Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...

I 2-1/6 vi 7-6 bVI 7 V 7
Figure 1. “Can’t Help Lovin’ ‘dat Man” title phrase. 54
Kern used an ingenious v-shaped melodic line that descends with angular perfect inter-
vals that ascends by an arpeggiated major triad to g-flat, before it resolves by step to the
tonic e-flat. This melodic shape portrays an ambivalent quality to the text. The love is
inevitable, but does it make her happy? The c-flat on “lovin’” is the “blue” note, as well
as the lowest pitch of the melody, but it feels higher because of its intervallic relationship
to the initial pitch as a major seventh. This placement (and the enharmonic spelling)
presents a challenge for the singer to approach it vocally. The harmonic progression of
the phrase reinforces the quality of strangeness (perhaps Otherness?) with its delayed
resolutions. I find it curious that Kern subverts the status quo of a standard cadential
pattern by inserting a chromatic (yet distant) major triad on the text, “lovin’ ‘dat man.” It
provides another ambiguous quality for subversive characterization from a gender
context, yet the song as a whole perpetuates the hegemonic standard of woman’s role in
relationship to “her man.”
54 Jerome Kern, “Can’t Help Lovin’ ‘dat Man,” mm. 5-7, Show Boat Vocal/Piano score (Burbank:
Polygram International Publishing, 1927; distr. Hal Leonard Corporation), 58.
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