How many times have I arrived to work in a country to be translated by a bright young person who learned fluent English from Humphrey Bogart or John Lennon? Pop, along with movies and later the internet, created a proliferation of English as a common language. And certainly when they were adopted by whites, when gramophones and radios spread, and when Elvis and the Beatles conquered not just the west but the world. Unarguably when blues and jazz urbanised in the 1920s. And arguably with the holler of those they and their legacy enslaved – anglicised from west Africa – which became the blues. When, then, did the ascent of song in English begin? Arguably when British and Irish planters and pioneers took folk song to what they called the “new world”. By the time Verdi had made opera into folk music and vice-versa, his funeral drew the largest crowd ever assembled in Italy. As the Renaissance challenged divine vision with that of humankind, Latin’s closest descendent, Italian, became music’s international language: after Monteverdi wrote the first operas in Venice, Gluck in Germany and Handel in London followed in his tongue. Long narrative songs recorded history in the Mongghul of north-east Tibet, while in the Americas, Aztec poet Ayocuan Cuetzpaltzin posited that the language of song must imitate the call of the coyolli bird if it were to convey “the innermost part of heaven”, as only music could. Shakira, who has been part of the avant garde of the Latin wave. While folk and sacred music in Asia and the Americas was sung and chanted in the tongues of nation or tribe, the church permitted and encouraged, up to a point, international settings of scriptural text to Gregorian chant and later – though it became contentious – polyphony. For centuries, the lingua franca of much music was Latin. In the long game, this is a return, not an innovation. Sebastian Krys, a producer for Colombian singer Shakira, told Rolling Stone last year: “You simply can’t have a global No 1 any more without a hit in Mexico and Spain.” Tim Ingham, who writes for the magazine, says: “Not only is non-English language repertoire dominating key territories today – it’s also taking over the world.” Be Apart by Tia Ray, who is Chinese, and Despacito by Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee, both Puerto Ricans, also made the top 10. Less widely acknowleged is that the gyre is turning, that other languages, especially Spanish, are eroding the hegemony of pop and other genres.Īccording to data last week from IFPI, representing the recording industry worldwide, the top single of 2018 was Havana by Camila Cabello, a Cuban American, which included a Spanish-language remix. Everyone knows English is the lingua franca of pop music.
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“Rock and pop are American and English, and we understood that immediately,” French rocker Little Bob said recently, at home near the old bell tower in Le Havre that called dockers to work each grey dawn. As Leonard Cohen sang: “We are ugly but we have the music.” He referred – rather harshly – to himself and Janis Joplin, but some might apply it more widely to the British and Americans.