Disaster Songs as Intangible Memorials in Atlantic Canada draws on a collection of over 600 songs relating to Atlantic Canadian disasters from 1891 up until the present and describes the characteristics that define them as intangible memorials. The book demonstrates the relationship between vernacular memorials – informal memorials collectively and spontaneously created from a variety of objects by the general public – and disaster songs. The author identifies the features that define vernacular memorials and applies them to disaster songs: spontaneity, ephemerality, importance of place, motivations and meaning-making, content, as well as the role of media in inspiring and disseminating memorials and songs. Visit the companion website: www.disastersongs.ca.
Author(s): Heather Sparling
Series: SOAS Studies in Music
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 234
City: New York
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface: Come All Ye
1 Introduction
Project Scope
Diversity and Disaster Songs
Death Culture and Memorial Culture
Defining Disaster
Broadside Ballads
News Media
Music and Death
Atlantic Canada
Research Methods
Chapter Outline
Notes
2 Formal Memorials, Vernacular Memorials, and Disaster Songs
Memory, Memorials, and Memorialization
Vernacular Memorials
Disaster Songs
Notes
3 Going Down in History: The Story of Disaster Songs
Broadside Templates
Broadside Ballads
The Early Popular Music Industry: Printed Music
Early Music Recording Industry
Folk Music and the Mid-Twentieth-Century Music Industry
The Sounds of Disaster Songs
Notes
4 Locating Meaning: The Place of Disasters in Songs
Spontaneous Memorials and the Creation of Place
Atlantic Canadian Music Culture
Commercial Disaster Songs About Atlantic Canadian Disasters
Mobility of Disaster Songs
Lyrics and References to Place
Water as Place
Conclusion
Notes
5 Spontaneity and Ephemerality: The Timing of Memorialization
Grief, Sound, and Song in the Immediate Aftermath of Tragedy
Participatory Memorials
Content Orientation and Focus
Ephemerality
Conclusions
Notes
6 Social Significance: The Motivation to Create Disaster Songs
Reaction to a Changing Death Culture
Death Culture in Atlantic Canada
The Sacred and Fatalism
Authority and Resistance
Reclaiming History
Historical Accuracy
Conclusions
Notes
7 Personal Motivations: Relationships and Grief
Communication With the Dead
Processing Grief
Therapeutic Songwriting
Gendered Grief
Distant Suffering and Vicarious Grief
Conclusions
Notes
8 News and Social Media: Inspiring, Informing, and Disseminating Disaster Songs
Models of Behavior: News Media Coverage of Musical Responses to Disasters
Inspiring Songs and Providing Content
Circulating Songs
Conclusions
Notes
9 Conclusion
The 2009 Cougar Helicopter Crash
Songs for Which Disasters?
Disaster Song Popularity
The Limits of Material Memorials
Protest Vs. Disaster Songs
The Coronavirus Pandemic
Notes
Works Cited
Index
