The Consul at sunset
Representing Lowry's Mexico in song
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12943507 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Marc Duby (0000-0001-5072-4910, University of South Africa, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 18-35 |
| Publication date | 2013-08-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Scrutiny2 (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1812-5441 • E-ISSN: 1753-5409 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/18125441.2013.828410 |
| OpenAlex | W1970579782 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 11 |
Inspired by Malcolm Lowry's novel Under the volcano, Jack Bruce and Pete Brown's 1971 song, The Consul at sunset, forms the central focus of this paper, in which I examine aspects of the historical origins of the song and how the music and lyrics may be said to represent attitudes to Mexico in the imagination of these songwriters. Using a semiotic approach drawing on Philip Tagg's analysis of Abba's Fernando, I identify some programmatic “Mexican” elements in the song with the aim of exploring the inter-relationship between music and lyrics and how these elements work together to communicate a sense of Mexican-ness. For the purpose of contextualizing the song's relationship to the novel, I briefly consider salient elements of the plot of Under the volcano in the novel as well as the film version (directed by John Huston) to see how these versions form an intertextual web of “outsider” depictions of Mexican culture, to which the Mexican festival Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) — concerned with the remembrance of departed ancestors — provides a common backdrop
Archaeology · Art · Art history · Linguistics · Literature · Lyrics · Plot (graphics · Salient · Semiotics · Sunset · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Music History and Culture · Philosophy · Poetry Analysis and Criticism
| Highly cited | No |
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