Musical structure as narrative in rock

The word narrative is often applied to studies of pop and rock music as an organising principle. Musical eras and stylistic movements are arranged to tell particular histories; the works of a particular artist are construed as tracing a stylistic journey; the life story of an artist is invoked to give greater understanding to this or that album, as in ‘that’s his divorce album’ or ‘all her records have been crap since she went to rehab.’ In each instance, musical works are woven into a constructed narrative in order to make sense of the history of popular music or of particular repertoires. The intention of this paper is to contribute to a discussion of narrative as it occurs in individual examples of rock music. At this level, the idea of narrative is most readily applied to a song’s lyrics—the extent to which linear sense can be made, or the extent to which a recognisable emotional state is evoked. Rather than this, though, my intention is to consider the assumptions of narrative from which the structure of much rock music proceeds.