music

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Language change

Jean Patrick Niambé, Ivorian rapper, Arlette Bashizi for The New York Times

In workshops I gave this fall in Vietnam on the use of AI in language learning, one of the topics we discussed was the change in English language use brought about through the AI frenzy of 2023. I used as an example a Doonesbury cartoon that highlighted the shift from the career benefits of being a “creative” to the now more lucrative role of becoming a “promptive,” i.e., doing prompt engineering. Traditional careers as lawyers and artists are presented as going away (replaced respectively by ChatGPT and Midjourney), leading to the need to find a “side hustle.” “AI” itself was named the most notable word of 2023 by Collins dictionary. Lots of other AI terms have entered this year into everyday language in English including “machine learning” and “large language model.” “Prompt” is now inevitably tied to AI use.

Language change happens in myriad ways, one being through technological and societal change, another through demographic shifts. That is illustrated in a recent article in the New York Times on changes to French through new uses of the language in the growing number of French speakers in West and central Africa:

More than 60 percent of those who speak French daily now live in Africa, and 80 percent of children studying in French are in Africa. There are as many French speakers in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as in Paris. Through social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube, they are literally spreading the word, reshaping the French language from African countries, like Ivory Coast, that were once colonized by France.

The article chronicles how young people in Africa have adapted French creatively in entertainment and the arts. One rapper comments, “We’ve tried to rap in pure French, but nobody was listening to us,” so language used in rapping is adjusted to the social realities of local life. An example of an African neologism having gained wide use is the verb “enjailler” to mean “having fun,” a word originally used in the Côte d’Ivoire in the context of jumping off and on buses in Abidjan. Traditional words have been given new meanings:

In Abidjan this year, people began to call a boyfriend “mon pain” — French for “my bread.” Improvisations soon proliferated: “pain choco” is a cute boyfriend. A sugary bread, a sweet one. A bread just out of the oven is a hot partner.

Interestingly, this development comes at a time when the influence of France in Africa has declined. Some countries have evicted French ambassadors and troops and French has lost its official status in several countries (Mali, Burkina Faso). This demonstrates that language change has a dynamic of its own, often unpredictable and not controllable by political policies or government dictates.

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The Beatles, AI, and authenticity

I’m in Vietnam currently, giving workshops on using AI tools in teaching English. Yesterday, we looked at what ChatGPT, Bard, and Bing might suggest as “best practices in using AI in language learning and teaching”. One of the suggestions was using AI chats as “authentic” language practice. That has set me to wonder what that word means in the context of AI text generation. That topic has been raised this month with the release of a new Beatles song, a musical group that disbanded over 50 years ago, with only 2 of the 4 members still living. A recent article in the New York Times discussed the issues related to that release:

Does it really make sense to use a song originally written by [John] Lennon alone, with no known intention of ever bringing it to his former bandmates, as the basis for a “Beatles” song? Is Lennon’s vocal, plucked and scrubbed by artificial intelligence and taking on a faintly unnatural air, something he would have embraced or been repulsed by? “Is this something we shouldn’t do?” McCartney asks in a voice-over, but neither he nor anyone else ever articulates exactly what the problem might be. “We’ve all played on it,” McCartney says. “So it is a genuine Beatle recording.” On one hand, who is more qualified than McCartney to issue this edict of authenticity? On the other: Why did he feel the need?

The author makes the point that this is quite different from what we all have been worrying about with AI, namely brand new “fakes”. In this case it is an example of using tech advances to, in the author’s opinion, make money from recycling old material:

The worry is that, for the companies that shape so much of our cultural life, A.I. will function first and foremost as a way to keep pushing out recycled goods rather than investing in innovations and experiments from people who don’t yet have a well-known back catalog to capitalize on. I hope I am wrong. Maybe “Now and Then” is just a blip, a one-off — less a harbinger of things to come than the marking of a limit. But I suspect that, in this late project, the always-innovative Beatles are once again ahead of their time.

The question of authenticity has one that is at the core of the communicative approach to language learning, with the idea that learners should not be working with made-up, simplified language materials, but be provided with real-world materials that native speakers would themselves might be accessing. For the materials to be comprehensible, learners are supplied with “scaffolding” (annotations, notes, glossaries, etc.). Online materials have been a boon in that respect, in contrast to most materials in textbooks. Now, AI is making the question of authenticity and attribution much trickier. AI generated materials are not products of native speakers, so should we treat them, as we do manufactured texts as lacking in authenticity? Certainly, the cultural perspective is missing, which is one of the principal benefits of using “authentic” materials. Stay tuned, as AI and attitudes towards its output are evolving rapidly.

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Hip hop worldwide and social change

Afghan rapper and activist Sonita Alizadeh (Bryan R. Smith/AFP)

This year, 50 years of hip-hop or rap music is being celebrated. While recently country music has been in the news (particularly Try that in a small town and Rich men north of Richmond – see my blog post) due to controversial positions on social and political issues, hip hop has since the beginning integrated into its lyrics themes of social inequality and discrimination against African Americans. “Gansta rap” of the 1990’s dealt largely with violence and drug use, while also being accused of promoting misogyny and gun use.

Although identified with the US and inner-city Black communities, hip hop has in its 50 years spread across the world, used often as a tool for social change. A recent piece in the public radio show, Here and now, discussed a number of examples, as shown below. It would be easy to find examples from other cultures. The story points out that “the genre has been the voice of various generations demanding social change and even revolution: Rappers in Tibet are using hip-hop to preserve the traditional language. And in Tunisia, hip-hop even helped launch the Arab Spring.”

While the musical style of hip hop remains anchored in its North American roots, the language and culture of rappers adapts to the local conditions. This is imperative if the music is intended to carry a social message and effect societal change.

E

l général, “the voice of Tunisia”


‪Dekyi Tsering‬ ལམ Road “yang sal དབྱངས་གསལ། ”


Sonita Alizadeh “Daughters For Sale”

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“Rich men north of Richmond” and Dylan’s “Only a pawn”

Oliver Anthony in 2023

The Republican debate this week of presidential candidates (minus Trump) began in an unusual way, with an exchange over a song, “Rich men north of Richmond,” by Oliver Anthony. The country-music-style song has hit the top of the Billboard charts, despite the singer being unknown. It’s an angry workingman’s anthem complaining about the “rich men” north of Richmond (i.e. politicians in Washington, D.C.) over low pay (overtime hours for bullshit pay), lack of respect (cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin’ them down), and control over people’s lives (they all just wanna have total control / wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do). There are also complaints familiar from right wing US politics such as welfare cheats (taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds) and over-taxation (your dollar ain’t shit and it’s taxed to no end). Included as well are conspiracy theories such as the QAnon pedophilia story (I wish politicians would look out for miners / And not just minors on an island somewhere). Since then, the singer has insisted that his views have been misinterpreted (despite the song lyrics) and complained over the use of the song in the debate.

“Rich men north of Richmond” is not a call to action, but a cry of frustration:

Lord, it’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is

The popularity of the song taps into the sense of grievance felt by many in the US that the mainstream economic, social, and political systems in the US are against them; a perspective that Donald Trump rode to the presidency in 2016.

Bob Dylan in 1963

Interestingly, this is the 60th anniversary of the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” in 1963, led by Martin Luther King, Jr. Music was a big part of that event, with folk singers Joan Baez leading the crowd in “We shall overcome” and Bob Dylan singing protest songs such as “Only a pawn in their game”. The latter song was about the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers in Mississippi in 1963. The target of the song is racism, portrayed as leading not only to discrimination but to the existence of violent groups such as the Ku Klux Khan. Dylan portrays Medgar Evers’ assassin as a “pawn”, a poor white man manipulated by the “game” played by white supremacists:

But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
‘Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game

As in Oliver Anthony’s song, politicians too are to blame:

A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin, ” they explain
And the Negro’s name
Is used, it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train

The persona in Oliver Anthony’s song is part of the aggrieved population (people like me and people like you); the emphasis is on victimhood – we are being trodden down by the elites. Dylan’s perspective is less personal, from the outside, reporting on injustice, calling for civic engagement. The most widely sung protest song of the 1960’s was “We shall overcome”, which invites the singers to celebrate solidarity with all groups and to believe in a future better, more just world. That reflects Dr. King’s message from the March on Washington, a vision of a society free of racial prejudice: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. The March on Washington was instrumental in leading just months later to new civil rights legislation. The sentiment expressed in “Rich men north of Richmond” may or may not be harbinger of things to come but it certainly has resonated widely in the US. It remains to be seen whether that might lead to an aggrieved former president finding enough support to reclaim the White House.

 

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Hamilton auf Deutsch

The German cast of Hamilton

Translating always means approximating the meaning of the original text. That is especially the case for translating literary texts, where it’s not just a matter of finding equivalent meanings but also of conveying the feel and style of the original. When the texts are poetry that makes the process even more complicated, as there is a need to make decisions on issues like rhyme, alliteration, meter, rhythm, etc. Then there is the cultural component. Literary texts are embedded in socio-historical contexts, which may be familiar to the intended readers of the original. Translators need to determine whether to simply convey the cultural context as in the original or add or explain so that it is understandable to the readers of the translation. Then there is humor and word play. Music complicates further, as the translated language must fit in to the time constraints built into song lyrics.

Translating the celebrated musical Hamilton into another language has all those complications and more. The story told in the musical is deeply enmeshed in the history and mythology of the founding of the United States. The story and the central figures in it are well known to anyone who has attended schools in the US. For those not having that background, the dynamics of the exchanges among characters in the musical, taken from historical accounts, will be unfamiliar. Then there is the kind of music in Hamilton, namely hip-hop or rap. While that style of music originated in the US, it has spread across the world, so the musical form will likely be familiar, at least to young theater goers. However, in the US, the cultural context of rap is tied closely to African-Americans and that is reflected in the musical, at least in its original stage version and movie, in which the main characters are Black.

So, translating Hamilton into German was no easy task, as pointed out in a recent piece in the New York Times: “Hamilton is a mouthful, even in English. Forty-seven songs; more than 20,000 words; fast-paced lyrics, abundant wordplay, complex rhyming patterns, plus allusions not only to hip-hop and musical theater but also to arcane aspects of early American history.” It wasn’t just the challenge of keeping the musical character as close as possible to the original, it was also the problem linguistically of going from English to German, as the piece states, “a language characterized by multisyllabic compound nouns and sentences that often end with verbs”. Translations from English to German often end up being considerably longer than the original. That was going to be a problem here. So, the translators had to be flexible and creative, finding ways to keep the wordage down, while maintaining the essentials of the content and including as many of the artistic effects in the lyrics as possible. The latter included the internal rhyming that is characteristic of rapping and is used extensively in Hamilton. The translators were able to work with the musical’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, who monitored the translations to make sure the lyrics in German fit the spirit of the original. The New York Times article and a piece in National Public Radio provide examples of the wording in German. The clip below shows the results.

The German Hamilton started playing this month in Hamburg; it will be interesting to see how German theater goers react. One of the interesting aspects of the German production is that the makeup of the cast mirrors that of the New York production, with actors of color playing the main roles. The fact that this was possible in Germany is a demonstration of the surprising diversity in contemporary Germany, with waves of immigration having significantly changed the homogeneity of the population there. In fact, many in the cast are immigrants, or the children of immigrants. Not all are German citizens, but they all speak fluent German, mostly as their first language. For my money, the songs sound very good (and natural!) in German.

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We are not we

Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 8.47.22 PMIn the recently released “White Privilege II”, white rappers Macklemore and Ryan Lewis address uncomfortable questions of cultural appropriation and the role of white Americans in support of the protests over Blacks being shot by police. The song starts out this way, with Macklemore referencing the the 2014 Black Lives Matter march in Ferguson, Mo., that he participated in:

Pulled into the parking lot, parked it
Zipped up my parka, joined the procession of marchers
In my head like, “Is this awkward?
Should I even be here marching?”
Thinking if they can’t, how can I breathe?
Thinking that they chant, what do I sing?
I want to take a stance cause we are not free
And then I thought about it, we are not “we”

Can the “we”, i.e. those marching, include someone (white) who has not had the same experiences as those (blacks) marching? Should he be a participant or just an observer:

“Am I on the outside looking in,
Or am I on the inside looking out?
Is it my place to give my two cents
Or should I stand on the side and shut my mouth?
‘No justice no peace’
Oh yeah, I’m saying that.
They chanting out BLACK LIVES MATTER
But I don’t say it back.
Is it O.K. for me to say? I don’t know, so I watch and stand.”

The song is actually a sequel to the the 2005 release “White Privilege”. It may be that the title of the new song is in part an effort to remind us that Macklemore’s not a Johnny-come-lately to the issue. On the original “White Privilege,” he had already acknowledged the fact that he’s using an art form that has its origins in a wholly different context from his: “Hip-hop started off in a block that I’ve never been to/ To counter act a struggle that I’ve never even been through”. Macklemore is not of course the first white rapper; as he mentions in the song there have been a whole host of singers, going back at least to Elvis who have built careers off of songs or styles originating in African-American culture. Not all have acknowledged the debt or pointed to the potential unfairness of the process: “We take all we want from black culture, but will we show up for Black Lives [Matter].”

Macklemore ends the song with Black poet and singer Jamila Woods singing the final lines, which some have interpreted as an attempt to legitimize his right to rap on this topic by including a supportive Black voice. Gene Demby, the lead blogger for NPR’s Code Switch team, who is African-American, wrote a piece this week, “Guess We Gotta Talk About Macklemore’s ‘White Privilege’ Song”, indicating by its title and its opening (“So. Macklemore. I suppose we have to talk about Macklemore.”) a distinct lack of enthusiasm. He does credit Macklemore with good intentions, and admits that engaging in dialog (at least among whites) is helpful:

It’s worth noting that Deray McKesson, one of the faces of the Black Lives Matter movement, has argued that this song does exactly what lots of people say they want more of in conversations about race — that is, it would be great if more white folks actively engaged in uncomfortable conversations about race with each other. McKesson’s note was ostensibly an endorsement, but it’s also an acknowledgement that this song is not really meant for people of color. That would seem to underscore Macklemore’s larger existential dilemma regarding his relationship to black audiences: He really seems to want to be talking to us, but he’s not saying anything we don’t already know.

At nine minutes long, the song may not prove to be a hit, but it does stir the pot.

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Who owns music?

Australian rapper Iggy Azalea

Australian rapper Iggy Azalea

One of my rock heroes died this week. Jack Bruce was the bass player for the super-group Cream from the 1960’s. When I was an undergraduate, my floormates and I had endless conversations about who was the essential member of the group. The obvious choice was Eric Clapton with his soaring guitar solos. Others argued for Ginger Baker, a brilliant drummer – amazingly athletic despite looking like he was on his death bed. I – and others – argued for Jack Bruce, whose inventive and pulsating bass lines seemed to me to be the real heart of Cream’s music. Cream’s favorite musical genre was blues-based rock, often covering the songs of black blues artists such as Robert Johnson. By the late 60’s there was no controversy about white Brits playing such music. That was not the case earlier in the decade, however, when British invasion bands like the Rolling Stones were not just playing blues songs but imitating singing styles from black blues singers. What right did privileged white boys have to play music born out of the life struggles of poor black singers? To be fair, Mick Jagger and others recognized and admitted their debts to blues and R & B singers like Muddy Waters and helped in some cases such singers to be appreciated by their young white audiences. But the issue still remained for some critics that young whites had no right to appropriate the cultural capital of the African-American community.

Such controversies re-appear with some frequency. White rap singers like Eminem initially faced similar criticism. Now that hip hop has representatives all over the world and has in effect become indigenous to a wide variety of cultures, such views seem irrelevant. Still there are arguments to be made about cultural appropriation, such as Brittney Cooper did this summer in a piece in Salon about Australian white teenage rapper Iggy Azelea:

I resent Iggy Azalea for her co-optation and appropriation of sonic Southern Blackness, particularly the sonic Blackness of Southern Black women. Everytime she raps the line “tell me how you luv dat,” in her song “Fancy,” I want to scream “I don’t love dat!” I hate it.

For Cooper, Iggy’s use of black vernacular English is an affront to the struggles of the African-American community – and specifically black women – to be accepted by the white mainstream:

She does not understand the difference between code-switching and appropriation. She may get the science of it, but not the artistry. Appropriation is taking something that doesn’t belong to you and wasn’t made for you, that is not endemic to your experience, that is not necessary for your survival and using it to sound cool and make money. Code-switching is a tool for navigating a world hostile to Blackness and all things non-white. It allows one to move at will through all kinds of communities with as minimal damage as possible. But it is also rooted in a love and respect for one’s culture and for the struggle.

Rather than seeing Iggy’s popularity as a sign of the irrelevance of race in today’s society, Cooper sees it as an indicator of the different kinds of treatment of white and black women in US society.

The ability of Blackness to travel to and be performed by non-Black bodies is supposed to be a triumph of post-racial politics, a feat that proves once and for all that race is not biological. Race does not have any biological basis, but I maintain that there is no triumph and no celebration when we embrace a white girl who deliberately attempts to sound like a Black girl, in a culture where Black girls can’t get no love. How can I “love dat,” when this culture ain’t never loved us? Iggy profits from the cultural performativity and forms of survival that Black women have perfected, without having to encounter and deal with the social problem that is the Black female body, with its perceived excesses, unruliness, loudness and lewdness.

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Folk Music Blendings

guWe all know that one of the best ways to connect across cultures is through music. Its power to connect and blend cultures is second perhaps only to food. A recent piece on NPR about the Australian singer Gurrumul has led me to reflect on other musical blendings I have encountered recently. Listening to the music of Gurrumul at first gives you the impression that it could be North American folk music. In fact, it’s clear that his work is within a universal folk tradition. But he rarely sings in English. Mostly he sings in the indigenous language of his people, the Yolngu, of northeast Arnhem Land in northern Australia. It’s not just the language that’s distinctive. He sings about the everyday life of the Yolngu. He has written, for example, wonderful songs extoling the orange footed scrubfoul (a strange bird indigenous to the region – see clip below) or about the rainbow python, who in the Yolugu mythology created the world. One of his rare songs in English is “Gurrumul History (I was born blind)” in which talks about himself and his family and about his experiences as a blind man, including traveling to New York City.

Another amazing blend of styles, cultures, and languages is represented by the music of Abigail Washburn, an American claw hammer banjo player and song writer. As she explains in a TED talk, she originated wanted to study law in China, but decided instead to pursue a career in music. She has spent a considerable amount of time in China and sings in both English and Mandarin. Shortly after the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, Washburn and Dave Liang of the electronic group The Shanghai Restoration Project, went to Sichuan and created Afterquake an album to raise awareness and funds. She recently created a theatrical work entitled Post-American Girl in which she explores her connections to China and to different types of folk music. She also has created a shadow puppet version of her song “Ballad of Treason” with puppeteers from the ancient Muslim quarter of Xi’an:

A final blending is the music of Bostonian Shannon Heaton, who plays Irish style flute, sings, and composes. She also sings in Thai, having studied abroad in Thailand. She does an amazing job combining Irish traditional music and Thai folk styles in a rendition of the Thai song Lao Dueng Duen (By the Light of the Full Moon):

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“Frozen” goes international

frozenThe Disney film “Frozen” has been a big hit, and not only in the U.S. It’s been dubbed into 41 languages and has played to audiences throughout the world. Interestingly, Disney made an unusual decision with the Arabic translation, dubbing it into Modern Standard Arabic. As pointed out in a story on NPR, in the past Disney dubbed movies such as Snow White into Egyptian Arabic, the dialect with the most number of speakers in the region. While native speakers of Arabic understand Modern Standard Arabic, it’s not the language they speak daily. Rather they speak their own dialect such as Moroccan Arabic – which like other versions of the language is very different from Modern Standard Arabic (and from one another). Apparently, Disney has awarded distribution rights to its films to Al Jazeera, which has a policy of using Standard Arabic. According to the NPR story, the reaction to the dubbed version in the Arabic-speaking world has been mixed.

Versions of the song “Let it go” sung in numerous languages have gained interest in the media. Disney has responded to that interest by putting together a clip which splices in 25 different languages being sung:

There has been an interesting discussion on the Language Log about the Chinese version of the song (ràng tā qù 讓它去 in the most literal translation. There are three different Chinese sets of subtitles for the song (and the entire film), in Mainland Mandarin, Taiwan Mandarin and Taiwanese. Victor Mair (University of Pennsylvania) points out in the post that contrary to the popular view, it’s not true that the written language is used to render all the different Sinitic languages (those spoken in China):

If anyone ever tries to tell you that Taiwanese, Cantonese, Shanghainese, and dozens of other Sinitic topolects are “all the same when written down”, you can politely inform them that they simply don’t know the grammar, lexicon, and syntax of these different languages. As has been pointed out again and again on Language Log, especially with regard to Cantonese, normally what gets written down is Mandarin, not Cantonese, Shanghainese, Taiwanese, and so forth. In other words, native speakers of Cantonese, Shanghainese, Taiwanese, etc. must learn a second language, Mandarin, if they are to become literate according to the standards of educational authorities.

To write spoken Cantonese or Taiwanese in Chinese characters is to give an approximation based on coming close to the meaning and the sounds but not giving a precise equivalent. Victor Mair has another interesting post on the mutual intelligibility of Sinitic languages – a short summary: they’re not.

Update 2022

Moving rendition of the song from a Ukrainian girl in a bomb shelter:

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Carefully taught

south_pacific“You’ve got to be carefully taught” is both a song title, from the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific, and an entry in the Race Card Project. Having grown up partly in Hawaii, I have a special feeling for the musical, but had not thought much about the message of tolerance it contains until a story this morning on NPR on the song, suggested by multiple entries for the song title in the Race Card Project, which happens to have the same number of 6 words called for by the project. The song lyrics are surprising for the year in which they were composed:

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

The message is clear: prejudice is not something you are born with, but is culturally conditioned. It’s so sad to see children spouting racist or homophobic slogans, as those early learned views are so hard to lose.

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Code-switching Arabic in song

Yasmine Hamdan

Yasmine Hamdan

Interesting review today on NPR of the latest album from Lebanese singer, Yasmine Hamdan, Ya Nass. She is well-known in the Middle East, going back to her days in Soapkills, the duo she founded with Zeid Hamdan. Hamdan now lives in Paris and is fluent in English, French, and Arabic. However, she sings exclusively in Arabic. This is a decision that is culturally understandable, but which tends to limit her popularity. According to the BBC, Hamdan was offered a lucrative contract by music executives, if she were willing to sing in English, but she refused. She’s forgoing catering to the larger English-speaking public, at least in part, because her songs are culturally and linguistically tied to the Middle East. As she has traveled and lived in a variety of Middle-Eastern countries, Hamden speaks a variety of dialects of Arabic, which, according to Wikipedia, has enabled her “to playfully use various dialects of Arabic in her lyrics, which alternate between Lebanese, Kuwaiti, Palestinian, Egyptian and Bedouin, as well as some of the code-switching which is so typical of Middle-Eastern humour”. Clearly, English or French would have a whole different dynamic in her songs, losing much in the translation.

Code-switching among Arabic speakers is common, but that occurs principally between speakers’ own dialect of Arabic and Standard Arabic. Typically, Standard Arabic is used in formal, religious, and literary contexts, while dialectal versions are used in everyday situations. Code-switching can be used for paralanguage purposes, i.e. to convey irony, disdain, or special emphasis. It also has social functions, such as its use for identity negotiation, social-group membership, or to signal social solidarity (or superiority). Less common than the back and forth between Standard Arabic and dialect, at least in normal everyday situations, is the kind of dialectal code-switching done by Hamdan. However, it is used for effect in the entertainment industry. Such code-switching occurs in the U.S. entertainment as well, for example, by having a character speak with a strong hillbilly-like accent, a clear signal of unsophistication and a source of humor.

Yasmine Hamdan – Ya Nass ياسمين حمدان – يا ناس‬

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Pete Seeger

peteAre there distinguishing characteristics of Americans?  To my mind, one of the qualities that fits many of our “American originals” is idiosyncratic creativity – making your own path to success and keeping to it despite obstacles and opposition.  Pete Seeger is a great example of holding to your convictions and following through.  His mission was to make the world better – end wars, encourage cooperation, promote democracy – through music.  Despite personal attacks on him and his beliefs, including being blacklisted, Pete Seeger kept to his mission. He didn’t have a beautiful voice – he would be the first to mention that fact.  But his voice had the ring of authenticity and originality, reminiscent in that respect of Jonny Cash, Bob Dylan, or Kris Kristofferson.  His songs draw from American history and American circumstances but have resonated well beyond the borders of the U.S. American music has been one of our best, most positive exports, and reminds us of how much music is one of the human achievements that helps draw us all together.

One of the central ways Pete wanted to bring people together was through having them sing together.  Any concert he gave inevitably included sing-alongs.  He was especially eager to have children sing.  Up until his death, he volunteered at a local school to come in and teach and sing with the children.  One of my fondest memories of his music are his wonderful animal songs.  I remember playing “The Foolish Frog” over and over again for my children.  Pete had a serious mission in life but he knew the value and power of humor  – something which is evident in a lot of his songs.

Of the many tributes coming in now upon news of his death yesterday, that by Andrew Cohen in The Atlantic seems to me to have struck the right note: “His critics often called Pete Seeger anti-American. I think the opposite was true. I think he loved America so much that he was particularly offended and disappointed when it strayed, as it so often has, from the noble ideals upon which it was founded. I don’t think that feeling, or the protests it engendered, were anti-American. I think they were wholly, unabashedly American.”

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German rock

Dieters-Dance-Party

Dieter’s dance party on Sprockets

Story today on NPR about German pop singer Herbert Grönemeyer, one of the more popular singers in Germany in recent years.  He has a new album in which he sings some of his best known songs in English.  This has always been a dilemma for German singers, whether to record in English, so as to reach a larger audience.  Even within Germany there have been periods when radio stations would be more likely to grant air play to German singers if they sang in English, as the overwhelming number of songs played were in English, building that expectation for listeners.  Of course this has been in issue in rock music not only in Germany but for all rock singers whose native language is not English.  Interestingly, hip-hop, has gone mostly native in non-English cultures, as can be heard in popular German, French, Turkish, etc. hip-hop groups.

Predictably in the NPR interview, Grönemeyer had to address the perennial question from the US when it comes to popular artists in Germany:  what about David Hasselhoff,.  American journalists may know very little about contemporary German music, but they do know that David Hasselhoff has been very popular in Germany, not just for Bay Watch, but for his singing, hard for Americans to understand.  Scott Simon in the interview also brings up the old stereotype chestnut that in Germany there is “taste for some of the darker material than we do in this country or they do in the U.K.”  You need only consider the popular SNL skit Sprockets, in which Mike Myers played the very dark and eccentric Dieter (“Touch my monkey!”) to see this idea perpetuated.

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Hava Nagila

hava_nagilaInteresting story today on NPR about a new movie documentary on the classic Jewish song Hava Nagila (Hebrew for Let  us rejoice).  Anyone having attended a Jewish wedding or bar mitzvah is likely to have heard the song and seen the ceremonial hoisting in the air of the honored individual(s) in a chair. According to the story, the song originated as a Hassidic nigun, or wordless prayer or melody from Ukraine and text was subsequently added by Jewish musicologist, Abraham Zvi Idelsohn in 1905.  Idelsohn had lingusitic and political movitations, according to film maker, Robert Grossman: “There were people who were, of course, revitalizing Hebrew as a modern spoken language, and then there were people who were using that modern spoken language to create poetry…Edelson had in his mind that if you could create a repertoire of folk song drawing on the roots of Jewish music from all over the world, in this case from Eastern Europe, and added Hebrew lyrics to it, then you could create a folk repertoire for the new nation, and that would help build the nation.”

Strangely, Hava Nagila became widely known in the United States, through its performance by Harry Belafonte, someone culturally far removed from the song’s origins.  In the film, Belafonte recalls singing Hava Nagila in Germany, “It hit me kind of hard that here I was, an African American, an American, standing in Germany, a place [that] just a decade earlier had been responsible for one of the greatest mass murders the world had ever known. And here were these young German kids, singing this song, this Hebrew song of rejoicing. ‘Let us have peace. Let us rejoice.’ And I got very emotional.”

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Competitiveness

Screen Shot 2013-02-03 at 10.26.11 PMI’m in the process of watching the Super Bowl, a quintessentially American institution and a demonstration of American competitiveness. There’s a lot of stake of course, but do the coaches and the players have to look so angry all the time? It started with the coin toss when the team captains frowningly looked away from each other. As the game progresses, lots of scowling players.  The tv commentators commented that the respective coaches encourage their players to be “on edge”.  In fact, lots of pushing and near fights.  But for me the most interesting scowling was the “game face” on Beyonce throughout her half time set. Does even music have to have an “in your face” attitude? This is an image of America that’s being projected to the rest of the world, in an event broadcast to a large number of countries.

Here’s another TV program which may not embody the best of a culture:  the German variety show, “Wetten, dass…” (I’ll bet that…).  An article in today’s NY Times, “Stupid German Tricks, Wearing Thin“, discusses the drop in popularity of the show which has run since 1981 and has been one of the highest profile shows on German TV.  I have to agree with the article that it’s astounding that such a dreadful show would have such a long run, given the grand cultural traditions in German literature and music.  Of course one could say the same for the popular German singers of recent decades such as Peter Alexander or Heino.  Could it be that the silly antics of “Wetten, dass..” (contestants bet with the host and others that they can win ridiculous challenges) are a release valve for the seriousness of German life? German society, like that of the US, is largely individualistic and values and rewards individual achievement. But for Germans, entertainment is making a mockery of that competitiveness.