On the beat
17 December 2004 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
larryhammerAn object lesson in how rhythm can enhance meaning, using Patty Larkin's "Me and That Train" from Strangers World. Specifically, how stressed syllables in a row can emphasize what the words are saying as well as slow down the text.
Here's the chorus with beats marked. If you don't know the song, try speaking it rhythmically, following the beats.
This trick works in poetry and prose, as well as lyrics. And, yes, song lyrics aren't poetry: the forms share many features, but have different rhythms. Specifically, most songs are written in isochronic accentual meter — a fixed number of beats per line, a fixed time apart, with a variable number of unstressed syllables between (up to what can be physically sung). (Yes, okay, the point of rap is syncopating against that fixed time, but it's still there.) The main difference for this discussion is that the beats have to come within the words in poetry and prose, without that music.
This craftneep was brought to you by the letters S and B, and by the number 3.
Revision notes: Subplotomy finally complete; which was hard — I'd woven the story threads tightly together, so much stitchery and rebalancing of the middle muddle. Revisions 3/4 complete, and I know how to fix the end. And I think I've found the new title.
---L.
Here's the chorus with beats marked. If you don't know the song, try speaking it rhythmically, following the beats.
And the trucks were sliding sideways like sons of bitchesAt the end of the first line, "sons of bitches" are almost bitten off not just by having the beats but because the short syllables are drawn out by waiting for the next beat. The sound echoes the words' emphasis. And then in "crawled on by," again three beats in a row. In this case, the long syllable of crawled doesn't so much emphasize it as slow it down, again echoing the sense of slow movement.
Putting on the tire chains, rolling in the ditches
And I crawled on by like God was throwing switches
Me and that train
This trick works in poetry and prose, as well as lyrics. And, yes, song lyrics aren't poetry: the forms share many features, but have different rhythms. Specifically, most songs are written in isochronic accentual meter — a fixed number of beats per line, a fixed time apart, with a variable number of unstressed syllables between (up to what can be physically sung). (Yes, okay, the point of rap is syncopating against that fixed time, but it's still there.) The main difference for this discussion is that the beats have to come within the words in poetry and prose, without that music.
This craftneep was brought to you by the letters S and B, and by the number 3.
Revision notes: Subplotomy finally complete; which was hard — I'd woven the story threads tightly together, so much stitchery and rebalancing of the middle muddle. Revisions 3/4 complete, and I know how to fix the end. And I think I've found the new title.
---L.