|
Changing Verses Tell Tale in Song
Musical Study
Shows Women’s Progression
by Barbara Hey
Special to The Denver Post
Tuesday, September 24, 2002
 “He isn’t good. He isn’t true. He beats me,
too. What can I do?” - “My Man,” sung by Fanny
Brice, circa 1922
“I was in love wit ya. But the hell wit ya cuz you didn’t wanna treat
me right.” - Pink, 2002
From powerless to powerful, women have come a long way baby, in lyrics and
in life.
Put Fanny Brice in the front row of a Pink concert, and she would likely be
more than a bit verklempt. Times they are a-changin’ and, author Dorothy
Marcic said, one way to track those shifts is through a close look at the top
40 songs of each decade.
Marcic, a professor at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of
Management, did a content analysis of the lyrics sung by women over the century
and found the themes dominating the hits mirrored the women’s roles of
each era. She published the results in “Respect: Women and Popular Music” (Texere,
$26.95).
“Music tells the whole story of women’s empowerment,” said Marcic,
a management consultant who speaks to corporations and business leaders about
gender diversity in the workplace, illustrating her points by belting out relevant
songs. “Merely speaking isn’t always enough to make my point. Listening
to the songs helps people reflect on how they were shaped by the music.”
Music is not only the soundtrack of our lives; sometimes it’s the script
as well. “The popular songs of each decade are indicative of our values,
our longings, what we relate to,” she said. Music also provides clues
about how men and women relate to one another and how women relate to themselves,
she says. And those attitudes have gotten rawer with time.
Today we have Alanis Morissette singing about 21 things she wants in a lover,
a stark contrast to 1956, when “Que Sera, Sera” was big. That song
was about a woman asking her mother and her sweetheart for advice and being
told she has no control and should just accept what comes her way.
Marcic might say what a long, strange trip it has been.
Songs in the first half of the century were about dependent women, with lyrics
about victimization, neediness and rigid gender roles. The songs were all about
compliance, Marcic said, “I will follow him, I’ll do anything for
you; just be my baby; even if you’re no good and treat me bad; just love
me and I’ll stand by my man.”
By the 1960s, songs were about women who rebelled and demanded respect. Women
were angry and vented that vocally in such songs as Lesley Gore’s “You
Don’t Own Me.” Another case in point: Nancy Sinatra’s “These
Boots are Made for Walking.” Their anger was aimed at men, but as women
entered the workforce in greater numbers, their anger was joined by the frustration
and guilt that came with shifting roles and unequal pay, says Marcic.
The next two decades were replete with cynicism -- Madonna’s “Material
Girl” and Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do with it?” And
about toughness, in songs like Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” and
Helen Reddy’s anthem, “I Am Woman.”
By the late 1980s, other themes such as inner strength and self-direction entered
the top 40 in songs such as Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love.” That
theme perseveres to this day, along with lyrics that speak of self confidence
and wisdom, like Alanis Morissette’s “You Learn” and Paula Cole’s “Where
Have All the Cowboy’s Gone.” Love’s still going bad, but women
are at least learning from their misery.
Along the way, men have had their own favorite tunes as well, something that
Marcic has recently been investigating. “The themes fit together like
Lincoln Logs,” she says. While women were into deference and submission,
men were men, in the driver’s seat of their own lives and those of their
women.
The prevailing themes for men have been vision (“Dream the Impossible
Dream”), domination (“I’m Sitting on Top of the World”)
and control (“My Way”). By the 1980s, men’s roles also were
in flux, and lyrics began to be less testosterone-driven. Other themes emerged:
regret (Chicago’s “Hard to Say I’m Sorry”) and collaboration
(John Lennon’s “Imagine”).
Women sang with acceptance about their abusive men in the first half of the
century, too. Now that theme has all but disappeared from popular radio play.
Although male singers have had hits with such topics - Sting’s “I’ll
Be Watching You,” is one example, warning that he will be observing “every
move you make.” For the most part, the message has shifted. “Rap
music is filled with these messages as well,” says Marcic, “but they
don’t appear in the top 40.”
“When women were coming out of their codependent phase, men were sung about
as insensitive, abusive creeps. But as women got more strength men weren’t
as creepy anymore,” says Marcic.
But what about the female singers of today, swaggering down the VIP carpet
at the MTV Music Video Awards in outfits that would make Kate Smith weep, singing
songs that would make Doris Day blush?
“Women want to feel power, and what better way than to wield power sexually?” Marcic
says. “As women get more equality, we’ll see less of that.”
But, she says, don’t overlook the other faces in contemporary women’s
music.
“There is a crop of strong independent women who are not doing sexually
explicit music,” she says. Included are such artists as Alicia Keys, India.Arie,
Sheryl Crow and Sarah McLachlan.
Marcic, 53, started investigating her musical side after leaving a position
as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Economics in Prague and moving
to Music City - Nashville. “I started taking singing lessons to help get
acclimated, to relieve my culture shock, to learn to like it here.” After
months of study, she found a way to bring music to her leadership seminars. “I
came out dressed as Doris Day, sang a song and people loved it,” she says.
Music speaks not only about where we are in our lives, says Marcic, but of
how far we’ve come.
Female Unity
What: Dorothy Marcic will be singing and speaking as part
of the “Women of One World” performance.
When: 7:30 p.m. November 9
Where: The Baha’i Faith Metro Denver Center, 225 E. Bayaud Ave.
For more information: e-mail globalvisions@bigfoot.com or
call 303-470-1057.
|
