The focus of this article is the songs performed by one of Sweden’s oldest bands, Sven-Ingvars. We analyse how meaning is assigned to certain kinds of lives and ways of living in the lyrics of 54 of the band’s most popular songs from the 1960s and onward. We do so with a particular focus on the construction of place and identity within the lyrics. Since previous research about Sven-Ingvars is meager and this article is centered on recurrent patterns and themes in their songs, a quantitative analysis was carried out in order to identify the recurring patterns of words, places, towns, themes, and so on. This is followed by a qualitative text analysis, with a particular focus on the constructed identity of the I – or self – in the lyrics, and the places described. The study shows that the texts are either placed within the geographical area of Värmland or within a more general rural area, both constructed in contrast to urban space and life. The place, as constructed within the lyrics, is distinguished by simplicity and continuity. The people populating this area appear to have lived there for quite some time and are very much familiar with the I within the lyrics. The I in the lyrics is someone who knows the true value of a lifelong monogamous relationship as well as the importance of not stressing about or striving towards wealth or success. The identity of the I is very much embedded within the place. By placing the stories within Värmland, the realistic impression of the lyrics is amplified, but as the places are also commonly framed as a general rural area, they portray places, people and ways of life otherwise rarely represented publicly. By enjoying the present and simple things in life, it’s the people occupying these spaces who have truly found the right way to live their lives.
The aim of this paper is to explore the rhetoric of sound in high fidelity magazines, and how this rhetoric is linked to a technological discourse. Rhetoric of sound refers to the magazines’ efforts to describe sound and music experiencesin words. The aim is also to show how an identified technological discourse legitimizes a specific social order. The paper argues that the technological discourse naturalizes the link between technology and masculinity based on notions of gender differences, and that it reproduces a technological worldview in general by offering multiple positions of identification.
In this article I analyse the Scottish songwriter Justin Currie and his lyrics as an example of rock and pop lyrics that are ambivalent in relation to what could be called the depiction of everyday life. The lyrics of rock music have often been characterized by a kind of negative dialectics, which often is rebellious toward the normality of the established society. Those artists who does not fit in this negative aesthetics have often been labelled mainstream or middle-of-the road. In this aspect, Justin Currie represents a more ambivalent aesthetics which veers between rebellion and the everyday, between the position of an outsider and normality. Initially I tried to analyse Justin Currie’s lyrics as an example of a “post-postmodern” trend in rock music, eventually I realized that the best way I as a scholar in comparative literature can deal with rock and pop lyrics is to treat them as independent study objects. I also note that rock and pop lyrics represent a clearly under-researched field in literature studies.