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| Songwriter John Prine. |
While we tend to focus on meaning, it's time to speak of form, of sizzle rather than steak. Have you ever wondered why some songs become earworms, inspiring many to sing them in the shower?
The answer is repetitions, especially that of rhythms. For example, "Paradise" is "accentual", with four stresses/beats per line. This was common in English poetry until 1066, when Norman influences expanded the role of unstressed syllables. Having these beats fall on more significant words--nouns and active verbs, mostly--makes it easier it is to learn and retain the lyrics. In essence, one should be able to follow the narrative hearing only those words with stresses in them.
Lyrics:
When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Airdrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill
Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man
When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am
Compare this with another song by the same composer: "Christmas in Prison":
Lyrics:
It was Christmas in prison and the food was real good
We had turkey and pistols carved out of wood
And I dream of her always even when I don't dream
Her name's on my tongue and her blood's in my strings
Wait a while eternity
Old Mother Nature's got nothin' on me
Come to me, run to me, come to me now
I'm rollin' my sweetheart I'm flowin' by God
She reminds me of a chess game with someone I admire
Or a picnic in the rain after a prairie fire
Her heart is as big as this whole goddamn jail
And she's sweeter than saccharine at a drug store sale
Wait a while eternity
Old Mother Nature's got nothin' on me
Come to me, run to me, come to me now
I'm rollin' my sweetheart I'm flowin' by God
The search light in the big yard turns 'round with the gun
And spotlights the snowflakes like the dust in the sun
It's Christmas in prison there'll be music tonight
I'll probably get homesick, I love you, Good night
Wait a while eternity
Old Mother Nature's got nothin' on me
Come to me, run to me, come to me now
I'm rollin' my sweetheart I'm flowin' by God
"Christmas in Prison" is "accentual syllabic", meaning repeating patterns of accented and unaccented syllables, especially towards the end of each line. In this case, that pattern is [roughly] anapestic: "de de DUM". These form units called "feet". When there's four of them we speak of "tetrameter"--in this case, anapestic tetrameter.
The search light | in the big | yard turns 'round | with the gun
John Prine's unique contribution to the study of scansion in songs is how trinaries (i.e. dactyls = DUM-de-de, amphibrachs = de-DUM-de, and anapests = de-de-DUM) are more catchy in songs than the traditional binaries (DUM-de trochees and, more often, de-DUM iambs) that we hear in poetry and normal speech.
Click here for more on the study of scansion.
Links:
Songs for a 4 Year Funeral
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