Well last weekend I was sitting with a group of friends playing some porker and I decided to play some music. The song I chose to play was "The Saints Are Coming" played by Green Day and U2. Little did I know that playing this song would lead to an angry conversation and name calling argument that would last for the next hour. As it turns out, in my ignorance I claimed that Green Day and U2 were the authors of this song. My friends jumped on my case and made claims that music artists from Muse, Bob Dylan, and The Animals were the real authors of the music piece. After much debate I came to the conclusion that there was nothing we could conclude.
After a lot of research I have discovered that the song's been adapted, changed, and covered by many different artists going back over a hundred years. Even before that the original is believed to be a 16th century folk song.
In my Intro to Film Studies class we covered the Auteur Theory, which discusses who is the real author of a film are. Taking that concept and applying it to writing songs I am left believing that credit must be given to the original writer for providing the work off of which other artists have built.
I gave credit to writing the song to Green Day and U2, only to find out that the song was a cover of a song by the Skids, a 1972 Scottish Punk band. From there I learned they wrote their song "The Saints are Coming" using the first verse of "House of the Rising Sun" a song made famous by the band The Animals in 1964. Thinking that the song's origin started there I was shocked when I discovered that the Animals modified it from a recording of the song back in 1927 by Texas Alexander. Going back as far as I could I found out that it was an European folk song that was brought over here by immigrants and Americanized.
Now here I am, trying to decide who is the author of the song? Is it the bard who first sang the words? Is it the first person who wrote the lines down? Is it the father who couldn't remember all the lyrics so he sang what he knew to his son? Is it the rock band who took what they could and made a song? Or finally is it the Punk band who took one of the versus and made their own art out of it.
Looking at the theories of Michel Foucault in his work, "What is an Author" I take note of one of his Author Functions, in particular the one stating that the "author" is not always the writer. This applying in this case when you have multiple narrations of the same story, portrayed in a song. As such I argue that there are many many author to the song "House of the Rising Sun" and "The Saints are Coming"
Here are a few of my favorite authors telling their story.
Green Day/U2
The Animals
Muse
You're experience with these various artists and this song is similar to when I found out that one of my favorite movies, 10 Things I Hate About You, was based off of the Shakespeare play, The Taming of the Shrew. Me finding this out was definitely not as complicated as you having to go back to many different writers but I think it is just as funny to find out that the story came from such a long time ago. I felt as if the movie was applicable to my life and, even though it was adapted for our generation, the main points were written in the 1600's
ReplyDeleteI have experienced this same kind of event amonsgt a group of friends before too. It is really crazy to see how in music how much material is "borrowed", stolen, and changed to songs by different artists. Although Green Day and U2 are different then the artist I listened too, I beleive that this happens so much in every genre of music.
ReplyDeleteGood questions. I feel the pain of finding out that a song that you really like wasn't originally done by them. Its kind of a weird experience to have this song that you know so well and you really like, and associate with a certain singer, end up being just a cover. Even thought you could go Barthes-style and say that the "author doesnt matter" it still has an effect on the way you look at the song.
ReplyDeleteLike everybody else I have experienced the feeling of disappointment when I realize that a song was just a rendition or a cover song. I usually still like it, but the thought that they didn't have to work as hard to play the song or something is always in the back of my mind.
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