3. Words And Music

In rock music, of course, the dominant discourse for decades reflected its origins among blacks and ‘poor whites’ in the USA, and until this period it was de rigeur for English or other performers not only to sing with American accents but to address and refer to genre situations rooted in American experience. At the same time that The Beatles and other groups from Liverpool, London and elsewhere were asserting their ability to find their own voices, address new preferred audiences and identify and confront issues close to hand, modern musicians in Welsh-speaking Wales like their contemporaries throughout the world were beginning to wrest aspects of the form to their own needs.

Language, whether in song or analysis, is never a neutral medium; vocabulary and syntax, sounds and structures, idioms and intonations, all carry cultural and ideological connotations with them. English and American-English today make up a huge language, loose and supple in form, rich in elision, fluid in tone, with long vowels and soft, often unobtrusive consonants. It is easy to see its appropriateness for the rolling refrains of the ballad and the often almost conversational intimacy of the rock solo; and it is unsurprising, as the music grew up in the language. Welsh, in contrast, is smaller, harder and more reflective, more precise in its vowel sounds and explosive in its consonants - ‘like a crystal, not a snake’ according to Dafydd Iwan.

It was the triumph of the first generation of Welsh-language rock singers, such as Dafydd Iwan himself, Meic Stevens, Edward H. Davis and Geraint Jarman, that forms were developed responsive to the parameters of the language, capable of drawing on musical traditions from within Welsh and other Celtic cultures and addressing issues relevant to a Welsh audience in a Welsh voice, yet open to influences from America, Europe and elsewhere. The shared ideology and commitment of these musicians demanded a music that would reinforce the values of independence, solidarity, pride and love of country that were vital to a regenerating national consciousness. A brief analysis of the content of one or two pieces of music, and reference to the responses of a contemporary audience, may serve to evaluate the measure of their success.

‘The Lord’s Song’

Hurrah and Hallelujah! The Lord is on the scene!

He can whistle through his nose, and talk out of his arse.

His hand doth rule the waters: his voice can open doors,

But to bring street cred to the Language Board - now that’s too much to ask!

Hurrah and Hallelujah! The Lord is on the job!

Little Wales is blessed indeed to have such a splendid nob.

His speech is all in parables, so skilful and so sure,

But if you’re not his little lamb, you’re only half secure.

Much of the song’s exquisite biblical language, often lifted word-for word from William Morgan’s still widely influential 1588 first Welsh translation, and thrown into sharp contrast by the band’s gleefully coarse peasant invective, is lost in translation.  The music too, a banjo-led tongue-in-cheek pastiche of hymn tune and country ballad, is missing here. The pinpoint irony, however, in its evocation of Elis Thomas’s delight in his own power and influence, his self-assured but evasive use of language, and the hint in the final line that he may be a dangerous man to cross, are surely evident, as are the suggestions in the second of these verses of an u nabashed and active libido. (…)