The 1970s post-hippie era witnessed a broadcast performance from David Bowie that mesmerised the teenage nation with its scandalous homo-eroticism. Meanwhile, Marc Bolan, the first glam rock star, was Bowie’s friendly rival. Both rock stars leaned into androgyny. At the end of a sparkling career, Bolan died in a car crash. The influence of Bolan can be seen in Bowie and glam rock today. Ziggy Stardust was one outcome of Bowie’s creativity, an androgynous persona that later caused a series of identity crises. Bowie’s infamous career is detailed in this chapter, including his relationships with fellow rock stars Iggy Pop and Lou Reed. Glam Rock in the 1970s was the blueprint for a post-punk future.

This brief introductory note reflects on what ‘goth’ is and what it means. Observing that ‘the art of darkness’ has been with us for centuries, it sketches out the plan of the book, which begins in the post-punk era then reaches back further to explore the pre-history of goth, from the Fall of Rome through ghost stories, folk tales, Gothic architecture and much more.

In the 1940s, once the uncertainty and darkness of war had faded, popular culture exploded. Sex, style and hedonism were the main focus of the younger generation, with symbols like Elvis Presley epitomising the American Dream. This chapter explores goth in the immediate postwar period, taking in pop-culture favourite Vampira, The Addams Family and Plan 9 From Outer Space. It also charts the rise of rock’n’roll. Seen as ‘the devil’s music’, this was reflected in the musicians who participated. Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Johnny Cash all battled personal demons of their own.

This chapter presents a whistle-stop tour of post-punk in northern Europe, taking in Germany, France, the Netherlands and more. The bands include Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, Xmal Deutschland, Die Krupps, Liaisons Dangereuses, Nina Hagen, Rammstein, Clan Of Xymox and The Young Gods.

This introductory chapter contains four sections. Firstly, the somewhat contradictory evidence for Austen’s attitude to music is discussed and ways of reconciling these contradictions are suggested. Secondly, the place of music in Austen’s personal and literary worlds is explored, and some ways of interpreting the uses of music in social settings are proposed. Thirdly, given the importance of theatre in Austen’s musical world and the ubiquity of Shakespeare as a cultural reference both then and now, Austen’s knowledge of and attitude to Shakespeare as a dramatist in general, as well as musical settings of his texts, is examined in the context of contemporary theatrical and musical conventions. The final section of this chapter sets out the parameters and limits of this book and its arrangement into eight chapters plus additional material.

Songs about sailors were popular during the late Georgian period in Britain. Some were directed towards men in the Navy or potential recruits, but they were also part of the musical repertoire of the middle-class drawing room and many of them appear in the Austen family music books. A common theme is the importance of family life. With large numbers of men needed to serve in the military in this time of war and colonial expansion, it was essential for the home front that their families remained cohesive, and ballads were sometimes written with the express purpose of promoting fidelity and patience on the part of both men and women. This chapter examines the varieties of family and conjugal relations presented in the verbal and musical rhetoric of a selection of these songs.

Many of the song lyrics in Jane Austen’s personal music collection are couched in the sentimental poetic diction prevalent in the eighteenth century, with highly conventional pastoral settings and imagery. Particularly striking is a long ballad in seven parts titled ‘Colin and Lucy’, which is a 1783 setting by Tommaso Giordani of a 1725 poem by Thomas Tickell (1685–1740) describing the betrayal, death and revenge of a wronged woman. The printed music of this ballad is in a book inscribed by Jane Austen, and it seems likely that she was familiar with it and probably sang and played it herself. Several incidents included in the song are echoed and perhaps deliberately parodied in Austen’s novel Sense and sensibility (1811), although the rhetoric and imagery are strikingly different. The novel’s language, though often dramatic, is matter-of-fact and literal. This chapter discusses the ballad’s musical and lyrical rhetoric and how Austen alters and undercuts its poetic imagery in her treatment of similarly dramatic (though not fatal) events in the novel.

This chapter looks at some of the pieces of music Jane Austen chose to copy into her manuscript books during her teenage years alongside her contemporary teenage writings, and considers how her musical knowledge and practice might be reflected in what she was writing, and vice versa. Examples include songs with political dimensions, such as ‘Queen Mary’s lamentation’, and sentimental and melodramatic love songs, like Miss Mellish’s ‘My Phillida’ and Samuel Webbe’s ‘The mansion of peace’, which formed part of the cultural milieu that Austen lampoons in stories such as ‘Frederic and Elfrida’. The song lyrics that sometimes appear in the stories are only slightly more ridiculous than the earnestly flowery verses that appear in these songs. On the other hand, the songs by Charles Dibdin take themselves less seriously and it is likely that Austen enjoyed Dibdin’s sense of humour and often irreverent approach, while at the same time appreciating his skill at presenting character sketches in music. An examination of this repertoire suggests some possibilities for the role played by Austen’s musical activities in the formation of her writing persona throughout her teenage years.

In 1814, Jane Austen attended a performance of Thomas Arne’s 1762 opera Artaxerxes at Covent Garden in London. Although she never mentions him by name in her letters or her novels, Arne’s music was clearly well known to Austen. Thomas Augustine Arne (1710–78) was the pre-eminent native-born English opera and theatre composer of the eighteenth century, and wrote cantatas and songs in a wide range of styles. The Austen music books include a variety of Arne’s vocal works. Most of these are found in Austen’s own music albums, or in albums that she would have known. This chapter provides some background about operatic and theatrical conventions in the Georgian period and the career of Thomas Arne. Each of the identifiable Arne pieces in the collection is then discussed in some detail, along with speculation on some other possibilities, and an Arne song which is quoted in her fiction.

The Austen family music collection includes both printed sheet music and manuscript copies of music that belonged to various members of the extended Austen family. This chapter focuses on the manuscripts in Austen’s own hand, the part of the surviving collection currently available for study which is most closely and unequivocally connected with her. Firstly the collection as a whole, and the cataloguing project which has led to this book, are described and summarised. The manuscript corpus is then surveyed as a whole in various ways, to establish the relative frequency of the composers and lyricists, and the types of music that appear. Following this analysis, each of the four albums containing Austen’s manuscripts is examined individually to see what can be learned by their physical characteristics – whether anything can be assumed by the order of the music within their pages, or by the juxtaposition of various items. This is followed by a brief summary of the printed music which carries Austen’s ownership marks.