"Some Beloved Punk Songs" from Dory to Lilly

Well, it's 11:25 at night and instead of being a normal person that is asleep at this hour, my mind is quite awake at the moment.  So I was watching an episode of "Supernatural" until I realized that it was going to be one of those ones with the heartbreakingly sad endings, so then I stopped.  And I started listening to music.


And it occured to me that I haven't listened to "I Don't Want Solidarity If It Means Holding Hands With You" (by Defiance, OH) for a very long time.  So I tuned it in and promptly started wandering around the internet.  Who knows how long later, I realized my computer wasn't playing music anymore and then realized that I hadn't payed attention to any of the song except that excellent intro.  Not cool, Dory.  So I turned it on again, but you know me and my distractions, and the same thing happened AGAIN.  This wasn't good, because this song rocks.  And then I started thinking about the lyrics and how profound they are, and then I promptly got out my lovely felt-tipped pen and appropriated some paper from my printer and started writing out the lyrics. This is how I think about songs, btw.  I don't know if I've ever told you that, actually.  I process things well by writing them, so when I want to really analyze a song I write down the lyrics and process as I go.

Anyways, as I was writing it occurred to me that this song is remarkably similar to "Baby, I'm an Anarchist" by Against Me!  I don't know why I haven't realized this before.  


But before I go into that, here, for your convenience, are those two songs and their lyrics:

I Don't Want Solidarity if it Means Holding Hands With You

by Defiance, OH

Let's stop this talk of privilege because the songs that we sing

are as much a product of our privilege
As the clothes on my back or the phone call I made to my mom last night.
And let's stop this talk of action because action comes easy;
It's the moments just before that are hard,
When I've got to get my voice and my fist on the same page as my heart,
As my heart.

And let's stop this talk of them because the things we find deplorable in politicians, CEOs and cops
Are the same things that will tear ourselves apart.
And let's stop this talk of words because words like "dishonesty," "selfishness" and "laziness" and "greed"
Aren't as distant to us as we'd like to believe,
To believe.

So please, the next time you're smashing the state, don't go breaking my heart.
But I know that when you pick up the pieces,
The only thing left will be the same empty rubble
That's made up every revolution that I've ever known.
To make me believe and lose faith in humanity
In the same empty breath of hot air.

And they say that the beauty's in the streets
But when I look around, it seems more like defeat.
And I'm afraid that this fight that we're all caught up in
Will leave us the same as that which we oppose.

So please, the next time you're smashing the state, don't go breaking my heart
But I know that we can pick up the pieces and build something new, something different!
That's not like every revolution that I've ever known,
That can make me believe and have faith in humanity
And we'll all breath a breath of fresh air.

Baby, I'm an Anarchist

by Against Me!

Sidenote: the little Anarchy A on this video makes me giggle.

Through the best of times,
Through the worst of times,
Through Nixon and through Bush,
Do you remember '36?
We went our seperate ways.
You fought for Stalin.
I fought for freedom.
You believe in authority.
I believe in myself.
I'm a Molotov cocktail.
You're Dom Perignon.
Baby, what's that confused look in your eyes?
What I'm trying to say is that
I burn down buildings
While you sit on a shelf inside of them.
You call the cops
On the looters and piethrowers.
They call it class war,
I call it co-conspirators.

'Cause baby, I'm an anarchist,
You're a spineless liberal.
We marched together for the eight-hour day
And held hands in the streets of Seattle,
But when it came time to throw bricks
Through that Starbucks window,
You left me all alone, all alone.

You watched in awe 
At the red, white, and blue on the Fourth of July.
While those fireworks were exploding,
I was burning that fucker
And stringing my black flag high!
Eating the peanuts
That the parties have tossed you
In the back seat of your father's new Ford.
You believe in the ballot,
Believe in reform.
You have faith in the elephant and jackass,
And to you, solidarity's a four-letter word.
We're all hypocrites,
But you're a patriot.
You thought I was only joking
When I screamed "Kill Whitey!"
At the top of my lungs
At the cops in their cars
And the men in their suits.
No, I won't take your hand
And marry the State.

'Cause baby, I'm an anarchist,
You're a spineless liberal.
We marched together for the eight-hour day
And held hands in the streets of Seattle,
But when it came time to throw bricks
Through that Starbucks window,
You left me all alone,
All alone.




The thing I love about both of these songs is their whole metaphor.  In "Baby, I'm an Anarchist," the relationship between the two ideologies of anarchists and liberals is presented as a romantic relationship between two people: they get along sometimes, but when it comes down to it their most fundamental ideas are just really different.  "Solidarity" brings up the same sort of metaphor, although I won't venture to say that the two sides of the issue in that song are as clear-cut as they are in "Anarchist."  On the contrary, the song itself says, "let's stop this talk of "them.""


The more I think about it, the more I start to consider "Solidarity" almost as the response to "Baby, I'm an Anarchist."  Perhaps the girlfriend's perspective on the whole thing.


I identify more with the ideas presented in "Solidarity," so consider me profoundly biased when I say that I think that those ideas are more mature, more realistic instead of radical.  In many ways, the ideologies in these two songs are opposites, which is interesting because they use the same sort of metaphor.


For instance, compare these two lines:


Cuz baby, I'm an anarchist, and you're a spineless liberal
We marched together for the 8-hour day
And held hands in the streets of Seattle
But when it came time to throw bricks through that Starbucks window,
You left me all alone, all alone.

vs.

So please, the next time you're smashing the state,
Don't go breaking my heart
But I know that when you pick up the pieces,
The only thing left will be the same empty rubble
That's made up every revolution that I've ever known.
To make me believe and lose faith in humanity
In the same empty breath of hot air.


I mean seriously, they're even using some of the same imagery.


So what do you think about these two songs?  Have you ever thought about them in relation to each other before?


Love, 
Dory

"The Jacobite Rebellion" from Dory to Lilly

That's quite the post title.  Anyways, we were talking about the Jacobite rebellion in my British Lit class because a couple of the novels we're reading came out of that time and have some politics in them.  The Jacobite uprisings are really complicated to understand and explain, but I shall try to understand them so I can sort of explain them.  Here's a timeline for historical context:

1: Queen Elizabeth I died without an heir, so the English throne passed to her closest relative, James I of Scotland (Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots's son), who was Catholic.  This was a problem because Elizabeth was Protestant, the queen before her (Mary, known as "Bloody Mary" for her persecution of Protestants) was Catholic, and their father Henry VIII was the one that formed the Church of England.  Basically, the British didn't know what religion to be anymore after all the persecution.

2: After he died, the throne passed to his son, James II.  He was also Catholic.

3: James II was overthrown by Parliament in what is called the "Glorious Revolution," and they put his Protestant relative Queen Mary on the throne.

Why WOULDN'T you depose this guy? Look at that smirk.

4: Queen Mary's heir was Queen Anne, and Anne died without an heir.  We have now arrived in 1714, and the new king is George I, a Protestant.  Sound familiar?

People didn't much like King George, and this is one of many songs criticizing him.  This is in pretty thick Scottish dialect and a riddle besides, but I'm not going to explain it all right now for our dear readers, because someone else has already done that quite well.

This breed of folk song is known as a Jacobite Song, which means that the people who wrote and sang it (putting themselves in danger of being accused of treason) were part of the Jacobite movement.  They were about sick of George, who did just about everything other than rule England competently (refer to the song).  The movement wanted to put James VII of Scotland ("Jacobus" in Latin, hence the name of the rebellion) and his descendants, the line that was deposed in the Glorious Revolution, back on the throne of England.

Mixed up in all of this turmoil is some new philosophy, questioning whether kings ruled by divine right or should rule by the consent of the people.  The idea of Social Contract Theory came up, where the people do not only have a responsibility to accept the rule of the government, but that the government also has a responsibility to take care of its people.

I always wonder about these political philosophies that come up in history--are they dominant among all the people of the country, or just the philosophers and learned people of the time?  Social Contract Theory also came up in the American Revolution, and I wonder of the common people were really worried about fancy ideas like "consent of the governed," or if they were just pissed of at being taxed by England, which pretty much ignored them except when it took taxes from the colonies.  Maybe the founding fathers just leaned on John Locke's philosophy as a justification for a rebellion that happened for different reasons?

So, sister mine, what do you think?  Did the common people of England and Scotland worry about political philosophies, or were the Scots just being patriotic and wanting a Scottish king on the English throne, and English people just sick of incompetent rulers?  Do you find any hint of consent of the governed, or Social Contract Theory, in "Cam Ye O'er Frae France?"  I'm worried I'm just being cynical here. o_0

Love, Dory

"There's no 'I' in Team" from Lilly to Dory

I'm a big fan of music.  Having made that giant understatement, I'd like to mention I'm also quite a fan of poetry.  They are very similar, in fact, I often feel like music is poetry but with what I like to think of as an extra "dimension;" that is, the meaning that the actual music can portray aside from the words themselves, and their ability to work together to create something that is colorful and tangible.  This is not to downplay poetry, of course, poetry can communicate just as well.  Music simply does it in a different, and often remarkable, way.

This post is concerning one of the most poetic songs I've ever heard, and is a wonderful example of what I mean by this added dimension that music brings to poetry.  It's less of a hypothesis, and more of an observation, really.  And a curiosity with what you think, as well.

So, the song is "There's no 'I' in Team" by Taking Back Sunday.  I know, I know, you're probably asking "do you mean to say there's intellectual discussion to be had concerning this pseudo-emo pop-punk played by fully grown men with the seemingly quite contrary accessory choices such as full beards and plaid flannel shirts?"

Well, yes... there is.  And if you're in the right mood, they will seriously rock your socks off.

Observe:

As you may have noticed, the two singers alternate back and forth with each line.  If you pay attention to the lyrics, the meaning for this becomes quite clear.  It is a conversation between two friends, well, an argument to be more specific.  I'm going to attempt to write out the lyrics here in a way that shows the distinction between the two singers' parts.  I'll put Adam Lazzara in plain text, John Nolan in bold, the parts they sing together in italics, and the part that is spoken over the both of them towards the end by a second recording of John Nolan in ((double parentheses)):

I can't regret it.  Can't you just forget it?
I started something I couldn't finish.
If we go down we go down together,
Best friends means...
Best friends means....
Well I've got a $20 bill that says you're up late nights starting fist fights Vs. fences in your back yard.
Wearing your black eye like a badge of honor,
Soaking up sympathy from friends who never loved you
Nearly half as much as me.

Broken down in bars and bathrooms,
All I did was what I had to.
Don't believe me when I tell you it's just what anyone would do.

Take the time to talk about it,
Think a lot and live without it,
Don't believe me when I tell you it's something unforgivable.

Well I can't regret it, can't you just forget it?
I started something I couldn't finish.
If we go down we go down together, best friends means...
Best friends means?
You never knew (well I never told you),
Everything I know about breaking hearts I learned from you, it's true.
I've never done it with the style and grace you have,
But I've made long-term plans based on these mistakes.

Broken down in bars and bathrooms,
All I did was what I had to.
Don't believe me when I tell you it's just what anyone would do!

Take the time to talk about it,
Think and learn to live without it.
Don't believe me when I tell you...
It's something unforgivable.

Is this what you call tact?
You're about as subtle as a brick in the small of my back.
((Have another drink and drive yourself home))
So let's end this call, and end this conversation.
There's nothing worse! I swear you have no idea
((I hope there's ice on all the roads))
That's right, he said...
((And you can think of me when you forget your seat belt))
That's right, he said it.
Of the jealousy that got me thinking
((And again when your head goes through the windshield))
That's right, he said,
That you always had it way too easy!


Broken down in bars and bathrooms,
All I did was what I had to.
Don't believe me when I tell you it's just what anyone would do.

Take the time to talk about it,
Think a lot and live without it,
Don't believe me when I tell you it's something unforgivable.
 

Best friends means I pull the trigger,
Best friends means you get what you deserve.

Best friends means I pull the trigger, best friends means you get what you deserve!

So, there's some dissecting to do here. The situation described is one almost everyone can relate to; the difficult decision that is doing something for a friend that you feel is in that friend's better interest, knowing that it may appear to your friend as a betrayal of their trust.  Whichever end of that you're on, it can stir up all sorts of angry hurt feelings, and in this case, a couple of black eyes and each wondering what the meaning of friendship really is.  This song, through the emotion in the singers' voices and the dark, turbulent atmosphere of the music, captures those feelings which would be difficult to portray in a visual sense alone; it's important to hear the back-and-forth exchange between the two voices, and the way they bend the phrases upon repetition to mean something entirely different from what they meant the first time it was said.  It becomes clear that though the two friends interrupt each other with almost every line, they are both metaphorically and literally, trying to say the same thing.  And, as only good friends can, they are finishing each others sentences.

Love,
Lilly

PS - A note on intertextuality: This song was written in response to a song by the band Brand New called "Seventy times Seven."  The two lead singers are childhood friends, and the songs interrelate as each friend's take on a real fight they had.  In response to "There's no 'I' in Team," Brand New wrote ANOTHER song, "Mix Tape." These songs will boggle your mind with the way they share lines and twist and interpret them in different ways!  If you're wondering, the pair did eventually make up.  I actually saw them perform this song together when I saw TBS and Brand New back in 2005!

"Fabuleux" from Dory to Lilly

One of mine and Lilly's favorite films is a French one called Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, or just Amélie for short.  The long title translates as "The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain."  It is fantastic, and if you haven't seen it you need to.

One thing that always bothered me about the title of this movie, though, is that the adjective fabuleux "fabulous" is in the wrong place to be grammatically correct.  See, in French the adjective usually goes after the noun (the noun here being destin), except in very specific circumstances.  Mainly, there are about 10 adjectives that go before the noun, and then about 6 more that change meaning depending on whether you put them before or after the noun (confusing, right?  Tell that to the French.).  And darnit, fabuleux isn't in either of these categories.

So what's up, Jean-Paul Jeunet?  This is the question I have been plagued with for a couple years.  This isn't just a stupid grammatical thing like a missing apostrophe or something; this is like the equivalent of a fluent English speaker messing up the order of their words and then thinking normal it is.

AND THEN I LEARNED SOMETHING TODAY.

In my French class, someone accidentally said "la triste vie" (literal: the sad life) instead of "la vie triste" (The life sad), like is correct in French.  And my professor corrected him, and then made this offhand comment that actually, this weird phenomenon that happens in French poetry and eloquent speech is that putting the adjective on the opposite side of the noun that it's supposed to go adds emphasis.  So "la triste vie," should technically be "la vie triste," but if someone switches it on purpose, it means that life is extra sad.

So, what this all adds up to is that in Le Fabeleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain the writer wasn't being dumb, he was being poetic.  And as you know if you've seen this movie, Amélie's destiny is indeed extra fabulous.

"International Phonetic Alphabet" from Dory to Lilly

Linguists like to compare languages, and one of the biggest barriers to this is that there are a lot of different writing systems out there, and some languages don't have writing systems at all.  So they came up with their own writing system, which can be applied to any spoken language.  It's called the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and it has hundreds of symbols to represent all the individual sounds represented in human languages.  IPA can describe EXACTLY how something is pronounced.  With this, English's 26 letters become 40-odd symbols, describing exactly how we make the sounds represented by our letters in different situations.


Here's a chart:. These are all the symbols IPA uses to describe English sounds.  I was going to explain all that jargon on the left side and top of the chart, but then I realized that it's kind of complicated, and although useful and interesting for people studying Linguistics, it's kind of irrelevant if you're just wanting to learn how to read and write with this alphabet. So, if anyone wishes me to, I can explain more about it, but I'm not going to right now.

Click to make bigger

IPA is based on the Latin writing system, so a lot of those characters are familiar and make the sounds you'd expect them to.  Some of them are familiar and don't make the sounds you'd expect them too, though, so be careful.  Some of the characters are Greek, or upside-down, or made-up, and those are the ones you'll have to memorize. Here's an explanation of the sounds they make.  It may be best for you to go somewhere private when looking through this list so you can try out some of the sounds without feeling silly.  Seriously, it helps.

b: bad, lab

d: did, lady

f: find, if

g: give, flag

h: how, hello

j: yes, yellow

• notice that the j in IPA represents the sound we would usually write as y.  IPA doesn't use the y symbol, at least not for English.

k: cat, back

• k represents both the English c and k, as well as the ck combination. They are all the same sound, after all.

l: leg, little

ɫ : little, hustle

• "dark l." usually, an l is made with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (the ridge behind your teeth), but sometimes, often at the end of words, it shows up as a dark l, which is made with the back of the tongue against the velum (soft part of the top of your mouth, way at the back.)

m: man, lemon

n: no, ten

ŋ: sing, finger

• "ang." Usually the n sound is an alveolar nasal, which means the tongue presses up against the alveolar ridge and the air from your lungs goes through your nose. When we use ŋ instead, the back of our tongue presses up against the velum instead. 
• Also, a handy remembering tool is that linguists often coin names for thing that use the concept they illustrate. The name "ang" is pronounced with an ŋ.

p: pet, map

ɹ: red, try

• Our regular r is an upside-down r in IPA, technically. When they're only talking about English sounds, linguists often just use a regular r to make things more simple.  But, we talk about Spanish a lot in this blog, and to the IPA world in general, the symbol r represents the trilled r used in Spanish, and ɹ represents how we do it in English.

s: sun, miss

ʃ: she, crash

• The "sh" sound is represented with the symbol "esh" in IPA.  Once again, the name uses the sound it talks about.

t: tea, top

ɾ: better, little

• alveolar tap.  We think of it as a t, or a double t, in English, but it's actually a separate sound.  Usually t's are an alveolar stop, meaning the tongue presses up against the alveolar ridge and stops the airflow completely, and then releases it.  With an alveolar tap, it doesn't completely stop the airflow; it just "taps" the alveolar ridge.

ʔ: mitten, cat

• The glottal stop!  It's when you stop the air completely in the back of your throat and then release it.  Say "glottal:" that's an alveolar tap.  Now say "glottal" with a Cockney accent: look, a glottal stop!

tʃ: check, church

• Even though it's two characters together, think of it as one symbol.  There are a couple instances like this in IPA, and you just have to learn and watch out for them.

θ: think, both

• "Theta."  This is one of the two symbols that represent the "th" in English.  You may have noticed before that English has two "th" sounds: both are interdental fricatives, with the tongue between the teeth and vibrating, but one uses the vocal chords and one doesn't.  θ doesn't.

ð: this, mother

• "eth" is the voiced interdental fricative.  Here is another case where the name employs the sound it describes, as it does with theta.

v: voice, five

w: wet, window

ʍ: whom, which

• A lot of people don't have this sound in their normal speech.  It's that odd "h" that people add after the "w".  A lot of older people do it.  It depends on your dialect of English.

z: zoo, lazy

ʒ: pleasure, vision

• This is a sound that English doesn't like much.  It mostly shows up in words borrowed from other languages, especially French, which loves this sound.  It's the "g" in "mirage," and the "s" in "vision."  You might use it in "garage."

dʒ: just, large

• Since IPA used "j" for our "y" sound, it needed another symbol for "j." Here it is. Once again, think of it as one symbol even though it's two characters.

In the chart, some of the characters are in parenthesis.  That means that they're allophones: English speakers don't think of them as different sounds, and some speakers don't use them at all.

You may have noticed that those are all consonants. Next I'll give you vowels, which are kind of tricky.  Also, harder to describe, because they vary a lot with accents and dialects.  When you look at these, think of them as Standard American English would pronounce them.  I'll give you a link to a site that has sound bytes later in this post.

æ      cat, black          

e       bait, eight       

ə:      away, cinema 

ʌ:      was, hustle

• ə and ʌ are practically the same sound-- ə is used when the sound comes in an unstressed syllable; ʌ is when it's stressed.

ɜ:      bet, end          

ɪ: hit, sitting         

i: see, heat           

ɑ:      hot, rock

ɔ:      bought, coffee

• a lot of people don't have this sound in their dialect of American English.  This is characteristic of the east coast, and usually doesn't show up in the west (they use ɑ instead)  My relatives in Rhode Island use this vowel; I don't.  If I were to spell it how it sounds, "coffee" would be something like "cwoffee."  Or, in IPA, [kɔfi].

ʊ      good, put

u:      blue, food 

aɪ      five, eye

• This and the next two are called "diphthongs," and they happen when we let the sounds around it influence the sound of our vowel.  It is very common for a vowel to become a diphthong, because the way they're formed in our mouth is so imprecise.

aʊ     now, out           

ɔɪ      boy, join

Example sound bites


Here are some entire words transcribed.  If anyone wants to practice some, say so in the comments and I'll give you some words to try out and correct/help you figure it out.  It takes some practice. :)


hustle: /hʌsl/

[hʌsɫ]

• Here's an important thing when transcribing: your transcription will either be in /slashes/ or [brackets].  Usually in brackets. The difference is, /slashes/ mean what your transcribing is the underlying form, what people think they're saying.  In English, people don't think of the dark l [ɫ] as a separate sound; they think of it as an /l/.  Brackets mean that your transcription is what people actually say.

recommend: [ɹɛkəmɛnd]


three: [θɹi]


transcribe: [tɹænskɹɑɪb]


strange: [stɹendʒ]


So, that's IPA!  Comment if you have any questions, or want to practice. 


Here's a handy-dandy website where you can type in IPA, and then copy-paste it over here.