Cultural Reinterpretation of Popular Music:

Kyushu Communication Studies, Vol. 6, 2008, pp. 23-41 ©2008 Communication Association of Japan Kyushu Chapter Cultural Reinterpretation of Popular Mu...
Author: Amy McCoy
3 downloads 0 Views 115KB Size
Kyushu Communication Studies, Vol. 6, 2008, pp. 23-41 ©2008 Communication Association of Japan Kyushu Chapter

Cultural Reinterpretation of Popular Music: The Case of Japanese/American Cover Songs

Judy YONEOKA (Kumamoto Gakuen University)

Abstract. The genre of popular music, in contrast to most other cultural products, allows for much leeway in cultural reinterpretation of other artists’ works in the form of cover songs. Japanese artists have a long history of covering American music in both original and translated forms, and artists may choose to culturally modify the original in several ways. Of these, “reculturalization” and “acculturalization” processes tend towards cultural specificity, whereas “deculturalization” and “generic maintenance” processes lead to universality. Artists may also, with permission, opt to change the lyrics completely, essentially creating a different song with the same melody. Naturally, the image the performer wishes to portray, the cultural milieu in which the cover song is presented and the intended audience all play important roles in the processes selected for cultural reinterpretation. This research discusses these processes with respect to several famous Japanese cover versions of US popular songs from the 1950s to the present. Such music has often been dismissed as pakuri, or copycatting, but on closer look many show cultural reinterpretation processes that warrant their reanalysis as culturally hybrid works of art. INTRODUCTION The field of popular music allows for much leeway in cultural reinterpretation of other artists’ works in the form of cover songs. Japanese artists have a long history of covering American music in both original and translated forms, and artists may choose to culturally modify their works in several ways. This situation is markedly different from that of other cultural products; poetry and novels, for example, must be translated/interpreted as faithfully as possible to the original. There is more flexibility for cultural adaptation in cinema, but it still does not reach the extent of possibility available for popular music. In the context of Hollywood movie renditions of traditional Chinese stories, Wang and Yeh(2005)refer to such cultural reinterpretation as “hybridization” (following Bhabha, 1994). They define three processes involved in cultural hybridity: reculturalization, wherein cultural elements are changed to fit the new culture; deculturalization, wherein elements of 23

the original that would not be appreciated by the new culture are dropped; and

acculturalization, wherein elements of the new culture are added to the original in order to make it more comprehensible or familiar to the new culture. In the present study, a fourth process of generic maintenance is defined which actively retains the universal humanness of the original piece—in other words, it is a conscious decision to abstain from culturalization processes in favor of retaining universality. The processes chosen for individual songs depend both on the intent of the coverer and the character of the original piece. The original song itself may be relatively universal; a placeless recount of human emotion such as Mariah Carey’s Hero (1993; covered by Nakayama Miho, 1994) or a timeless classic such as Grandfather’s Clock (Henry C. Work 1876; covered by Hirai Ken, 2002). In this case, the artist may choose to “acculturalize” or culturally locate the piece in the target place or time. Alternatively, the artist may faithfully reproduce the content of the original in the spirit of cultural universality1). On the other hand, a more culturally specific work such as Tennessee Waltz (Patty Page, 1950; covered by Chiemi Eri, 1951) or I’ve Never Been to Me (Charlene, 1976; covered as Love is All by Shiina Megumi, 1986) may undergo deculturalization to render it more culturally universal, or reculturalization with the goal of making it more acceptable to a different culturally specific audience. A unique example of a piece that has gone through different processes with different artists is YMCA (Village People, 1971; covered as Young Man by Saijo Hideki, 1978 and Razor Ramon HG, 2006), which will be discussed later in detail. Naturally, the image the performer wishes to portray, the cultural milieu in which the song is presented and the intended audience all play important roles in the processes used for cultural reinterpretation. Although covering is a legitimate artistic process, it has often been the brunt of severe criticism as an act of pakuri (plagiarism or copycatting), a kowtow to Western imperialism and/or simply immorality. No doubt there are many cases in which some of these criticisms are valid, but to condemn all cover music as such is to ignore and negate the processes of creativity involved in recreating artistic works to make them relevant to the sensitivities of a culturally different audience. Perhaps for this reason, little serious research has been done with cover music in general (Dent (2004) and Yano (2005) are exceptions), but it is hoped that this work will present a framework that will open the way for a new reinterpretation of the cover phenomenon as one that merits more academic attention. This paper analyzes several Japanese cover songs in terms of the processes used in cultural reinterpretation. It begins with a review of the development of cover music in general in Section 2 and in Japan specifically in Section 3. Section 4 introduces the four processes outlined above in greater detail, and presents specific Japanese cover versions of US music as examples. In the process of performing the above analyses, several questions arose, which are discussed in the final section: (1) How to treat songs whose lyrics are completely different from the original? (2) Can the same processes for hybridization of lyrics be applied to the 24

melodies and performance styles as well? (3) Can different levels of reculturalization be posited within the same piece, and is there a connection between the depth of the reculturalized item and its hybridization process? Finally, it will be argued that the discussions presented can help lead to a reinterpretation of the cover music phenomenon as “repacking” (Otani, 2001) rather than pakuri. COVERING: COPYING OR CREATION? What exactly is a cover song? In Japan, the term kabaa kyoku is used to refer to any song of which the melody was not originally written by or for the singer. Thus, it includes remakes and parodies as well as re-releases and translations. It also includes melodies that are no longer covered by copyright issues, such as classical music. In contrast to literature, it is generally the music rather than the words that is considered the salient feature connecting the original and the cover, and lyrics can be (and often are) changed dramatically, essentially creating a different song altogether. This relative disregard for faithfulness in translation of lyrics may be partially due to the “wide range of cross-cultural experiences involved in the translation of American culture into Japanese culture” and “numerous difficulties when finalizing the Japanese translation” mentioned by Miyashita (2007, p. 44; abstract), but also to the desire to create something new while paying homage to the original. The tradition of cover music is as old as the music recording industry itself. Originally, songs were recorded and promoted on their own merits as prospective “hits” and the people who sang them were not as important as the songs they sang. In other words, recording companies aimed to popularize a piece of music rather than a singer, and cover music was accepted and even encouraged in order to give a song more exposure. As Yano (2005) notes, “the process by which a song gets promoted is predicated upon principles of repetition and covering” (p. 4). Perhaps the popularization of radio in the 1920s and 1930s began to change this trend, as it served to promote not only a certain piece of music, but also a certain rendition of that piece. This continued into the 1940s and 1950s, when the advent of rock and roll made artists like Elvis Presley and Bill Haley & His Comets household terms, and people bought records because of the name of the singer rather than the song. LPs, first introduced successfully to the market in 1948 by Columbia Records, began to feature collections of songs by a single artist. In this era, another factor that changed the concept of covering was the existence of multiple genres of music (country, jazz, blues, etc.). Artists began to “transpose” music into various styles, and this served to change the process of covering from simply singing someone else’s music to actually recreating that piece within the context of a new musical form. Thus, even within the same language, the cover process came to be a form of cultural translation or reinterpretation. However, the 1960s and 1970s ushered in a stronger attitude towards music as 25

intellectual property and covering as copyright infringement. Copyright suits cropped up, and one of the most famous copyright suits in history was against My Sweet Lord by George Harrison of the Beatles. Released in 1970, it was reminiscent of the hit song He’s So Fine recorded in 1963 by the Chiffons. The melody of My Sweet Lord sounded so much like the melody of He’s So Fine that Harrison was sued. Harrison was aware of the song, but insisted that he did not consciously use the melody. Even so, he lost the case. Unfortunately, the trend of regarding cover music as plagiarism and intellectual theft has given a bad name to cover artists, even when they have cleared copyright issues (in contrast to cinema, where remakes of older films are accepted as forms of art in their own right). In their defense, we invoke here the concept of hybridity (Bhabha, 1994) to return some respectability to cover music as an art. Hybridity is a postcolonial interpretation of cultural change which treats products of multiple cultures (or subcultures) as “hybrids”, products of a “third space” that are neither inferior, nor deferential to the original from the source culture, and are neither disrespectable nor subversive with respect to the target culture. The term, hybrid, is not meant to carry any negative connotation as it sometimes does as a lay term, but rather to be a positive concept. Indeed, hybridized cultural products are “celebrated and privileged as a kind of superior cultural intelligence owing to the advantage of in-betweeness, the straddling of two cultures and the consequent ability to negotiate the difference” (Hoogvelt, 1997, p. 158). Seen in this light, Japanese cover music can be reanalyzed as neither a bow to Western imperialism nor a slavish imitation of Western culture, but a legitimate mode of creativity that “layers” the original with different cultural elements to produce a hybrid version. Even so, concern with intellectual property and copyright law is paramount in the world, and the Japanese recording industry is no exception. Now, would-be cover singers may practice their art under two conditions, that they (1) apply for permission under fair use laws to cover the music, especially if it is to be recorded, and (2) reinterpret it in a different style and/or for a different audience. Thus, reinterpretation has now come to be not only a characteristic of cover music, but today it is a prerequisite. It is the processes used for reinterpretation of US music within the Japanese context that we will be treating in the rest of this paper. A SHORT HISTORY OF COVER MUSIC IN JAPAN Although western Jazz music was popular during the years before World War II, the Japanese tendency to cover western music began in earnest after the end of the war2). Indeed, it is probably not going too far to say that covering found an acceptance in postwar Japanese culture that may have exceeded any other culture in the world. The traditional method for learning from the master—any master—was imitation, and having just lost a war, the new masters for Japanese culture were undoubtedly the Americans. To young Japanese of that time, the US GIs of the occupation and their music were undoubtedly objects of intense 26

interest, and imitation of that music was a form of respect. As Yano (2005) notes, “through repeated execution of kata [imitation of a master] an individual demonstrates respect for one's teachers, acknowledgment of one's place in a hierarchy, and mastery of an art form up to a certain point. Within this cultural context, … covering is a moral act” (p. 2). In the early 1950s, the US music scene recovered from two world wars and a depression, and produced several new music genres: Boogie-woogie, Mambo, Blues, and Country music to name a few. Japanese musicians were highly influenced by this music. Perhaps the first major postwar cover (and even today one of the most famous) was Chiemi Eri's 1951 cover of Patti Page’s Tennessee Waltz (1950). Peggy Hayama’s 1956 cover of Que

Sera Sera (Doris Day 1956) is another classic cover from this era. Also in 1956, the rock-and-roll (in its early Rockabilly form) craze began in Japan when the country music group Kosaka Kazuya and the Wagon Masters covered Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel.

Rokabiri covers also included Yukimura Izumi's Hi no Tama Rock (1958), a cover of Jerry Lee Lewis' 1957 Great Balls of Fire. In the 1960s, the influence of Western music started a Japanese trend called “Group Sounds.” The name is original Japanese-English (allegedly coined by Kayama Yuzo on a TV show following a discussion about the difficulty of pronouncing “rock’n’roll” in Japanese) but the sounds themselves were definitely Western-like. In those days, many British and American pop music groups had names that began with “The”: The Ventures, The Bee Gees, The Rolling Stones, The Monkees, and especially The Beatles. By the time The Beatles first came to Japan in 1966, many popular Japanese groups already had similar-sounding names: The Blue Comets, The Spiders, The Carnabeats, The Jaguars, The Golden Cups, The Bunny’s, The Dynamites, and The Floral, among others. One of the most famous of these groups was The Tigers, whose lead vocal Sawada Kenji (Julie) went on to perform several hits in the 1970s and 80s. The Spiders, one of the biggest Group Sounds bands, released two albums in 1966, the second of which consisted completely of cover songs. Side one was made up of Beatles covers, and side two contained covers of hits by other western artists, including Chuck Berry and The Animals. The covers from this era come closest to being simple copies, and thus are probably more deserving than others of the pakuri label. In the 1970s, another term for Japanese pop music came into popularity: “New Music”. New music differed from group sounds in that it used more instruments and often had themes of love rather than social statements, but the covering of Western music was still quite apparent. We can divide the period into the early 70s, which featured cover hits such as

Venus (Shocking Blue, 1970, covered by Nagayama Yoko in 1971), A Bridge over Troubled Water (Simon and Garfunkel 1970, covered by Sakamoto Sumiko in 1971), Your Song (Elton John, 1970, covered by Itoh Yukari in 1971), Alone Again, Naturally (Gilbert O’Sullivan 1972; covered by Fuse Akira in 1972), and others covered by Agnes Chan, Go Hiromi, Sakurada Junko, Kai Band, Asano Yuko and The Candies. The latter half of the 70s was not as prolific in terms of cover music as the first half, 27

but they did produce two very interesting covers of the same US group: Village People. Both

YMCA (1978) and In the Navy (1979) were hit covers in Japan. The first was covered as Young Man by Saijo Hideki (1979) and the second as Pink Typhoon by Pink Lady (1979). Both featured dancing in addition to the music, but the former, with its body gestures spelling out of the letters YMCA, proved so popular that young people singing the song in US karaoke bars will use them even today. Thus the 1960s and 1970s can be considered the heyday of Japanese covering of Western music. But a backlash ensued, and Japanese cover songs were criticized as pakuri, Western imperialism and just plain immoral. In 1987, the fully undocumented “Japan Committee for Ethics in Popular Music” published a book called Dorobo Kayoukyoku (Theft of Popular Music), which accused various singers of stealing others’ (usually Western) music. In a similar vein, a website named Justice for All3) has been virtually “trying” musicians for

pakuri since 2006, and has posted 72 cases as of March 2008. Perhaps this backlash, which coincided with an overheated bubble economy and a resurgence of nationalism and pride in a Japan that could say no (the famed book No- to ieru

Nihon came out in 1989) in general, led to the popularization of J-pop as yet another term for Japanese popular music. It did not, however, spell a death knell for cover music. Especially long-term artists like Matsuda Seiko, Agnes Chan, and Saijo Hideki had several hit songs in this era that were covers of Western music. However, perhaps none have been so consistent or so prolific as Go Hiromi. Beginning with his cover of Bye Bye Baby (Bay City Rollers) in 1975, Go produced cover hit after hit: Aishu no Casablanca in 1982 (from Berty Higgins Casablanca, 1982), Careless Whisper in 1994 (covering George Michael’s 1984 version), and Goldfinger 99 (1999; a cover of Ricky Martin’s Living the Vida Loca, 1999). Spanning the decades with his renditions of Western music, Go remakes each in his own unique style. Similarly, Matsuda Seiko’s train of cover hits includes Last Christmas (Wham) 1984, Hold On (Wilson Phillips) 1991, and Was it the Future (Your Precious Love, Marvin Gaye, and Tammi Terrell) 1994.

Another famous cover from this era was Daydream Believer by The Timers in 1989 (originally by The Monkees, 1967), which has recently appeared on a Suntory commercial. The 21st century brought with it a new trend in cover music which can be termed “revival cover.” Rather than covering new hits, many artists chose to go back to the golden era of the 60s and 70s, or even earlier. Hirai Ken may well hold the record for a cover of the earliest Western classic with his version of Grandfather’s Clock (1876, Henry Clay Work), which predates even Jupiter (2003) by Hirahara Ayaka (a lyricized rendition of Jupiter from Holst’s Planets, 1914-16). He did not stop there, however, producing covers of Desperado (1973 Eagles), The Rose (1979 Bette Midler), What a Wonderful World (1968 Louis Armstrong), When you Wish Upon a Star (theme song from Pinocchio, 1940), and You’ve got A

Friend (1971 Carole King). Another revival cover artist is Suga Shikao, who produced renditions of Only You (The Platters 1955), Just Like Starting Over (John Lennon 1980), and 28

Every Time you Go Away (Hall and Oates, 1985). Finally, mention must be made of Matsuura Gorie, a cross-dressing TV personality on One Night R&R (FUJI TV) who consistently produced dance videos based on revivals of older western hits: Mickey in 2003 (Toni Basil 1981), Pecori Night in 2005 (Saturday Night, Bay City Rollers 1976), and Koi no Pecori

Lesson in 2006 (I will Follow Him, Peggy March 1964) until the show’s end in 2006. On the other hand, many recent Japanese music stars, especially young women, have grown up in a highly Americanized culture and are fluent enough in English that they can promote their own music abroad. As Matsuda Seiko tried to do in 1990, Kuraki Mai and Utada Hikaru have both tried to break into the US pop market with all-English albums (Secret of My Heart, 2002 and Exodus, 2004, respectively). Of course, the cover phenomenon was not always one-sided, i.e. “from the West to the rest”. Notable reverse covers (from Japan to the US and Europe) began with the famous

Sukiyaki Song (Ue wo Muite Aruko, 1961 by Sakamoto Kyu), covered several times by Western artists (Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen, 1963; A Taste of Honey, 1981; 4 P.M., 1995 among others). Southern All Stars 1979 hit Itoshi no Eri was covered by Ray Charles as Ellie

My Love (1990), and Kobayashi Akiko’s Koi ni Ochite (Fall in Love) (1985) was covered by both the Ventures and the Lettermen. Japanese childrens’ songs have also been rendered into English by Greg Irwin in several albums released beginning in 1998. This brief history of Japanese cover music demonstrates that the phenomenon of covering has continued steadily over the years. But how was Western music changed when brought into the Japanese culture? Can we see trends or patterns in the process of making music from one culture interesting and appealing (and profitable) in a very different culture? What characteristics differentiate Japanese cover music from simple imitation? To answer these questions, we will use the four processes of hybridization as a framework; three defined by Wang and Yeh (2005) and a fourth added by the present author. THE CULTURAL CLINE AND PROCESSES OF HYBRIDIZATION IN JAPANESE COVER MUSIC Wang and Yeh (2005) discuss hybridization in two Chinese/American movies Mulan and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Based on their observations of these two films, they propose that cultural products may undergo three possible processes in their path towards the third space: 1. ‘deculturalization’ – cultural-specific elements which would not appeal to or be understood by the target audience are removed 2. ‘acculturalization’ – cultural-specific elements which would appeal to or be understood by the target audience are added 3. ‘reculturalization’ – cultural-specific elements are changed from ones that would not appeal to or be understood by the target audience to those that would. In a sense, the reculturalization process may be understood as a combination of 29

Figure 1. The cultural cline between specificity and universality deculturalization and acculturalization, except that the latter two processes may occur in different parts of the same product, or in different versions of the same product over different periods of time. The reculturalization process is always a process of simultaneous replacement of cultural elements Note, too, that both reculturalization and deculturalization require that there be specific cultural elements in the product itself. In cinema, it is difficult to avoid dealing with a specific culture, but this is not necessarily the case with popular music. Many lyrics deal with decidedly universal aspects of the human condition, such as love, death, friendship, etc. In contrast to cinema, their main purpose is often to express a universal emotion rather tell a spatiotemporally located story. The lack of cultural specificity in cultural products is referred to as “cultural odorlessness” (Wang & Yeh, 2005, p. 178) and has been cited as a reason for the popularity of Japanese products abroad (Iwabuchi, 2002). Thus, within the context of popular music, it is first useful to define a base level of cultural specificity for the product within the original culture before interpreting its cover version. We do this here by positing a Cultural Cline (see Fig. 1) with specificity (“culturally charged”) and universality (“culturally odorless”, borrowing from Wang and Yeh above) as the two polarities. The more references to culturally-specific and spatiotemporal elements (proper names, holidays, traditions, customs, dates, historical events, etc.) there are in a piece, the more specific it becomes. Examples of more culturally specific songs include Tennessee Waltz (Patty Page, 1950), Frankie and Johnny (Elvis Presley 1965) and Tie a Yellow Ribbon, whereas Have you

Never been mellow? (Olivia Newton-John 1975), Que Sera Sera (Doris Day 1956), and Grandfather’s Clock (Henry Clay Work, 1876) are cases of songs that tend towards universality. Take, for example, the lyrics to Grandfather’s Clock: It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born, And was always his treasure and pride, But it stopped short never to go again, When the old man died (Henry Clay Work, 1876) The only element that can be considered culturally specific in this song is the grandfather’s clock itself (and even this term loses most of its cultural boundedness when reworded to simply refer to the clock that my grandfather owns). The other themes of this 30

song -- family, pride, life, death -- are universal. Now compare these with selected lyrics from the little-known and ill-fated sequel to the same song: From the clock-peddler's cart to the junk-shop it went, Where its cog-wheels were sundered one by one; And the brass-founder joked as they writhed in the flames "Melt'em up," says he; "then they will run." There is grief in my heart, there are tears in my eyes. Yet indignantly the sight I recall of that vain, stuck-up thing (tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick) on the wall. (Henry Clay Work, 1878) In the above, each underlined word represents a culturally-specific element. Clock-peddlers, brass founders and (to a lesser extent) junk-shops are elements of a distant past that sound strange and unfathomable even to American ears today. Likewise, no clocks today have cog-wheels, nor would they be “melted up” during the process of discarding them. Moreover, in these days of digital watches, cell phones, and PDAs, the realization that the “vain stuck-up thing on the wall” refers to a wall clock may require a cultural jog of even older memories, and younger people may have never even heard the sound “tick”. We may even speculate that it was the cultural spatiotemporality in this sequel, more than anything else, that doomed it to ignominy. We can now redefine the three processes of reculturalization, deculturalization and acculturalization with respect to how they change a cultural product along the cultural cline (Fig 2). We see that (1) reculturalization takes elements in a culturally specific product, and redefines them in the context of a different culture, retaining the specificity. On the other hand, (2) deculturalization omits the specific elements, leading towards universality. (3) Acculturalization starts with universal elements of a song and adds cultural items, bringing the piece towards specificity. Finally, in this framework, we can define a fourth option— (4) generic maintenance, which retains the universality of the piece to be covered by opting not to add any culturally specific elements. As these processes may apply to specific elements in a piece as well as the piece itself, it is theoretically possible to have all four possibilities present in the same cover version, when the original has both specific and universal elements. Based on the above discussion, we assert that songs that are originally more culturally universal will either tend to undergo acculturalization or are generically maintained in cover versions, whereas more culturally specific songs tend to undergo deculturalization and reculturalization. Specific examples of each process will now be discussed.

Acculturalization We begin with acculturalization, not only because it is the first alphabetically, but because it is unlike deculturalization and reculturalization in some important ways. 31

Figure 2. The four hybridization processes plotted on the cultural cline Acculturalization in Japanese cover music seems to be a relatively rare phenomenon. One plausible explanation for this is the cover artist’s desire to remain faithful to the original as long as it “fits” into the new culture or to retain the Westernness that attracted him or her to the piece in the first place. However, there is a linguistic reason as well: Japanese words tend to average at least twice as many “syllables” (=mora) as English ones, and there may simply be “no room” to add new information in a Japanese language version. (The opposite trend can be seen in Haiku form, where the traditional Japanese 5-7-5 syllable (on) form simply ends up being too verbose in English. cf. Gilbert & Yoneoka, 2000). On the other hand, acculturalization does not necessarily have to occur within the lyrics. An interesting case of acculturation of the melody by infusing into it a typical Japanese festival rhythm is the cover of Yellow Submarine (The Beatles 1966) by Kanazawa Akiko

(Yellow Submarine Ondo, 1982). The term Ondo in the title refers to a form of Japanese music that combines pop with traditional minyo dance music, featuring a 2/2 time signature and intermittent interjections such as hai hai or yoisho4). Interestingly, this cover piece is now showcased on an album entitled Exotic Beatles (Exotica Records, 2006). Another example of acculturalization is in the lyrics of Papillon by Shimatani Hitomi, a cover of Janet Jackson’s Doesn’t Really Matter. The lyrics bear very little resemblance to the original, and references in the Japanese lyrics to Asia (lotus flowers, gods, beliefs, dreams, and smiles) give the music a mystical Oriental quality completely lacking in the English. Furthermore, much of the song is written in katakana, which is purported to come from Tagalog, Nepalese, Indonesian, and Chinese; all Asian languages.5) Indeed, this song demonstrates that to be considered a cover song, there need be no actual translation or even carry-over of the meaning of the words as long as the melody is similar.6) The second unique aspect of acculturalization is that it can happen in two ways: either an element of the target culture may be added, or (as is relatively common) an element of the source culture may be added. This may be to stress the roots or the exoticness of the original, or to play on stereotypes in the target culture of the source culture. We refer to this in this paper as reverse acculturalization. One prime example of this is the title of Sakamoto Kyu’s famous Ue o Muite Aruko (1963), known in English as the Sukiyaki Song. The 1981 Taste of Honey version ends with a wistful “sayonara,” stressing the Japanese roots of the original. In Japanese cover songs, we often see a similar use of English (that may or may not 32

exist in the English original) perhaps to make the music sound more Western—as with Love

is All by Shiina Megumi (1986), a cover of I’ve Never been to Me by Charlene (1976) (see section 4.3 for lyrics and further discussion). Finally, we see an interesting example of what we may call linguistic acculturalization in the Do-Re-Mi Song from The Sound of Music (1959, Rodgers and Hammerstein). The cover version is a faithful translation of the original, which uses words to express the notes of the scale. However, the words used in the Japanese version are not only translated into

Japanese, but the translator takes advantage of the syllabic structure of

Japanese to add a second set of words in the final stanza, which does not exist in English, as shown in Figure 3. We may also note in passing that this second set of words is mostly native Japanese, whereas more of the first set of words are English loan words.

Deculturalization In

contrast

to

acculturalization,

much

cover

music

shows

a

process

of

deculturalization, meaning that certain cultural elements are removed or smoothed over, having the overall effect of leading the music towards universality. In this process, the cultural

elements

that

are

removed are often

those

that

might

be

considered

incomprehensible, scandalous, irrelevant, or otherwise unacceptable in another context. One Japanese cover song in which the deculturalization process can be clearly seen is

Tennessee Waltz (Patti Page, 1950), covered by Eri Chiemi in 1951. Comparing the lyrics of the two (shown below), we see that the original version tells a clear tale of jilted love and a best friend’s betrayal on a Tennessee dance floor. The Japanese version, however, tells simply of lost love, with none of the details that might have made the story unsympathetic if not incomprehensible to the intended audience.

Deculturalization is also seen in the song In the Navy (Village People, 1979) covered by Pink Lady as Pink Typhoon in the same year. The snappy upbeat music and the resemblance of the title to the name of the dancing duo must have made the song very attractive for Pink Lady, 33

Figure 3. Linguistic acculturalization in renderings of Do-Re-Mi words in Japanese (Peggy Hayama, 1961) but the topic—a tongue-in-cheek look at life in the US Navy with gay overtones—was too far off from the Japanese culture to be taken seriously. Thus, the song was kept, the theme was kept, the dance was performed in mini-sailor-skirts a la South Pacific, but ironic lyrics such as “we want you for a new recruit” turned into "I want you, you want Mie/I want you, you want Kei" (referring to Pink Lady members Nemoto Mie and Masuda Kei). In parts of the refrain, the pair sing “Pink Lady” rather than “In the Navy” and “but I'm afraid of water look man I get seasick even watching it on the TV” was simply put into simple gibberish (“motto genki yoku mammoth one two three”) that sounded good.

Casablanca (Bertie Higgins 1982, covered by Go Hiromi 1982) also shows signs of deculturalization. Although the Japanese lyrics closely follow the English ones and the old-time movie theme is similar, important elements of the US culture have been deleted. Phrases like “drive in show”, “popcorn and cokes”, “paddle fans in Rick's candle lit café” and “my old Chevrolet” have cultural connotations that were only replaceable with watered down phrases like “sepia colored movies” and “watching the screen, you pressed your teary cheeks against my shoulder” (translation from Japanese by the author). We see similar deculturalization of US culture in The Timer’s version of Daydream Believer (The Monkees, 1967), where “homecoming queen” becomes simply “queen.”

Reculturalization Reculturalization, as mentioned above, is the replacement of a cultural aspect of the source culture with one of the target culture. Shiina Megumi’s 1986 Love is All, a cover of

I’ve Never been to Me by Charlene (1976), is a good example of reculturalization. The original piece is a stunning emotional expression of an older woman who has lived a life of freedom and decadence, free from the bonds of marriage, children and family, but as a consequence has never had the chance to explore her own personality within the bounds of “normal” life. Set 34

against the backdrop of the US women’s liberation movements of the 1970s, the song has a special message for women in that sociocultural context. In the Japanese version, however, the piece is turned into a “traditional” love song. Compare excerpts from the two versions below:

Although the deepest messages of both versions similarly celebrate marital love and family life, the approaches are 180°different—one expressing a naïve desire for marital bliss relatively common among Japanese youth of that day, and the other relating from bitter experience the importance of a “normal” life to an audience obsessed with freedom.7) As an example of Japan-to-US cover music, reculturalization can also be seen in the cover version of the Sukiyaki Song by A Taste of Honey (1981). The original by Sakamoto Kyu (1961) hit the top US charts in 1963, and was covered many times since then. As noted already, the English title can be said to be a (superficial) example of reverse acculturalization, but the Japanese lyrics are actually deeply connected with subtle elements of the Japanese culture. An interpretation is acceptance of and strength in the face of things that one cannot change, (a Japanese-like response to a universal human condition). When bringing the piece to Western ears, however, Janice Marie Johnson of A Taste of Honey “found out that the lyrics could be interpreted in three ways: as a man on his way to his execution, as someone trying to be optimistic despite life's trials, or as the story of an ended love affair. ‘Me being the hopeless romantic that I am,’ she explained, ‘I decided to write about a love gone bad.’”8) Thus, the English words, rather than emphasizing the austerity and strength of a hero who tries to suppress his emotions, wallow in a sea of sadness and self-pity:

This cover shows both superficial acculturalization in the title and the last word, and a deeper level of reculturalization of the hero’s reactions to the situation in which he finds himself. Note that both of above examples deal with the same general theme: love. Although a 35

universal theme, reculturalization of songs dealing with love in all of its forms and varieties (commitment, passion, parting, fate, unrequited love, etc) seems to be quite common, and the above examples demonstrate subtle cultural differences in attitudes towards love. Yet another example is Change the World (Eric Clapton 1994, covered by V6, 2000). The original is written in the subjunctive—if the singer could, he would change the world, but he cannot, so it is only in his dreams that the love of his life is his. The Japanese version, however, writes in the present tense “I want to change the world,” and this is indicative (no pun intended) of the hope of the singer towards the promise of a life together with his love: “I don’t worry anymore. If my future with you becomes real, I’ll be able to fly anywhere” (translation by the author). We see a parallel attitude to Ue wo Muite Aruko in the Japanese attitude towards love: if there is hope, go with it; if not, don’t wallow in it but try to forget and go forward. A final example of reculturalization of love in its widest form is Larger than Life (Back Street Boys 1999, covered as Barairo no Hibi by MAX, 2000). The original is a tribute to BSB fans, expressing the symbiotic relationship between stars and their followers “all you people…every time we’re down you can make it right…all of your time spent keeps us alive”. The cover, however, is a tribute instead to “all my rose colored days, spent with you, filled with both sadness and happiness” and the desire to relive those days again in the future. In conclusion, the survey of songs presented here found very few examples of what could be termed physical reculturalization—changes of proper names (Ellie for Eri is an exception), natural features or physical objects. This may be because music is more often used to express an emotion or idea rather than to tell a spatiotemporal story. Thus the reculturalization discussed above, of reactions and attitudes towards emotions (love, especially) may be more characteristic of popular music than of other cultural products.

Generic Maintenance This section deals with generic maintenance of universality as a process of hybridization, as defined in the beginning of this section (c.f., Figure 2). Some music is said to be timeless, and Hirai Ken proved this to be true with his 2002 hit Ojiisan no Furudokei, a cover of Grandfather’s Clock. The Japanese version of this song was traditionally taught in Japanese elementary school music classes even before his cover version, having been popularized thanks to the NHK music program Minna no Uta (which also popularized

Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da by The Beatles and many Carpenters songs). The original American folk song is written about an old, huge clock that purportedly actually existed. The Japanese version is only slightly different from the American one, in which the connection between clock and the grandfather’s life and death is clear from the beginning. (The Japanese words make a more subtle and mysterious connection between the two.) The only other difference between the two sets of lyrics is that the life span of the Japanese grandfather is 100, 10 years older than the 90 years of the American. Is this change indicative of the longer lifespan of Japanese, or of increasing life spans in general in the 20th 36

century? Or is it simply to make the lyrics flow more smoothly? Perhaps we will never know.

My Way by Fusei Akira, 1972 (a cover itself, interestingly; with the melody adapted from French song Comme D’habitude, English lyrics by Paul Anka, and released by Frank Sinatra in 1967) is another example of a cover song in which the generic meaning of the lyrics seems to have been maintained as much as possible. The image of an older man looking back at his self-made life (portrayed as travel along a highway in both versions) with satisfaction may well represent a universal human desire. It is however rarely the theme of pop music, which tends to deal with emotions of younger people. We only note a small difference in imagery: the image of life as a stage in the line, “and now I face my final curtain” is reinterpreted in nautical terms as “this time when my ship is about to depart”. Another piece with a faithfully covered but relatively unusual theme is Hero (Mariah Carey, 1994, covered by Nakayama Miho, 1994). This song resembles the Japanese version of

Ue o Muite Aruko in that the “hero” of the song is advised to find his own strength within himself or herself to carry on in the face of adversity. Perhaps this theme, which reflects a samurai-style spirit that is less common in Japan today, struck a nostalgic chord in the cover artist (and/or her producers) that made them desire to relate the message as faithfully as possible. The process of covering pop music, as noted throughout this paper, is essentially one of reinterpretation rather than translation per se, and we may tentatively assume from the above discussion that unusual and deeply human themes may have a better chance of being maintained. It must be noted here that there is a type of music whose message must be maintained for a very different reason, and this is music included in other forms of art—most notably musical plays or films. This is the case with the song Memory (Sarah Brightman, 1982) from the musical Cats, which retains all of its unique character in the Japanese (1983 by various artists). Notably, this piece is also about facing life and carrying on in the face of adversity, but its role as the theme song of the Broadway play made it all the more necessary to maintain the message in the translation.

YMCA: Reculturalization Goes Full Circle Finally, we will discuss an example of a piece that has undergone successive deculturalization and acculturalization over time. As mentioned above, YMCA was released in 1978 by Village People and covered as Young Man by Saijo Hideki in Japan in 1979. There is probably no one in Japan who is not familiar with this song, with its upbeat tune and dance movements mimicking the alphabet. However, until recently it was much less well known that the original was crafted to be a gay statement, and that “YMCA” in this context took on extremely gay overtones. This factor led to the song being quite controversial in the US, especially with the conjunction of Christianity and homosexuality implicit in the lyrics. However, the Japanese version contains none of these overtones, and indeed is often sung at YMCA functions. Interestingly, the dance 37

movements so well known today were originated by Hideki, and have been reimported into the US culture along with the introduction of karaoke, which occurred at around the same time. We can see the subtle deculturalization of gay elements by comparing selected lyrics of the two versions:

However, in 2006 a second cover of this song was released by Razor Ramon HG (standing for Hard Gay), a performer whose niche in the television comedy world is based on his act as a “hard boiled” homosexual. This version, rather than downplaying the gay overtones of the original, enhanced and built upon them, thereby creating a version matched to the personality of the performer. Because it tended to offend the sensitivities of some of the viewers (as did HG himself) it did not become a hit, but in the sense of reintroducing an important cultural element into the music that had been lost in the Hideki cover, it can be said to have been successful in educating the Japanese public about the intent of the original Village People piece.

Young Man (HG, 2006, Translated by the author) Shake your hips if you’re a man, break down the conversation Don’t be afraid, don’t look back, don’t worry about what others think Get the adrenalin going, grind your hips, open your arms and say fo--! DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS In our treatment of lyrics of Japanese cover songs, several issues have arisen that deserve mention here. First of all, there is a category of cover music that has not yet been discussed at all. These are songs in which the melody alone is adapted, but the lyrics are completely different. How should we treat songs whose lyrics are completely different from the original? This type of music is still referred as a cover song in Japanese, but would not be considered as such in English, even if it is from a different language (c.f. My Way discussed above, which is generally regarded as an adaptation of the French original, but not a cover). Examples of this type of piece in Japanese are Living the Vida Loca (Ricky Martin 1999; covered by Go Hiromi as Goldfinger 99 in the same year) and Have you never been mellow? (Olivia Newton-John, 1975; covered as Ai wa nemuranai by Shiina Megumi, 1985). In practice, it may be difficult to say whether the lyrics of a certain song were actually influenced by those of the original. For example, Shimatani Hitomi’s Papillon, discussed in 4.1 as an example of acculturalization of Janet Jackson’s Doesn’t Really Matter, may actually be better analyzed as a completely different song. The same can be said for Love 38

is All vs. Never Been to Me discussed in 4.2. On the other hand, in terms of treatment of lyrics, we can posit a cline of possibilities as follows:

Treatment of lyrics translated -- interpreted -- considered -- disregarded Here, it makes sense to discuss reculturalization processes for lyrics that are translated or interpreted, and possibly for those that are taken into consideration when writing the foreign language versions. (We do run into trouble here when confronted with similar lyrics, such as the line “have you ever been mellow” which exists in the Japanese version of the song, not because of its meaning but simply for its Englishness). However, we cannot discuss reculturalization for lyrics that are completely disregarded in cover versions. A second question that must be raised is that of culturalization with respect to the melody rather than the lyrics. Can the same processes for hybridization of lyrics be applied to the melodies and performance styles as well? The only example of this specifically discussed above was Yellow Submarine Ondo which added a Japanese festival rhythm to the Western melody. However, it is likely that there are other aspects of reculturalization to be identified in the tempo, transposition, performance styles, and instruments used in the renditions of other cover songs as well. These considerations, however, were beyond the scope of this paper. Finally, we must ask about the relative depth of what is being changed and why – is it a superficial bow to the target (or source) culture in terms of language (as in the Sukiyaki

Song title), or a much deeper response based on culturally biased emotional differences? Can different levels of reculturalization be posited within the same piece, and is there a connection between the depth of the reculturalized item and its hybridization process? Moreover, motivations behind reculturalization do not necessarily have to be culturally related; there could be linguistic or aesthetic considerations involved in addition to or instead of cultural ones. This is a topic for further study. One thing should be clear from our discussion, and this is that the art of covering is far from simple copycatting or pakuri. In an explanation of his book From Cover to “Repack”, Otani (2001) defines the process of “repacking” as recycling an older song and adding new values to it. This guidebook introduces J-pop “repacks” and their original versions, not to criticize them as pakuri, but rather to enjoy their skill of adding new elements. The endurance of covers and the covering process in Japanese popular music over the past half century demonstrates that the phenomenon is not a transient one, nor is it a simplistic matter of copycatting or translating. In recognizing four hybridization processes (deculturalization, reculturalization, acculturalization, and maintenance) and using these to analyze cover music, we hope to suggest new possibilities and directions to approaching the phenomenon of covering as a form of art. NOTES 1) An example of these processes with respect to movies can be seen in the spatiotemporally 39

faithful 1968 Zefferelli version of Romeo and Juliet starring Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, compared with the 1996 modernized, Americanized version of the same movie starring Leonardo Dicapprio and Claire Danes. 2) Importation of Western music and its treatment in the era between the coming of Perry and the Second World War is not covered in this research, but presents interesting directions for further research and comparative study. 3) Retrieved May 24, 2008, from http://nonpis.hp.infoseek.co.jp/justice/ 4) Retrieved May 24, 2008, from http://www.talok.org/Music/ondo.htm 5) See note on website of Mognet Japanese Translation Group, http://www.mognet.net/ lyrics.php?id=470&type=kanji 6) Janet Jackson herself is said to have at first refused to allow the Japanese version to be released as the words were so completely different, but allowed it upon hearing the rendition and closely examining the meaning of the Japanese lyrics. 7) We see a similar shift with the reverse cover of Itoshi no Eri (Southern All Stars 1979, covered as Ellie my Love by Ray Charles in 1990) from the interpretation of love as pure and the lack of it as helpless pain towards love as commitment and lack of freedom. 8) Sukiyaki (song). (2007, August 6). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved, August 16, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sukiyaki_%28 song%29 &oldid=149570421 REFERENCES Dent, A. S. (2005). Cross-cultural "countries": Covers, conjuncture, and the Whiff of Nashville in Musica Sertaneja. Popular Music and Society, 28(2), 207-228. Gilbert, R., & Yoneoka, J. (2000). Haiku metrics and issues of emulation: New paradigms for Japanese and English haiku form. Language Issues: Journal of the Foreign

Language Education Center, Prefectural University of Kumamoto, 1, 63-108. Hoogvelt, A. (1997). Globalization and the postcolonial world: The new political economy of

development. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press. Iwabuchi,

K.

(2002).

Recentering

globalization:

Popular

culture

and

Japanese

transnationalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Miyashita, K. (2007). Merodi ga kanaderu ibunka honyaku [Cross-cultural translation along with melodies], Kyushu Communication Studies, 5, pp. 44-60. Otani, Y. (2001). J-Pop “Ripakku! Hakusho: Utatte Mitara Ara Fushigi?? [White Paper on J-pop “Repack”: A Strange Feeling when Singing, in Japanese], Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten. Wang, G. & Yeh, E.Y. (2005). Globalization and hybridization in cultural products: The cases of Mulan and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. International Journal of Cultural

Studies, 8(2), 175-193. Yano, C. R. (2005). “Covering disclosures: practices of intimacy, hierarchy, and authenticity in 40

a Japanese popular music genre,” Popular Music and Society 28(2), 193-206. Yoneoka, J. (in press). Presents of Mind rewrapped: A study of hybridization processes in Japanese renditions of English haiku.

In B. Hoffer, & Y. Takeshita (Eds.),

Festschrift for Professor Nobuyuki Honna, 4th in a series of festschrifts. Louisville, KY: International Association for Intercultural Communication Studies. DISCOGRAPHY FOR QUOTED LYRICS A Taste of Honey. (1981). Sukiyaki. Capitol Records. Charlene (1976). I've Never Been to Me. Motown. Eri Chiemi (1959). Tennessee Waltz (in Japanese). EB-7143 King Records. Henry Clay Work (1876). Grandfather's Clock, lyrics in Ned Alterman & Richie Mintz (1977). Bluegrass Bass; Oak publications, p. 92. Henry Clay Work (1878). Grandfather's Clock (Sequel), lyrics in Ned Alterman & Richie Mintz (1977). Bluegrass Bass; Oak publications, p. 92. Patty Page (1950). Tennessee Waltz, Mercury Records. Razor Ramon HG (2006). Young Man, YRCN-10134 [CD and DVD]. Saijo Hideki (1979). Young Man (Y.M.C.A.), RVC. Sakamoto Kyu (1961). Ue wo Muite Aruko. Toshiba Records. Shiina Megumi (1986). Love is All – Ai wo kikasete. On Le Port album, 1986. Village People (1978). YMCA. Arrival Records.

41