Date of Award

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in English and Writing Studies

Department

English

First Reader/Committee Chair

Ann Garascia

Abstract

In growing times of hardship for education in the music space, I believe there needs to be a more user-friendly approach to evoking meaning from sonics. Researchers have shared the difficulties in teaching music-analysis skills in recent years, and I argue that, through more accessible means, a meaning-making process in music can be learned, and utilized in analyzing songs. This thesis explores the ways in which music and literature can be intertwined and made meaning through an interdisciplinary analysis of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s song “Flamethrower.” In this thesis, I am arguing that musical works can and should be examined through literary lenses, but the key to getting there doesn’t have to be academic. “Flamethrower”’s environmentally focused narrative helps the band use ecocriticism, with distinction to petroculture, to air grievances about humanity’s involvement in perpetuating environmental disaster. On top of a literature analysis, this thesis will stretch academic boundaries by introducing populist frameworks to making meaning from music, showcasing how an analysis of the sonics in a song can be just as plentiful as a traditional literature analysis can be.

The introduction to my thesis comments on Bob Dylan’s 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, arguing that the award and moment helped to legitimize music as a literary form in the public eye. My argument expands into my belief that music deserves deeper academic exploration, especially from literary scholars who often lack training in music theory. It’s also important to understand the realms of environmental literature, so the following section reviews literature on ecocriticism, and petroculture, to give context for my “Flamethrower” analysis. I also, in this section, give background information about King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, and share how their expansive, genre-bending catalogue, and consistency in matching musical mode with lyrical argument, make them the perfect example band for this multilayered thesis.

My case study for this thesis dives into “Flamethrower” picking apart almost every moment of the 9-minute song to utilize for my analytical argument, and my bigger picture framework. As lyrical perspectives change, narratives grow, and the song’s styles morph, I argue that the song’s dragon character represents a dangerous relationship between humanity and oil. Musical moments like time signature changes, volume shifts, and tonal transitions provide enhancing factors for the band’s ecological commentary, and more fuel for a growing analytical argument.

This thesis steps outside the bounds of traditional academic ways of discussing meaning making from music. Since musicology studies have caused difficulty in recent years, I introduce a more personal way of creating an argument about how sonics serve literary messages. This argument prioritizes the art of listening and mental meaning-making over academic theories on music.

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