Yes, music is part of English! A fun branch of English literary studies deals with adaptation theory, where original texts are reinterpreted and repurposed as new texts, often in different forms or genres. We most often see this when a book gets turned into a movie, but altered texts can be found anywhere. I first saw the video below after seeing a link to it posted on a respected math professor's twitter feed. When middle-aged math professors in the Midwest are posting Taylor Swift cover songs on twitter, you know it must be something worth talking about. The video has quickly gone viral, with several million YouTube hits this week. The artists, Louisa Wendorff and Devin Dawson, cleverly combine two songs into one, thereby changing their individual effects from sassy and poppy to stripped and achy as the listener is allowed to hear them almost conversationally, existing in a back and forth form of storytelling.
If you haven't seen it yet, here it is. While I think it's wonderfully creative, I also wonder if it simply reveals the fact that Taylor Swift's songs all sound similar. Regardless, it's a great reinterpretation and nicely performed by Wendorff and Dawson. To her credit, Swift has stated that she loves the duet's twist on her songs. Wendorff has a variety of other song-combos to her credit as well, so check her out. What other songs and artists out there could be paired up for a deconstruction/reconstruction mash-up?
If you haven't seen it yet, here it is. While I think it's wonderfully creative, I also wonder if it simply reveals the fact that Taylor Swift's songs all sound similar. Regardless, it's a great reinterpretation and nicely performed by Wendorff and Dawson. To her credit, Swift has stated that she loves the duet's twist on her songs. Wendorff has a variety of other song-combos to her credit as well, so check her out. What other songs and artists out there could be paired up for a deconstruction/reconstruction mash-up?