Sing We and Chant It
"Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus and its devastation which put pains thousandfold upon the Achians" –Homer, The Iliad
We do not sing enough. Especially not together in casual settings. Music is a uniquely human form of expression. Music also seems to be universal throughout human cultures; most have historically carried on some tradition of singing or music. Folk songs are some of my favorites, because they reflect cultural attitudes or share a story from their time. Song is also in that respect a cultural heritage. It is organic, grassroots pop culture, unlike today’s ‘pop music’ produced by big labels and singers employing songwriters. I can’t help but lament that we have very few modern folk songs. I could speculate on the causes for this decline, but it is clear we’re losing the art of song. A few standouts remain. Gordon Lightfoot’s “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” comes to mind, although it’s now nearly 50 years old. This is a song with a formulaic tune that repeats in patterns to tell a story. It isn’t hard to memorize. It paints a full picture of what it may have been like on the ship before she went down. This is the sort of song we’ve neglected to sing lately. We ought to do more to participate in and expand the human tradition of song by acknowledging the tradition’s benefits and memorizing songs to share with others.
Singing is a healthy way to express personal emotions. I can usually gauge my mood in the morning by paying attention to whether I’m singing. If I start humming or singing as I go downstairs for breakfast, I can be sure I’m present for the day. The release of energy from the chest when singing just feels good. It’s similar to how writing can be legitimate emotional outpouring just by applying words to a page. I’m no scientist but when I’m variously happy, sad, or stressed, singing a song that matches the mood feels physically relaxing. The emotions feel deeper, and once expressed, not so all-consuming. The song becomes a conduit to dispel emotion into the world in a beautifully expressive way which can also be understood by others. Whatever the emotion, song allows us to express ourselves in a way that’s constructive and easily shared with others.
The presence of folk songs is a sign of cultural health. I think we could stand to sing more in groups and make up our own songs in this culture. Knowing the words to songs and singing them with other people produces a community spirit, especially in the context of leisure and drinking. There’s a reason folk songs often originate in places of community: the pub, the ship, or the front porch. The American bluegrass band is in that respect akin to the Greek epic poet or the Medieval troubadour. Concerts are no less popular today, but a modern concert doesn’t hold the character of a group of people singing a song together or a performer sharing songs in an intimate setting. The songs we share contribute to culture. Think of the eminence which the storied hymn “Amazing Grace” has in the Anglophone Christian world, for example. This piece calls the mind to a specific moment in history aboard a slave ship, while also calling to mind the innumerable iterations of that hymn in churches of every denomination since. The song is known and reiterated through the years. When we sing songs with others, we enter a bond with them. These bonds provide a culture to pass down. If we add to that culture, we are ensuring that our moment is remembered. The enjoyment provided is not exclusive in that respect, but common to all who will ever know the song. Those ties allow a culture to truly root and grow. As GK Chesterton wrote in his essay What’s Wrong with the World:
“It is complete error to suppose that because a thing is vulgar therefore it is not refined.”
Any cultural song is best from memory. If there’s a song you love and would like to share with others, you should waste no time in memorizing it! Use the VISA technique to do so: Visualize, Iterate, Share, and Applaud. When memorizing a song, as you read through the lyrics and listen, imagine what the song is describing going on in your head. For example, lately I’ve been memorizing “Unter den Toren”, a German song which takes place in a city that has just been sacked by an army which the singer belongs to. The lyrics describe scenes of firelight, bitter cold, gambling and revelry in the wake of a battle. These scenes are very easy to visualize. Picturing the scenes help the words stick in the mind much quicker than if you’re just repeating them. Nevertheless, repetition is the essential next step: iteration. Nothing will replace the labor of practice to commit a song to memory. Listen often over the course of a few days and lean on the text lyrics only as much as you need to. A lot of folk music handily employs repeating themes and tunes to aid memory with repetition. With enough visualization and iteration, you’ll hopefully be ready to share your song. Sharing is an essential part of the process because song is meant to be a collective experience. Of course, once you share, even if others don’t, applaud yourself for having undertaken the labor of memorizing and performing!
Spotify has millions of recordings that play the same way every time. Conversely, a song you memorize and sing with a few people will be fully unique: that song has never been sung in your style to those people before. Although I don’t think recorded music is fully to blame, we should not outsource our enjoyment of singing to an app like we now do for so many once-manual affairs. Especially as the specter of AI-generated, mass-produced content looms, we need to remember that a song written by our own hand and performed from memory is not content, it is indeed art. It carries a personality which any computer-generated or computer-regurgitated song cannot. Cultural music records our emotions, stories, and experiences. Song is one of the most human ways to pass along collective traditions. Find a song you like that says something meaningful or tells a story. Use VISA to commit it to memory; it’ll be yours forever. Next time the moment is right, invoke the muse as poets have done for millennia, sing, and add to the great quilt of human song.