Baiting Kogan with Symbols
What's the use of symbols in songs?
Songs can be symbols and they can contain symbols. They point, and they participate in that to which they point. (This is the definition of dead theologian Paul Tillich, who distinguished symbols from signs, which merely point without participating.) So when Axl Rose sings, "We've been dancing with Mr. Brownstone" to a Bo Diddley beat, his words and the beat point to dancing and provoke dancing. The song also points to the thrills of drug use and could provoke same, if one found the G'n'R lifestyle alluring enough. Could also point to the scariness of drugs through the symbol of "Mr. Brownstone," who won't leave you alone in what sounds like a mysterious and creepy way, rather than in an annoying Rick Moranis way. The anomaly of deep-voiced Axl also alludes to and helps symbolize this character.
You can take or leave symbols. Though I've performed a mysterious and creepy "Mr. Brownstone" dance in my living room, I most often listen to it in my car, where I don't dance. The song has also not appreciably affected my view of drugs one way or another, as far as I can tell. Deep-voiced Axl has established a paradigm of serpentine cool in my head and may have affected the way I walk at certain times.
So our symbols here are the beat, Axl's voice, and the lyrics. How could these be other than symbols? They could be less than symbols, if they didn't provoke people to dancing or pleasure or anything else. That is, if they're bad songs, they're not adequately symbolic. They're merely signs. I hear this when listening to the fucking Ting Tings' "Great DJ", which combines a peppy electro beat and some peppy syncopated nonsense syllables to absolutely no effect, not for me at least. The song points to, signifies, peppy fun but doesn't participate. (This gets into some possible contradictions that I haven't fully worked out. Every song, even a bad song, has a real-life effect, but that doesn't mean it's symbolic of that real-life effect. Are the Ting Tings symbolic of my hatred? Are boring folk songs symbolic of my desire to leave the coffeehouse?) Though of course, a song can work as a symbol for some, but not for others.
Regardless of how many people it works for, a song cannot plausibly be more than a symbol. It can't be the thing itself. I love dancing to "Groove is in the Heart"; many do not. But regardless of whether you're dancing to it or eating a piece of wedding cake and seething to it, you're experiencing the song as symbol but not as a physical entity--it's not like the song itself or the goofy DeeeLite chick are actually dancing or eating cake with you. (Though I do remember a Janet Jackson interview where she recounted having sex to one of her songs. I think the guy exploded.)
So when songs provoke, they're doing their job as symbols. Angry Bob Dylan songs aren't somehow rays of pure anger--they're symbols of anger, and as such may arouse anger in listeners. Of course, they may also arouse simple pleasure in listeners (i.e., me when I was 10 and had no idea what was going on in the song or who was singing it). They may also arouse anger in listeners who can't stand Dylan's voice. In a conceivably huge amount of listeners, they may arouse nothing at all. These things are hard to predict. And a song need not work symbolically for it to work. Last night at the fair there was a Beatles cover band, and people from all walks of life were singing along to "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Wait." Maybe it's just my failure of imagination, but I can't imagine how that song could function as a symbol. But it is a nice piece of music.
The reason I bring this up to bait Kogan is that his use of symbol, in The PBS-ification of Rock, seems on its surface to contradict the Tillichian use. Here's Kogan:
'So I was saying that significance becomes a mere signifier. “Certain effects of music are reduced to symbols: E.g., a type of music symbolizes rebellion rather than provoking rebellion, symbolizes outrageousness rather than being an outrage, symbolizes fun, symbolizes intelligence, symbolizes protest.” And so the symbol stands in for the event, which doesn’t actually happen.'
I'd say Kogan's use of "symbol" is closer to Tillich's use of "sign"--that which merely points but doesn't participate. Kogan also points out later that there's nothing inherently wrong or meaning-draining in using symbols, and that even the Sex Pistols, of whom he approves, trafficked in symbols.
Frank, is that fair? This is leading somewhere in a larger study of Babylon symbology, but I'd like you to argue with me if I'm misrepresenting your use of "symbol". Thanks!