Lady Gaga and the Crusades

What do Gaga and crusader marching songs have in common?

— a chant of the Knights Templar

My musical tastes run one of a few ways: classical music (say, Beethoven’s late string quartets), rock music for thinkers (Rush might be my favorite band), and periodic doses of Americana or Jazz.

But I have a confession. On the right day, in the right mood, I love Lady Gaga’s music. The lyrics are fun, the double entendres amusing, and the beats are foot stomping bangers. Not long ago I went into a 3 day Gaga binge, and as I foot tapped along, I realized something: all her big hits are the same speed. A speed that becomes hypnotic. And it set me to thinking about Crusader music, in particular, their marching music. Bear with me for a moment while I investigate Lady Gaga’s music.

Gaga, musical tempo, BPM

Classical music tempi (that’s the plural of tempo for you musical illiterates :)) are generally indicated by words: largo (slow), adagio (stately), allegro (fast), vivace (very fast), and, importantly for our purposes, andante (of medium speed), which literally translates to ‘at a walking speed’. The actual pace of these tempi is usually left to the discretion of the performer. (Classical tempi are always in Italian, somewhat oddly.)

By contrast, in popular music numbers—not words—became the measure: Beats Per Minute (BPM). BPM became a focus perhaps really starting with EDM, where listeners would look for songs in a desired BPM range. One can find databases that track the BPM for almost any performance of a pop song, for example: bpmdatabase¹, tunebat², and David Tompkin’s database.³ For what follows I have used Tompkin’s database.

I decided to test my hypothesis that Gaga’s music lands in a very small and consistent BPM range. Here you go: a histogram of her BPMs.

By comparison, here is the histogram for Rush:

This doesn’t prove anything general, but it gives the flavor of how Gaga’s music lands in a narrow range, perhaps more so than other musicians. If you narrow things down to her big hits, you get this: Alejandro (99 BPM), Paparazzi (115), Just Dance (119), Bad Romance (119), Poker Face (119), Monster (120), Telephone (122), Born This way (124), Edge of Glory (128). There’s clearly a sweet spot in her preferred tempi!

OK, back to Crusaders and marching. Andante, or walking pace, is generally considered to be in the range of 80-108 BPM. Modern march music usually sits around 120 BPM (also note: 120 steps per minute).⁴ RAF and British army recruits march at this tempo.⁵ It was apparently first put into place by Napoleon, as he wanted his troops to move quickly.

So Gaga’s big hits all pretty much line up with the modern fast march tempo. If you try walking to her songs, say, with headphones, you will realize you are in fact walking pretty quickly.

I suspect it is no accident that her music clusters so tightly around this pace, and I don’t claim some strange new insight. My point is that when an army marches, they need consistency and a match between the beat of the music and the pace of their march. Anyone who has gone on a long hike may have had the experience of group singing as a way to pass the time and keep up one’s energy. (Side note: Rush songs, which often have two or even three time signature shifts within a single song, probably make very bad marching music. 😆)

So we can imagine a few commonalities between Gaga pop anthems and Crusader marching music: a rhythm conducive to marching, a call-and-response pattern (the chorus), and the creation of common purpose or solidarity (e.g. Gaga’s Born This Way).

Crusader music and marching

In our last post, we talked a lot about marching conditions. Crusaders might march 2000 miles from Europe to the Levant, even before taking part in any battles. Music and chanting would have been a key tool in helping keep energy up.

Music in this area, at least music that has been preserved, is either religious music, or the music of the troubadours. Crusade music became an odd combination of the two, combining religious themes and a call to action to go on crusade with more secular style “heroic poetry”.

We’ll talk more about religious music and the troubadours in later posts, but today I wanted to cover what we know about crusade songs, and marching songs. Short answer: not that much.

The troubadours, the minstrel-poets of southern France and the Iberian peninsula, were amongst the first composer/performers of a “genre” of secular music, and they performed in Occitan, the language of southern France at the time. They arose at the same time as the concept of “chivalry”, and mostly their songs concern courtly love and associated chivalric concepts. Similar traditions arose in northern France (trouvère, who performed in French) and Germany (minnesinger).

However, the troubadours did compose a few songs about the life of war and the crusades. After the fall of Jerusalem in 1187, troubadour lyrics began to include calls to crusade, which Marisa Galvez calls chansons de départie⁶. The following poem concisely shows the troubadour “courtly love” themes blended with crusade themes:

"Sans cuer m'en vois el regne de Surie... se
le vostre ai od moi en compaignie, / Adès iere
plus joians et plus preus, / del vostre cuer serai
chevalereus."

Without a heart, I go away for the kingdom
of Syria... if I have your heart with me in
company, I will be the most joyful and brave. By
your heart, I will be valiant.

— Châtelain d'Arras, "Aler m'estuet" ("I must go")⁷

Here are a few examples by Bertran de Born. de Born was a knight, and at one point was in rebellion against Richard. Later, he became a supporter of Richard, composing a song celebrating Richard’s release from prison, when Richard was captive of the Holy Roman Emperor. Bertran wrote this first song to spur Richard and King Philip of France to go to the Holy Land and assist in retaking Jerusalem, as well as to aid Conrad of Montferrat, the lord of Tyre in the Crusader Kingdom in the Levant.

Lord Conrad, I know two Kings who delay to help you;
now hear who: King Philip is one, for he fears King
Richard, and Richard fears him. Now would that both
of them were in the chain of Sir Saladin, since they
deceive God, for they have taken the Cross and speak
no word of going.
…
Now comes the pleasant season when our ships shall come
ashore, and the gallant brave King shall come, for
King Richard was never more so. Then shall we see
gold and silver spent, and mangonels made and dis-
charged, walls thrown down, towers lowered and over-
thrown, and the enemies chained and made prisoners.

I love the press of bucklers covered with red and blue
colours, of ensigns and of banners of different colours.
I like tents and rich pavilions to be pitched, lances
broken, shields shattered, and shining helmets cleft,
and blows, given and taken. . .

If both the Kings are noble and courageous, we shall soon
see fields strewn with pieces of helmets and shields and
swords and saddle-bows, and men cleft through their
bodies to their girdles, and we shall see horses running
wild, and many lances in side and in breast, and joy
and tears and dole and rejoicing; the loss will be great,
and the gain will be immense.

—Ara sai eu de pretz quals l'a plus gran, by Bertran de Born, ca 1190, Barbara Smythe translation.

and

I love the spring-tide of the year
When leaves and blossoms do abound,
And well it pleases me to hear
The birds that make the woods resound
With their exulting voices.
And very well it pleases me.
Tents and pavilions pitched to see,
And oh, my heart rejoices
To see armed knights in panoply
Of war on meadow and on lea.

I like to see men put to flight
By scouts throughout the countryside,
I like to see, armed for the fight,
A host of men together ride;
And my delight’s unbounded
When castles strong I see assailed,
And outworks smashed, whose strength has failed,
And near the walls, surrounded
By moats, and by strong stakes enrailed,
The host that has the ramparts sealed.
…
Papiol, make no staying,
Lord Yea-and-Nay go rouse and call,
Tell him this peace on me doth pall.

—Be.m platz lo gais temps de pascor, also ca 1190, Barbara Smythe translation.

Lord Yea-and-Nay is Richard—one of his nicknames was Richard Yes-or-No, and Bertran is urging him to go on crusade. One can see the martial values held by the knights of this era, the celebration of war and violence.

Words survive for many troubadour songs, but only a few of them can be attached to specific melodies, and even then, not to tempo. Written musical notation really only began to develop in the 11th and 12th centuries, and was mostly applied at first to Gregorian chants. Shortly thereafter a specific notation to capture some troubadour music came to be, and around 1260 Franco of Cologne developed the system⁸ that eventually led to modern musical notation (which came into being during the 16th and 17th centuries). As a result, few troubadour songs survive with melody and rhythm known.

There is also unfortunately very little remaining evidence for the marching songs per se. We know from the Itinerarium of Richard I that a Latin call-and-response was used on the march and in camp:

proceeded on their march to the house called “of the narrow ways,” because the road there becomes narrow; there they halted and pitched their tents. It was the custom of the army each night before lying down to rest, to depute some one to stand in the middle of the camp, and cry out with a loud voice, “Help! help! for the holy sepulchre!” The rest of the army took it up, and repeated the words; and stretching their hands to heaven, amid a profusion of tears, prayed for the mercy and assistance of God in the cause. Then the herald himself repeated the words in a loud voice, “Sanctum Sepulchre Adjuva” and every one repeated it after him a second time, and so likewise a third time, with contrition of heart and abundant weeping. For who would not weep at such a moment, when the very mention of its having been done would extract tears from the auditors? The army appeared to be much refreshed by crying out in this fashion.

—Itinerary of Richard I and Others to the Holy Land, Richard de Templo, ca 1220.

We also know this of the Templars:

The Templars charged into battle under a black-and-white flag, and as they rode they would sometimes sing a psalm to give them strength. It feels appropriate to quote those lines as we begin our story: ‘Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give the glory, for your steadfast love and faithfulness.’
― The Templars: The Rise and Fall of God's Holy Warriors, Dan Jones

I’ve mostly been concerned here with the music of the crusaders, but the Muslim forces undoubtedly did something similar. Researching that music is more difficult, but we have this quote from the Itinerarium of de Templo, who was likely on the Third Crusade:

In the morning, when the clouds were dispersed, the sky became clear, and behold! the Turkish army appear around on every side with trumpets, drums, and horrid clang, ready to attack.

The following song, from the Time of the Templars, gives an evocative sense of what Arabic marching music might have sounded like. The title translates roughly as ‘Peace be upon Him’ (Mohammed). I do not know to what extent the music is historical, but it is certainly atmospheric.

I will leave you with one of the most famous Crusade songs, the Palästinalied ("Palestine Song"), from Germany during the Fifth Crusade, ca. 1217.

1. https://www.bpmdatabase.com/

2. https://tunebat.com/

3. https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~dtompkin/music/index.html

4. https://www.classiccat.net/genres/march.info.php

5. https://bbico.com/marching-in-the-armed-forces-keeping-the-pace/

6. The Subject of Crusade: Lyric, Romance & Materials, 1150-1500, Marisa Galvez

7. Ibid., Galvez

8. https://www.britannica.com/art/musical-notation/Evolution-of-Western-staff-notation