On May 29th, 1997 singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley drowned in the Wolf River Harbour, a tributary channel of the Mississippi River just outside of Memphis, Tennessee. His death was unrelated to drugs or alcohol, and the swimming hole was one that he visited frequently as a local. Simply put, his death came as a shock to friends, family and fans. It was determined to be an accident, without clear explanation (Rolling Stone, 1997).
On April 20th, 1998, Massive Attack released their third studio album, Mezzanine (Naja & Marshall, 1998). The third track on this album was titled “Teardrop” and the featured vocalist was Elizabeth Fraser, former singer of the Cocteau Twins and, more importantly in regards to this paper, the close friend and former lover of Jeff Buckley. The recording of the song took place on May 29, 1997 and it was while in the studio she was given the news that Jeff had died. According to Fraser, she developed the lyrics after hearing the news and reminiscing over old photographs (Simpson, 2009).
The opening theme song of the television show, as well as the backgrounding of each episode, is Teardrop. This is used in it’s original form without lyrics during the title sequence as well as versioned acoustically by José González for other instances.
The song itself is based around a kick drum and cross-stick pattern sampled from a Les McCann song, “Sometimes I Cry”. The kick sample has been slightly altered, tightened to a 2/4 loop, so that the result is intentionally similar to the pulse of a heartbeat. This mesmerising pulse is heightened by the pace which hovers around 75 beats per minute (adagio); a bpm which is often reserved for dub and melancholy types of music, even dirges. The key is A major and the opening and bridge melody are a repeating two-bar, 7 beat 8th note phrase played by a harpsichord which drops the first 8th note to make room for the attack of the bass pattern (“ducking” notes being a common practice in electronic music). The bass-line is a whole-note pattern based on a repeating A-G-D phrase; this simple pattern alters little throughout the song save for a few skip-grace notes. Besides a few rhythmic sound effects (most notably the beeping of an EKG machine) and a couple of subtle organ stabs, these three elements make up the primary instrumental spectrum; it is a minimalist composition.
The words are a love song, a lamentation of loss and suffering, and finally confusion. The opening verse sets the theme of what follows as Fraser dances between love as action and love as a word. A theme of unexpressed acting-love, coupled with the ease of words, as the lover dies (“black flower blossoms”); yet she confesses with tears that she still loves what she has lost. The finality being confusion and “stumbling in the dark”. The key theme seems to be the human failing to act in love even when the heart feels it. That love still speaks through tears, sincerely, yet only when it is too late (“teardrop on the fire”).
At first glance the use of the song in the context of the House series may have been simply intended as an aesthetic paring of the human element of the heart-beat and medical science, and in this way it harmonises with a basic element of the television series: the inescapable reality of the human body in all its glory and decay. The opening title sequence does not include the lyrics of the song, which would further suggest the decision was purely aesthetic. In this way the song “works” in a new context, wholly removed from Fraser’s and Naja’s original intention. But on closer inspection, the use of the song presents a multi-faceted commentary on the protagonist’s character. This quietly implied commentary comes to full flower in the final episode of the fourth season when the song is played in full —with the lyrics— during a critical moment of loss and the subsequent fall of the protagonist into madness.
As previously mentioned, the protagonist’s general misanthropic demeanour colours his relationships and shadows his demonstrative care of others through his work. His often brilliantly sardonic commentary implies an indifference that is openly contradicted by his actions. Of course this is an abstraction of word-as-act from actions themselves, but for the protagonist, gentle and smooth words mean little to nothing when death is the reality; comfort for House would be a lie in the face of what he considers the absoluteness of the Void. Yet, his efforts at saving those he can betrays a “love”, demonstrably. This demonstration of love is what Fraser had longed to do, yet, having not acted, failed because death came by surprise; in this way House is a type of foil of the failure Fraser presents in the song. Fraser sings of love and regret, and it is this failure and the emptiness of words that House is seeking to avoid, or at least to cotton over with narcotics.
During the fourth season of the show, House experiences the loss of his friend and co-worker Amber, brought about by circumstances of his own making, albeit inadvertently. Her death is an accident, yet inextricably tied to the selfish actions of House. It is during the revelation of what he has brought about that the full version, with lyrics, of Teardrop is played for the first time.
Translating a song from one context to another is artistically tricky. Listeners attune to the meaning or original intent of the composers may be put off by the jarring effect of new aesthetic surroundings; surroundings which inevitably imply meaning. Ham-handing an artistic piece into a new context for commercial purposes has backfired in many instances. A recent example being the use of Lorde’s hit song “Royals” in a commercial for premium Samsung mobile phones (Billboard, 2013). The lyrical content of the song is a rallying cry for young people to throw off the shackles of personal identity through product branding and consumerism. The antithesis created in translation and —for many devout fans who personally identified with the singer — the blatant hypocrisy are glaring. In this instance artistic and aesthetic integrity collapsed. It could be argued that any sort of ethical stance on economic prosperity is a tight-rope walk, as the success of a song is usually linked to monetary gain. There is a dualism and real paradox built into a work like that which may inevitably backfire on an artist. In the case of Lorde’s song, her lyrics touch on the issue of personal metaphysics and meaning attached to products, and the reality of the self as preceding any commercial meaning (a notion addressed by Naomi Wolfe in her influential book, No Logo). This is what made her song so intriguing and genuine. Her own monetary gain from the song would not have been problematic as she is not anti-prosperity per se, but affirming of being human no matter what your economic status. Likewise, the idea that the self is defined by identifying with a consumer luxury-brand is dismissed as meaningless. This more subtle ”lifestyle” message makes the use of the song as a bridge to identify with — and eventually to purchase — expensive, luxury technology all the more alien and jarring. The song in its new context becomes a kind of bait-and-switch, or a cynical joke directed at her listeners.
However, in the case of Teardrop and House the synchronicity between the two contexts is almost whole, the harmony between original intent and new context maintains its integrity. Some reasons for this have been touched on previously, but the more obvious connection is the narrative arc of the song — including the tragic event that motivated the contents — and that of the television show. The song was written as a lament of love lost and regret over unexpressed feelings with the finality of death. This motif has universal appeal because it is a universal experience, unchanged by time. Likewise, the underlying theme of House is the struggle against the existential dread of death and human suffering and the struggle to accept that universal reality. The protagonist has been subjected to personal suffering and loss and on a daily basis is surrounded by others who are facing that same reality. It’s the edge of the knife that both the song and the show have in common, and both present the same questions with a similar tone and even conclusion: “you stumble in the dark”.
The original video that was created to accompany Teardrop was itself a commentary on the human condition. The video is a slow-paced revolving shot of a baby developing in the womb, and as the song progresses the child begins to sing along with the lyrics. The original video, created in 1998, is aesthetically prescient of the opening credits of House. The parallels are so deep that in one episode they are made almost explicit (House, Season 3, Episode 17 — “Fetal Position”) when House is gently confronted by the baby whom he is about to abort — in an effort to save the mother — as the child reaches out to grab his finger. Again, the universal themes of death and suffering, and the paradoxes created by our longing to overcome them align in the song, even the original video, and the television show. In all, the real-life tragic events that motivated the song, the song itself and the visuals created to explore the words, as well as the television drama confront the listener and viewer with questions that they do not seek to ultimately answer.
Reference List
Billboard. (2013). Lorde's 'Royals' Scores Global Samsung Commercial: Watch. [online] Available at: http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/5748180/lordes-royals-scores-global-samsung-commercial-watch.House, M.D., (2004). [TV programme] Network Ten: Fox Television.
Naja, Robert & Grant, Marshall (1998). Massive Attack : Mezzanine. [CD] London: Virgin Records.
Rolling Stone (1997). Jeff Buckley Assumed Dead . [online] Available at: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/jeff-buckley-assumed-dead-19970531.
Simpson, D. (2009). Elizabeth Fraser talks about why she finds it too difficult to even think about her old Cocteau Twins bandmates. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/nov/26/cocteau-twins-elizabeth-fraser-interview.
YouTube, Vevo. (2016). Massive Attack - Teardrop. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7K72X4eo_s.
No comments:
Post a Comment