TY - JOUR
T1 - "The calliope crashed to the ground"
T2 - Linear and cyclic time in Manfred Mann's Earth Band's blinded by the Light
AU - Mercer-Taylor, Peter
PY - 2013/9
Y1 - 2013/9
N2 - Manfred Mann's Earth Band's 1976 U.S. number 1 hit "Blinded by the Light," though nominally a cover of Bruce Springsteen's 1973 song of the same name, mingles Springsteen's inspiration with material more readily traced to Terry Riley, the Who, and Mike Oldfield, comprising, I argue, a highly self-conscious engagement with the kind of repetitive musical practices that had been churning toward the popular mainstream since the early sixties. Though the song affirms the traditional teleological mechanisms of the pop song in the broadest structural terms, its prechorus and chorus pit such impulses against cyclic, seemingly non-teleological material, the whole culminating in a satisfying, polyvalent reconciliation.
AB - Manfred Mann's Earth Band's 1976 U.S. number 1 hit "Blinded by the Light," though nominally a cover of Bruce Springsteen's 1973 song of the same name, mingles Springsteen's inspiration with material more readily traced to Terry Riley, the Who, and Mike Oldfield, comprising, I argue, a highly self-conscious engagement with the kind of repetitive musical practices that had been churning toward the popular mainstream since the early sixties. Though the song affirms the traditional teleological mechanisms of the pop song in the broadest structural terms, its prechorus and chorus pit such impulses against cyclic, seemingly non-teleological material, the whole culminating in a satisfying, polyvalent reconciliation.
KW - Bruce Springsteen
KW - Cyclic time
KW - Manfred Mann's Earth Band
KW - Minimalism
KW - Teleology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84886791731&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84886791731&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1525/mts.2013.35.2.147
DO - 10.1525/mts.2013.35.2.147
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84886791731
SN - 0195-6167
VL - 35
SP - 147
EP - 165
JO - Music Theory Spectrum
JF - Music Theory Spectrum
IS - 2
ER -