Thursday, August 28, 2003

Interesting meter in that Red Hot Chili Peppers song
that begins: "Can't stop addicted to the shin dig".
At first i analyzed it as a palimbacchus (@@* where
@ is a stressed syllable) plus first paeon (@***)
plus a trochee (@*) or spondee (@@) or dactyl
(@**), depending on the rhyme; but as i let the
rhythm sink in, i realized the 6th syllable was almost
always a very weak stress, giving a duple movement
to the latter half of the line. Then, too, the first two
syllables have a kind of syncopation, audible in the
near-equivalent one-line song from "Frazier": "Flesh
is burning/ dada dada da-da". So, it becomes a trochaic
pentameter with caesura after the second foot & a
combination of slowing the first part & speeding up
the second. Actually, this kind of line is known in
Yugoslavian poetry as an epic meter...

The Swingle Singers: a cappella classical music.

Four and a half billion years to produce a
creature that would rather kill than push
the brake pedal with its foot!

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