ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the meaning of a song and also explains that meaning is a product of three factors: a song's text; its music; and the performance context. Song meaning is co-created by performers and listeners, within specific contexts. It illustrates the claims about the meaning of song performances by means of analyzing some examples from different performance traditions. The examples are: Chattanooga Choo Choo, Pretty Polly and Heidenroslein. Chattanooga Choo Choo is an example of two different thematic strains in American popular music: songs about trains, and songs that express nostalgia for the south. Contemporary performers have employed a number of strategies to undermine or resist the violence in Pretty Polly, and in so doing modify the meaning of the song for their audiences. Goethes poem Heidenroslein recounts the story of a boy who spies a beautiful red rose and picks it, despite the rose's protestations and threats to prick him with her thorns.
