{"id":378,"date":"2019-08-04T11:03:46","date_gmt":"2019-08-04T15:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.courtneylewis.com\/blog\/?p=378"},"modified":"2019-08-07T12:36:55","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T16:36:55","slug":"beyonces-lemonade-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.courtneylewis.com\/blog\/2019\/08\/beyonces-lemonade-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyonc\u00e9’s ‘Lemonade’"},"content":{"rendered":"

This summer I\u2019ve been writing about the music I love beyond the classical bubble. Since its release in April 2016, I\u2019ve been mildly obsessed with one album: Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s ‘Lemonade’.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
‘Lemonade’ official album cover<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

‘Lemonade’ is a deeply personal testament describing Queen Bey\u2019s discovery that her husband \u2013 the rapper Jay-Z \u2013 had been unfaithful. During its twelve songs we accompany Beyonc\u00e9 on her journey from denial and anger to emptiness and apathy, forgiveness and redemption. It\u2019s also a manifesto of personal creativity. After several albums in which the musical content was largely driven by record companies\u2019 desires to promote a sellable pop artist, Beyonc\u00e9 emerges as a powerful narrator on her own terms: a web of unforgettable lyrics and a deliberately broad range of musical styles expressing unmediated pain and emotion. We hear all of this, of course, via her voice, one of the most beautiful before the public today, at once fiercely powerful, tender and authentic.<\/p>\n

In ‘Pray You Catch Me’, we start inside Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s head, literally, as she sings to her own backing vocals. It\u2019s a lonely, claustrophobic space as she begins to suspect something is going on. Over a sumptuous string orchestra, she wonders: ‘What are you doing, my love?’<\/p>\n

‘Hold Up’ and ‘Don\u2019t Hurt Yourself’ move through denial to anger, just like the stages of grief. The first is a kind of bargaining with her absent husband \u2013 ‘they don\u2019t love you like I do’\u2013 whereas the second is blind rage from the first scream: ‘Who the f**k do you think I am? You ain\u2019t married to no average bi**h, boy.’ The fury in Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s voice is terrifying.<\/p>\n

Next are two stylized musical pictures, separate from the main narrative but related. ‘6 Inch Heels’ describes a strong working woman getting on with her life just fine without a man. The drawling hip hop beat conjures up the dark underworld of strip clubs in which she works, accompanied by the chilling, high-pitched voice of the singer The Weeknd. ‘Daddy Lessons’ is Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s brilliant debut in country music drawing on her southern heritage. It\u2019s as if we\u2019ve stepped into the French Quarter of New Orleans and find a street band, complete with sousaphone. The lyrics are a semi-autobiographical memory of Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s Texan childhood, describing how ‘daddy made me dance, daddy held my hand, and daddy liked his whiskey with his tea.’ There\u2019s an infectious joy in the music making, despite the apt line: ‘My daddy warned me about men like you.’<\/p>\n

As the album progresses, we feel a kernel of optimism creep in. ‘Love Drought’ sounds like background music in a club\u2019s chill-out room. Beautiful electronic arpeggios accompany Beyonc\u00e9 in a mood of child-like hope: ‘You and me could move a mountain.’ But reality returns with a jolt in the ballad ‘Sandcastles’. This three-minute masterpiece is the emotional heart of the whole album and the catalyst through which reconciliation is possible. Over simple repeated chords on the piano, Beyonc\u00e9 sings long melismas of heartbreaking words:<\/p>\n

We built sandcastles that washed away. I made you cry when I walked away.<\/em>
And although I promised that I couldn\u2019t stay, baby, every promise don\u2019t work out that way.<\/em><\/p>\n

She\u2019s going to stay even though he broke his promise to her, but not without horrible pain. I can\u2019t think of another instance in recent pop music when an artist allows herself to be so completely exposed and vulnerable. As her voice breaks under the weight of anguish, Beyonc\u00e9 cries out:<\/p>\n

Dishes smashed on the counter from our last encounter,<\/em>
Pictures snatched out the frame, bi**h I scratched out your name, and your face,<\/em>
What is about you that I can\u2019t erase, when every promise don\u2019t work out that way?’<\/em><\/p>\n

‘Lemonade’\u00a0is about female empowerment, but it\u2019s also about Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s experience of being black in America. Through its wide range of musical styles and collaborations with guest artists, the album is a determined celebration of black culture. We hear Beyonc\u00e9 refusing to tone down her lyrics or apologize for her identity. Instead, she revels in an exhilarating display of self-acceptance. You may have seen her performance of the album\u2019s final track, ‘Formation’, at the half-time show of the Superbowl in 2016. The dancers evoked the Black Panthers, causing a news storm that revealed little about Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s intentions and a lot about the precarious cultural insecurity of some white Americans.<\/p>\n

‘Lemonade’s\u00a0next song, ‘Freedom’ is strategically placed after ‘Sandcastles’. Beyonc\u00e9 uses slave songs as a reminder that slavery\u2019s insidious legacy continues today. In an interview explaining the concept behind the album, she is reported to have said: ‘I wanted to show the historical impact of slavery\u00a0on black love, and what it has done to the black family, and black men and women\u2014how we\u2019re almost socialized not to be together.’ As if to underscore the continuing challenge of overcoming this legacy, the song ends with a recording of Jay-Z\u2019s mother on her 90th<\/sup>birthday: ‘I was served lemons, but I made lemonade.’<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an immediate sense of relief and hope as the penultimate song, ‘All Night’, begins. The music creates a beautiful sense of coming home into loving arms, bruised but stronger. We realize that we\u2019re listening to a song about forgiveness. Forgiveness after infidelity: the same theme Mozart championed in\u00a0‘Le nozze di Figaro’. Just as the Countess displays almost-unfathomable generosity to the Count, Beyonc\u00e9 sings to her husband:<\/p>\n

My love was stronger than your pride\u2026<\/em>
True love breathes salvation into me…<\/em>
My torturer became my remedy.<\/em><\/p>\n

‘Lemonade’ ends with its greatest hit, ‘Formation’. The inexorable Beyonc\u00e9 is back: empowered and fierce. She sings about her work ethic, her belief in herself, her womanhood, and her refusal to be diminished by her naysayers. When I hear it, I\u2019m filled with happiness by the pleasure she takes in her own success \u2013 something many of us are bad at \u2013 but I\u2019m also moved by the resilience of the human spirit. In many ways ‘Lemonade’ is\u00a0a traditional kind of record: a complete artistic object start to finish, not just a collection of unrelated songs like so many pop albums today. I\u2019ve even heard it described as a song cycle, akin to those by Schubert and Schumann. But what makes it so great is that it rises above the specifics of its creator\u2019s circumstances to proclaim a message to which everyone can relate: ‘true love is the greatest weapon to win the war waged by pain.’ Only the greatest art rises to such universal truth, and ‘Lemonade’ is\u00a0right up there.<\/p>\n

Courtney Lewis is music director of the Jacksonville Symphony. The Jacksonville Symphony returns to the stage Sept. 28 for Fanfare! Opening Night, featuring the Marcus Roberts Trio. For a 2019-20 season schedule and ticket information, go to www.jaxsymphony.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Reproduced with kind permission from The Florida Times-Union. Originally published at:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.jacksonville.com\/entertainmentlife\/20190804\/conducting-electricity-finding-inspiration-in-beyonces-lemonade<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This summer I\u2019ve been writing about the music I love beyond the classical bubble. Since its release in April 2016, I\u2019ve been mildly obsessed with one album: Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s ‘Lemonade’. ‘Lemonade’ is a deeply personal testament describing Queen Bey\u2019s discovery that her husband \u2013 the rapper Jay-Z \u2013 had been unfaithful. During its twelve songs we accompany Beyonc\u00e9 on her journey from denial and anger to emptiness and apathy, forgiveness and redemption. It\u2019s also a manifesto of personal creativity. After several albums in which the musical content was largely driven by record companies\u2019 desires to promote a sellable pop artist, Beyonc\u00e9 emerges as a powerful narrator on her own terms: a web of unforgettable lyrics and a deliberately broad range of musical styles expressing unmediated pain<\/p>\n

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