I have always been fascinated by the way in which music and songs (like all artistic production) are transformed at the moment of performance. It is often hard to know the composers original intent, and many times folk songs are the product of constant transformations, additions, substitutions and erasures. Literary scholars warn us against giving too much attention to the author’s intentionality, but that is not exactly what I want to address here right now. Rather I am interested in the way in which the moment when one experiences a song – its actual performance with the background that one has into its history – affects the way in which we come to understand the song’s significance. I will use my personal relationship with three particular songs to exemplify my point.

De colores

This is a song that throughout my youth I identified with “estudiantinas” (also known as “tunas”), a beautiful Spanish and Latin American tradition. These ensembles have their roots in medieval Spain and are often associated with jovial university students who dress in Renaissance-style outfits. Due to this kind of performances, the song always represented for me an ancient Hispanic tradition, far removed from political activism.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/cIozafgpAJw[/youtube]

Experiencing the song in Texas in the mid-1980s gave it a totally new meaning. The song there was a staple of many Chican@ events and also of those organized by the Rainbow Coalition. The term “colores” here, which in my traditional understanding of the song simply referred to nature’s birds and flowers, now came to represent the multicultural/multiethnic values of the political coalitions of the Civil Rights movement.

This is an example of the very same song, performed by children as backdrop to United Farm Workers marches. It still has a conservative streak, reminding us of old traditions, but the context and introductory remarks add a totally new dimension to it.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/bUz7tzKCTR4[/youtube]

As we can see in this other short video recorded at the UFW’s 50th anniversary convention, the once-traditional song has become a sort of anthem for a movement.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/2rH5ogWHPqg[/youtube]

This land is your land

I have had a similar relationship with this staple of American folk music. For many years I identified it with versions like this one, evoking a very strong nationalistic feeling.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/J-HxLfb39Hs[/youtube]

But in the 1980s I realized that Woody Guthrie’s song must be interpreted in different ways. The version I now identify with gives the song a totally different meaning. Here is one particularly moving rendition performed by Pete Seeger and Friends. (A much nicer video that I’m unable to embed is available here.)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoIDy9bAPUI&feature=share&list=PLE5BA1D0CF80FB021[/youtube]

Here, who sings and how they sing give the song a very different sense. It is no longer simple flag-waving nationalism that it evokes. Rather it evokes (at least to me) a notion of a shared, communal national project. The song no longer says “this land is just our land”, for us to keep and protect, but rather “this is our land” to open up and share.

In this case, the performance’s context is very important, but transformations to the lyrics are crucial as well. Listening closely to both recordings one realizes that the words of each rendition are different. As I was looking for materials for this post, I ran into this interesting Wikipedia article which shows the way they changed with time. While this is characteristic of much folk music, this specific case is special in that it seems that Guthrie himself made the changes. Yet, despite the difference in lyrics, the very presentation of the videos does a lot for our understanding of the song.

The Wall

Other examples of the relevance of context of performances abound. I end with an anecdote about my early teaching. In the early 90s I encouraged my students to write papers treating songs, albums or music videos they liked as literary texts. One of my students told me she would write about The Wall. I was certain she would write about the original 1979 Pink Floyd album, brought to the screen in 1982, a landmark for many in my generation.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/7tRGz61wFOg[/youtube]

I realized our age difference when her paper focused on the 1990 performance at the Berlin Wall.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/GjCVJUfblZk[/youtube]

I was shocked when she argued that the song was a celebration of East Germany’s opening to capitalist society, when for me the song and movie had always represented the alienation brought about by this very system. However, the performance’s context at such a symbolic site, precisely at a time when many were celebrating the fall of the communist block (in a world of Manichean divisions, where people talked about either capitalism or communism), lent itself to this interpretation. Despite my totally different understanding of the album, I accepted her interpretation; but the professor in me recommended her to do some “historical research” into the album’s origins.