Singing to time travelers

[mrissa]

So I kind of take for granted that everybody has little weird games their brains will go on auto-pilot and play if they’re standing in line at the post office without a book or whatever. I’ve talked about these before but not, I think, about this one. And then this morning one of my lj friends linked to this article about the most specific words in popular songs, decade by decade.

Frankly, I don’t think the article is very well done because it isn’t selecting for interesting words, so–for example, “you” is one of the words of the 1990s. But if you look at the line, songs from the 1990s have “you” in the title only marginally more than songs from the 1900s. Things like “Disco” and “Mamba” are interesting but not really surprising, so–I feel like a better methodology could have been found, basically.

But the weird little thing I do sometimes while waiting in line is called “singing to time travelers.” The premise is: how far back can any given song be taken and still be comprehensible to its audience without explanation? Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion’s “Cuz we’re Cousins” would seem by its sentiments to be pretty human-universal: young cousins sharing things and becoming friends. But one of the verses contains in a single couplet both XBox and DVDs, meaning that if you tried to time travel with it to even a decade before its 2009 release date, you’d have some explaining to do–even more so if you traveled earlier than the 1980s, where the more general concepts of a game console and a home method of playing recorded movies on a TV screen would be less familiar. On the other hand, John Denver’s “Annie’s Song” is on my list of darn near universal songs: as long as you’re in a settlement that understands that its landform is not the only landform, you’re good to go. (Different cultures might assume different things about the singers than the culture in which Denver wrote it, but that’s part of the fun.)

It’s kind of fun to notice which songs require which things. You think you’ve got a solid ballad concept for the ages, and then you notice that it leans on astronomical concepts like the moon having a generally-dark side. Or you get to thinking about what isn’t actually universal but feels that way from here: the existence of streets is a big one. Windows and mirrors–and the idea that everyone has windows, everyone has mirrors, not just rich people. Folk music seems like it should be a rich vein of songs for singing to time travelers, but in fact folk music often talks about very specific transportation technologies, specific ways of making a living with their own terminology and technology, etc. Also this can turn into a game of “which thing predated which other thing,” which is good nerdy fun. I’m particularly glad I shared this game with Mark and Tim so that we can be driving down the road and blurt out, “domestication of herd animals!” or “Christian era!” in the middle of a perfectly nice song that isn’t really about that. So I thought I’d share with the rest of you too.

Also I want you to be prepared. I would hate for you to be catapulted back to 825 with magical translation powers and yet nothing to sing.

Originally published at Novel Gazing Redux

Comments

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Re Annie's Song: when did people first start mixing up "lay" and "lie"?

[redbird]

The other question that immediately comes to mind is, the year 825 where? Any song about a horse would be incomprehensible anywhere in North America more than a few centuries back.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, while I generally go for "Anglophonie," Modern English only goes back so far, and then you're having to deal with magically enabled translations of some sort. But yes, fields of wheat, riding on your horse, etc. is much earlier for Old World than for New; corn depends on which meaning of corn you're using (generic grain or maize).

[rosefox]

I'm reminded of Glory Road, wherein the protagonist travels to a foreign land (or parallel dimension) and is revered as a great epic poet after his dramatic recitation of "Casey at the Bat". This is all much easier if you don't have translation powers and can get by on intonation and body language.

That said, the first song that comes to mind that I think would work pretty universally is Oingo Boingo's "Insects". I suppose "They know they'll rule the world someday" is based on notions of mass extinction that weren't so much in vogue in 825, but the sentiment is quite comprehensible.

Sappy bullshit like "When You Wish Upon a Star" would also probably pass muster.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sappy bullshit is a good choice for this. "Nature Boy" only really requires the rise of monarchies, for example.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Mixing grammatical prescriptionism with the idea of a Hesiodic golden age is pretty dangerous.

[rosefox]

"Stardust" has some of the most insipid lyrics I've ever sung, but the only civilization requirement (assuming that "a nightingale is a bird and a rose is a flower" is sufficient explanation) is a garden with a wall. If you include the verse as well as a chorus, you also need a lane that a person could wander down.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"Smoke Gets In Your Eyes": basically only fire.

The bigger challenge is to find songs you actually like that work for this. The Weepies' "Please Speak Well of Me," for example.

[rosefox]

I actually do like "Insects"! I'll have to make more of an effort to memorize it, in case of time travel.

Lately I've been humming "All of Me", which only requires that humans be human-shaped, and "Dream a Little Dream of Me", which makes one reference to sycamore trees and is otherwise location-unspecific.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And it says "sycamore tree," and I think that's pretty much okay, because if you heard somebody singing a song that began, "I was born in [location you don't know]," or, "When the [flower you don't know] is in blossom," you would still be able to parse that just fine. I mean, it's interesting to note when, for example, sycamores would be familiar in which parts of the world, but the fact that for some people "sycamore tree" would map to "blahdeblah tree" does not obscure meaning.

One of the interesting cases is when "call" is implied to mean "telephone" in the modern understanding of the era in which the song was written but would still make sense as calling out to someone with just your voice. This doesn't always work, so when I'm playing this game, I watch for where it does and doesn't.

A friend has "Sloop John B" lyrics as their gchat status message, and I think that one is fine back to the 17th century, maybe 16th, what with corn, grits, and sloops. But it led me to discover that grits and groats were the same word/concept originally, which I did not know, and which is kind of cool and totally makes sense if you squint at it for a minute. (But you can't go by that, because some things that totally make sense like that are, uh, not actually true.)

[rosefox]

I was pondering songs that draw on myth and legends, like S.J. Tucker's "Shipful of Monsters", but of course that gets location-specific within a thousand years or so. "Neptune" would work going back quite a while, though, since it requires only Greek myth (which spread pretty far pretty quickly) and a castle with a keep.

[pameladean]

This is unexpectedly good at getting rid of earworms. "Oh hello, song, I do like you, but NOT NOW. Hmm, alarm clock, television, the idea of a set of chords, at least part of an audience for whom it is at least provisionally all right if the narrator is an atheist," and the earworm is gone.

P.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

A lot of hymns need relatively little explanation. They tend not to be classified as "popular songs," despite being known and liked by lots of people. (More so before personal music gadgets, and even more before radio/jukebox.) The most popular are explicitly Christian, so that's Christian era. But quite a few are just monolatrous, and that's comprehensible WAY back.

I'm not sure a reference to the "dark side of the moon" relies on any concrete astronomical concept. A person might think of going to the moon by magic (or when pigs fly) and discovering fantastic things behind it.

[arkessian.livejournal.com]

Pretty well rules out all the Queen anthems of my youth...

Slinking off to sulk now.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Glad to help!

The other earworm tricks I know are 1) sing the song in the style of Bob Dylan; 1b) if it is a Bob Dylan song, sing it in the style of William Shatner; 2) sing the theme song from Disney's Robin Hood.

I suspect that #2 only works for me and my mom, but it works beautifully for us.

Of course, then we have the theme song to Disney's Robin Hood in our heads, but I'm told one can't have everything due to storage concerns.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, actually we had more fun thinking of what hymns wouldn't pass for the entirety of the Christian era (I'm looking at you, "Earth and All Stars"!).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Actually, "We Will Rock You" only requires streets and canned goods. And if you use the mistaken lyric "kicking your kind" all over the place, you're pretty much good back a loooooong ways, providing, of course, that "rock" can be understood in ways like "the earthquake rocked the city." I expect Roman soldiers would love "We Will Rock You." Visigoths, too.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

See, that's a good one! You could use that a lot of times!

I'm not entirely clear on when the Norse-mythological days of the week cemented themselves as a concept, but that's the sticking point for a lot of songs. I expect it was after some form of shoes, so it's the sticking point for "Friday I'm In Love."

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

There's a bit in Pratchett's _Nation_ where an anglophone (the only one present) sings "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," because it's the only song she can remember when she needs to soothe a newborn. There are great translation difficulties, and the adults who overheard her eventually conclude the song has great significance for the child's destiny. (She objects to the idea of naming the child "Twinkle.")

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed that bit but could not relate. I'm rarely stuck for what to sing to a baby, but the few times I have, what's come out of my mouth was "One Tin Soldier." /raised by wild Boomers

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Then, of course, there are the songs that have such a narrow range of comprehensibility that they're not suitable for now. The Beach Boys' "Surfin' Safari," for example: the only reason I know that a Woody was a faux wood-paneled station wagon is because of that song. If you asked a young person now what a Woody was, they would, depending on age, either reply, "The cowboy from Toy Story," or, "Aunt MaRISsa! Gnr gnr gnr."

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I have been there. I have "Shake It Off" memorized so I don't have to get the computer out (tinyfriends love that one) and I have taught the more verbal tinyfriend "Doo-a-Ditty" after a phone call to my parents because last verse, what is it, how does it go.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

I continue to be pleased by the image of the Jazz age cover of "Gangster's Paradise" being sung to largely comprehending inhabitants of the 1920s.

I am also glad that this game has prompted so much discussion.

I was thinking that "Symphony of Destruction" was more dependent on knowing the Pied Piper story than anything else, but it uses "robot" as well. The version of "Shout" I'm listening to seems fairly time-traveler proof, though you'd run into problems with someone from before the advent of theories about the soul/hell, or people who hadn't encountered the metaphor of a broken heart or having a guard (vs melee/unarmed attacks).

[redbird]

I suspect I'm now going to spend some time trying to think of Pete Seeger songs other than "Turn, Turn, Turn" that would work well back in history.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

He's actually quite often very temporally specific.