Prayer as a form of blues lyrical expression

Abstract

An indisputable feature of blues music is its religiosity and confessionality linked to the personal tone of lyrical expression. A confessional attitude is inscribed in the personal experience of the performative subject, which is expressed both in the textual layer and in the musical solutions correlated with it. Growing out of the “negro spiritual” tradition, the blues operates with an appropriate musical aesthetic: the lowered degrees of the blues scale correspond with complaint songs, expressing the pain of human existence. The spaces of expression outlined here include those where musical, existential, emotional, and personal expression meet in prayer, which is understood as a form of lyrical-musical expression. The analysis of two songs taken up in the article, Tadeusz Nalepa and Breakout’s The Prayer and Dżem’s The Prayer III, understands the works through genre consideration; it examines the communicative situation that is a result of adopted conventions and structures, specifically the three elements: invocation, petition, and “fruit” (fructus).