So, before we begin, a word about Fridays.
A WORD ABOUT FRIDAYS
So, basically, I have decided that Fridays are days where it’s ultimately a grab bag, though the majority of the time it will be a list, or lists, of some sort. This could range from review-y lists like the Top X EP’s from the EP of the Month Club, to Wednesday-y (somewhere, a English teacher just spat out a cup of hot tea) lists like today’s topic, to just silly lists, like the Top X Hairdo’s In Wrockdom. Or it could be an extra review, or a Wednesday-style article, or something completely different.
And now, today’s article! So, the previous article generated a butt-ton (an Imperial butt-ton, not a Metric one) of comments, including one very intriguing one by a reader by the name of Arodhwen:
How many male-fronted bands can you think of that have done songs from female perspectives? I can think of two tracks: “Imperious Regrets” by the Mudbloods and “Kiss Me (Hermione’s Lament)” by The Brothers Black.
Arodhwen also goes on to point out that the latter song used technology to make the male singer sound like a woman, and while that was most definitely for added realism, isn’t it interesting that one of only two of these types of songs disguises itself, while you don’t see any female bands mechanically masking their voices?
Well, this made me think two things. Firstly, HOW in all of the CRAP of the great mighty dung beetle Khepri did The Brothers Black manage to get (his? their?) voice to sound like that? That is without a doubt, the most convincing fake female voice I have ever heard in my life. So much so that I don’t quite believe it. Can we get some source citations, Arodhwen?
[Note: It’s now been confirmed that The Brothers Black has a female singer. However, Arodhwen’s point still stands.]
Secondly, Hmmm…. you know, I’ve never noticed that before, but I’m pretty sure Arodhwen is correct. So, as an informative exercise, I am going to browse through my 2+ days of wizard rock I have stored on my computer, and list all the songs I find that have male bands singing from female POVs, and a list with the opposite. For today, I’m just gonna list, and you can come to any conclusion from this data yourself. Also, be sure to add any songs to either list that I may have missed!
Male Bands Singing From A Female POV
- Imperious Regrets – The Mudbloods
- Nargles Stole/ate My Socks – The Blibbering Humdingers
- Kiss Me (Hermione’s Lament) – The Brothers Black
- The Diary – Catchlove
- Dear Tom – Creevey Crisis
- Not Standing Silent – Creevey Crisis
- The Locket – Creevey Crisis
- Apparate Away – Creevey Crisis
- The Blues – The Giant Squidstravaganza
- Slashkilter – Luna’s Ceiling
- We Fly (Of Course) – Luna’s Ceiling
- The Voice Beyond the Veil – Luna’s Ceiling
- Death Eater’s End – Luna’s Ceiling
- Bezour Pills – The Remus Lupins
- Room of Requirement – The Remus Lupins
Also, a few caveats about the above list. “Nargles Stole/Ate My Socks” by The Blibbering Humdingers is a duet between a dude and a dudette, both singing from Luna’s point of view. So, only half of the time is it a male singing from a female POV. “The Diary” by Catchlove is not technically from Ginny’s point of view, but seeing as one of Jace’s favorite lyrical tricks is to sing “at” a person, from the POV of an unnamed, unimportant character – see “Wake Up Harry”, “The Diary”, “Peter Pettigrew (The Rat)”, etc. And that’s just from one EP! Also, “The Blues” by The Giant Squidstravaganza is a duet with… himself, and half of the time, he’s pitching his voice up to sound like his “lady quid”. Lastly, “Room of Requirement” is only from Trelawney’s POV for the first third of the song. Also, “Bezoar Pills” is actually from a male’s POV, so it’s disqualified. And we have now decided that The Brothers Black song was indeed sung by a women, so “Kiss Me” is also disqualified. So, if one were a real hard-ass, there would only be 9 songs on this list. Now, on to the list of…
Female Bands Singing From A Male POV
- Nemesis 1/26 – The Bezoar Project
- Christmas Mirror – The Butterbeer Experience
- I Will Survive [Harry] – Chaos of the Phoenix
- Dobby’s Christmas Wish – The Curse Breakers
- Full Moon – The Curse Breakers
- House Elves – Dreary Inferi
- Empty Lies – The Grey Ladies
- Give Me The Moon – The HMS Wolfstar
- Snivellus – The HMS Wolfstar
- A Song – How Airplanes Fly
- The Quest of James Potter – How Airplanes Fly
- Ode to Umbridge – Kwikspell
- Je T’aime. – Kwikspell
- Green Eyed Monster – Kwikspell
- Save Ginny Weasley – Kwikspell
- Eyes To Die For – The Lost Diadems
- I’ve Just Seen A Witch – Madame Pince and the Librarians
- Live Fast Die Young – Malfoy Manor
- Just A Bad Dream – Malfoy Manor
- Second Thoughts – Malfoy Manor
- Reflections – Malfoy Manor
- Star-Cross’d Brothers (Sons of Orion mix) [feat. Chaos of the Phoenix] – Malfoy Manor
- New Recruits – Malfoy Manor
- Snape’s Worst Memory – The Marauders
- Furry Little Problem – The Marauders
- Wormtail Soup – The Marauders
- I Miss You – The Purebloods
- Hogwarts: A Pudding – Riddle™
- Draco’s Christmas Wish – Riddle™
- Beans – Riddle™
- Rubber Ducks – Riddle™
- Lupin Riddle™
- Ode to Voldemort (peeved remix) – Riddle™
- Crucio – Romilda Vane And The Chocolate Cauldrons
- Godric’s Hollow – Romilda Vane And The Chocolate Cauldrons
- Ode to Lav-Lav – Roonil Wazlib
- Someone Isn’t Getting Any… – Roonil Wazlib
- Expecto Patronum – Shrieking Shack Disco Gang
- It’s Real For Us – Split Seven Ways
- Amortentia – Split Seven Ways
- Childhood’s End – Split Seven Ways
- The Little King – Split Seven Ways
- Wedding Photographs – Split Seven Ways
- I Watch You Slip Away – Split Seven Ways
- Four Letter Word – Split Seven Ways
- Let Go – Split Seven Ways
- Mother and Brother – Split Seven Ways
- Truth Will Out – Split Seven Ways
- Brightest Star – Split Seven Ways
- Albus Potter’s Lullaby – Split Seven Ways
- Teenage Werewolf – Split Seven Ways
- Ghosts (The Walk To The Cave) – Split Seven Ways
- More Myself Than I Am – Split Seven Ways
- Potions Abuse parts I & II (highs and lows) – Split Seven Ways
- Dreams Of What Might Have Been – Split Seven Ways
- Die For Love – Split Seven Ways
- Slytherin Hearts (feat. Megan of Tonks!) – Split Seven Ways
- Together ‘Til the End – Split Seven Ways
- Done In By Curtains – Split Seven Ways
- Halfblood Prince (No One Knows My Secrets But You) – Split Seven Ways
- The Hanged Man – Split Seven Ways
- Stronger Every Day – Split Seven Ways
- A Farewell – Split Seven Ways
- Once Upon A Time – Split Seven Ways and Chaos of the Phoenix
- My Dad Is Rich – Swish and Flick
- Flight – Witherwings
So, if you aren’t a narcoleptic lemur (and if you are, let me welcome you to this site, and congratulate you on either evolving sentience or randomly smashing keys on a computer), you’ll have noticed that there is quite a large disparity between these two lists. However, first, a few caveats for this list: “Empty Lies”, “Draco’s Christmas Wish”, “Lupin”, and “Ode To Voldemort” are all like “The Diary” by Catchlove in that they are songs “to” or “at” a character from a non-entity – basically using second-person instead of first-person story telling. There is some dialogue from Ron and Harry overlayed on top of the song in “Beans”, but the actual lyrics do not imply a male POV. “Potions Abuse parts I & II (highs and lows)” is only half from a male POV – more specifically, “part II”. “Expecto Patronum” is sung by a female, with the POV being Harry’s, but the band is a male-female duo, so either or both could have written the song. “Teenage Werewolf”, “My Dad Is Rich”, and “Save Ginny Weasley” are all covers by female bands of songs that were originally written by males. Lastly, “Flight” is from the point of view of a male, but since that male happens to be a Hippogriff, it’s up to debate if there’s anything sociologically telling about this.
But even with all those caveats, the list ends up being whittled down to 54, many times more than the other list’s 8. Another big caveat that you may have noticed is that half of the songs in the latter list were written by Zoë of Malfoy Manor and Split Seven Ways (and also Pansy and the Gossip Queens, but that band wasn’t included on this list for obvious reasons). However, Zoë made a lot of shit during her time as a wizrocker, and thumpin’ good shit too, and the POVs are spread pretty evenly with 40% male, 40% female, and 20% third-person/group. But even if you decide to call Zoë a a dangerous renegade and throw out all of her stuff from the list, you still end up with 30 songs vs. the other list’s 8. Also, this is just based on my (admittedly pretty large, though not as diverse as I would like) wizard rock collection on my computer.
So, while there are more than 2 male-sung songs with female POV’s, there is ginormous disparity between that group and the vice-versa. I’m not going to pontificate on the reasons for this here – I’ll leave that to you guys. TO THE COMMENTS! (I’ll be there discussing this as well, I just wanted this post to be very data-y, and the comments to contain the analysis)
One final note – this brings to a close the first week of the Wrock Snob’s existence, and it’s been an interesting ride. My sincere thanks to EVERYONE who has commented here, and on the Wizrocklopedia article (hooray recursory linkage!), or chatted with me on Twitter. I was truly surprised by how great the entire wizard rock community has been during this whole thing, though I guess in retrospect I really shouldn’t have been. This community, and this music is FUCKING AWESOME, and I’m blessed to be a part of it.
Also, insert disparaging comment about popular band here.
Enjoy your weekend!
The Wrock Snob 
Boys run the risky of silliness and being hokey if they don’t connect cleverly enough to the female perspective. Males classically just “don’t get” females. Female behavior baffles and confuses most males and I think it takes a certain type of male artist to want to “go there” and explore it first person. I think, in order for a guy to effectively speak from a female perspective, he has to have had a really specific connection or inspiration to do so.
I’m not saying that guys are dumb and simple. I’m just saying that I’ve heard the “all girls are crazy” line so many times from guys that I can’t imagine they’d want to go gallivanting around through the female psyche.
Females are traditionally the more emotionally connected, sensitive ones.
Regarding Z…
Zoë is a deeply gifted songwriter and an acutely emotional artist. She can connect with anything or anyone through her work because she’s on a really unique plane of existence. Regardless of gender, Zoë understands the human condition and the nuisances of character. She’s a wordsmith. I think if she were a boy, she’d probably have the same percentage statistics that you noted above.
I’m pretty sure “Kiss Me” is actually sung by a woman, from what I recall there IS a female member of the band (husband and wife duo?), they’re known as 8mm in their muggle guise.
I’m really flattered that you like my music! Gotta admit I don’t think of myself as a musician, I’m a writer with access to a guitar and garageband and it’s easier to get ideas across in a song than it is in a story sometimes; an exercise in being concise. Generally most of my favourite characters are male but there’s so many great girls and women in HP so I try to give them their say as well – ESPECIALLY Cho Chang. I think the way fandom treats her is really, REALLY messed up, sorry to say.
Just for the record, Creevey Crisis had 3 other songs from the female point of view – “Not Standing Silent”, “The Locket”, and “Apparate Away”. If you (or anyone else for that matter) are interested, you can download them all for free from the Creevey Crisis Bandcamp page – just click on my name above to get there, every single thing I released as the Crisis is available there for free.
I’m going to have to agree pretty much 100% with Mary Beth’s comment about guys not getting the female perspective; I think that’s absolutely true. As men, we just tend to react differently to pretty much everything, and often have a different POV on matters. And when it comes to songwriting, I think that for most of us are subconsciously (or even consciously) uncomfortable being in a situation where we’re vocalizing love for another guy, even if from the female POV. I don’t find that being a concern from women in wrock, who often sing from a male POV and have no problems having the voice of the song expressing strong feelings.
As a writer, yeah it was damn hard to take that on – “Not Standing Silent” went through 3 complete re-writes, because I was intent on getting that song RIGHT. I didn’t want to shortchange Ginny, and by extension, the female point of view. That song ended up being my favorite Crisis song of all time as a result, and I’m extremely proud of it. Strangely enough, it was actually a short fanfic that gave me the final inspirational kick in the ass to help guide the final version.
Even if the stats-gathering is still a bit flawed here 😉 I do agree that there is a disparity, perhaps because as guys it’s tough for us to view things from the other side *properly*, and moreso, in my opinion, there’s always going to be that societal voice telling us that it’s “weird” to sing emotionally (and sometimes romantically) about another male.
My immediate reaction is that the Harry Potter books themselves are very much to blame. It’s very easy for anybody to sing from Harry Potter’s point of view, as he’s the main character. So that’s an immediate instance where any girl tackling the main character is going to be singing about the opposite gender. From there, there’s not always a ton of reason to sing from the point of view of any of the women in the book… most of them kind of suck unless you’re really using your imagination. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of great moments and fantastic source material to pull from involving the women in the books, but I don’t think a guy is necessarily going to be drawn to sing from the perspective of Tonks the way girls might be drawn to sing from the perspective of Lupin. We don’t know much about the women in the books, and a lot of what we know about them is relationship-based, so if a guy is uncomfortable singing a love song to a girl then his opportunities to sing from a female point of view become a bit more limited – and who wants to dig that deep for an alternate point of view, when there’s already so much to pull from? I think for wizard rock guys it almost has to be a conscious choice to sing from a woman’s perspective, whereas it’s much less deliberate for the women of the community.
Additionally, when wizard rock started almost all of the bands were aligning themselves with gender-appropriate characters and singing exclusively from their point of view, so you rarely will catch a gender-crossover song from a character-specific band. Performers with a more generic band name (like Catchlove or Split Seven Ways) have a bit more flexibility to alter their POV, and I’m not sure what the data breakdown of character bands vs. generic bands is. But I know that plays a big part. Are there any bands that represent a character who don’t match that character’s gender? That would be interesting.
And Russ, there are plenty of things people can sing about from a woman’s POV that don’t involve romance! 😉
Well, there’s the Marauders, which sing almost exclusively from the POV of the four male marauders, and the band is comprised of females. Also, technically, there’s Witherwings, but I don’t think horse dongs count for much in this conversation. And I get what you’re saying about the female characters, but I don’t feel that say, Hermione and Ron have much disparity between themselves in the case of characterization, and you have instances where females are writing Ron-Hermione love songs from Ron’s point of view. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it is an odd thing, and I don’t know how much of a conscious choice it is.
I mean, we do live in a society where the male story is the one that’s told, so maybe when writing lyrics, some women are subconsciously choosing to write from society’s predominant viewpoint?
Lastly, I bring Zoë up as a counter-argument the claim that it’s hard to write from the POV of Jo’s women because they might not have enough screen time – she practically made her career off of the Black/Malfoy family tree – every character from Bella to Regulus to Lucius. I mean, she’s got, what, two songs total from Hermione’s perspective? Of course, not that many people can pull off the same amount of characterization and lyrical depth, culling from just a few lines.
Oh, I definitely wasn’t trying to claim that it’s hard to write from the POV of the women in the Potter series, just that it requires a little more digging and imagination. I’m constantly amazed at how much the Moaning Myrtles and Tonks and the Aurors have been able to milk their namesakes for material. I mean this goes for anyone who picks a minor character – The Whomping Willows, for goodness sake? – but I think there’s more surface material that’s got a male POV attached to it to work with, in general. It’s not hard to write a stellar song about Narcissa, and if you’ve heard Nagini and Bella and le Strangers then you know that, but I don’t think the female characters are generally the ones that jump out at you when you’re sitting down and writing about the Potter books. That may just be my personal experience, though.
…I think what I said originally on the topic is much more clear, so I’ll stop repeating myself. 😉
And I’m stupid, because I forgot about the Marauders AND Fred and George the Band and am probably missing a few others. But I don’t think there are any guys with a female-centric character band…. maybe now that I’ve said that somebody can prove me wrong. GO!
*blush* thanks! That’s the thing about a lot of the women in HP – they get so little screentime. Even Lily gets shortchanged – in the books no-one really TALKS about her for a long time, which is something I really liked about the PoA movie – they had Remus talk in depth about Lily as a human being rather than making it All About James. That’s why I’ve tried to take Lily’s POV into account more, rather than it being entirely about Snape or James or whoever’s feelings for her. But somehow the women still manage to evolve over the course of the books, albeit not quite as much as the men. Narcissa’s totally the best example, she goes from a couple of lines based entirely on physical description to being one of my favourite things about Deathly Hallows.
The male characters were all pretty important straight off, and though they were mostly initially fairly black-and-white caricatures due to being seen through the eyes of an eleven-year-old they grew a lot. The women, well, a lot of them were lucky to make it to black-and-white caricatures. Not JK Rowling’s fault, obviously, it’s the society we live in, plus writing it from Harry’s POV necessarily means he’s going to identify with the men rather than the women. And I definitely bought into the society’s telling of the male story in my early days in HP, I’m really ashamed of things I said about Cho and Ginny, who both deserve more than the slut-shaming they frequently got in other areas of fandom. I’ve always been glad that wizard rock is A LOT more Ginny-friendly but it still disappoints me on Cho.
You’re absolutely correct about female POV songs that aren’t romantic, I was just trying to think of reasons why male performers don’t sing as much from the female character POV.
I’m a bit disappointed. I was really hoping for the “Top 10 Haircuts in Wizard Rock” list. It’s about time Hogwarts, A History won something.
Also, I’m quite sure Creevey Crisis wasn’t included on the list because Russ’ songs are filled with too much badassery to be thought of from a girls POV. 😉
I’m gonna go ahead and agree with your disappointment in this not being about hairdos. Hairdos are great and powerful forces in our lives. Harry Potter has hair, Voldemort doesn’t. That’s pretty deep. Someone once asked if my hair was a wig. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I’m not confirming or denying anything. Steph from Tonks and the Aurors has, clearly, the best hair in the community. But if were gonna list OUTSIDE of the community, I’d go with Cleopatra or Marie Antoinette (for the wigged category).
“I was really hoping for the “Top 10 Haircuts in Wizard Rock” list. It’s about time Hogwarts, A History won something.”
This made me LOL.
Yeah dude, The Brothers Black are a husband and wife duo, don’t let the bandname fool you. They’re both real-life music producers for the likes of NIN, Marilyn Manson, No Doubt and others. And of course they have their own band, 8MM.
As for the lists, they’re pretty cursory, except for the fact that “Bezoar Pills” is from the perspective of Remus singing to Harry, so that doesn’t really belong.
Looking forward to more stuff from you!
I will come back and add a comment with real substance later, but I wanted to state how happy I am you posted a link to Zoboomafu. I adored that show, probably because I had a very nerdy-girl crush on the Kratt boys (they were cute biologists! What more could a girl want?). Sigh. And I also would like to point out that if Momo existed in a universe with Internet access, he would totally have enough intelligence to find this site and contribute intelligent discussion.
🙂
Okay. And if I had caught up on all of these comments before this morning, I might not feel like a tool right now.
I’m very bad at knowing who is in bands. I am. I had bought RiddleTM’s first album and it took me two weeks to find out that it was not a solo project. (In my defense… Their voices do sound a bit alike…?)
Here is me apologizing for being a misinformed idiot. (Although, as I added in the comments for Wednesday’s article, it’s REALLY easy to make realistic changes to vocals. If you record a female voice and only take it down 1-2 steps, it won’t sound like a demon-from-the-netherworld and will sound much more dude-like.)
And (at the risk of either redeeming or further idiot-ifying myself) I’d also like to add on the Mary Beth’s comment. I would argue that because girls wrockers are
“traditionally the more emotionally connected, sensitive ones,” that makes it hard for them to get the male perspective. It swings both ways. Because it is less societally acceptable for guys to be “emotionally connected, sensitive” human beings, it’s ground into them from a young age not to be that way. Therefore, if a friend gets AK’ed in the face, the reaction is “How dare you, I’ll AK you in the face!” as opposed to “You killed him! Killedhimkilledhimkilledhim!” (West Side reference? Anyone?)
I’m purposefully not trying to pull specifics out of my brain and am generalizing that there are female-singing-from-male-perspective songs that are a little TOO emotional. Meaning, you can tell a guy didn’t write it.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go crawl into a hole until everyone forgets about this.
I’m just sayin a boy is LESS LIKELY to want to CHOOSE to write a women’s POV. I didn’t say there were BAD at it.
It’s not that “girl wrockers” are traditionally more accepted to cry their feelings out, its ALL WOMEN.
I don’t think ANY ART can be (as you put it) “TOO EMOTIONAL”. People write about what turns then on, what inspires them and use the way that THEY see the world to present it.
I don’t think it matters whether or not you can “tell if a girl wrote it” when it’s a guys song (or the other way around). I don’t think anyone is trying to trick their audience into thinking they’re a dude or a chick because that would be a comedy piece and I think we’re referring to non-comedic songs.
I’m just sayin it’s less likely for boys to attempt it because of society or something like that.
I recently wrote a song from Grindelwald’s point of view. It is sort of a crying love song to Dumbledore. It isn’t me necessarily putting myself in the shoes of a man but me looking at the story, connecting with the bit I connect to. I was comfortable approaching a song through his eyes because I’ve made mistakes and the song is about making mistakes. I’ve written Snape songs because I’ve been heartbroken. I’m not afraid to approach those things because I am not of the same gender as the character. (this paragraph might not matter because I’m not popular and I’m not sure if I’m allowed to jump “tiers” and throw myself in the mix of consideration.)
And I’m not sayin’ guys are afraid of girls points of views, I’m just saying that because of the way the world is, many of them may be shaped toward not goin’ for the girls POV.
I also think that because of the earlier format of the bands, people were just picking characters they liked to sing from the POVs of. And they tended to pick characters they liked that were the same gender. (Many of those bands expanded beyond simply that character but I think a lot of the earlier stuff was just that format) I think half the music in this community is really fun, tongue-in-cheek and lighthearted and the other half is the darker deeper bit. (I don’t know what that last part has to do with anything but whatever, I’m a ramblin’ man in more ways than one)
If any of that made sense, I’ll be pleased. I have no college degree and English isn’t my first language (it’s Fremen, I’m a stillsuit wearer for life). I actually can’t read or write, my servant boy, Jamis “the machine” Williams typed this up. He takes dictation like a champ. He’s blushing right now from me saying this but he needs to learn how to accept compliments, he needs more confidence. Is it not monstrous that such a talented, shy young man should be so meek? I do think he deserves a bonus.
“(this paragraph might not matter because I’m not popular and I’m not sure if I’m allowed to jump “tiers” and throw myself in the mix of consideration.)”
Woah. Dude dude dude. Not okay, dude. ANYONE is in the mix of consideration. This was looking at lyrics throughout all of wrockdom (or at least, the extent of wrockdom that resides on my hard drive…) – don’t sell yourself short, dude!
Definitely with you that art can’t be too emotional. It can be too trite and embarrassing about emotions, that’s true, but for me creative arts are all about the human condition and emotion is an irrevocable part of it seeing as we’re not Vulcans! I am not a robot, indeed.
Sorry, I guess I misunderstood. When you said that guys don’t get it , I took that as “are bad at it.”
And when I said too emotional, I meant that guys tend to be more stoic. Too many flowery words or angsty things are just not… “male.” As society defines it at least. So… “too emotional” = “angsty emo kid”
Hey, it’s no prob! While one of your examples was off the mark, you did point out something very interesting that I’d never noticed before! Also, back in 2007 I voted for Gred and Forge for best duo, so sort of the opposite of your RiddleTM dealie. It happens to everyone!
I’m not selling myself short. I have very realistic confidence in my talent and trust me, I know how brilliant I am. I know what I can and cannot do. I’m just saying I’m not popular. And I’m totally OK with that.
Why are you sorry? That’s completely ridiculous. I like your blog. It’s cool. I am just disappointed that a day’s worth of my own idle hands could show me a rigid side of myself that I didn’t like.
Arodhwen- yeah the “society” doesn’t let males be poetic. the world hates guys like nick cave, morrisey, robert smith, bob dylan and tom waits and william shakespeare. man, those guys are so “flowery” and “angsty emo kids”. Also, I don’t know why people knock on emo (or any other genre, really) for being what it is. things get pegged so easily. there is so much fusion in every type of music. people do what comes out of them and other people listen or don’t.
I don’t like to put things in boxes. It becomes increasingly hard to put a lot of good modern music into genre categories and it is stellar. My thing is, again: men, statistically MIGHT be less willing to write female perspective songs (maybe because of society or whatever. i honestly don’t know a lot about society because I’m a hermit but I DO have the internet) but I wasn’t saying that men can’t be great poets.
I have never thought this much about picking apart music before and I actually am really hating the way this conversation is making me think. I usually just listen to what I like and make what I can without too much thought of how or why. I also had a LOT of spare time yesterday to comment on various blogs and it made me think in a way I don’t usually think and I hated it. I’m no scholar and I don’t think I’d want to be. ❤
I’m… sorry?
I used extra modifiers in “angsty emo kids” to indicate… I’m not sure there’s a way for me to phrase this without being misinterpreted or feeling like my foot’s in my mouth. Here we go.
Let’s say “angsty emo kids” are the ones who not just seek attention, but enjoy being unhappy and think that being miserable or having some kind of misfortune makes them better than other people. And so therefore spend time (subconsciously or not) trying to come up with new ways to show everyone in their social sphere that they are coming apart at the seams when it’s perfectly within their power to be happy. So, not to say that the sadness (or whatever emotion) isn’t real, but to say that they experience it a little more than they ought to do.
By that definition, Shakespeare et cetera are NOT emo. In Shakespeare’s plays, for example, there is always a striving for a solution. There are characters that give up (Banish-ed Romeo?), but then the characters surrounding them (Friar Lawrence?) are still trying. If the play were “Romeo Gives Up” it would be an angsty-emo-play and I would hate it rather than dislike it. It’s not that Romeo’s despair isn’t real, it’s that he needs to pick himself up and fix it.
But then, I may just be spouting too much personal philosophy and I’ll hush it for now. (And I’m sorry that thinking critically about things is ruining them for you?)
A few more I think are female bands singing from a male POV:
Vashta Nerada (Nagini): Eyes, Illuminate the Night, Wormwood&Wolfsbane, Star-cross’d Brothers (all are duets w/ women singing both parts)
The Buttermellows- One Last Scar, A Foot of Silver, Hold On (two perspectives), Everyone Knows Me But Me, I Solemnly Swear That I’m Up to No Good, You Had To Care for Me…
Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons- Crucio
Standing in Line- Dateless, Too Many Summers, The Requiem
Lupin by RiddleTM on your list is indeed about Lupin but I think it’s in 3rd person (not Harry singing about Lupin, as far as I can tell). And Bezour Pills is most definitely Remus’ POV. I must admit I didn’t go through both of the lists but those jumped out at me while skimming.
I usually find myself drawn more to male characters in fiction (both when reading and writing). But I’m not a WRocker and it’s just as well–my off-key singing would kill you all dead.
Thank you for mentioning me 🙂 I love you. “Eyes” and “Illuminate the Night” were actually really interesting because I originally wrote and performed them with a male duet partner. When Zoe and I decided to redo them, I jumped into the male perspective shoes just because. I don’t know. I seemed to be more of a Bill, she was more of a Fleur, etc. I think it is cool that you brought them up because we did those duets not really stressing the particular gender roles but rather a person talking to a person.
Sure we made a lot of jokes about how I am possibly a dude (and maybe I am. I won’t confirm or deny anything. Let’s keep it Lady Gaga and exciting under my skirt.) but it was never important to the work itself.
Thank you so much, btw, for always supporting my work and being so cool on twitter and stuff. I feel like I (mostly) make really inaccessible music and when someone says something about it, I feel like I have a kindred spirit. You’re awesome.
Doing those duets was really interesting because even though I have the most stereotypically female voice, all the duets I’d written were for two guys! So playing the girl in a duet was kind of enlightening, in a way…
I found the differences between the versions utterly fascinating. I think I prefer the Twin Cores duet version of Eyes but the extra French in the version with Zoe just totally *makes* that song. I think what I like most about them is that there are different lyrics and note choices made, not just different people singing the different parts of the exact same songs. And I’m always saying that there need to be more good duets in WRock. But, then, I’m very character-based in my preferences. I love exploring different aspects and depths of characters (be they men or women!)
Not to totally go all fangirly on you, but omg-blush-thank you! I’ll try to escape for a few moments from behind the DADA/HPA Raffle table at Sonorus next week and say hi in person 🙂 And Grace assured me that you’ll play Running in the Dark, Alone there if I ask very very very nicely.
I stole that line from ee cummings’ poem, “i carry your heart” and translated it into french. I’m a no good down and dirty swindler and a thief! It’s such a delicate Fleur line.
I’ll totally play my sappy time lord bullcrap for you at Sonorus, Kate, totally! hahhaha.
Well, “Lupin” is in 2nd person, and I counted 2nd person songs for the full list both times, but caveat’d them for the condensed list. Thanks for the extra songs!
The Brothers Black totally has a female singer. Epic faiiiiiiilllllzzzzzz.
I’m just going to offer up I’ve Had Harry Potter Inside Me, in which I claim, “Let’s face it girl, I’m more woman than you’ll ever be.”
Discuss!
HOLD THE PHONE.
You’re NOT a girl?
I am rethinking all of my morals right now and I am LOVING it.
Have I mentioned that you might be my favorite person?
Ladies and gentlemen, the comment of the day! ^
🙂
Even if you haven’t mentioned it, it was only a matter of time before you embraced my greatness.
So true.
I’d have long ago offered to embrace your greatness, but I figured that might get me a punch in the eye…
Couple comments about the Luna’s Ceiling songs on the “XY” list (other than to express gratitude and astonishment that someone actually noticed ’em!):
“Slashkilter” isn’t from a female perspective. I wrote that one from the perspective of my hypothetical Wizarding World self…and that self’s a guy. Some of the others are really third person (kinda-sorta…), but “Voice Beyond the Veil” is definitely female (it’s Luna…). Most of “Friends” was composed from Luna’s perspective (am I Luna obsessed? You have no idea…), if not in her actual voice…to the best of my non-female, non-Witch ability, anyway.
However, if you want to keep the list at the same length, some of our new stuff is definitely from a female perspective. “Sirens,” which no one outside the band and our live audience (consisting almost exclusively of the goth/industrial crowd…) has heard, was written from a female perspective, for sure. It’s first person, and I definitely envisioned the speaker to be female. However, that’s just the verses. Kaitlin (our singer for the last 6 months or so) wrote the chorus…and is very much a female.
But enough self promotion!
I find the idea of composing from a gender perspective not one’s own to be a really fun challenge. It’s similar to trying to write from an opposite-gender POV, etc. It’s hard, but some do it very well (insert more Split Seven Ways worship here…). I’d never thought about the disparity between “guy singing as girl” and “girl singing as guy” songs in wrock, but those lists are instructive.
Well I worship Luna’s Ceiling, and you know it!
Thanks for including a link for me! I have another song from a male perspective, entitled “Portals and Promises”, which is from Snape’s point of view. It’s interesting you mentioned Split Seven Ways so much–she is my inspiration behind the above-mentioned tune.
… transgender songs from dj Luna Lovegood, I can think of right this second;
Nearly Headless Nick’s Advice
Lily Potter(Snape’s letter to Lily when they were 11) Darius and I do this ‘operatic type duet-cute 🙂
Dumbledore(apologizes to Luna)
…does it count I wrote a lot of the Greyback Lyrics, Fenrir, Bite’s and Pieces, and Howl and more, can’t hink right now of all of them 🙂
oh and Ferenze’s Advice to Luna
i was just thinking, I may not be male, but I have balls, *smiles like an 8th grader*
Using your “Catchlove” rule of thumb “Song for Sirius” is sung to him from an unidentified character. Derived partly from the large female interest in Sirius Black.
Lol, the “Catchlove rule of thumb”
I think this should be made permanent when talking about bands/songs written at somebody from no one in particular.
I dig it.
We don’t know much about the women in the books, and a lot of what we know about them is relationship-based,—Grace
This is very interesting considering JK is female.
I know! Every time Ginny pops up in the books, I get all sad about how much JKR let us down with her as a character.
I know! Just when things start to get good for Ginny and she kicks ass (but also has the slight issue of being a “good” girl because she “acts like a boy” which apparently means “doesn’t cry”, “likes sport” and “isn’t scared of bugs”) and then Harry pulls his Spiderman act and she’s relegated back to Just A Girl. As No Doubt would put it 😉
I disagree. I think Ginny is one of the best characters, and Jo really let her badassery show even when she-s not “on stage” so to speak, a lot.
Another mention, I wrote “Sirius and Rosmerta” which the TCD duets with me, kindly, Ian you’re so hot BTW…
In my fantastic worlds there was a good chance that Sirius did some drinking before imprisonment and may he and Rosmerta hooked up~
He was wise to call it quits from my build up of Rosmerta’s life 🙂
Rosmerta = hardened barmaid 🙂
where are Ian’s posts? The Cedric Diggorys, they disapeared!
No, he just hadn’t posted yet, and first time posters need to get their comments approved. Spam-precaution, nothing else.
ok, cool 🙂 I just saw them pop up , thanks!
A great female band “Luna Wants A Long Bottom” sings “I’m Neville Longbottom”. So good, I am planning on doing a cover at INCENDIO 2010!
http://www.myspace.com/lunawantsalongbottom
LWaLB also have a great song from Snape’s perspective (“Lily (Snape’s Song”). Great song! It has a very feminine voice singing, but still manages to convincingly portray Snape’s feelings.
oops, I think it’s kinda cool that we don’t know too much about females characters, gives an artist tons of room to improv, as i have as Luna.
Magical Creatures like the Whomping WIllows, Nagini-we know she was a she, the Horntails-I’m pretty sure it was a she too, so was Darius thinking about singing from the POV of a mama, no dude, it was all dragon. and bi-gender-friendly
I love that The Marauders are mentioned here, Kristen is a geographically relatively close person to us and she and her friend secured this notch, There music is so straight forward and experimental. Her family is wonderful too :”
She learned to play accordion for Wrock, ’nuff said
Okay, I wanna say something about this. First I wanna summarize a bit. Here’s what people already suggested as possible reasons for the lack of male bands singing from female POV:
– There are fewer well-developed female characters than male characters in the books (although some argued that this may not limit the choise of POV but actually give more space for character interpretation).
– Many bands sing from a certain character’s POV which usually corresponds the gender of the band members. The known exceptions of this (Marauders, Fred and George the Band) are females singing as male characters.
– Society’s predominant viewpoint is male’s so some women wrockers subconsciously choose to write from that POV.
– Male wrockers may feel too awkward to sing from female POV, especially love songs to males. It’s societally less acceptable for males to be emotional and sensitive (because those are usually attributes of women).
Like some of the wrockers who have commented here, I too write songs from both genders’ perspectives. I have always felt it’s just natural. My choises of characters and POVs are based on what the characters are like and what are the happenings/themes I wanna write about. I thought it would be fun to count if this actually shows in my songs. Of the 19 songs that I’ve put out, there are:
Males’ POVs in 8 songs
Females’ POVs in 3 songs
Generic wizards’/witches’ (may be either female or male or both) POVs in 9 songs
3rd person POV (on behalf of some magical creatures) in 2 songs
Implied gay POVs in 4 songs (in 3 they are male, in 1 it’s both females and males)
I counted it like this because many of my songs have multiple POVs.
So it seems I’m mostly singing from a gender-unspecified POV and male POV. And I’m a female (who is gay). Someone might want to explain this by saying that because I’m a lesbian, I relate to the male POV, and because I’m all for equality, I tend to make it gender-unspecified. Actually, I could agree with the fact that I feel comfortable doing songs from the male and gender-unspecified POV. And I’m gonna explain why (because it has nothing to do with my sexual orientation).
Potter books are written mostly from the POV of Harry (well, literally not, because it isn’t 1st person POV, but the narrator knows all Harry’s thoughts). That’s why we get to see his emotions and thoughts so close. Can anyone argue that Harry isn’t portrayed as an emotional and sensitive person? Not all the time, no, but we get to see that side of him, too. We see some deep emotions and thoughts from other male characters too, just think about Albus in the last two books and Severus in The Prince’s Tale chapter. I think this is one of the reasons I love the books. They portray males and females as emotional and sensitive, and males and females as cold and tough etc.
So I argue that the way Harry is portrayed in the books (the fact that he is given characteristics that the society considers as “girly”) is one reason why those women wrockers, who want to portray these sort of characteristics and emotions, feel so comfortable to write from male POV.
So yeah, Harry is sometimes “girly”, and Hermione is sometimes such a man, and Albus is tough and cold and warm and caring, and Whompy can be a real woman, as he pointed out earlier. Yeah, the Potter characters have a range of emotions and characteristics, no matter what their gender is. And so do wrockers. I hope people could feel good about expressing themselves, and the characters they wanna do songs about, in the way they want to, and have fun with gender roles, not be limited by them.
And although many artists express their personal emotions in their works (directly or not), it’s rarely justified to consider an artist’s work as a mirror image of that artist’s real self. For example, I do a lot of songs just for the fun of it, without any deep emotions. When I first started writing songs several years ago they were really self-centered. There’s nothing wrong with that but in time I started feeling that I don’t want to do such personal songs anymore, although I still make emotional songs too.
I just wanna say that I am thrilled that Buckbeak’s male POV on “The Flight of Buckbeak and Sirius” was even considered – sociological impact or not. Awesome.
I have some new songs in the works (new CD due out around the time of Infinitus) and there are a few songs from the male POV. Though, like someone said above, Grace maybe?, the books ARE from Harry’s POV, so you are more likely to get songs that are as well.
Keep us thinking Wrocksnob, whoever you are!
Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls has a song from Hermione’s perspective (“The Meaning of Lonely”) and one from Cho’s perspective (“Whoa is Me”).
Um, I’m almost positive “Whoa Is Me” is from Cedric’s POV. I’ll lyric quote at you later. 😉
I remember Christian saying on a blog on his myspace page that Whoa Is Me was from Cho’s POV.
“”Whoa Is Me” is from The Ravenclaw EP and is from Cho Chang’s point of view.”
Straight from OBatR’s blog on myspace. Kablam.
Oh, wait, for some reason I was somehow mixing up “Whoa Is Me” with “Give It Up”. BECAUSE THOSE TITLES SOUND SOOOOOO SIMILAR, AMIRITE?
That I can think of off the top of my head, I have 3 songs from a female point of view:
“The Meaning of Lonely” – Hermione to Ron
“‘Til Death” – Bellatrix to Voldemort
“Whoa is Me” – Cho to Cedric
Also, I think I’m the wrock band that somehow became forgotten lol
All that silly “tier” talk…yep, no where to be seen. Not even in anyone’s 3rd or 4th tiers lol
I’m glad my contribute made an impact 😛
Anyways, back to real life.
Be well young wizards!
And “Crimson Beloved” by The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office is from both Ron and Hermione’s perspectives and is sung entirely by guys.
I’m going through my ipod to get a more complete list, but I think the female singing from a male POV list is lacking a lot of entries. For one thing, Lena (The Butterbeer Experience) sings a boatload of songs from Harry’s perspective, you’ve only listed one.
Yes, there are a TON of entries missing from the female singing from a male perspective, far too many for me to mention them all here. For example, The Butterbeer Experience also has a great song from Snape’s perspective (“For You”), one from Neville’s perspective (“Basically the Man, pt. 2”) and one from Fred and George’s perspective (“The Weasley Way”).
Here’s my additions to your list. They’re all females singing from a male POV:
All I Ever Wanted — The Black Sisters (Snape)
Open at the Close — The Black Sisters (Harry)
Basically the Man, Part 2 — The Butterbeer Experience (Neville)
Chapter 34 — The Butterbeer Experience (Harry)
Draco-is-a-Death-Eater Theory — The Butterbeer Experience (Harry)
Dreams — The Butterbeer Experience (Harry)
Greater Good — The Butterbeer Experience (Harry)
My Prophecy — The Butterbeer Experience (Harry)
The Weasley Way — The Butterbeer Experience (Fred and George)
Neville’s Song — The Ginny Potter Revelation (Neville)
Stan Got Shunned — The Half-Kneazles (Stan Shunpike)
16 Years Ago — RiddleTM (Harry)
Chapter 34 — RiddleTM (Harry)
Dark Marks Don’t Disappear — RiddleTM (Harry)
Beyond the Veil — RiddleTM (Harry)
Hey! Mr. Ollivander — RiddleTM (Mr. Olliavander) *partial
I Must Not Tell Lies — RiddleTM (Harry)
The Letter — RiddleTM (Regulus Black)
Thestrals — RiddleTM (Harry)
Apology — Roonil Wazlib (Ron)
Ariana — Roonil Wazlib (Dumbledore)
Dragons Make Very Nice Pets — Roonil Wazlib (Hagrid)
I Do — Roonil Wazlib (Bill Weasley)
Leaving For Hogwarts — Roonil Wazlib (Harry)
Mischief Managed — Roonil Wazlib (Fred and George)
My Mirror is My Best Friend — Roonil Wazlib (Cedric Diggory)
Shell Cottage — Roonil Wazlib (Harry)
Song of the Locket — Roonil Wazlib (Voldemort’s soul-fragment)
The Trace — Roonil Wazlib (Harry)
Trevor the Toad — Roonil Wazlib (Neville)
Wow, Awesome Silver Hand! — Roonil Wazlib (Petter Pettigrew)
This one’s a bit questionable:
The Peverell Story — The Butterbeer Experience (Death). Death is usually thought to be male.
So that’s another 31-32 to your list.
I also have the following gender-ambiguous POVs directed at/about opposite gender characters:
Female to/about male:
Alone — The Butterbeer Experience (about Harry)
Taboo — The Butterbeer Experience (to Harry, possibly by Ron)
The Hopping Pot — The Butterbeer Experience (about the male wizard in the story)
Volde-Who? — Ginny and the Heartbreakers (to Voldemort)
Who is Blaise Zabini? — The Parselmouths (about Blaise Zabini)
Allegiance — RiddleTM (to Lucius and Draco) *partial
Draco — RiddleTM (to Draco)
Ode to Voldemort — RiddleTM (about Voldemort)
Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes — RiddleTM (about Fred and George)
The Abandoned Boys of Hogwarts — Split Seven Ways (about Voldemort, Snape and Harry)
Male to/about female:
Ginny is a Punk Rocker — The Whomping Willows (about Ginny)
I Believe in Nargles — The Whomping Willows (about Luna)
Hermione Might Be Hot — Hogwarts Trainwreck (about Hermione) *This one’s a stretch, sounds decidedly male perspective unless it’s a homosexual female
So that’s another 10 females singing about males, and 2-3 males singing about females.
Some More Female Bands Singing From Male POV
“I Close My Eyes” by Let’s Lumos! (Regulus)
“The Grave” by Let’s Lumos! (Barty Crouch Sr.)
“A Brother’s Lament” by Let’s Lumos! (George)
“Who I Am” by The Horcrux Heroes (Harry)
“This is Goodbye” by Riddle TM (Harry)
“Your Mother’s Eyes” by Spinner’s End (Snape) (hear her music on MyLeaky!)
“Double Edged Sword” by The Bezoar Project (Harry)
“Albus Severus” by The Potterwatch Project (Albus Severus and Harry)
“Life According to Remus Lupin” by The Potterwatch Project (Lupin)
“Sunshine and Daisies” by The Potterwatch Project (Ron)
“The House Elf” by The Potterwatch Project (partly Harry)
“Just Like You” by The Prefect Project (Harry)
“Privet Drive” by The Prefect Project (Harry)
Ooh, I remembered one more (I missed it because it wasn’t on my ipod)
Without You (Everything Feels Wrong) — The Dark Mark Experience (George Weasley).
Since this is the only song they have up so far, currently the ladies have 100% of their songs from a male POV… =P