache of tearful words. At the risk of historical overstatement, such bewitching games of tag largely came to an end after Tin Pan Alley. In Merritt’s songs, they return with sparkling and charming vengeance. “The Death of Ferdinand De Saussure” builds a catalog of rhymes from the Swiss semiotician’s name, including “so sure” and, in a songwriting tribute, “Dozier” of the Motown team Holland-Dozier-Holland. This improbable constellation of names and expressions becomes all the more probable with the rhymes being brought out by the same two-note melodic descent. “When My Boy Walks 24

Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields.

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Down the Street” takes us down streets of kinetic rhymes tied together through similar melodic turns: “Amazing – blazing” and “hula-hula – Petula.” The rhymes list all the wonderful things that the singer’s boyfriend brings to him and anyone else who sees him as he strolls around. As a genre in 69 Love Songs, Tin Pan Alley is at once an ideal and a lineage. It is also a source of reference, as many songs evoke particular Tin Pan Alley songs or composers. “When My Boy Walks down the Street,” for example, puts a queer spin on the 1920s tune “When My Sugar Walks down the Street.” Sometimes the references grow a little bitter, as with Rodgers and Hart’s “Isn’t It Romantic,” which becomes “How Fucking Romantic.” Tin Pan Alley has a strong presence in the album, but it never crowds out the other genres. They make their presence known, pointedly so. The titles of several songs, for example, tell you what the genre is upfront, in case you could not tell yourself: “Punk Love,” “Love is Like Jazz,” and “Experimental Music Love.” Without such banners, other genres include pop, folk, country, rock, electro-pop, blues, and even an old-time Irish ballad. Then there are songs that do not fit into any clear category (“I Shatter”). Having sorted through some of the emotional and musical pieces of 69 Love Songs, we can now get back to the conflict that led into our discussion of Merritt’s recording: irony versus sincerity. A good place to start is with this remark by Merritt: “It is much more fun to depict sincerity than to do sincerity.”25 That pithy line would seem to make Merritt a champion of irony. It surely captures the ills of irony for the sincerity side: Instead of real feelings all we get are clever imitations of feelings. But it is more complicated than that. Merritt enjoys irony as well as sincerity. Let’s turn to another epigram: “Do it and talk about it at the same time.”26 One way to interpret this is that songwriters should explore an emotion – write a sad love song – but then also talk about writing a sad love song. We get sorrow with commentary. Or we get sincerity with irony. Each of Merritt’s songs creates a different relationship between the two. In some, one dominates the other, while in others we get a little bit more of one than the other. Whatever the mixture, the two, far from being opposites, enhance each other. Irony can set the stage for deep emotions or offer flecks of humor that allow us to enjoy those emotions all the more, and sincere feelings can provide interludes to the witty shows of irony. 25 26

Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields. Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields.

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In some songs, the ironic commentary is right up in there in the title, as with “A Pretty Girl Is Like. . .” The ellipsis leads to “A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody,” which Irving Berlin wrote in 1919 for the Ziegfeld Follies. The Merritt song, though, is not so much like the Berlin. The two differ over what a pretty girl is like. For Merritt, she is like a “minstrel show” and a “violent crime.” The seeming non-sequiturs reveal that Berlin’s song and its pretty girl are ways for Merritt to get at another topic: metaphor. As he remarked: But ‘A Pretty Girl is Like’ is not really about pretty girls. It’s about songs about pretty girls, specifically Irving Berlin’s song ‘A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody.’ And I’m saying if a pretty girl is like a melody, then a pretty girl is like anything you want. . . Really, more than being a song about other songs about pretty girls, it is a song about metaphors in general.27

As is the case with some of Merritt’s songs, the commentary ripples, stretching out so far as to become meta. He also has fun with his commentary. In this case, Berlin’s metaphor goes haywire and then breaks down altogether. In the concluding section, we get the reversal of Berlin’s title – as a melody is like a pretty girl – and then we get the collapse of metaphor into tautology: a pretty girl is like a pretty girl. As if things were getting too brainy, Merritt throws in a little sincerity for relief. The bridge section breaks off from the metaphor play and opens with a declaration of love: “I’m so in love with you girl.” Given all the references to Berlin, it might seem that we could have a moment similar to that described by Eco with his Barbara-Cartland-framed “I love you”: As Irving Berlin said “I’m so in love with you girl.” But Berlin does not say that in “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody” nor does it appear that he ever used that phrase in another song. The quotation marks seem to be lifted from Merritt’s song here, and this declaration comes across as genuine. The singer is finished scrambling metaphor and simply tells his girlfriend that he loves her and that being in love with her is like being on the moon. To capture that image, Merritt finishes off the bridge with a touching and quick melodic ascent. Adding the play between irony and sincerity is the ukulele strumming throughout the song. When it comes to instruments, the Magnetic Fields are not your typical band. The setup is largely acoustic, including the expected piano, guitar, and drums. But then there are some unexpected guests, like the cello, ukulele, fan organ, banjo, accordion, and mandolin. 27

Kok Kian Goh, “Magnetic Fields—The Sad Little Voice That Could,” Puncture, no. 45 (Fall 1999), 18.

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The group also takes up quirky electronic instruments, notably old-school Casio keyboards. Getting back to the ukulele, it, like all the acoustic instruments, plays off the associations of emotional directness and intimacy that solo guitars, pianos, and such have, associations that Elliott Smith and other musicians embraced. With the exception of Cat Power and her autoharp, those musicians stick to the standard acoustic group, no ukuleles and accordions. The oddball instruments, though, keep up the sincerity of guitars and pianos. They are plucked, strummed, or fingered just as tenderly as the latter and seem just as close to us, but they always sound different, not what we expect to hear. That difference adds a touch of irony, as the instruments that we do not expect to sound so tenderly do and that tenderness sounds a little off, although poignantly so. Typical of irony, Merritt’s songs have targets, like other songs or particular genres. “Papa Was a Rodeo” is a country song, or hints at being a country song. “Rodeo” makes that clear as do some of the other country collectibles in the lyrics: “beer,” “steer,” “diesel gas,” and “trucker.” The singer’s lover is Mike, who we assume is a man until we hear a woman sing the part of Mike at the end of the song. Merritt has supposedly remarked that “Mike” is a nickname for a girl.28 Whatever the case, the gender of lovers in his songs often gets blurry, as in “Andrew in Drag” (2012), which describes how a straight guy falls in love with his best friend while he watches him do drag as a one-time lark. Meanwhile at the rodeo, the singer tells Mike that he does not have time for a relationship, let alone stay around for the full night of a one-night stand. Passing through town, he will see him/her the following year, probably again for just a few hours. Why so restless? Blame it on Papa and Mama, who, for her part, was a “rock ‘n’ roll band.” To find out more about Papa, we should not turn to a country song but rather to The Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” – Yes, Merritt works in a reference to a soul song in a country song. In The Temptations’ song, Papa was always moving around, neglecting his son, who turns to his steadfast “Momma” for support. In Merritt’s song, both Papa and Mama spin their wheels far away from home, leaving the singer alone when he was a boy. Taking after them, he never sticks around, even with Mike. Yet the two of them do build a relationship out of their brief meetings or maybe those dates turned into something bigger. Looking back “55 years later,” the singer tells us that he and Mike have had the “romance of the century.” And why did it work with Mike? They understood each other. His/her papa was a rodeo too. 28

http://69lovesongs.info/wiki/index.cgi?Papa_Was_A_Rodeo.

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The lyrics may be full of country fittings, but not so much the music. No fiddles or steel guitars. The shiny ping of the electric guitar points at a steel guitar, enough to give the song a bit of a country aura. Merritt’s voice is without twang or a country accent. He sings with the same gritty, straining bass that we hear in other songs in other genres, including the Tin Pan Alley homage of “A Pretty Girl is Like. . .” His voice overrides genre. Yet there is more ache than usual in “Papa Was a Rodeo,” which adds to the country touches. If Merritt is not going to play up country musically like he does with punk and other genres, then why choose it for this song? He might have selected country because it is one of the most unironic genres in popular music, which makes it ideal for his brand of ironic sincerity. Country music lays out the woes of small-town folk and the working classes in direct, earnest terms, without the clever sidebars of commentary typical of irony. The only bar you get in country music is the bar where someone can tell you about his broken heart over a beer, with no droll allusions. Merritt sits us down at the bar mentioned in “Papa Was a Rodeo” and gives us some irony, which he does through the unironic tone of country music. True to the many sides of irony, we get a country song that is not quite a country song. The romantic story it tells is not one usually heard in that genre, especially with the male or female Mike. Yet there is a romance in the song, and country music can give the tale of that romance emotional weight, a heartfelt quality befitting a “romance of the century.” Adding to the ironic play, Merritt has fun with the imagery of country and putting on country manners, while at the same time he uses the emotional candor associated with the music to give us a beautiful love story. In discussing Merritt’s songs, we have been moving along a line from irony to sincerity. “A Pretty Girl is Like. . .” interrupts the ironic investigation of metaphor with a straightforward declaration of love. “Papa Was a Rodeo” falls between those poles. “The Book of Love” takes us further to the sincerity end. It reflects on love, but with a few asides about how love is not always romantic, which, though, only make the song more so. Irony once again adds to sincerity, even in small bits. Merritt called the song a “manifesto” – hardly a romantic word but leave it to him to use it for a love song. Equally unromantic is what he considers the point of the song, or manifesto: It “pretty much explains the whole game: ‘long and boring’ is the Warholian point.”29 “Long and boring” is 29

Kory Grow, “Stephin Merritt: My Life in 25 Songs,” Rolling Stone (30 October 2015) www .rollingstone.com/music/lists/stephin-merritt-my-life-in-15-songs-20151030.

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a phrase used to describe the book of love in the opening line of the song. The Warhol point is that the artist often made beautiful things long and boring, like his eight-hour film (Empire) consisting of a single take of the Empire State Building at night or the 35-minute long film Blow Job, the title of which speaks for itself. Merritt, on the other hand, gives us a short, sweet love song. But true to his nature, he cannot embrace the sweet without chuckling at the not-so-sweet side, which becomes part of the humorous side of love the way he describes it. There are always two – or more – sides to love for him. So the music in the book of love is both “transcendental” and “really dumb.” The verses of the song offer a table of contents for “The Book of Love,” which includes some of Merritt’s favorite romantic things, like lessons on how to dance and clichés (“heart-shaped boxes”). The verses have the wit that we expect of him, but the passion of the song emerges in the chorus, where the singer tells his lover how he loves reading and singing with him or her and, finally, exchanging wedding rings. Again sweet, but what makes this section heartfelt is how Merritt sets the words “I” and “you.” He draws them out with six notes, a melodic release in an album in which most of the melodies are syllabic, which is fitting for Merritt’s word play given that syllabic settings allow him to bring out lots of words clearly. Drawing out a syllable with a long melody has long been heard as emotional release, be it the ardor in the “Hallelujah” of a Gregorian chant or Aretha Franklin stretching out passion. With that “I” and “you,” we get a gush in a Merritt song, one that appropriately ties together the two lovers with the same melody. As Merritt has said numerous times, 69 Love Songs consists of love songs about love songs. And such is the case with “The Book of Love.” Once again the reference is made in the title. As with “A Pretty Girl Is Like. . .” he uses a title that is already out there, the 1958 recording by The Monotones. Other than the title there are few, if any, connections between the two songs, unlike Merritt’s Berlin tribute. The two “Books of Love” could not be more different: bouncy rock-and-roll tinged pop versus a folk-like song for acoustic guitars and Merritt. They also say contrasting things about love. In The Monotones’ book, the chapters are a series of commands of what to do and not do in a romance, the final one telling us to take back a partner after breaking up. No edicts or breakups in Merritt’s book, rather humorous and touching reflections on being in love. The more humorous, the more touching. People often say that they fall for someone who makes them laugh. That is one of the reasons that so many of us have fallen for “The Book of Love.”

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“The Book of Love” has become a love song in its own right. It has enjoyed a life beyond the album, more so than the other songs in the set. Several musicians have covered the song, including Peter Gabriel, whose recording was featured in the film Shall We Dance. “The Book of Love” is also frequently played at weddings. So well loved is it that it has become, as a critic put it, “arguably one of indie rock’s most important contributions to the American songbook.”30 “The Book of Love” as indie rock? There is no trace of rock in it. Indie fits, but then again it fits so many types of songs, including those by Smith, Spektor, Stevens, Power, and Amos. Merritt, it might seem, is an awkward fit for this group. None of those musicians indulge in wordsmithery and references to Tin Pan Alley. Yet there is a connection between Merritt’s ballads and theirs: emotional restraint. Like those artists, Merritt holds back. What better proof of that than how much the six-note unfurled melodies on “I” and “you” in “The Book of Love” stand out in his work. No rampant runs or buildups to high notes for him. He too favors the intimate acoustic settings of the other musicians, although he herds some odd instruments into those settings. Irony is another form of restraint, one not taken up by Smith, Spektor, Stevens, Power, and Amos. Far from anesthetizing feelings as some claim it does, irony has a characteristic duality when it comes to expressing emotions. Merritt uses his ironic references as a stylistic voice through which he can enrich feelings (“Papa Was a Rodeo”). At the same time, the references distance us from the emotions that they convey, as we are pointed back to the source of the references and distracted by what Merritt is doing with them.

Indie Feelings Indie music repeats a story that we know all too well by now: Ballads are often ignored when it comes to defining a genre or divining broader cultural developments. Love songs are just love songs, or so it goes. Ballads, though, have a lot to say about indie music. In their efforts to map the genre, critics have mulled over style, industry roles, and taste, but they have not considered emotions. Ballads reveal that emotional restraint is a key feature of indie music. That restraint in turn says something about ballads. In particular, it reveals a larger tension between the reserve of indie ballads and the emotional splurge of power ballads. 30

Sean Michael, “Heart Beats,” The Globe and Mail (4 June 2016).

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It is not just a musical conflict. Indie and power ballads are working out a tension in popular culture over how freely and copiously emotions should be expressed. Power ballads, as we concluded in Chapter 3, are part of an emotional style in which feelings are conveyed in short, ecstatic bursts. The euphoric style has challenged the cool emotional style, which has held sway in American popular culture for decades. It came through in the rebukes of Johnnie Ray’s fans and continues to emerge when we are told even today not to cry. It might seem that indie restraint is a new, hipper version of cool. Quite the opposite. Rejecting the cool precept of dispassion, indie ballads want us to experience emotions in deep and meaningful ways, to feel, for example, the aimless misery caused by Miss Misery leaving you or that of the painful downfall brought about by you leaving your boyfriend Samson. Ballads by indie artists hold that emotions can be all the more forceful when brought out in quite intimate ways. Holding back can release so much. Indie ballads have opened up another front in the resistance to cool. They are not the only works on that front line. The fight goes back to the 1970s with singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Carole King, and Laura Nyro. All the artists discussed in this chapter build upon their works. In particular, they have learned from their elders how to employ techniques of reduction and restraint to create quietly intense emotions in their songs. Once again the focus on ballads and feelings invites us to chronicle music history in different ways. In addition to seeing today’s indie artists as heirs of the 1970s singer-songwriters, we could view their elders as progenitors of the indie movement. If there were such a movement back then, they would have fit into it. They enjoyed commercial success, but they were set apart from the mainstream as serious artists. How interesting to note that those serious artists were creating their works with hushed emotions just around the time that Barry Manilow began cranking up his power ballads. But back to the present day. If indie music has found an ally on the emotional battle lines in popular culture, it is appropriately with an art that hoists the same adjectival banner: indie film. Indie film is just as difficult to capture as indie music. So we will close with a broad observation about the emotional experiences in those films. The works of such indie directors as Jim Jarmusch, Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson, and Sofia Coppola avoid the spouts of feelings released in the melodramatic and sentimental moments that fill many mainstream films. They also shun the euphoric buzz characteristic of power ballads. Jarmusch and Coppola emphasize dryness and detachment in their films, while Jonze and Anderson create ironic and artificial settings.

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If that is not enough, many indie films feature indie songs in their soundtracks. All the artists in this chapter have had songs in films that could be considered indie, including songs that we have discussed. With its awkward autoharp accompaniment, Power’s cover of “Sea of Love” serves as the ideal romantic number for the two geeky teenagers dealing with a pregnancy in Juno. Then there is, of course, “Miss Misery.” For many reasons, it is not the best example to make the point about how indie ballads reinforce the quiet intensity in indie films. Good Will Hunting is intense, passionately so. Characters break down and cry in scenes that prime the drama pump to bring them and us to tears. None of the five Smith songs used in the film are heard in such scenes; rather, they underscore reflective and romantic moments. As for “Miss Misery,” it appears in the closing minute of the film, after Will’s friend and psychologist realize that he has left Boston and set out to California to find his girlfriend. As his car heads down the highway, the closing credits scroll to the accompaniment of Smith’s song. So we have a song about a man plagued by the anguish of a breakup playing as a man who, having overcome his own anguish through psychotherapy, leaves the city he has never left before to find and win the woman who is the love of his life. Talk about a clash. Safe to say that this scene will not make the history of film music. The use of “Miss Misery,” though, did lead to an important moment in the history of the ballad: the performance at the 1998 Academy Awards show. A new type of ballad commanded attention that evening, one that would fit into the growing genre, or idea, of indie and challenge the rule of the power ballad.

Interlude V I Confess

She confesses to her ex that she still loves him, even though he has married another woman. He confesses that he loves a man, feelings that he can barely claim in himself and that his beloved has never sensed, let alone returned. The first confession is made by Adele in her 2011 single “Someone like You” and the second by Frank Ocean in his 2012 release “Bad Religion.” Two very different singers, two very different songs. Yet the singers and songs have much in common. Both singers are driven by the need to confess – to themselves, to their lovers, and to us. In a particularly intriguing link, both songs begin with the same four chords, the constant repetition of which make the act of confessing all the more driven, to the point of being seemingly unending. Those four chords are not a typical pop music progression. They are too somber and unrelenting, or unrelentingly somber, for most pop songs. If those chords have despairing kin it is not in pop music but rather in operas of the Baroque period. When opera characters confessed their sorrows in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they did so to a group of repeating chords, a pattern that music historians have called the lament bass.1 One after the other, the chords descend. Sorrow, it appears, moves in only one direction. Not only do the chords tread downwards, but some of them also move by the smallest and saddest of intervals, the half step. In a Baroque opera aria, the single descending half step was distilled into a melodic teardrop. Four or five falling half steps in the lament bass create a steady trickle of tears, which does not cease with the final chord in the progression. That chord has a strong harmonic pull to return to the opening chord, and when it does the lachrymose sequence begins again – and then again. The persistent repetitions suggest a persistent sorrow, one that can never be comforted or stopped. 1

For two classic examples of the lament aria, listen to Claudio Monteverdi’s Lamento della ninfa and Dido’s lament (“When I Am Laid in Earth”) from Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.

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The chords in the Adele and Ocean songs are by no means faithful replicas of the Baroque lament bass. Yet there are enough musical and emotional connections to invite the look back across centuries. The progression in the two songs includes four chords, which, holding to the coordinates of sorrow, descend. Both songs begin on a major chord but quickly sink into sadness by having the bass move down by a half step to a minor chord and from there down another step (this time a whole step) to another minor chord. The fourth and final chord is a major chord and is approached by a much larger interval than a step. With the conclusion on a major chord, it might seem that the brief harmonic path of the progression has veered away from sorrow and led us to some sort of more emotionally conciliatory conclusion. As with the Baroque lament bass, though, the final chord is not so consoling or final. It pivots back to the opening chord and sets off the progression of four chords again. With each repetition, those two inner minor chords stand out more and more. They imbue both the songs and our emotions. Whether in a Baroque aria or the Adele and Ocean ballads, the repetitions amass sorrow. Each one adds yet another strand of woe. The indie rock group The National built upon this idea in their song “Sorrow” (2010). The song too relies on a repeated bass progression, one that uses three of the same chords as “Someone like You.” The Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson built upon the idea of sorrow that The National built upon by featuring the band in “a durational performance” at MoMA PS1 in New York City (2013). The band repeated the song over and over for six hours. The name of Kjartansson’s piece? “A Lot of Sorrow.” Although only around three minutes long, The Adele and Ocean songs accumulate much sorrow. With the two ballads, though, the repeating chords play another expressive role. They pressure the characters in the songs to confess. The songs find them having begun to unburden, but, with those chords, more private emotions and memories will emerge. It is impossible to stop at one confession when the music underneath is so insistent. Just as each statement of the four chords demands another one, each confession sets up another revelation. Either inspired or hectored by those chords, the singers tell us more. “Someone Like You” opens with the piano playing the four chords, and only the piano will play them throughout the song. There are no other instruments – guitar, bass, or drums – in the number, just the piano and Adele. Piano and voice is as bare as a ballad can get. Such stripped-down songs have also been considered as intimate and direct as a ballad can get.

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There is nothing between the singer and us. “Someone like You” capitalizes on these feelings of closeness and honesty, using them to set the emotional stage for confession. With just the piano and Adele, it is as if we are in a small room with the two musicians, a room that turns out be a confessional. After one statement of the four chords, Adele’s confession begins. Or her confrontation with her ex begins. “Someone Like You” opens with Adele having dropped by unannounced to her ex’s house to tell him that she has heard that he has married. There should be a “congratulations” in there somewhere, but a strained graciousness is the best that she can do. After singing over three turns of the persistent chords, she gives in to the unrelenting need to confess that she still loves him. That admission is made during a pre-chorus section, which reduces the four-chord progression to a three-chord pattern. The new version begins on a different chord and concludes with the final two chords from the original four-chord pattern. Having made her confession, Adele lets loose with emotionally scattershot lines in the chorus. First, there is the delusional hope that she will find a boyfriend like him, which leads to the equally delusional wishing him “the best.” That wish is drowned out by her plea for him not to forget her, the desperation of which comes through in Adele’s voice breaking on the highest notes in the song. The chorus closes with her repeating something that he said during their romance, or most likely during their breakup: “Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead.” In her loneliness, the line has become a cruel maxim. Hurt has lasted, not love, a point made by the repeating chords. The chords, though, do change slightly during the chorus. Three of the four chords are the same, but the second one is new. Instead of a minor chord approached by the teardrop-like half step, there is now a major chord approached by a leap. Even with that small change, the chords are still richly melancholic, as they remain tied to the opening four chords. They are also just as pressingly repetitive, becoming harmonic gears in which Adele gets trapped. Confession should bring release from imperious emotions. Not with those gears turning, though. Confession becomes like those chords, each divulgence setting up the need for another. The song begins with the hope that by facing her ex and admitting her love for him, she could escape him and those feelings, but the confession only leads to more despair and the vain turn to confession again for release. As if it would be too much for the song to end in perpetual sorrow and confession, the number concludes by having a melody in the piano reverse course and briefly ascend in reaching

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the closing chord. The change in direction, though, does not provide a settled musical or emotional resolution. The song ends on the chord that begins the four-note pattern and, having heard versions of that descending pattern around thirty times by now, it is easy to imagine that it could begin again and, with it, the sorrow and compulsion to confess that those chords painfully captured. As with “Someone like You,” Ocean’s “Bad Religion” presents a confession and confrontation, but, in this case, the two occur both within the song and the media world outside of it. Ocean made what is one of the biggest kinds of confessions that a star can make: He came out. The confession is all the bigger, or newsworthy, when it is made by a hip hop musician. Given the grandstanding homophobia in hip hop, that confession amounts to a confrontation. As a member of the hip hop collective Odd Future, Ocean would have known well the homophobic taunts in the group’s recordings. NME magazine estimated that the Goblin CD (2011) by the group’s leader Tyler, The Creator uses “the word ‘faggot’ and its variants a total of 213 times.”2 To come out was to defy that prejudice. Ocean’s heartfelt songs reveal that talk to be vicious bluster. He did get some of that bluster after coming out, but elder statesmen of the genre like Jay Z and Russell Simmons praised Ocean for his courage. Tyler, The Creator surprisingly commended him, tweeting: “So proud of you.”3 Ocean’s songs pushed him to come out. “Bad Religion” and other numbers on the Channel Orange CD describe a love for an unnamed “him.” Forget a name, the pronoun alone caught attention. During prerelease listening sessions, journalists grabbed on to that “him” and started to ask questions about Ocean’s sexuality. Anticipating where things were headed, the singer said to himself: “Fuck it. Talk about it, don’t talk about it – talk about this.”4 That “this” was a prose-poem reflection on Ocean’s first love. He had originally planned to include the piece in the CD liner notes but later decided to pull it. With rumors mounting, he turned to the 2

3

4

“Tyler The Creator: ‘My gay fans don’t find my language offensive’,” NME (16 June 2011) www.nme .com/news/odd-future/57370. Tyler defended the language in his lyrics by claiming: “I’m not homophobic. I just think ‘faggot’ hits and hurts people. It hits. And ‘gay’ just means you’re stupid. I don’t know, we don’t think about it, we’re just kids. We don’t think about that shit. But I don’t hate gay people. I don’t want anyone to think I’m homophobic.” Brother Ali, “The Intersection of Homophobia and Hip Hop: Where Tyler Met Frank,” The Huffington Post (7 September 2012) www.huffingtonpost.com/brother-ali/hip-hophomophobia-_b_1864676.html. Amy Wallace, “Ocean-ography,” GQ (December 2012) www.gq.com/entertainment/music/201212/ frank-ocean-interview-gq-december-2012.

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instant and infinite platform of social media and placed the piece on Tumblr. His post still refers to an anonymous “him,” but now we can gather the events and feelings behind the scenes in the songs. 4 summers ago, I met somebody. I was 19 years old. He was too. We spent that summer, and the summer after, together. Everyday almost. And on the days we were together, time would glide. Most of the day I’d see him, and his smile. I’d hear his conversation and his silence. . . until it was time to sleep. Sleep I would often share with him. By the time I realized I was in love, it was malignant. It was hopeless. There was no escaping, no negotiating with the feeling. No choice. It was my first love, it changed my life.

From then on it is a drama of confession. Ocean wants to tell his beloved about his feelings but cannot. He finally does in their last moment together before he leaves his hometown New Orleans for Los Angeles. Sitting in his packed car, he “weeps as the words left [his] mouth.” His friend pats him on the back and admits nothing. Three years later, the friend would “tell the truth about his feelings,” but the two would never become lovers, instead “keeping up” a “peculiar friendship.”5 “Bad Religion” too offers a drama of confession, one heightened by that four-chord progression. The song uses the same progression heard in the verse of “Someone like You,” but transposed to a different key. The use of the chords, the choice of key, and confessional tone of the song suggest that Ocean was inspired by Kanye West’s ballad “Runaway” (2010). West and Ocean had collaborated previously, and there is little doubt that Ocean knew “Runaway,” a song on West’s CD My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, one of the major hip hop releases of the time. Throughout the nine minutes of “Runaway,” a piano plays in a high register a descending melody similar to the bass lines of the chords in the Ocean and Adele songs. As in a Baroque lament aria or The National’s “Sorrow,” the constant repetitions of the line suffuse the song with sadness. West’s pain does not emerge from a particular confession like coming out but rather a general soul bearing. In “Runaway,” he talks about how he cannot stay in a relationship with a “good girl” and asks whether or not he is as irresponsible and egotistical as his critics, the “douchebags,” say he is. Ocean might have picked up on the pairing of the descending melodic line and self -revelation in “Runaway,” but he offered his distinct take on that combination in “Bad Religion.” As with Baroque opera composers, he 5

http://frankocean.tumblr.com/post/26473798723

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places that melody in the bass, using it as an underpinning of sorrow (Ocean uses the same key that West does). But as with Adele, he also turns the repeating descending line into a prod for confession. Ocean’s coming out offers a personal drama that was more arresting and pointed than West’s ruminations about his love life and woes as a superstar. In addition, Ocean makes the compelling association between religion and both the chords and his story. Appropriate for a song with “religion” in the title, an organ plays the chords. Without the slightest tremor of a beat, the chords come across as stern and implacable. So too does religion in the song. If religion is “bad,” it is because it offers the confessor no solace or forgiveness, just more misery. As in Ocean’s coming-out post, the drama of confession in “Bad Religion” is set in a car. The song opens with Ocean asking a cab driver to play his therapist and to keep on driving while he tells him something. What he wants to tell the cabbie is never mentioned, but it most likely has to do with his unreturned love for the guy mentioned in the following chorus. While the cabbie keeps driving around, the four chords keep driving, bringing Ocean to the point of confession. He may actually do so, but we never hear a confession. The driver says “Alluhu Akbar” and tells him to pray, which come across as religious rebukes to Ocean’s confiding in him his love for another man. It is no wonder that Ocean concludes the first verse with the line “bad religion.” With the cab driver’s religious protestations, the four-chord pattern stops. It does not appear in the rest of the verse or the following chorus. As in “Someone like You,” though, the chords never disappear. Two new patterns emerge, both of which echo the opening four-chord progression. There is no escaping those four chords, so entrenched have they become in the song as well as Ocean’s mind. The new patterns both use chords from the opening one and are just as repetitious, equally insistent that Ocean confess. He does just that in the chorus, not to the cab driver but rather to himself, and, by extension, to us. Ocean admits that his friend will never love him. The pain of that realization comes through as he switches to a vulnerable falsetto. As with the cab-driver confession, religion is evoked, and once again it assails him, leading to thoughts of suicide. “Unrequited love” is, as he comes to see, a “one-man cult.” The cult may be a private religion, but it calls to mind a large and infamous cult. The line “cyanide in my styrofoam cup” evokes Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple cult and the 1978 mass suicide in which members obeyed Jones’ commands to drink cyanidelaced punch. In his cult, Ocean is both the crazed leader and the passive, doomed follower. He is trapped in his own bad religion.

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To underscore that point, the organ returns playing the chords as a transition back to the verse. But before the verse, Ocean repeats the word “love” on a single pitch in his high falsetto. So now there is a repeated note above the repeating chords. The musical depiction of obsessive thoughts becomes starker. As too does that of loneliness. The note tolled by Ocean does not fit into the four chords. More than that, it clashes with a single note in three of the chords, a clash of that anguished interval of the half step. Holding on to the word “love” with a note apart from the harmonies underneath him shows how isolated Ocean has become. He has separated himself from the musical and, by extension, social world around him. The word “love” becomes a chant in his solitary cult. With the second verse, we are back in the cab. Ocean now describes to the driver the painful confines of the closet, mentioning his inability to trust anyone. For that confession, he gets the same religious reproach. The music in the second verse is much more dynamic. In particular, a stronger beat appears. Single handclaps now punctuate the organ chords, and they become more regular and forceful as the verse progresses. With the chorus, drums become part of the growing rhythmic intensity, especially the strong hits on the downbeats. That intensity strengthens Ocean’s resolve. During the chorus, he rejects the frail falsetto used in the previous statement of that section and sings in a more robust tenor voice. Perhaps the cab confession has given him some relief. Something has changed. Once again, four chords say much about the singer, but not those four chords. In the out section, there are four repeating chords (now on the electric piano, the more soulful keyboard cousin of the organ), but they ascend rather than descend. In “Someone like You,” there was a similar change in direction as a melody in the piano briefly wafted upward, part of an attempt to escape the demanding and seemingly perpetual repetitions of the descending chords and to suggest that Adele has found some peace. A similar musical and emotional logic rules the ending of “Bad Religion.” It would be too bleak to close with the four descending chords in the organ. Plus, Ocean appears to have pulled himself together. But there are still four repeating chords. Descending or ascending, it does not matter. The ascending chords reinforce a point made by the descending ones: There is more to confess. Ocean may have confessed to the taxi driver and himself, but his confessions will not end in that cab. They do not end there, nor do Adele’s confessions end at her ex’s doorstep. Confessions create rings. Once a secret is divulged, there is

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always one more person to tell and one more thing to reveal. The rings extend beyond Ocean’s and Adele’s songs and out into their albums. “Someone like You” is one of many confessional songs on Adele’s 21 CD. The recording resembles albums by such 1970s singer/songwriters as Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and James Taylor in which the songs are like diary pages, each one capturing something about the singer’s life. The title of Adele’s album makes clear how personal the songs are going to be. It chronicles experiences during her twenty-first year. The album rips out a section from the young singer’s diary dealing with the breakup of her “first grown-up, intense relationship.”6 Ocean’s Channel Orange, in contrast, pieces together isolated, scattered pages from a diary. There is no clear narrative or single event as there is in the heated clump of pages in 21. “Forrest Gump” returns to Ocean’s desire for men, but is the handsome jock in the song the same “him” in “Bad Religion?” Then what to make of the erotic monument to a female stripper in “Pyramids?” Is the song a concession to the hip hop demand for booty or is Ocean coming out as bisexual? Channel Orange never answers those questions. Its confessions remain enigmatic fragments. With Adele and Ocean, the rings of confession spread out well beyond a song or an album. The confessions in those recordings could never satisfy the public’s desire for more divulgences or the singers’ need to divulge. Adele’s publicity tour for 21 became a grand confessional tour. In interviews, she said more about the relationship, more about her emotional torment, and more about her “recovery” from the breakup, which, she emphasized, was still fragile. Adele even released a video interview companion for the album in which she tells us track by track what the songs are telling us about her. The only secret that she would not reveal was her boyfriend’s name. Confession only went so far for her, but not for the press, which soon identified the man pilloried in the album. Ocean too made more rounds of confession, none, though, as grand or provocative as the Tumblr post that became one of the most talked-about events in popular music that year. In the post and album, he too never reveals the name of his beloved, nor so far has the press. How different these public confessions are from those by 1970s singer/ songwriters. Like 21, Joni Mitchell’s Blue (1971) dwells upon a failed relationship. With her album, though, we get more the feelings of divulgence and release than the personal details emerging from 6

Joey Bartolomeo, “All About Adele,” People (20 February 2012) www.people.com/people/archive/ article/0,20571411,00.html.

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confession. Mitchell draws us in by conveying that she is revealing something to us. What she reveals, however, often remains vague, but that does not seem to matter, so strong is the spell of intimacy and confidence that she creates. How well Mitchell could obscure her confessions while enhancing the emotional aura around them comes through in “Little Green.” The song has long captured listeners with the sense that Mitchell is confiding something personal, but no one realized how personal and secret the subject of the song actually was. It is about Mitchell giving up a baby, “Little Green,” for adoption when she was a young woman. The secret was not revealed until the 1990s and then not by the singer but rather by a friend of Mitchell’s from the 1960s. Mitchell has also never identified the ex who goes by the name “Blue.” Not to name the ex or beloved seems to be the unspoken code in these confessional songs. Just how strong, and tantalizing, the code is comes through with Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” another song from a 1970s diary page album. The press long clamored to know whom the song is about, and Simon has teased them with hints. In 2015, she made a teasing revelation, stating that one of the three men evoked in the song was Warren Beatty and did not name the other two.7 Adele and Ocean may stick to that code, but that is the only part of Mitchell’s confession regimen that they follow. It is doubtful that Mitchell would, or could, adhere to that regimen if she were a young singer today. The terms of confession have changed so much since the 1970s. Our celebrity culture demands to know always more about stars and demands that they tell us more about themselves. A singer cannot merely allude to a breakup, as Mitchell and other 1970s singer/songwriters did. He or she must share with us much more about their relationships and emotional ordeals, a duty that both Adele and Ocean fulfilled in their interviews and social media postings. Confession has become the stuff of publicity. Confession has also long been the stuff of ballads. The emotional intimacy and sincerity of the songs make the ballad the ideal genre for confession. It is hard to imagine a singer confessing that she stills loves her ex or coming out in a driving, frenzied heavy metal song or in the ostentatious bravado of a hip hop song. As Adele, Ocean, Mitchell, and 7

Kathy Ehrich Dowd and Kim Hubbard, “Carly Simon Says ‘You’re So Vain’ Is About Warren Beatty—Well, Only the Second Verse: ‘He Thinks the Whole Thing Is About Him!’,” People (22 November 2015) www.people.com/article/carly-simon-confirms-youre-so-vain-second-verserefers-to-warren-beatty.

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earlier singers have realized, ballads best serve the voicing of personal truths. What is so captivating about Adele’s and Ocean’s ballads is that not only do they reveal truths about the singers’ lives but that, through the repetition of four chords, they capture a truth about confession – that it never stops.

Conclusion Goodbye

I have learned a lot from ballads, especially about love. As listeners, we will constantly return to the encyclopedia on that topic created by the songs. Ballads, though, also deal with more specific topics, like the one we face in a Conclusion: goodbye. They are not only a way of saying goodbye but they are also about goodbye. Here are some of the things that ballads have taught me about farewell. Every goodbye has a story and there is no better place to get those stories than in country music. Pop ballads give us the woe of a farewell but often little about what led to that heartache. It takes a long time to get to goodbye, and goodbye can take a long time. As a genre in which singers narrate life stories, country music has not surprisingly taken up tales of goodbye, each one of which tells us something about how goodbyes work and how they affect us. In George Strait’s “Baby’s Gotten Good at Goodbye” (1989), goodbyes build. The reason that Baby has been so good at farewells is that she is well practiced. For years, she would break down, weep, and tell him she was going to leave, only to stay after pouring out her frustrations. Until now. This time she did not cry. She just packed up the car and drove off, leaving the distraught Strait to wonder if she will be back for more goodbyes or not. Goodbyes can be unexpected, with no preludes, and blunt. In Willie Nelson’s “You Wouldn’t Cross the Street (To Say Goodbye)” (1985), his girlfriend once told him that she would “crawl on hands and knees” to be with him. That is until Nelson sees her getting in a car with a new boyfriend. Now she would not even walk across the street for a farewell, nor say a single word. Goodbyes can also be sexy, a point made by R&B ballads. The Manhattans’ “Let’s Just Kiss and Say Goodbye” (1976) mixes farewell and passion. There is more than a kiss, though. The sultry basso spoken introduction by Winfred “Blue” Lovett, like those by Isaac Hayes and Barry White, sets the stage for seduction. He tells his girlfriend that he has 220

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to leave for “obligations” (not a terribly sexy word) and wants a last embrace. Gerald Alston’s soft tenor takes up that campaign, which becomes more passionate in the repeated groove that closes the song. Usher never mentions a kiss, but he is “begging” his girlfriend for something in the out section of his “Final Goodbye” (1994). It will take a long time for that goodbye to be final as a groove circles around and around and Usher keeps begging. The repeated closing passages in both recordings draw out the passion in the singers’ relationships. It was that desire that kept the relationships going when they should have probably ended. Both singers know that they have to break up with their girlfriends, but they have stayed with them to the moments of those parting kisses and pleas. R&B ballads tell us that passion can fend off goodbye, but only for so long. Another lesson: never say never when saying goodbye. “Never” will not work. It will not keep the past from disappearing. In Bon Jovi’s “Never Say Goodbye” (1986), Jon Bon Jovi knows that, but he hides from that reality. Planted on a bar stool in a dive and surrounded by “strangers,” he looks back to high school days of playing hooky, drinks, and slow dances at the prom and tells himself and his absent high school friends to “hold on” and “never say goodbye.” Bon Jovi’s song drops us into a scene of nostalgia. Instead of merely recalling pleasant days, nostalgia emerges from a deep discontent with the present and brings back the past with an immediacy that makes it seem as if you were experiencing it again. That spontaneity, though, quickly evaporates, leaving you even more painfully aware of how distant the past has become and how bleak the present remains.1 “Never Say Goodbye” does not give us that final realization, choosing to end instead with more memories and the repeated call to “hold on” to the past. But we do not need a concluding yank out of nostalgic bliss. The opening image of Bon Jovi sitting alone in a bar hangs over the song and is enough to remind him and us of how lost high school days are, even when his description of them is so vivid. That “Never Say Goodbye” is a rock power ballad makes the past seem even more vivid. The euphoria of a power ballad adds to the exhilaration of reliving the parties and the prom. Maybe we do not have to say goodbye to those times. But we do, or perhaps we do and do not have to. Power ballads mix emotions, and “Never Say Goodbye” blends together the joy of 1

For more on this conception of nostalgia, see Metzer, Quotation and Cultural Meaning in TwentiethCentury Music, 19–22.

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returning to the past with the wistfulness of accepting that it is gone. No wonder it has become a song played at high school graduations, ceremonies that overflow with all sorts of feelings, including tears over leaving behind friends and excitement for the future. For both Bon Jovi and students hearing the song, “never” is a vain protest. Graduates will have to say goodbye to high school days, but then again a power ballad might get them believing that they do not have to. Three different kinds of ballads and three lessons about goodbye. A final point: Ballads of all types are songs to turn to in dealing with farewell. There are, to be sure, some wonderful fast-tempo songs about goodbye, like The Jackson Five’s “Never Can Say Goodbye” (and the Gloria Gaynor disco cover), Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye,” and Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).” As satisfying as it may be to dance or rock away to goodbye, we all have to sit down and experience the pain that it brings. Goodbye demands reflection. With slow tempos and an array of expressive touches, ballads have welcomed us to ponder the emotions raised by moments in our lives: falling in love, treasuring memories of a friendship, and the death of a loved one. They are also there for us at a moment that will always come – goodbye.

Select Bibliography

Baraka, Amiri. Black Music. New York: W. Morrow, 1967. Berlant, Lauren. The Female Complaint: The Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. Bowman, Rob. Soulsville, U.S.A.—The Story of Stax Records. New York: Prentice Hall, 1997. Burford, Mark. “Sam Cooke as Pop Album Artist—A Reinvention in Three Songs.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 65 (2012): 113–78. Dobkin, Matt. I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You: Aretha Franklin, Respect, and The Making of a Soul Music Masterpiece. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004. Frith, Simon. “Pop Music.” In The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock, edited by Simon Frith, Will Straw, and John Street, 91–108. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Garland, Phyl. The Sound of Soul. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1969. Gioia, Ted. Love Songs: The Hidden History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Guralnick, Peter. Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Presley. New York: Little Brown, 1994. Hibbett, Ryan. “What Is Indie Rock?” Popular Music and Society 28 (2005): 55–77. Howard, June. “What Is Sentimentality?” American Literary History 11 (1999): 63–81. Jensen, Joli. The Nashville Sound: Authenticity, Commercialization, and Country Music. Nashville: The Country Music Foundation and Vanderbilt University Press, 1998. Leydon, Rebecca. “The Soft-Focus Sound: Reverb as a Gendered Attribute in Mid-Century Mood Music.” Perspectives of New Music 39 (2001): 96–107. Magill, Jr., R. Jay. Chic Ironic Bitterness. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007. McCracken, Allison. Real Men Don’t Sing: Crooning in American Culture. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015. Moore, Allan. “Authenticity as Authentication.” Popular Music 21 (2002): 209–23. Newman, Michael Z. “Indie Culture: In Pursuit of the Authentic Autonomous Alternative.” Cinema Journal 48 (2009): 16–34. 223

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Ripani, Richard J. The New Blue Music: Changes in Rhythm & Blues, 1950–1999. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006. Stearns, Peter N. American Cool: Constructing a Twentieth-Century Emotional Style. New York: New York University Press: 1994. Walser, Robert. Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1993. Ward, Brian. Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Werner, Craig. A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race, and the Soul of America. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006. Wilson, Carl. Let’s Talk about Love: A Journey to the End of Taste. New York: Continuum, 2008. Zak III, Albin J. I Don’t Sound Like Nobody: Remaking Music in 1950s America. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010.

Index

10cc, 197 98 Degrees, 151 A Night in Casablanca, 41 Accept, 147–49 Ackerman, Paul, 34, 40 Adele, 9, 11, 22, 28, 193, 210–212, 214–18 “Someone Like You”, 9, 11, 193, 210–13, 217 Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi, 185 Aerosmith, 150 “Crazy”, 150 “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”, 150 Aguilera, Christina, 127, 158 “Beautiful”, 158 Air Supply, 138, 145 Ali, Muhammad, 101 Alias, 169 Alston, Gerald, 221 “Always on My Mind”, 15 American Idol, 132, 152, 162–63 Amos, Tori, 187, 194–96, 207 Strange Little Girls, 195 Anastasia, 180 Anderson, Wes, 208 Anderson-Lopez, Kristen, 164 Anka, Paul, 40, 72–73, 141 “It’s Time to Cry”, 73 “Lonely Boy”, 40 “Puppy Love”, 73 “(You’re) Having My Baby”, 141 Anthony, Ray, 46 Anthrax, 150 “Nice Fucking Ballad”, 150 Arcade Fire, 183 Arlen, Harold, 104 Armstrong, Billy Joe, 24 Arnold, Eddy, 80, 95, 194 Astaire, Fred, 45–46, 53 Austin, Gene, 47 Avalon, Frankie, 47, 49

“Where Are You?”, 49 Avicii, 13 “Wake Me Up”, 13 Ayler, Albert, 125 Bacharach, Burt, 9 Backstreet Boys, 151 Bailey, Richard, 124 Baker, Ernest, 179 Baker, LaVern, 59, 64, 73, 179 “I Cried a Tear”, 73 ballad confession in, 210–19 definition, 1–26 genre, 24–26 relationship to 1950s rock and roll, 33–45 Bangs, Lester, 148 Baraka, Amiri, 125, 223 Barbra Streisand, 7 Bar-Kays, 103 Barthes, Roland, 21–22 Basie, Count, 104 Beatles, 23, 100–01 “A Hard Day’s Night”, 100 Beatty, Jerome, 59–61 Beatty, Warren, 218 Beauty and The Beast, 162 Bellini, Vincenzo, 5 Bennett, Tony, 50 Berlin, Irving, 30, 37, 201, 203, 206 “A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody”, 203 Bettis, John, 5 Beyoncé, 9, 184–86 “Flawless”, 184–85 “Halo”, 184, 186 “If I Were a Boy”, 184, 186 “Pray You Catch Me”, 9 “Sandcastles”, 9–10 Lemonade, 9–10, 184 Biddle, Mike, 11 Black Arts movement, 125 Bob Dylan, 100, 116

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Index

Bolton, Michael, 151 Bon Iver, 183 Bon Jovi, 146, 149, 221–22 “Never Say Goodbye”, 221 Boone, Debby, 142 “You Light Up My Life”, 142 Boone, Pat, 32, 35–37, 39, 42–43, 50, 129 “I Almost Lost My Mind”, 36 “Love Letters in the Sand”, 39 Bourdieu, Pierre, 185 Boyz II Men, 24, 151–53 Bradley, Owen, 79–80, 83–84 Brahms, Johannes, 172 Braxton, Toni, 151, 154 “Unbreak My Heart”, 154 Brel, Jacques, 157 “Ne me quitte pas”, 157 Brown, Charles, 35, 88, 94 Brown, James, 7, 35, 88, 115, 125–26, 174 “Please, Please, Please”, 7 Brown, Roy, 73 “Hard Luck Blues”, 73 “Laughing but Crying”, 73 Brown, Tommy, 73 “Weeping and Crying”, 73 Brownstein, Carrie, 181–82 Bryant, Boudleaux and Felice, 127–28 Buckley, Jeff, 222 “Last Goodbye”, 222 Cale, John, 171 Cambridge, Godfrey, 85 Canby, Edward Tatnall, 50–51 Cara, Irene, 155 “Out Here on My Own”, 155 Carey, Mariah, 13, 24, 151–53, 158 “Hero”, 158 “One Sweet Day”, 24, 152–53 Carmichael, Hoagy, 105 Caron, Leslie, 45–46, 53 Carpenters, 5 “Goodbye to Love”, 5 Cartland, Barbara, 200 Cash, Johnny, 127 Chapman, Tracy, 150 Charice, 157, 159 “A Note to God”, 157 Charlamagne Tha God (Lenard McKelvey), 178 Charles, Ray, 34, 51, 83, 86–89, 93–96, 102, 105, 110–12, 140, 145, 157, 194 “I Can’t Stop Loving You”, 95 “I Got a Woman”, 93 “What’d I Say?”, 85 “You Don’t Know Me”, 95

Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, 94, 110 The Birth of Soul, 89 The Genius of Ray Charles, 93 Charlton, Manny, 129 Cher, 129 Chopin, Frédéric, 190 Christgau, Robert, 108 Cinderella, 149 Clapton, Eric, 24, 122 “Tears in Heaven”, 24 Clark, Keith, 11 Clarkson, Kelly, 158 “A Moment like This”, 158 classroom films, 70–72 Cline, Patsy, 28, 65, 78, 80–84, 94, 127 “Crazy”, 80–84 “Sweet Dreams”, 80 “A Church, A Courtroom, and Then Goodbye”, 80 “I Fall to Pieces”, 80 “I Love You So Much It Hurts”, 127 “Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray”, 80 Coates, Odia, 141 Cobain, Kurt, 177, 187 Cold Case, 169 Cole, Nat King, 22, 40–41, 46–48, 50–53, 56, 79 “Looking Back”, 40 “Smile”, 53 “When I Fall in Love”, 22, 51, 53, 56 Coltrane, John, 7, 125 Columbo, Russ, 47 Combs, Sean, 103 Como, Perry, 50 Con Air, 180 Connick, Harry, Jr., 14–15 “If I Only Had a Brain”, 14, 17, 195 Cooke, Sam, 29, 35, 40, 48, 87–93, 95–97, 99–100, 102–05, 112, 116–19, 126, 223 “A Change Is Gonna Come”, 29, 87, 100, 116–18, 120 “Chain Gang”, 92 “Forever”, 90 “Lovable”, 90 “I Don’t Want to Cry”, 91 “That’s All I Need to Know”, 90 “Twistin’ the Night Away”, 92 “You Send Me”, 91–92, 96 “Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha”, 92 Mr. Soul, 92 The Man Who Invented Soul, 88, 92 “Only Sixteen”, 40

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Cooper, Alice, 143 “You and Me”, 143 Coppola, Sofia, 208 country weeper, 160 Cowherd, Daryl, 101 Crane, S.R., 89 Creed, 150 crooning, 46–49 Cropper, Steve, 103 Crosby, Bing, 37, 47, 62, 65, 99 “I Cried For You”, 65 “Crying”, 17, 28 crying adolescents, 70–75 attitudes towards, 66–70 Cummings, Mildred, 59 Cyrus, Miley, 11, 13, 154–55 “Wrecking Ball”, 11, 19 “The Climb”, 154–55

Dylan, Bob, 2, 100, 117 “Ballad of a Thin Man”, 2 “Blowin’ in the Wind”, 117 “Just Like a Woman”, 100 “The Death of Emmett Till”, 117

Daddy Long Legs, 45–46, 53 Damone, Vic, 37 Darnell, Larry, 68 David, Hal, 9 Davis, Clive, 138, 140–41, 151 Davis, Miles, 7 Davis, Sammy Jr., 85, 89, 120, 126 Davis, Sheila, 138, 140 Dawson’s Creek, 169 Day, Doris, 3, 51–53, 56, 79, 83, 126 “Secret Love”, 52 Dean, James, 29, 42, 74, 77 Def Leppard, 146–47, 149 Descartes, Rene, 14–15 Diamond, Neil, 142 “Hello Again”, 142 Dick, Charlie, 81 Dion, Céline, 23, 153, 157–59, 162, 180–81 “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”, 153 “My Heart Will Go On”, 153, 157–58, 180–81, 185–86, 190 DJ Supreme, 179 Dokken, 150 Domino, Antoine “Fats”, 37 “Blueberry Hill”, 37 “I’m in the Mood for Love”, 37 Dorsey, Tommy, 46 Drake, 177–79 “Marvin’s Room”, 177, 179 Take Care, 179 “Dream (When You’re Feeling Blue)”, 45 Dresser, Paul, 157 “My Gal Sal”, 157 “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away”, 157

Fabian, 50 Faith, Percy, 52 Fame, 155 Felicity, 169 Fisher, Eddie, 37 Flamingos, 32 “I’ll Be Home”, 32 Foreigner, 145, 162 “Waiting for a Girl like You”, 162 Forever Plaid, 76 Foul Play, 142 Four Lads, 64, 76 Fowler, Charles, 51 Francis, Connie, 22, 40–44, 54, 84, 137 “Faded Orchid”, 44 “I’m Sorry I Made You Cry”, 42 “Lock Up Your Heart”, 42 “Who’s Sorry Now?”, 22, 40, 42, 84, 137 Franklin, Aretha, 22, 31, 85–89, 92, 96, 99–116, 118–21, 126, 194, 206, 223 “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”, 22, 87 “Ain’t No Way”, 104 “Brand New Me”, 113 “Bridge over Troubled Water”, 108–10 “Dr. Feelgood”, 107 “Respect”, 85 “Skylark”, 105 “Spirit in the Dark”, 104, 113 “Think”, 85 “Baby, Baby, Baby”, 107 “Do Right Woman”, 104, 107 Aretha Arrives, 107 I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, 106–07 Franklin, C.F., 104

Eckstine, Billy, 48 Eco, Umberto, 199–200, 203 Ekko, Mikky, 8 Ellington, Edward Kennedy “Duke”, 124 English, Scott, 141 “Brandy”, 141 Etting, Ruth, 83 Euripides, 68 The Bacchae, 68 Everly Brothers, 29, 34, 127–30 “Bye Bye Love”, 128 “All I Have to Do Is Dream”, 128 Rock n’ Soul, 128

228 Franklin, Cecil, 111 Freberg, Stan, 64 Fricke, David, 147 Friend, Lonn, 149 Frozen, 162, 164, 166 Gabriel, Peter, 22 “In Your Eyes”, 22 Gale, Sunny, 43 Galkin, Joe, 102 Garland, Judy, 76, 112, 116 Garland, Phyl, 120–21, 124 Gay Charmers, 43 Gaye, Marvin, 20, 116, 177 “Let’s Get It On”, 20 “What’s Going On”, 20, 116 Gayle, Crystal, 76 Gaynor, Gloria, 222 George Gershwin, 30, 41, 201 Gershwin, George, 3 “Fascinating Rhythm”, 3 “I Got Rhythm”, 3 Gibson, Don, 80, 95 Gilson, Lottie, 157 Giovanni, Nikki, 112, 115–16, 125 Girl’s Town, 73 Gish, Lillian, 62–63 Glee, 1, 2, 21, 133 Glenn, Bobby, 176 “Sounds Like a Love Song”, 176 “Go the Distance”, 180 Goldman, Arthur, 120–21 Gonson, Claudia, 184–85 Good Will Hunting, 180, 193, 209 Goodman, Benny, 104 Gossert, Gus, 138–39 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, 162 Green Day, 24, 222 “Wake Me up When September Ends”, 24 “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”, 222 Green, Abel, 37 Green, Al, 86, 151–53 “Let’s Stay Together”, 152 Grevatt, Ren, 37, 40 Grierson, Don, 145–46 Griffin Brothers, 73 Groban, Josh, 154 “You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up)”, 154 Guns N’ Roses, 146, 148, 150 “Sweet Child of Mine”, 150 Hall, René, 91, 117 Hamilton, Roy, 30, 88 Hamlisch, Marvin, 6 Hammond, John, 104–05

Index Hannah Montana: The Movie, 154 Harris, Charles K, 156–57, 160 “After the Ball”, 156 Harris, Emmylou, 128 Harris, Marion, 41 Hart, Corey, 145 Hayes, Isaac, 12, 20, 96, 151–52, 175, 220 “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight”, 20 Heart, 145 “These Dreams”, 145 “What about Love”, 145 Hebdige, Dick, 72 Hendrix, Jimi, 100, 122, 170–71, 187 “Purple Haze”, 170–71 Hercules, 180 Hetfield, James, 149–50 high fidelity, 46, 50–52, 53, 56–57, 91, 94, 186 emotional experiences, 52–54 Highway QC’s, 90 Hill, Dan, 142 “Sometimes When We Touch”, 142 Hill, Lauryn, 127 “When It Hurts So Bad”, 127 Hobson, David, 132 Hoffman, Wolf, 149 Holiday, Billie, 63, 104, 112–13 Holman, Libby, 83 Honoré, Carl, 11 Houston, Whitney, 7, 30, 134–38, 151–52, 158, 160–62, 165, 167 “Greatest Love of All”, 151 “One Moment in Time”, 158 “Didn’t We Almost Have It All”, 151 “Where Do Broken Hearts Go”, 151 “How Do I Live”, 180 Hughes, Langston, 123–24 Humperdinck, Engelbert, 139 Hunter, Ivory Joe, 35–36, 88, 151 Husky, Ferlin, 80 Ice Castles, 142 Iglesias, Enrique, 168 Il Divo, 154 “Regresa a Mi”, 154 Impressions, 115 “I’m Not in Love”, 197 In Justice, 169 indie conceptions of, 181–87 Inglesias, Enrique “Hero”, 168 irony, 197–98 and sincerity, 198–200 “I Will Always Love You”, 26, 30, 134, 137–38, 160–62

Index

229

Jackson Five, 222 “Never Can Say Goodbye”, 222 Jackson, Jermaine, 151 Jackson, Mahalia, 63 Jackson, Michael, 136, 177 Jackson, Wanda, 43 James, Etta, 18, 95 “At Last”, 18 James, Harry, 41 Jarmusch, Jim, 208 Jay Z, 9, 103, 176–77, 213 “Holy Grail”, 176–77 “Song Cry”, 176 Jefferson Airplane, 100 Jefferson Starship, 170 “White Rabbit”, 170 Jenkins, Johnny, 96 Jimi Hendrix Experience, 100 Johnson, Robert, 122 Jones, Isham, 41 Jones, Jim, 215 Jones, Tom, 139 Jonze, Spike, 208 Joplin, Janis, 100, 122, 187 Jordan, Louis, 59, 93 Jordanaires, 81 Journey, 143–44, 157, 183, 224 “Open Arms”, 143 “Who’s Crying Now”, 143–44 “Journey to the Past”, 180 Juno, 209

lang, k.d., 17–18, 24 Lavigne, Avril, 154 Leave It to Beaver, 58 Led Zeppelin, 143, 147 “Stairway to Heaven”, 143 Lee Gotch Singers, 91 Lee, Brenda, 43, 80 Legend, John, 9 “All of Me”, 9 “Let It Go”, 162, 164–66 Lewis, Jerry Lee, 43, 127 “It Hurts Me So”, 127 Lieberman, Noah, 181 Little Richard (Richard Penniman), 32, 35–36, 61, 88, 96 “I’m Just a Lonely Guy”, 32 LL Cool J, 26, 174–77 “I Need Love”, 26, 174–75 “Two Different Worlds”, 175 “Hey Lover”, 175 “Luv U Better”, 175 “One Shot at Love”, 175 Walking with a Panther, 175–76 Lopes. Lisa, 20 Lopez, Robert, 164 “Love Hurts”, 29, 127–33 “Love is a Many Splendored Thing”, 21, 23 Loverboy, 145 Lovett, Winfred “Blue”, 220 Lutz, Tom, 66 Lynch, George, 150

Kalmar, Bert, 40 Kashif, 151 Kelly, R, 158 “I Believe I Can Fly”, 158 Kern, Jerome, 201 Kessler, Danny, 59, 61–62 Keys, Alicia, 8 “Fallin’”, 8, 12 Kia-Keating, Maryam, 165 King, Carole, 208, 217 Kingston Trio, 2 “Tom Dooley”, 2 Kiss, 143 “Beth”, 143 Kjartansson, Ragnar, 211 Knack, 139 Kohlman, Churchill, 60, 64 Korb, Arthur, 3 Kramer, Gary, 34

Magill, R. Jay, Jr, 197–99, 223 Magnetic Fields, 22, 184, 200–03 69 Love Songs, 22, 200, 202, 206 Manchester, Melissa, 138, 142, 144 “Don’t Cry Out Loud”, 142 “Through the Eyes of Love”, 142 Manhattans, 220 Manilow, Barry, 23, 138, 140–42, 148, 151, 178, 208 “I Write the Songs”, 142 “Mandy”, 140–42 “Ready to Take a Chance Again”, 142 “Could It Be Magic”, 142 “Even Now”, 142 “I Made It through the Rain”, 142 “Looks Like We Made It”, 142 “Somewhere in the Night”, 142 “Trying to Get the Feeling Again”, 142 “Weekend in New England”, 142 Mantovani Orchestra, 54 Marcussi, Bob, 49 Mars, Bruno, 9 “When I Was Your Man”, 9 Martha and the Vandellas, 115

Laico, Frank, 50 Laine, Frankie, 60–62 “Mule Train”, 60

230

Index

Martha and the Vandellas (cont.) “Dancing in the Street”, 115 Martin, Janis, 43 Mason, Barbara, 127 “Oh, How It Hurts”, 127 Mathis, Johnny, 47–48, 50, 194–95 Mayfield, Curtis, 105, 116 “People Get Ready”, 116 Mayfield, Percy, 94 MC Hammer, 177 McCafferty, Dan, 129 McCartney, Paul, 23 McElderry, Joe, 155 McLachlan, Sarah, 24, 168–72 “Angel”, 24, 168–72 Fumbling towards Ecstasy, 170 Surfacing, 170 McPhatter, Clyde, 35, 88 Melson, Joe, 17 Melvoin, John, 170 Mercer, Johnny, 45 Merritt, Stephin, 187, 199–207 “A Pretty Girl Is Like . . . ”, 203, 206 “Andrew in Drag”, 204 “Experimental Music Love”, 202 “How Fucking Romantic”, 202 “Love is Like Jazz”, 202 “Papa Was a Rodeo”, 204–05, 207 “Punk Love”, 202 “The Book of Love”, 205, 207 “The Death of Ferdinand De Saussure”, 201 “When My Boy Walks down the Street”, 200, 202 Metallica, 147, 149–50 Miller, Glenn, 46 Miller, Mitch, 21, 60 Mineo, Sal, 74–75, 77 Mitchell, Joni, 208, 217–18 “Little Green”, 218 Blue, 217 Modern Family, 169 Moffatt, Ariane, 132 Monet, Cynde, 175 Monotones, 206 Montague, Nathaniel “Magnificent”, 85–86, 89, 126 Monterey Pop Festival, 100 Mood music, 53 Moore, Allan, 121 Morgan, Helen, 83 Morris, Wanya, 153 Morrison, Marilyn, 63 Mötley Crüe, 138, 147–48, 150 “Home Sweet Home”, 138, 147–48, 150 Theatre of Pain, 150

Mr. Mister, 145 Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield), 61, 122 Muhammad, Elijah, 101 Message to the Blackman in America, 101 Mulan, 162 Mumford and Sons, 183 murder ballads, 2 Murray, Albert, 86 N.W.A, 176 Nashville sound, 78–80, 84 Nation of Islam, 101–02 National, 183, 211, 214 “Sorrow”, 211 Nazareth, 129–30, 132 Neal, Larry, 126 Nelson, Willie, 15, 76, 81–84, 220 “You Wouldn’t Cross the Street (To Say Goodbye)”, 220 New Girl, 169 New Sincerity, 198 Night Ranger, 162 “Sister Christian”, 162 Nine Inch Nails, 127 Nirvana, 182, 195 *NSYNC, 151 Nyro, Laura, 208 O’Conner, Sinéad, 129 Ocean, Frank, 23, 210–11, 213–19 “Bad Religion”, 23, 213–16 “Forrest Gump”, 217 “Pyramids”, 217 Channel Orange, 213, 217 Odd Future, 213 Orbison, Roy, 17–18, 29, 31, 128, 139 Ozzie and Harriet, 58 Page, Patti, 34, 40, 43, 50 “Trust In Me”, 40 Parker, Charlie, 8 Parliament, 19 parlor songs, 156–57 Parsons, Gram, 128 Parton, Dolly, 26, 135, 137, 160–61 Pearl Jam, 170 “4/20/02”, 170 Perry, Katy, 184 Perry, Steve, 144 Pet Shop Boys, 15 Phillips, Phil, 37, 196 Piaf, Edith, 112–13 Picasso, Pablo, 16, 174 Pinetoppers, 96

Index Pink, 13 “Try”, 13 Pitney, Gene, 139 Platters, 37, 46 Poison, 138, 147, 149, 158 “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”, 138, 149 Porter, Cole, 8, 30, 201 “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye”, 8 Potts, Paul, 132 power ballad, 27, 29–30, 132–33, 135–45, 148–55, 157–58, 160–65, 167, 181, 186, 190, 192, 197, 209, 221 classical crossover, 154 definition, 135–40 emotional experiences of, 155–67 heavy metal, 146–50 R&B, 151–53 rock, 142–46 teen pop, 154–55 power pop, 139 Power, Cat (Charlyn Marie “Chan” Marshall), 187, 194, 198, 204 The Covers Record, 195 “Sea of Love”, 196, 209 Powers, Ann, 148 Presley, Elvis, 15, 32, 34–37, 43, 57–58, 63, 70, 127, 139, 223 “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”, 35 “Blue Moon”, 35, 37 “Don’t”, 35 “Harbor Lights”, 35, 37 “I Need You So”, 35 “I Was the One”, 32 “Love Me Tender”, 36 “My Baby’s Gone”, 35 “My Happiness”, 35 “My Wish Come True”, 35 “Old Shep”, 35 “Playing for Keeps”, 35 “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin”, 35 “You Are My Sunshine”, 35 “Young and Beautiful”, 35 “Young Dreams”, 35 Public Enemy, 176 Queen, 143 “Bohemian Rhapsody”, 143 Quintilian, 197 R.E.M., 29, 127, 130–33, 183 “Everybody Hurts”, 29, 130–33 “Try Not to Breathe”, 131 Automatic for the People, 131 Rachmaninov, Sergei, 6 “Raining Blood”, 195

231

Rascal Flatts, 127 “What Hurts the Most”, 127 Ray, Johnnie, 15, 29, 31, 33, 41–43, 54, 57–70, 72–73, 75–77, 112–13, 119, 121, 148, 157, 163, 165, 176, 178, 186, 208 “All of Me”, 76 “Cry”, 29, 33, 54, 57–77, 165–66 “The Little White Cloud That Cried”, 60 “You Don’t Owe Me a Thing”, 75 Rebel without a Cause, 74 Redding, Otis, 7, 31, 86–88, 92, 96–103, 105–08, 112, 118–19, 125–26, 194 “Mr. Pitiful”, 98 “My Lover’s Prayer”, 98 “Remember Me”, 98 “That’s How Strong My Love Is”, 100 “These Arms of Mine”, 96 “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay”, 103 “Day Tripper”, 100 “Pain in My Heart”, 100 “Try A Little Tenderness”, 87, 99–100 Pain in My Heart, 96 The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads, 86 Redding, Rogers, 98 Redding, Zelma, 103 Reese, Dennis, 12 Reeves, Jim, 79–80 “Four Walls”, 79 “Then I’ll Stop Loving You”, 80 Reiss, Randy, 180 Remenih, Anton, 60, 69 REO Speedwagon, 139, 143–45, 183 “Keep on Loving You”, 143 Replacements, 183 Ressner, Jeffrey, 146–47, 149–50 Riddle, Nelson, 55–57 Rihanna, 8, 184 “Stay”, 8, 12–13 Riley, Clayton, 110–11 Robey, Don, 38–39 rockaballad, 34–35, 40–45, 54, 78, 128–29, 132, 196 Rodgers, Eileen, 43 Rodgers, Richard, 30, 201–02 “Isn’t It Romantic”, 202 Rogers, Kenny, 142 “Through The Years”, 142 Rolling Stones, 100, 107 “Satisfaction”, 100 Romantics, 139 Rosen, Andrea, 152 Rosenblatt, Roger, 198 Rudy, Harry, 40 Rupe, Art, 91

232

Index

Sanders, Charles L, 111, 113–15 Say Anything, 22 Schickel, Richard, 123–24 Scorpions, 147, 149 Sensations, 37 sentimentality, 155–58 Shankar, Ravi, 100 Shoup, Brad, 181 Sibelius, Jean, 190 Valse triste, 190 Simmons, Russell, 213 Simms, Jerry, 30 Simon and Garfunkel, 108–09, 194 Simon, Carly, 218 “You’re So Vain”, 218 Sinatra, Frank, 37, 46–47, 50, 54–57, 60, 93, 99 “Only the Lonely”, 56–57 Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely, 55 In the Wee Small Hours, 55 Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!, 55 Skyliners, 46 Slayer, 195 Sleater-Kinney, 182 Sledge, Percy, 87 “When a Man Loves a Woman”, 87 slow core, 12, 14, 18 slow dance, 12, 18 slow jam, 12–13, 20, 201 slow tempos, 10–18 Sly and the Family Stone, 115 Smashing Pumpkins, 170 “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, 195 Smith, Bessie, 63, 122 Smith, Elliott, 47, 180–81, 185–94, 196, 199, 204, 207, 209 “Waltz #1”, 189 “Waltz #2”, 189 “Between the Bars”, 190 “Miss Misery”, 180–81, 186, 190, 193 Smith, Jack “Whispering”, 47 Smith, Patti, 132 Snow Patrol, 21–22 “Chasing Cars”, 21 Snyder, Ted, 40 Somerset Strings, 54 soul definitions of, 85–86 Soul Stirrers, 89–90, 92, 117 “Wonderful”, 90 Southern Tones, 93 “It Must Be Jesus”, 93 Spears, Britney, 13 “Sometimes”, 13 Spektor, Regina, 187, 191–94, 196, 207 “Samson”, 192

Staind, 150 Stax Studios, 96–97, 106, 223 Stearns, Peter N, 28–29, 54, 69, 76–77, 163, 224 Stevens, Sufjan, 187, 191–94, 196, 199, 207 “Abraham”, 191 “To Be Alone with You”, 191–92 BQE, 191 Seven Swans, 191 Stewart, Rod, 129 Stipe, Michael, 131 Stoddard, Harry, 4 Stone, Robert, 124 Strait, George, 220 “Baby’s Gotten Good at Goodbye”, 220 Streisand, Barbra, 6, 10, 141 “The Way We Were”, 6, 141 Styx, 143 “Come Sail Away”, 143 Sullivan, Shon, 188 Supremes, 115 Survivor, 145 Sylvester, Robert, 61, 63, 67–69 Taubman, Howard, 62, 65, 67 Taylor, Cecil, 125 Taylor, James, 170, 208, 217 “Fire and Rain”, 170 Tchaikovsky, Pytor Ilyich, 6 Tennant, Neil, 15 Tharpe, Sister Rosetta, 44 The Bodyguard, 135 The Carpenters, 6 “Goodbye to Love”, 12 The Hollywood Palace, 85–86 The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 162 The Jazz Singer, 142 The Righteous Brothers, 5 The Secret Life of the American Teenager, 169 The Voice, 162 The Wizard of Oz, 14 The Young Don’t Cry, 74 Thicke, Robin, 13 “Blurred Lines”, 13 Thornton, Willie Mae (”Big Mama”), 44 Tillman, Floyd, 82 “Gotta Have My Baby Back”, 82 Timberlake, Justin, 176–77 Tin Pan Alley, 3, 26, 30, 34–38, 40, 42, 99, 105, 201–02, 205, 207 Tinsley, Manny, 114–15 TLC, 20 “Waterfalls”, 20–21 torch song, 4, 65, 83 “Tutti Frutti”, 32

Index Twain, Shania, 127 “It Only Hurts When I’m Breathing”, 127 Tyler, Bonnie, 145 Tyler, The Creator, 213 Goblin, 213 Tyson, Mike, 177 Uhls, Yalda T, 166 Usher, 13, 127, 221 “Final Goodbye”, 221 “Nice & Slow”, 13 “Truth Hurts”, 127 Vallée, Rudy, 47 Vampire Weekend, 183 Vannelli, Gino, 127 “It Hurts to Be in Love”, 127 Velvet Underground, 171, 183 “Heroin”, 171 Verdi, Giuseppe, 5 Villchur, Edgar M, 50 Wagoner, Porter, 160 Walden, Phil, 100, 102–03 Walker, Ray, 81 Wallace, David Foster, 198 Wampole, Christy, 198 Warhol, Andy, 206 Blow Job, 206 Empire, 206 Warrant, 147–49 “Heaven”, 149 Warwick, Dionne, 9, 138, 142 “(They Long to Be) Close to You”, 9 “A House Is Not a Home”, 9

233

“I’ll Never Love This Way Again”, 142 Washington, Dinah, 59, 112 Welles, Chris, 122–23 Werner, Craig, 88, 119 West, Kanye, 174, 214 “Runaway”, 214 My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, 214 The Life of Pablo, 174 Wexler, Jerry, 39–40, 105–07 “When My Sugar Walks down the Street”, 202 White, Barry, 12–13, 175, 220 “Let Me in and Let’s Begin with Love”, 13 White, Ted, 106, 113 Whiteman, Paul, 46 Whitesnake, 147 Who, 100, 128 Wickes, E.M., 3 “Wild Is the Wind”, 194, 196 Wilson, Ann, 145 Wilson, John S, 38, 50, 52 Winehouse, Amy, 112 Winfrey, Oprah, 159 Wings, 23 “Silly Love Songs”, 23 Wood, Natalie, 74 Wynette, Tammy, 80 “D.I.V.O.R.C.E”, 80 X Factor, 132, 155, 162 “Yes, We Have No Bananas”, 3 “You Are Not Alone”, 136 Zak, Albin, 33