All the Existential Flavours of Pop

Your little brother’s a struggling actor. He’s been struggling for as long as you can remember. He’s got a walk-on part in the new Camus musical. His only line is: I am the Messenger. How should he sing it?

The Messenger in question moves through the world, observing but never partaking. The word Messenger needs to resonate with existential alienation. Of course, the English word Messenger usually carries its stress on the first syllable: Messenger. Changing the stress pattern will attract the audience’s attention to the word (and to your brother). Try each one: I am the Messenger?  I am the Messenger? Or I am the Messenger? Which one should he use?

Decided? Sure? Watch this …

It’s true, I tricked you just a little by substituting the word Messenger for Passenger. The standard stress pattern is the same in both words. I knew that if you’ve ever heard the line I am the Passenger sung by Iggy Pop, that Mr Pop’s version would play in your head as the only possible version. I  wanted you to think of the line afresh. Forgive me.

Back to the question – I’m guessing that you thought the first syllable – Mess – would carry the stress, but that the other syllables, in the context of this line, would carry fairly equal weight? If you thought something different, let me know in the comments below.

As I understand it, Iggy Pop’s Passenger, like the Messenger in my question, moves through the world, observing but not partaking. You chose one way to place the stress on the word Passenger or Messenger to encompass that meaning. Where does Iggy choose to place it? And, by the way, I chose this lengthy version because it shows how, even though Iggy is clearly a little the worse for wear, he never strays from his chosen intonation of the word passenger. We’ll come back to that later.

Iggy Pop chooses to stretch the last syllable of Passenger. Every time. He places stress on the first syllable too, but draws your attention to the last by deviating from what you expect. True, if you read the sheet music here, you can see how it leads him down on the final syllable, but there’s more to it than that. At 6.16, when he begins to improvise, he’s speaking, not singing. He still chooses to pronounce the word Passenger with a stretched final syllable. He never deviates from his chosen pronunciation – though he plays with his other words during the song, he never alters the word Passenger.

There’s a richness to Iggy’s pronunciation of the word Passenger. He imbues it with an existential flavour. He makes it sound portentous. He draws your attention to the whole word by giving it an unusual stress pattern. He changes its meaning: a passenger is a passive traveller, sitting and waiting for the train, bus, car or plane to arrive at its destination. This Passenger is observing the world as it moves past his window. He’s active in his observation. Iggy Pop chose to inject the word Passenger with this altered meaning.

Imagine how the song would have changed if he’d sung I am a Passenger. Utterly passive. Just as Walter White is the One who knocks, Iggy Pop is the Passenger. It matters.

I’m going to stop here because I’m going to post on The Passenger again – next time about the mesmerising power of exact repetition. And the power of wild energy contained.

Let me just say, to native and non-native English speakers alike:

• If you’re going to sing The Passenger, check that you’re giving the final syllable all the breadth and all the dimension it needs. Think of this mistake and don’t make it here.
• Don’t sing a standard, dictionary version of the word Passenger. This Passenger is not the passenger you find in a dictionary. He doesn’t live there, he lives in this song.
• Passenger is a word we all know, but it’s not a word you hear used in arguments or in love.  Most of us have never had an opportunity to stretch it or mould it into a persuasive shape. Now is your opportunity.

If you waste that last syllable, you’re not singing Iggy Pop’s song – you’re singing a song about public transport in Berlin.

© Sing Better English, 2014