Judging a Song by its Cover

Because I am extremely cool, I read some message board post saying that George Gershwin does not write opera. Though his Porgy and Bess is a masterful blend of genres (see my post on "Summertime"), this poster felt music aficionados were ridiculous to compare it to the works of Wagner, for instance. It's a matter of taste.

Which got me thinking about how we construct taste. Before I go on, I'll confess it: I can be a snob. Though no expert on many aspects of film (foreign, indie), I will roll my eyes if you say your favorite movie is Austin Powers. I remember being coaxed into going to White Castle with Harold and Kumar back in high school. Surprise, I laughed a lot--but because I was able to construct a reason: the film cleverly subverted road-trip conventions and was self-aware of its idiocy. Others liked the pot humor. At college orientation, though, Harold and Kumar's wacky adventures were useful for bonding with other newbies who'd sated their White Castle hunger. So I allowed myself to enjoy it inwardly because it was a smart stoner movie, but around the guys, it was just totally awesome, man.

Many of us are self-aware of how others perceive our tastes. A colleague at work proudly displays posters of teen vampire books she loves, but if I mention one, she admonishes me: "Don't judge." Often diehard fans of "genre writing" equate their indulgence with guilty pleasure. But what's to say you can't elevate vampires and wizards into artful writing?

Speaking of bad taste... PhotoShop much?

At work yesterday, water-cooler discussion shifted from the Lost series finale to Glee. I found myself defending the fact that I watch Glee to a host of Lost fans. Aren't these shows cut from the same cloth? Neither is high art. Hard to say what alternative universes Glee will take up in the future; for some, glee club always is a form of purgatory. But this spring, I sense an effort by the writers to deepen the characters, while also churning out increasingly ridiculous musical spots. There have been stumbles. Shortly after an all-Madonna episode, we have to deal with a Lady Gaga tunestack. Then Neil Patrick Harris came in as yet another threat to the club, only to learn things about himself and fall back into his showbiz ways, never to be seen again. It's a sign of guest star fever. Why couldn't we have spent that time getting to know Idina Menzel's character (who had a big secret to share)? That she dreamed a dream feels less emotional than it should when she's been absent for a month.

But there are moments where Glee moves out of its inspirational box and appeals to more than the karaoke fanatic inside us. Future star Rachel, the self-absorbed spotlight-hugger of the glee club, recently lost her voice and, beyond the humor of her silence ("I'm like Tinkerbell. I need applause to live."), there was nuance to her loss. What if her fading voice were permanent? Fashionable boy soprano Kurt has dominated recent episodes; his struggles fitting in with his father formed the first genuine moments of Glee last fall.

Many of these high schoolers are going to graduate and stay close to home, never fulfilling their dreams of performing. That was the undercurrent of NPH's guest turn. Glee can be superficial--all that AutoTune!--but every now and then, there's something boiling underneath. Granted, as a theater nerd/musician/ex-college performer, this show is targeted toward my tastes. But it's not the cheesy episode themes (Bad Reputations, Dreams, Gaga). The best song choices this season have come from a real place, not just Jukebox 301. My favorite episode so far was "Home": three different plot lines and a hokey premise for exploring where we belong (the auditorium was closed to glee rehearsal). But each song was a guise characters could hide behind, grappling with displacement. Knowing his affection is not reciprocated, Kurt sang the melancholy "A House is Not a Home," later reprised by Will and April as they both yearn for unlikely companionship. And April's all-white production of The Wiz? Maybe in bad taste, but I'd sure rather sit through it than Wagner.

The Great American Songbook: "Summertime"

Written by: George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward

First performed by: Abbie Mitchell, 1935

How many popular songs can you name that were composed for an opera? Sure, some would balk at just classifying Porgy and Bess as an opera when it's a vibrant hybrid of jazz, musical theater, and classical traditions. Maybe that's why so many of the numbers (or should I call them arias?) had such crossover appeal; George Gershwin wrote music across genres. And did he ever know how to place a song. Imagine the premiere in downtown Boston, September 1935: the curtain rises on Clara, who rocks with her baby and sings a lullaby.

          Summertime
          And the livin' is easy.
          Fish are jumpin'
          And the cotton is high.


          Oh, your daddy's rich
          And your momma's good-lookin'.
          So hush, little baby,
          Don't you cry.

George Gershwin's vocal line wavers on "summertime," the voice bending in the heat and finally drooping, resting on "easy." Right after the soprano relaxes into the "easy" life, Heyward's lyrics convey both restlessness (jumping fish) and the character's race, the pre-Civil War importance of cotton still weighing on Southerners' minds. Before the foreshadowing grows too heavy, the lyrics turn from the tragic to the whimsical. Clara envisions a rich daddy, not like anyone currently in Catfish Row (though it used to be where the moneyed aristocrats lived), and fashions herself "good-lookin.'" In its plaintiveness, the melody remains inventive, falling and swaying like a much-needed summer breeze.

The second verse confirms that "Summertime" is a diegetic lullaby, meaning that Clara knows she is singing a song ("One of these mornings / You're gonna rise up singing"). Little did she realize the breadth of artists who would cover it over the next century. Here are two recordings, Leotyne Pryce in the operatic vein, the second re-interpreted for jazz artists Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.

Price takes liberties with the notes; riffing didn't begin with Kelly Clarkson, folks. She was one of the prime interpreters of Porgy and Bess in her day. Her "Summertime" is less languid, more of an undaunted spiritual. And in another blast from the past, Louis and Ella ease into Gershwin almost too well. He's full of mischief, she's warm and nurturing. Can they record every standard ever written? (Wait--pretty sure they have.)

If you search around, you might hear "Summertime" sung by everyone from Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin to The Doors and even Scarlett Johansson. Gershwin gives room for all sorts of voices sliding across notes, lingering on syllables. Maybe it's all the gerunds, but there's a presentness to the song, and a comfort as the ending of verse one (crying) resolves with verse two (parents standing by). I imagine "Summertime" in the show like a song passed down across generations. It's always been part of our heritage.

And Isn't It Ironic... Don't You Think?

The late 1980s introduced the buzzword "New Sincerity" in three spheres: post-postmodern literature, genre film, and punk rock music. Post-postmodern, because what can we call the writers who react to postmodern literature? New Sincere writers don't dismiss irony. Maintaining some ironic distance (and irony is primarily a distancing tool) does not denigrate the inherent truthfulness of their story, these writers feel. They are not cynics. 

As far back as 1953, Vladimir Pomerantsev attacked both style and poor construction (farfetched plots and characters, for example) as insincere. His goal was to study everyday life "so that we might lift the reader even higher above everyday life." New Sincerity takes a similar stance. Down with absurdity and postmodern excess! A chair is just a chair. 

Film critics now might call sincerity "new," but the movement really started with the 1980s. Not a watershed time for filmmaking, in my opinion, but a deeply earnest one. Many straight dramas wallowed in tears, endearment, and tender mercies. The top-grossing films of the decade made up an explosion of genre work: E.T., two Star Wars and three Indiana Jones films. An innocence started to emerge in these escape fantasies; we reverted to coming-of-age comedies and Kevin Costner films, with less of the 1970s paranoia. Auteurs of the New Sincerity took over: Pedro Almodovar, Charlie Kaufman, Wes Anderson, all steeped in irony but searching for the sentimental behind it.

A wave of alternative rockers, including The Reivers, was credited with jump-starting the New Sincerity movement against ironic punk bands around 1985. But five years later, the gig was up. Apparently people didn't buy sincerity on CD. One of the band members of Doctor's Mob remembers thinking audiences "were in on the joke." The concept of New Sincerity isn't about taking yourself too seriously as an artist; if anything, some thought these bands were parodies. They kept their ironic distance, able to step back and laugh at themselves. 

Whether or not these artists wanted to be newly sincere, they all stood up for and against excess. Layering on style was useful to a point, but it had to be in service to the substance beneath. So you're ever trying to decide if your writing is sincere or ironic, realize that it's a New age: it just might be both.