MA Mock Proposal 

Dani Gardner  

Dr. Newcomb 

Advanced Research Methods  

Nov 2023  

Mock Thesis Proposal: The Examination of Nonsense Language in Song Lyrics 

In 1958, Leonard Berstein addressed an audience of young people during one of the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts. After he conducted an excerpt from Tchaikovsky’s fifth symphony, he turned to the children in the crowd and explained to them what music does:  

The most wonderful thing of all is there’s no limit to the different kinds of things music can make you have. And some of those feelings are so special, and so deep, that they can’t even be described in words. We can’t always name the things we feel. Sometimes we can, we can say we feel joy, pleasure, peacefulness, love, hate. But, every once in a while, we have feelings that are so deep, and so special, that we have no words for them, and that’s where music is so marvelous. Music names them for us, only in notes, instead of in words (Bernstein).  

Sure, classical music and music without words serves to describe the indescribable feelings about human existence, to fill in the gaps of what language can’t convey. But the maestro is not totally correct—there is another ally of musical expression available to try to illustrate and give meaning to the human feelings that language can’t: making up words; using nonsense to, as Berstein suggests, describe “those feelings [that] are so special, and so deep.” 

In my thesis, I will study how constructions of nonsense rhetoric by songwriters push the limits of language and meaning making. In paying close attention to nonsense words, semantics and aesthetics, logic can arise out of rhetoric that appears illogical; sense can be discovered from text that seems senseless. While there are other paths to wander down in examining nonsensical constrictions of language and sound in music like scatting or even text or graphic scores, this thesis will only look at nonsensical lyrics within songs. That is, words that a lyricist had made up, but in the body of a song, and sung. 

Many theorists and authors who think about nonsense rhetoric often refer to famous texts such as Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. While this is a thesis on nonsense lyrics, not nonsense in literature, I will still use theorists who use Alice to write about literary nonsense in order to base my argument on stronger theoretical ground.  While meaning making and interpretations of nonsense work differently when examining literature, the approach that various theorists take and the conclusions that they come to are insightful ways to understand how authors and lyricists bend the rules of language. For instance, in his article, “The Elucidatory Uses of Wittgenstein’s Scale of Nonsense in Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland Narratives” Ahmet Suner wrote that the amalgamation of words, pictures and conversations within the dream narrative ultimatley explore the “relationship between language and the world” (179). The deductions that Suner and other theorists who study Alice make as they examine the effects of nonsense in situations and language is essential to entering into the realm of realizing how nonsense lyrics shape meaning within a song.  

 I will examine elements of nonsensical language in song lyrics and attempt to contribute to the conversation that Rossen Ventizislavov started in her article, “Singing Nonsense.”  Ventizislavov’s study on nonsense aesthetics on the lyrical content of popular songs (507) stands alone in a wider academic conversation that centers on nonsense rhetoric. I believe there is a lot of value in using nonsensical song lyrics to uncover particular, specific, and niche understandings of nonsense. However, due to the narrow scope of Ventizislavov’s study, she “cannot engage other philosophers of nonsense on their terms” (509). Without the foundation of a larger, more recognizable philosophical conversation, Ventizislavov proposed two main kinds of lyrical nonsense to create a strong and coherent argument: syllabic nonsense and propositional nonsense. In my thesis, I will use the groundwork that Ventizislavov laid out to add another voice to the sect of work being done around analysis of nonsense through song lyrics. Additionally, I will use Ventizislavov’s essay and analysis as a model for my own thesis work.  

This thesis will apply theory and analysis from more traditional modes of examining nonsense rhetoric to various popular songs with appropriate exemplifications of nonsense lyrics (“I Am the Walrus” and “Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da” by the Beatles, for instance). Specific theorists who notably contributed academic thought about nonsense rhetoric that I will write about in this thesis are Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jean-Jaques Lecercle (author of Philosophy of Nonsense: The Intuitions of Victorian Nonsense Literature), and Gilles Deleuze.  

My thesis will synthesize the commonly referred to texts and theories on nonsense rhetoric, then introduce Ventizislavov’s propositions of syllabic nonsense and propositional nonsense in order to perform my own analysis of nonsense song lyrics. The purpose of this study stems from my own musicianship and desire to understand how lyrics, specifically nonsensical lyrics, are constructed and meaningful, and thus the goal is to establish enough historical and theoretical groundwork to make my analysis strong in the academic field of nonsense rhetorical studies.  

Because the goal of my project is to ultimately perform analysis on nonsensical song lyrics, and though I am following Ventizislavov’s model and applying her ideas, the scope of this thesis is still very narrow. Perhaps a very specific lens is a good thing, and engaging in a sense of academic experimentation and autonomy is imperative for a master’s thesis. However, I do still think that I might encounter many occasions in which I am unsure if what I’m writing is substantial enough or stands on a strong enough foundation to be making what I anticipate to be open-ended and inferential claims. However, as long as my claims are structred around and supported by commonly accepted sources in the school of thought surrounding nonsense rhetoric, I think I can avoid making unsubstantiated claims.  

And yet, my thesis is still centered around nonsense lyrics in songs. Incorporation of sources that do this kind of analysis to song lyrics will be helpful in modeling my examination of song lyrics as well as being a useful tool to shape my argument. In addition to “Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da,” I will look at other songs with nonsense lyrics including “In-A-Godda-Da-Vida,” and “Sussido.” I’ll also look at “Secret Side of You” by Buck Meek in which Meek makes a clear  

note in the song that he is making up words: “You sang of yellow roses You sang of neon glow Inventing words I’d never heard Holyahwylio” (Buck Meek, emphasis added). By examining the lyrics from these songs, I’ll model Ventizislavov’s approach attempt to uncover the feelings, emotions, and beauty that these are trying to get at in using nonsense language in their songs to create meaning beyond the limits of the language that we are familiar with.  

Not only am I excited by the idea of trying to make sense out of nonsensical lyrics, but I am also eager to discover the interesting and unsuspecting ways meaning can arise through the obscure medium and mode of analysis of nonsense. As a literature student as well as a musician and songwriter, I am curious about the many ways in which language and sound interact. Some musicians feel that the language we have isn’t enough to relate the emotion or message that they are exploring in their song, so they go off and make up a word to describe it. I want to examine how what sounds meaningless actually gives the song meaning as it explores a whole different realm of what meaning and storytelling is in music.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited  

Bernstein, Leonard. “What Does Music Mean? (Leonard Bernstein) – Excerpt from Tar (2022).” YouTube, uploaded by Lucas Victoy, 1 Jan 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=508Ok9Ax9o8.  

Meek, Buck. “Secret Side of You.” Haunted Mountain. 4AD, 2023.  

Suner, Ahmet. “The Elucidatory Uses of Wittgenstein’s Scale of Nonsense in Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland Narratives.” Children’s Literature in Education, vol. 50, no.2, June 2019, pp. 178-92, EBSCOhost, doi-org.libdatabase.newpaltz.edu/10.1007/s10583-017-9325-7. 

Ventizislavov, Rossen. “Singing Nonsense.” New Literary History, vol. 45, no. 3, 2014, pp. 507- 22. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24542738.