The song in the fabric of the album: class-component relations

Abstract

This article describes some of the textual properties of musical albums from the semiotic point of view, aiming at demonstrating how songs as record tracks constitute objects of investigation that are different from a song by itself. Firstly, enunciative practices typical to albums (especially the selection and sequencing of tracks) are discussed, bringing forth the tension that they establish between, on one side, the autonomy of tracks and, on the other, the album’s sense of unity. Next, the concept of analysis as proposed by Louis Hjelmslev is evoked in order to provide criteria for the description of the relations between a given ensemble (a class) and its parts (components). These considerations serve as basis for the description of the song “É doce morrer no mar” as a component of the class Canções praieiras, first album launched by Dorival Caymmi. Both instances exert influence on each other: while the song gives voice to the woman from the beachside community, who expresses her resignation, the collection of tracks as an ensemble manifests the values of the beachside community and creates a deep sense of sufficiency which justifies the woman’s resignation. Thus, even by working strictly with the verbal component, the corpus illustrates the interdependence between album and track in the generation of meanings typical to this textual totality.