“小甜甜”布兰妮：爱是穿肠毒药——Toxic

小甜甜布兰妮《Toxic》的风靡程度自不必说。然而，当解构主义遇上流行音乐，二者会碰撞出怎样的火花？在“作者已死”、“作品已死”的解构中，一首歌能被多少人诠释，又能拥有多少条崭新的生命？

In 2003 Britney Spears was suffering a bit of a career slump.She had yet to reach her excruciating, head-shaving nadir of 2007, but she needed a hit.The English songwriter Cathy Dennis had penned a new tune, “Toxic”, that she had offered to Kylie Minogue （who had conquered the globe with Dennis's “Can't Get You Out Of My Head” in 2001）.Kylie, inexplicably, turned the song down, so it was offered to Britney; this jerkily insistent Bond-meets-Bollywood electro-dance-pop tune became a worldwide hit and an instant dance-floor filler.

如果说布兰妮·斯皮尔斯（Britney Spears）在2003年承受了些许职业的低潮，那么在经历了剃光头事件的2007年， 她算是跌到了黑暗的最低谷，亟需来点强心剂。英国词曲作者凯茜·丹尼斯（Cathy Dennis）为凯莉·米洛 （Kylie Minogue）写了首新歌叫《Toxic》，凯莉曾在2001年凭借同出自丹尼斯之手的《Can't Get You Out Of My Head》红遍全球。出人意料的是，凯莉拒绝了这首歌，于是歌便到了布兰妮手中。《Toxic》这支跌宕不绝的电子舞曲洋溢着Bond乐队与宝莱坞两种风格碰撞的火花，迅速风靡世界，成了炙手可热的舞池背景乐。

“Toxic”, in fact, has four songwriting credits, the other three being Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg （of the production team Bloodshy & Avant） and Henrik Jonback：all Swedes, another example of Sweden's success in the pop industry.A snippet of the song, the propulsive strings, comes from a Bollywood song in Hindi, “Tere Mere Beech Mein”.

《Toxic》实际上有四位词曲作者，其他三位分别是Christian Karlsson、Pontus Winnberg（制作团队Bloodshy & Avant的成员）与Henrik Jonback。他们都是瑞典人——又是一个瑞典在流行音乐产业成功的例证。不断推进的一小段弦乐源自一首名为《Tere Mere Beech Mein》的用北印度语演唱的宝莱坞歌曲。

So, an American singer had a hit with a song written by an Englishwoman and three Swedes, with help from a tune used in an Indian film; the song was recorded in Stockholm and Hollywood, then mixed in Stockholm.This is the way the pop world now works.

一个英国的女音乐人与三个瑞典词曲家所作的歌与来自印度电影里的一段曲调成就了一位美国歌手的走红。歌曲先在斯德哥尔摩与好莱坞完成录音，然后在斯德哥尔摩混音。这就是当今流行乐坛的工作方式。

But once a song has been constructed, what's to stop someone from deconstructing it? Here's where the story of “Toxic” becomes interesting.In 2011 the American singer-songwriter Jayme Dee stripped “Toxic” down to its essentials in a radical rereading; she can be seen on YouTube with an acoustic guitar and a sultry pout, moaning the song in a slowed-down 3/4 arrangement.

然而当歌曲一经问世，有什么能阻止别人翻唱呢？这便是《Toxic》故事有意思的地方。在2011年，美国歌手兼词曲作者Jayme Dee拆解了这首歌而只保留了其中的关键元素，并加以全新演绎。你可以在YouTube上看她弹着原声吉他，微撅着动人双唇，悠悠低唱着已减速至四三拍的此曲。

This was not the first time a Britney song had been given the acoustic treatment：for his album 1,000 Years of Popular Music, the folk-rock singer Richard Thompson did something similar to “Oops! …I Did it Again” （another Swedish-written Britney hit, by Max Martin and Rami Yacoub）.What Dee and Thompson achieved was almost archaeological, digging through the accreted layers of production to discover that, underneath it all, there is an actual song.

布兰妮的歌不是第一次被改编。民谣摇滚歌手理查德·汤普森（Richard Thompson）在他的唱片《千年流行音乐》中就对《Oops! …I Did it Again》（又是一首瑞典人打造的布兰妮热门歌曲，作者是Max Martin与Rami Yacoub）做了全新处理。Dee与Thompson达成的是近乎考古学意义上的成就，一层层深入，发掘出隐匿于表象背后的纯粹的歌曲。

A radically deconstructed “Toxic” has also been heard in the distant future.Last summer, London's Almeida Theatre staged Mr Burns：a Post-Electric Play, a production, first performed in Washington DC, which imagines a post-apocalyptic future world in which roving troupes of players perform episodes of The Simpsons and sing pop songs from the old days.

被脱胎换骨改编的《Toxic》也已响起于远隔的未来。上一个夏天，伦敦艾尔美达剧院（Almeida Theatre）上演了戏剧《Mr Burns》，这部后电子时代风格的剧最初在华盛顿哥伦比亚特区表演，该剧想象出一个巡回剧团在世界末日后的未来表演《辛普森一家》的片段，并演唱这些曾经的流行老歌。

In such a purely oral/aural world, the play's author Anne Washburn suggests, without access to electricity, TV or the internet, survivors would depend on （and also trade） snippets of script or music for their physical, emotional and spiritual sustenance.The show's score cleverly imagines how popular music might survive in such a future：in fragments.One of the songs that weaves its way through Mr Burns （and it's an apt one, given the poisoned state of this blasted world） is “Toxic”, its Bollywood strings transmogrified into an eerie “Ooh-ee-ooh” vocal refrain.

剧作者Anne Washburn建议，在这样一个纯粹口述并依赖听觉的世界中，没有一切电力供应、电视或是网络，剧本片段或音乐片段将成为幸存者们生理、情感与精神的养料（抑或交易对象）。演出巧妙设想了在这样一个未来之中流行乐将会如何存在，答案是——以碎片的形态。《Toxic》是其中一首穿插在《Mr Burns》的歌。那来自宝莱坞的弦乐幻化为怪诞的“欧——咦——欧”叠音，响彻不绝（这首歌在这个深受荼毒的荒凉世界里的演绎是如此熨帖）。

词汇总结

slump[slʌmp]

v.下降，衰落；倒下；大幅度下降，暴跌

In 2003 Britney Spears was suffering a bit of a career slump.

布兰妮·斯皮尔斯（Britney Spears）在2003年承受了些许职业的低潮。

acoustic[ə'kuːstɪk]

adj.声学的；音响的；听觉的

n.原声乐器；不用电传音的乐器

This was not the first time a Britney song had been given the acoustic treatment.

布兰妮的歌不是第一次被改编。

snippet['snɪpɪt]

n.小片；片断

Survivors would depend on （and also trade） snippets of script or music for their physical, emotional and spiritual sustenance.

剧本片段或音乐片段将成为幸存者们生理、情感与精神的养料（抑或交易对象）。

blasted['blɑːstɪd]

adj.枯萎的；被害的；被咒的

transmogrify[trænz'mɒgrɪfaɪ]

v.使变成奇形怪状；使变形

One of the songs that weaves its way through Mr Burns（and it's an apt one, given the poisoned state of this blasted world） is “Toxic”, its Bollywood strings transmogrified into an eerie “Ooh-ee-ooh” vocal refrain.

《Toxic》是其中一首穿插在《Mr Burns》的歌。那来自宝莱坞的弦乐幻化为怪诞的“欧——咦——欧”叠音，响彻不绝（这首歌在这个深受荼毒的荒凉世界里的演绎是如此熨帖）。