Meredith Monk: Gotham Lullaby – The Tale of the Eloquent Child

 

A lullaby is typically understood as a cradle song, a soothing piece of music intended to put children – or adults – at ease. Usually, they are simple pieces of music with a memorable hook, easy chords, and harmonies that do not hurt anybody. To summarize, they appear to be the opposite of most of the pieces we heard in this seminar so far. Adding to that, in her little introduction Meredith Monk calls “Gotham Lullaby” a song, reinforcing my expectations that it will be a rather simple and straightforward affair.

And at first sight, it is. “Gotham Lullaby” starts and remains relatively quiet, with the only orchestration consisting of an uncomplicated arpeggio pattern on the piano; this only changes in the very end, when Monk also stops singing. The chord progression and the way the notes are played remind me of film music, perhaps of something Joe Hisaishi would write for a Ghibli anime.

However, I don’t think the accompaniment or even the chord progression are really what “Gotham Lullaby” is about. The orchestration is kept simple for a purpose: It is just Monk’s voice and the bare minimum of (other) musical instruments she needs to present her idea. Monk’s simple and yet pleasant melody – just like that of a lullaby – is only interrupted by her voice getting deeper and exploring her beautiful and still slightly uncanny lows, and some stammering sighs in her falsetto range. The first type of these “interruptions” is interesting as it is a relatively atypical range for female singers in what could be considered classical music – and her singing style is, for the most part, classical, I would assume. With these lows, she arguably plays the role a low male voice would usually fulfill, a rock-solid, soothing kind of role. The exact opposite of those are the sigh-like falsetto highs, yearning laments, which one probably wouldn’t expect in a “lullaby.” Perhaps more typical or fitting to one are the fade-out without a "proper" closing chord, with Monk just murmuring towards the end and then not singing anymore at all.

Adding to that is the very obvious fact that this song has no lyrics, at least no lyrics in a language comprehensible to anyone than Monk (and perhaps not even to herself). Fun fact: I thought her singing sounds like she was singing backwards, so I listened to it in reverse once, which however didn’t reveal anything new to me – if you want to try yourself, here’s the link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ofbu2gwlwnxzfj/Gotham%20Lullaby%20backwards.mp3?dl=0.

Anyone who has tried this will know how distracting lyrics can be, for example when trying to study while listening to music. This makes me assume that Monk doesn’t want lyrics to distract from what’s actually important in this song: the way she uses her voice. With her singing,  she manages to convey a remarkable range of sounds and emotions in this relatively simple song, this lullaby. “Gotham Lullaby” is a lullaby in its structural simplicity and also isn’t one in terms of melody and sound. While there are elements that appear child-like such as the long soothing passages of Monk’s singing and the rather monotonous piano part, the varied and untypical scope of her singing voice as demonstrated in “Gotham Lullaby” exceeds one’s expectations here, playing with the boundaries of genres like we used to know them. One could say that “Gotham Lullaby” is in fact a lullaby, a children’s song – with the same legitimacy as someone saying it is a show of Monk’s willingness to question and traverse limitations, such as of genre. “Gotham Lullaby” hence is a children’s song as the name would suggest, but the song of a very eloquent child.