The Story of A Song Research

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For your final project of this course, I would like you to write a 1500-2000-word essay about the story of a single song.

You must write about one of the following songs:

I suggest you research your chosen song by doing the following five steps:

1. Listen to the song carefully. Listen again. On the third listen, take notes on what you hear.

2. Search for journalistic articles about the song in google. Consider looking at the sites for publications such as Rolling Stone, Billboard, the New York Times, Washington Post, the Guardian, the New Yorker, Atlantic, and NPR. There is quite a bit of journalistic writing about all four of these songs.

3. Search for older journalistic articles by searching the historic newspaper archives available through the library.

4. Read the articles you have found through your research. Take note of significant moments in the song’s history, as well as relevant songs, styles, music-cultures, and specific musicians that were sampled or were inspirations for the song.

5. Now research those additional relevant songs, styles, music-cultures, and musicians through the Music and Performing Arts Library website. Your research at this stage should include reading about and listening to relevant songs, styles, and so on. I expect you to check out Oxford Music Online for information on musical genres, instruments, and music-cultures.

Your essay should consider concepts such as:

  • cultural and musical encounters (and the related matters of cultural appropriation and hybridity)
  • the politics of representation
  • the problematics and demands of music industries
  • the significance and constructedness of genre
  • the local cultural histories (and attributes) of musical practices and music industries.

As in previous essays, you should also describe the qualities of musical sound:

  • the contours of melodies
  • the tempo (is it fast or slow?)
  • the timbres of instruments and voices
  • the feel of rhythms (how do they make you want to move or dance?)
  • any obvious studio effects and non-musical sounds
  • any other audible qualities.

And please don’t forget to use your ears and listen to the song carefully before you begin reading and writing about it.

Here are the basic requirements:

1500-2000 words

No grammatical and spelling errors

Write in a professional voice

Include a bibliography

Tell the story of a single song (chosen from the options above) based on your original research into the song and surrounding discourses, contexts, and musical practices.