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muckefuckA couple weeks back, I was passing three workers up on scaffolds doing façade work. One was singing a capella in Spanish. I couldn't quite figure out the words, but from his inflection and body language, I deduced that he was teasing on of his co-workers.
It caused me to reflect on the death of the work song. In time past, people engaged in manual labour often sang to relieve the monotony. With the advent of the portable radio and the wide availability of recorded music, a whole chunk of the tranditional American repertoire was consigned to folklore archives at best and, at worst, oblivion.
But then yesterday, I ran into a colleague as he was watching the curious antics of three women outside the front of the building and he told me a story from his days working for a contractor. His gang was sent into suburban homes "so we couldn't listen to Howard Stern." Instead, they were forced to play easy-listening music. The only way they surived was by making up lyrics--doubtless obnoxious and obscene--to sing over the tunes. "Once a homeowner walked in while we were singing about her. It's a good thing her husband wasn't home!"
It was a possibility I had never considered: Taking existing melodies (much as folk performers have always done) and fitting new lyrics to them in a creative and spontaneous way. How common is this? I wondered. And how long until some local ethnomusicologist who just can't face the steaming jungles of New Guinea or the dusty plains of Mauritania blows the lid on it?
Edit: To clarify, I was wondering how common such practices were as a continuation of the work-song tradition. I think there's a significant difference between this and other performative contexts, especially those where the performer is also the only audience.
It caused me to reflect on the death of the work song. In time past, people engaged in manual labour often sang to relieve the monotony. With the advent of the portable radio and the wide availability of recorded music, a whole chunk of the tranditional American repertoire was consigned to folklore archives at best and, at worst, oblivion.
But then yesterday, I ran into a colleague as he was watching the curious antics of three women outside the front of the building and he told me a story from his days working for a contractor. His gang was sent into suburban homes "so we couldn't listen to Howard Stern." Instead, they were forced to play easy-listening music. The only way they surived was by making up lyrics--doubtless obnoxious and obscene--to sing over the tunes. "Once a homeowner walked in while we were singing about her. It's a good thing her husband wasn't home!"
It was a possibility I had never considered: Taking existing melodies (much as folk performers have always done) and fitting new lyrics to them in a creative and spontaneous way. How common is this? I wondered. And how long until some local ethnomusicologist who just can't face the steaming jungles of New Guinea or the dusty plains of Mauritania blows the lid on it?
Edit: To clarify, I was wondering how common such practices were as a continuation of the work-song tradition. I think there's a significant difference between this and other performative contexts, especially those where the performer is also the only audience.
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I have a "Where is my X" song that I sing to a tune from a children's show. The first line begins with the thing I've lost (often my keys or wallet), and the remaining lines are extemporized to rhyme with the missing item until I find it.
There are several other songs that I do this with, though few of them immediately come to mind. Usually they are pop songs with repetitive rhyme schemes.