Our first post has been contributed by scholar David Linton, who, with Anthony Tusler, organized a Disability and Music panel at the SDS annual meeting of 2012. In addition to his studies on music and disability, David is a professor of communication arts at Marymount Manhattan College, is editor of the newsletter of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research.
Among the many appearances of disability-related themes in various music genres, one that has fascinated me is the occurrence of what seem to be speech disabilities or deviations from “standard” speech practices. For instance, consider the speech disfluency commonly known as stuttering. Though often used in popular media to suggest slow thinking or weakness (think of Porky Pig), the sound of stuttering in music takes on more nuanced meanings.
Repeated syllables or notes, often having no semantic meaning, are a mainstay of song. From the melodic “Halleluiah Chorus” through the amusingly named “Doo-Wop” of the 1950s and 60s to the mesmerizing chant of “Hey, Jude,” (a series of “nah, nahs” memorized and sung by millions), phonetic units that would constitute stuttering in every day speech become elements of song when expressed with rhythm or accompanied by instruments.
The jazz sub-genre or riff known as “skat” is a good example of how a vocal technique that might otherwise have been seen as a speaking flaw was elevated to a respect musical art form by vocalists who could take the tune of a song and embellish it with meaningless extemporizations that sometimes sounded like baby talk.
While many songs use the repetitive effect of stuttered speech for purposes of musical continuity or just to sing along (especially when one has forgotten the lyrics!), it is hard to tell if the singer intends to be imitating the unique speech pattern of an individual who actually does stutter. However, I can think of one case where that does seem to be the case.
The rock group Bachman-Turner Overdrive (BTO) had a hit in 1974 titled, “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet” written by Randy Bachman. The lyrics are presented in the first-person voice of a man who is enamored of a super-sexy “devil woman [who] took my heart away.” He presents himself as a rather pathetic, desperate character who grovels for attention. The woman responds positively though with a tone of condescension that is somehow heightened by her stutter:
“. . .she looked at me with big brown eyes And said, ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet B-B-B-Baby, you just ain’t seen na-na-nothin’ yet Here’s something that you never gonna forget B-B-B-Baby, you just ain’t seen na-na-nothin’ yet.”
The effect of her powerful assertion is made all the more potent by the fact that it is sung by the male who is quoting her words in a voice that is strong and confident. There is certainly nothing weak about this woman nor the least bit of hesitancy about her willingness to say what she wants in a voice that she fully owns.
Meanwhile, the question of why stuttering commonly decreases or is absent while an individual is singing is a topic that will have to wait for another day. (The nerdy video of a BTO studio performance of the song in the mid-1970s gives a good sense of the way the group saw the tune.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7miRCLeFSJo
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