Power and the Passion - survey

[findog3103]

I am teaching a class entitled Power and the Passion (how music can change the world) for two weeks to teenagers about American music. In effect, it's how music can cause change, upheavals, different outlooks - socially, politically, culturally, etc. - that is often more powerful than established authority.

 

I have my own list of artists and songs to share with my students, but please feel free to list 5-10 artists, songs and a few reasons why you choose what you did.

 

Thanks.

[Brian A]

Here is a copy and paste from a post of mine on this thread (I don’t know how to link to a single posting):

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f15-music-general/album-eve-reviews-10379/index3.html

 

Belafonte At Carnegie Hall - This was a charity concert that a then 32 year old Harry Belafonte gave over two nights of April 19 & 20, 1959. He was at the prime of his life; voice trained and powerful, his ideas fresh ... America was swirling with racial tensions at the time. He struts on stage at the opening of the performance and starts with hard hitting social commentary. By the end of the performance he singing lighter stuff and has the audience eating out of his hand.

[wgscott]

Michael Franti, Yell Fire!

 

also

he has a movie for which the above is the so

und track, I know Im not alone.

[findog3103]

Awesome. I will definitely check it out. Thanks.

[Jud]

Get Together, Jesse Colin Young and the Youngbloods - One of better known Flower Power anthems from back in the day. This was when the Boomers were gonna stop all the wars (coincidentally when we were all of draft age), and no one was going to need money (before Jerry Rubin pointed the way forward by becoming a stockbroker). But I do still find a lot to like about that ethos, naive as it all was, and it certainly managed to cause some social upheaval.

 

For What It's Worth, Buffalo Springfield - One of the songs all the 'Nam vets point to as expressing their complete cynicism about what they were being asked to die for. Pretty much the bass counterpoint to the shiny happy treble of songs like Get Together in the symphony of boomer social discontent in the late '60s and early '70s.

 

Marvin Gaye's trilogy from the album What's Goin' On - the title track, Mercy Mercy Me (the Ecology), and Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler). These were the first popular songs (all top 10 hits in the US) I remember taking on the subjects of people dying in inner city violence as well as Vietnam, and the way we were screwing up the planet.

 

I Want to Hold Your Hand, the Beatles - What the heck is this doing here? Two reasons: First, it sounded so different from everything that had come before that I didn't even like it the first time I heard it. Then the second time it was all over; everything that went before was old, and it was a new era. Everyone knew it, down to the 10-year-old girls screaming their heads off. (I saw a double feature of Hard Day's Night and Help! in the local movie theater, and heard maybe 5% - the 5% when one of the Beatles was not actually on screen. The rest of the time, girls shrieking drowned everything out.) What the Beatles did was make a united global baby boomer culture, something hard to imagine in the current niche marketing era, where satellite radio and TV have hundreds of channels to catch all the little individual cohorts. At one time somewhere in '64-'65, the Beatles had the top 5 songs in the top 100. Everyone was listening to the same things, a prerequisite for making popular song the predominant means of cultural communication in the era. Think about it - who before or since the '60s and '70s has felt we ought to take our political and social cues from entertainers? The swan song for this sort of thing, and a beautiful one, was the fall of the Czech Communist government in 1989. In some nations, violence accompanied the overthrow of Communist governments. In the former Czechoslovakia, students sat down in public places and sang - often, John Lennon's Give Peace A Chance - and gave the Communist government's army the choice of killing their children or laying down their arms and recognizing the inevitable reality. The army chose the latter.

 

Second, the Beatles had long hair, and guys all over the US wanted to grow their hair long to look like the Beatles and get chicks. This precipitated many of the first serious ongoing arguments the boomer generation had ever had with their parents. It was an Ozzie and Harriet and Leave it to Beaver world before then. Parents were older and wiser, and kids might argue and be mad for a few hours, but it was all over and the order of things restored by dinnertime. But this was an argument that wouldn't go away, and kids learned that really there was no good reason for Mom and Dad saying you had to have your hair short; it was just a preference, like anyone else's, and they were just people with their own faults and shortcomings, like you and everyone else. That was actually quite a shocking realization against the context of the popular culture of the time.

 

And it all started (in the US) with I Want to Hold Your Hand.

[findog3103]

Jud, fantastic! I have Marvin Gaye and the Beatles on my list but your anecdotes, especially the Beatles one, is amazing. Just the first hand stuff I definitely want to share with my students.

 

Thanks.

[wgscott]

How old are the students?

 

Sorry about my inability to type with an iPad.

[findog3103]

13-16 year olds.

[findog3103]

I remember the impact that Joe Strummer and the song White Riot had on me.

 

The scene was set. The Theater of Living Arts in Philadelphia on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving with tons of chores still undone. The Chores would have to wait.

 

Anticipation hovered over the crowd, like an immense piñata ready to be smacked open. The November air outside was cool but inside a dense sea of bodies - a packed house – squeezed together so tightly that sweat flowed freely.

 

The lights went down. Screams of joy filled the theater and I remember thinking, “Oh my god, this is it.” Shadows appeared on stage, moving left to right: one shadow stopping there, and one over there, and one over there.

​

Then a sharp, loud single chord and a white light illuminated the stage, onto him, Joe Strummer. There he was banging the guitar like a punch bag, ripping into “White Riot”, sweat already dripping off him. The crowd, myself included, leaped into the air – a one thousand headed Jack in the Box – and landed, and leaped, and landed, all the while singing the words, words when taken separately mean barely anything, but joined together ringing as a siren, a call to arms, a celebration of humanity.

 

And, I also remember thinking, “This is it, this is as good as it gets.”

 

And then two minutes later it’s over...

[wgscott]

13-16 year olds.

 

That's a tough audience.

 

When I was that age I refused to listen to anything apart from Classical music. But many kids that age are into vapid pop.

[findog3103]

These are good kids. Really interested and signed up for the class voluntarily. My interest at age 13 was Queen. All I listened to.

[souptin]

Some historical ones with a civil war / civil rights theme:

 

Circa 1850

John Brown's Body

John Brown's Body - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I dare say everyone in your class will recognise this as some kind of nursery rhyme, but will any of them know that it commemorates a man who, depending on how you look at it, "killed slavery, sparked the civil war, and seeded civil rights" and / or was "the father of American terrorism." (quotes from his Wikipedia entry)

 

Circa 1940

Strange Fruit

Strange Fruit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally a poem, but better known as sung by Billie Holiday. You could ask if any of your students can identify exactly what type of fruit she was singing about.

 

Circa 1970

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just how many cultural references can you cram into one song? Gill Scott-Heron pushes the envelope, invents rap (setting the bar pretty high in the process), and nicely sums up Tricky Dickie's America. Plug in, turn on, and cop out.

[souptin]

Correcting myself - here in the UK John Brown's Body has become a kid's playground song, but over there in the US it seems to be a military anthem (I think it was originally used as a marching song by the north in the civil war). Lots of history to explore there.

[Paul R]

Correcting myself - here in the UK John Brown's Body has become a kid's playground song, but over there in the US it seems to be a military anthem (I think it was originally used as a marching song by the north in the civil war). Lots of history to explore there.

 

I think most American's associate that song with The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Funny that, same kind of thing, the Brits seem to have different words for God Bless America!

[findog3103]

All great stuff. I did plan to use Strange Fruit and some early blues. I will think about John Brown.

[Jud]

I think most American's associate that song with The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Funny that, same kind of thing, the Brits seem to have different words for God Bless America!

 

Would that last be My Country, 'Tis of Thee?

[Daudio]

The song "Ohio" by Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, impacted me when I first heard it on the radio. I heard it as a clear call to revolution due to the horrible killing of students at Kent State U. very sad and scary...

 

Ohio - Wikipedia

[ted_b]

When I was a teen the Barry McGuire hit "Eve OF Destruction" was not only a war song against Vietnam but an anthem for all that teens (especially) were rebelling against. it was banned in several US radio markets!! Listen to it today and it seems the tamest of tame! Might be a good example of social mores, etc.

 

Eve of Destruction (song) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Paul R]

Would that last be My Country, 'Tis of Thee?

 

That one too, but I was being politically correct.

-Paul

[REShaman]

I am teaching a class entitled Power and the Passion (how music can change the world) for two weeks to teenagers about American music. In effect, it's how music can cause change, upheavals, different outlooks - socially, politically, culturally, etc. - that is often more powerful than established authority.

 

I have my own list of artists and songs to share with my students, but please feel free to list 5-10 artists, songs and a few reasons why you choose what you did.

 

Thanks.

 

Sibelius's Finlandia was outlawed by Hitler fearing the recognized power of this symphony would empassion the Peoples of Finland and inspire them to revolt against his anticipated conquest of Finland. The power of this symphony is apparent and involves a great, inspiring example of creativity, the power of music, the courage of composer and listener against the madness of a sociopath who would outlaw even music. His strategy failed as you can not outlaw the power of music and the courage of a people.

Best,

Richard

[wgscott]

Phil Ochs, including Crucifixion, Draft Doger's Rag, I ain't marching anymore, Jim Dean of Indiana, White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land, and of course Here's to the State of Mississippi.

 

There are many others.

 

And you can get all 410 pages of his FBI file.

[REShaman]

To clarify my previous post, Jean Sibelius composed his symphonic poem.several decades before Hitler's decree. Sorry for my confusing post.

Best,

Richard

[LBob]

Something by Woody Guthrie, perhaps Whose Side Are You On. Not sure if he wrote it but he sang it.

[findog3103]

Love to hear Phil Ochs. Truly Underappreciated. Plus, anyone with a 400+ FBI report gotta be worth checking out.

[chg]

You may already have these on your list...

 

Rage Against the Machine (see Tom Morello).

 

Minor Threat (straight edge movement).

 

System of a Down (see Serj Tankian).

 

Not exactly PG rated content from these bands (i.e., "13-16 year olds").