美国国家公共电台 NPR One Wonders / Second Best Songs: Marlena Shaw And 'California

 

NOEL KING, HOST:

Sometimes a musician comes out of the gate with a really big hit but not Marlena Shaw. She recorded this song in 1969 and then waited for decades.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CALIFORNIA SOUL")

MARLENA SHAW: (Singing) Like a sound you hear that lingers in your ear, but you can't forget from sunrise to sunset.

KING: This is "California Soul." And today, it's a hit. Hip-hop producers have sampled it. It's been used in TV commercials. But Emily Lordi thinks there is a lot more to love about Marlena Shaw. Lordi has been researching soul music for a new book, and Marlena Shaw is her pick for our series One-Hit Wonders/Second-Best Songs.

EMILY LORDI: Marlena Shaw is a really extraordinary soul jazz singer. She was never quite as well known as she might have been, however, in part because she was hard to categorize.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CALIFORNIA SOUL")

SHAW: (Singing) California soul.

LORDI: "California Soul" is a cool song, but, like, its lyrics¹ are kind of ridiculous. They don't really say anything except for, like, California's cool. People are in love, you know. It's almost insistently² and buoyantly banal³, particularly when we compare them to the lyrics of "Woman Of The Ghetto⁴," which are really complex and layered and profoundly provocative⁵.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WOMAN OF THE GHETTO")

SHAW: (Singing) I was born and raised in the ghetto. I was born and raised in the ghetto. I'm a woman of the ghetto. Listen to me, legislator.

LORDI: On the one hand, the song "Woman Of The Ghetto" offers a really powerful challenge to these reports that were coming out in the 1960s, often created by white urban sociologists who were talking about the conditions of the ghetto and kind of what was wrong with black America, often blaming black people themselves. And Marlena Shaw's song is remarkable⁶ in part because she speaks from the first-person perspective, and she's also speaking significantly from a woman's perspective, right? I am a woman of the ghetto. That matters, right? She's able to express concerns about domestic issues. How does somebody feed their children?

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WOMAN OF THE GHETTO")

SHAW: (Singing) How do you raise your kids in the ghetto? How do you raise your kids in the ghetto? Feed one child and starve another. Tell me, tell me, legislator. Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain (ph).

LORDI: She's chanting. It's kind of chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain (ph). There's something really interesting about her decision to use those sounds. They're kind of suspended between the two words chain and change. In that way, the song, I think as a whole, is doing something really interesting, talking about conditions into which black people in the so-called inner city seem to be chained and then this potential for change and for movement and even transcendence beyond these conditions.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WOMAN OF THE GHETTO")

SHAW: (Singing) Strong, true, my eyes ain't blue. I am the woman of the ghetto.

LORDI: If we don't listen to that song, we're really going to miss a lot about what made her such an extraordinary vocalist and activist⁷ in her time.

KING: That was Emily Lordi. She's an English professor at Vanderbilt, and she's got a book coming out this summer called "The Meaning Of Soul." Marlena Shaw's "Woman Of The Ghetto" is her pick for our series One-Hit Wonders/Second-Best Songs.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WOMAN OF THE GHETTO")

SHAW: (Singing) Now, how do you...

1 lyrics   

n.歌词

参考例句：

• music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hart 由罗杰斯和哈特作词作曲
• The book contains lyrics and guitar tablatures for over 100 songs. 这本书有100多首歌的歌词和吉他奏法谱。

2 insistently   

ad.坚持地

参考例句：

• Still Rhett did not look at her. His eyes were bent insistently on Melanie's white face. 瑞德还是看也不看她，他的眼睛死死地盯着媚兰苍白的脸。
• These are the questions which we should think and explore insistently. 怎样实现这一主体性等问题仍要求我们不断思考、探索。

3 banal   

adj.陈腐的，平庸的

参考例句：

• Making banal remarks was one of his bad habits.他的坏习惯之一就是喜欢说些陈词滥调。
• The allegations ranged from the banal to the bizarre.从平淡无奇到离奇百怪的各种说法都有。

4 ghetto   

n.少数民族聚居区，贫民区

参考例句：

• Racism and crime still flourish in the ghetto.城市贫民区的种族主义和犯罪仍然十分猖獗。
• I saw that achievement as a possible pattern for the entire ghetto.我把获得的成就看作整个黑人区可以仿效的榜样。

5 provocative   

adj.挑衅的，煽动的，刺激的，挑逗的

参考例句：

• She wore a very provocative dress.她穿了一件非常性感的裙子。
• His provocative words only fueled the argument further.他的挑衅性讲话只能使争论进一步激化。

6 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

7 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。