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Narrative Paradigms, Musical Signifiers, and Form as Function in Country Music
Abstract
Within country music's songwriting practices, musical form and harmonic structure often become functional contributors to a song's story; these combinations of form and theme can be modeled as distinct narrative paradigms. This essay defines a Time-Shift narrative paradigm that relates a central trope in country music's texts to formal, structural, and poetic devices. It then presents analyses of several songs to show how the use of the narrative paradigm reinforces the core identity of country as a genre, and connects art, biography, and interpretation.
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“This offers a point of entry for LGBTQ+ audiences into Parton's life-writing practices, which draw heavily on the genre of country music (the family setting (Neal 2007, p. 43), Christian theology, and Parton's song writing).”
From Dolly Parton’s Mythologised Persona, Collective Life Writing, and Building a Home for LGBTQ+ Listeners in Country Music (2022) · cites this paper as Neal 2007, p. 43
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Research works printed but not linked: 21
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Barker, J. (2022) · Persona Studies · doi:10.21153/psj2022vol8no1art1541 · Cited by 1
“This offers a point of entry for LGBTQ+ audiences into Parton’s life-writing practices, which draw heavily on the genre of country music (the family setting (Neal 2007, p. 43), Christian theology, and Parton’s song writing).”
Background
Metadata
- Authors
- NEAL, J. R.
- Corresponding author
- NEAL, JOCELYN R.
- ORCID
- NEAL, JOCELYN R.
- Venue
- Music Theory Spectrum
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2007-04
- Volume
- 29
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 41-72
- ISSN
- 0195-6167 (ISSN-L)
- 1533-8339
- OpenAlex
- W2103701479
- Cited by
- 41
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 26.60
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Music Theory Spectrum (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Music › Musicology and Musical Analysis
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Music › Music History and Culture
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Narrative Theory and Analysis
- Keywords
- country music, songwriting, musical form, harmonic structure, narrative paradigm, genre identity, song lyrics, musical meaning
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