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30 Rock and the Facts of Life (1970)

Charles Hamm

But let's remember the essence ofpopular music. A song comes on. What do you hear first? Words? Nah, you hear a beat, then a melody. Take 'My Sharona." Ifyou really liked the song, then you took the time to dig out the words, and they're pubescent, dumbo words, but they fit the song. -Billy Joel (Kohut and Kohut 1994, 49)

Lyrics will hurt a song is they're too adult, too artistic, too correct. You should shy away .from anything too deep or too happy. -Brill Building songwriter Gerry Goffin (Szatmary 2009, 67)

As Charles Hamm, historian of American music, observes in his 1995 introduction to this essay written in 1970, until recently the canon in academic music study largely excluded pop­ ular ("vernacular") music. In 1970 Hamm suggested that scholars should look outside their largely classical music canon, and take into account a// the various forms of music created and consumed in America. His suggestion met with some remarkably intemperate responses, reminiscent of the worst of '50s rock bashing. Hamm struck out on his own, nevertheless, and produced some of the most influential writing on American popular music. According to Hamm, mainstream commercial pop in the first half of the twentieth century spoke largely about one subject: romantic love between a man and a woman. The ten most popular songs in the week of May 8, 1954 were nearly uniform in this regard, to the exclusion of any other topic.The music was equally homogenous in style.Thus, popular music in the early '50s gave a narrow and distorted view: this music did not question life in America, nor, appar­ ently did those who listened to it. Fast forward to May 9, 1970: after a turbulent decade (Civil Rights, the Vietnam war; Kent State, and so forth), the Top Ten now reflects a very wide range of topics (religion, sex, toler­ ance, criticism of war), and shows a broad range of musical styles. Especially noteworthy is the political and social content of the songs listed by Hamm, which question American life in a way not seen in 1954. Like the blues before it, rock offered a much more realistic portrayal of life than the pop music it succeeded. Rock said that people are lonely. that there is a physical side to love, that war is wrong, and many other things ..

223 224 Charles Hamm Rock and the Facts of Life 225

recent decades, but at the same time to enrich [INTRODUCTION] and revitalize the field by constant broadening of the types of music, stylistic and chronological, that our scholars and When I arrived at Princeton University to begin work on a Ph.D. in musicology in teachers are concerned with, [and] to embrace whatever new methodology and aes­ 1957, with a life-long interest and involvement in various genres of American music, thetic is necessary to deal most sensibly with this larger and more varied body of 3 I discovered that: material. All books, monographs, editions, periodicals, and other materials considered neces~ary Reaction from certain musicological quarters was immediate and predictable. The for successfully completing the degree had been collected in a large study-seminar then-director of graduate studies in musicology at Columbia University, a noted room .... The word "canon" was never used then, but the ideology, though never writer on Early Music, responded in the following issue of the same publication: articulated could not have been clearer. The corpus of music and literature on music The gist of [Hamm's] argument is that one necessary for the pursuit of musicology was finite; it was all .here in this room; and . of the best musicological journals in the world, familiarly and affectionately known once our apprenticeship was completed and we moved out into the hard world of as JAMS, together with those who are suf­ ficiently misguided to receive and read it academia, our success would be measured by whether or not our own work would one regularly, should be censured for failing to give publicity to jazz, pop, rock, folk, tape, and trick music-if indeed the Muses have any­ day be brought into this room. The [general] stacks were situated just outside the door of our sanctuary, and occa- thing at all to do with these monosyllabic forms of activity. My reply is that neither the Journal nor its supporters sionally, when none of my professors or fellow students was about, I would sneak a look deserve censure of any kind or degree; and it is no more incumbent upon them to feature the commercial at a score by John Cage or Charles Ives, or at a book. about so~thern folk hymnody~ or ephemerides that blight the artistic ecology of our sad planet a bound collection of nineteenth-century sheet music. I felt like a teenager browsing than it is desirous that they should advertise cola drinks, greasy kid stuff, or the pill. through a collection of pornography.1 We are told that "many younger people of today ... understand only too well the 2 What Wiley Hitchcock would later label "vernacular music" was no part of this artistic, historical, and sociological value of this music." Younger than whom? Perhaps canon, and my proposal to write a dissertation on nineteenth-century shape-note, this sentence should read: "many immature quasi-illiterates understand perfectly the music was rejected out of hand. Dufay was acceptable, ~owever, .and my career as atavistic, hysterical, and social appeal of this noise." For noise most of it is, if you will a scholar of Renaissance music was launched. But my interest m other types of consider the deafening volume at which most of it must be reproduced, and the music continued, and in 1970, as a member of a panel considering "Music and incident of permanently damaged eardrums among its practitioners. As for hysteria, evidence is superabundant, ranging Higher Education in the 1970s" during a joint conference of the American from a kind of mass hypnosis through drug­ addiction to murder. 4 Musicological Society and the College Music Society in Toronto, I suggested the following: This same gentleman had written elsewhere, in response to a suggestion by Arthur Parris that Bach's cantatas were the "commercial" music of their The last five years have witnessed a period of intense and significant activity in day: American music almost without parallel in our history, a period of vitality and accom­ Bach wrote his cantatas as part of his duties as a director of music, a:nd for the glory of plishment in composition, performance, involvement of large .and varied. g.roups of Almighty God. Commercial music is written or improvised (the mode of transmission people with this music, and above all of interaction be~een :nusic-and m~s.icians-a~d is of little importance) by decomposers as part of their duties as corrupters of public the exciting and troubling events that have made t~is period such a cntic~l one in taste, and for the glory of the Almighty Dollar .... IfMr. Parris can honestly com pare American history. I am speaking not only of "art" music, of course, but the e~tire range the finest of Binchois, or of any other great composer before or since, with the of musical activity, from John Cage to Jimi Hendrix, Terry Riley to Simon and primitive vomiting noises wallowing in over-amplified imbecility that typifies most Garfunkel, Cecil Taylor to Roger Reynolds, Gordon Mumma to The Band to Merle "commercial" non-music of today, he would be well advised to cure his addiction to Haggard to "Hair." . . . value judgements.5 And I confess that I find it disturbing that none of this activity has been reflected in the publications and other official activities ?f the American :"1~s~cological Society, It was in this climate that I made my first attempts to write about what I saw as and very little of it in the teaching and other involvements of individual members of America's "intense and significant" music of the 1960s and its interaction with "the the Society. . . exciting and troubling events" of the day. There was no literature in my own discipline [I] suggest that the most sensible and profitable course for musicology in the c?m- to guide me. I knew some of the writing on "mass culture" by Adorno and other soci­ ing decade would seem to be one that would hold fast to the ~ethods and accomphs~­ ologists, but I couldn't imagine that this dour, elitist, negative approach, exhibiting an ments that have made our discipline one of the fastest-growing and most respected in

3Charles Hamm, "A needed change of attitude," College Music Symposium 11 (1971), pp. 94-5. 4Denis Stevens, "Lower music and higher education," College Music Symposium 12 (1972). lCharles Hamm, "Expanding our musical heritage," Harvard Library Bulletin 211 (Sprin~ 1991), P· 13. 5Denis Stevens, The New York Times, 18 December 1971. 2H. Wiley Hitchcock, Music in the United States: A Historical Introduction (Englewood Cliffs, 1969). Rock and the Facts of Life 227 226 Charles Hamm almost total lack of familiarity with the music in question, could be fruitful. othe:1° ~at~ers as well. Citing Kenneth Burke's description of poetry as "equipment Journalistic writing by David Ewen and his peers seemed equally unpromising, as did for living, he ends by saying: the growing body of sociological "youth and leisure" literature, since it seemed to me I.four symbolic representations give a false or misleading impression of what life is that popular music cut a much wider swathe in American culture. So I struck off likely to be, we are worse prepared for life than we would have been had we not been essentially on my own, at first. My first attempts were shots in the dark, guided only exposed to t~em at all ... .' Hence the question arises: do popular songs, listened to, by the germ of a conviction that popular music should be approached as a complex ofte.n memorized a~d sung m t~e course of adolescent and youthful courtship, make the field encompassing composers, performers, audiences, the music industry, the media, attainmentd of emot10nal . maturity more difficult than it need be>· · · . C anno t our poets an our so~gwriters try to do at least as much for our young people as Bessie Smith did and the state. "Rock and the facts of life" was first delivered as a lecture during the winter of for her audiences, ~amely provide them with symbolic experience which will help them understand, organize, and better cope with their problems? 3 1970-1, at Brown University and elsewhere. It seemed pointless to offer it to a musi­ cological journal, so I turned to my friend and then-colleague Gilbert Chase, one of Hayakawa, writing a. decade after the end of World War II, cites songs from the the great iconoclasts of the day, whose seminal book America's Music: From the ~920s a.nd 30s, th~ period of his youth, when he himself was in a formative and Pilgrims to the Present 6 had rekindled and broadened my interest in American music impress10nable p~nod: One won~er.s if the songs popular some fifteen years later, of all kinds. Characteristically, Gilbert not only accepted the article for his Yearbook when he. w_rote his article, were similar. To test this, I went to Billboard magazine's but defiantly placed it as the first item in the next volume. weekly. listing ~f the most popular songs, based on record sales and other data. For those who don't remember, or weren't around, Hayakawa, a college professor Assuming that it took perhaps a year for Hayakawa's article to be written submit­ in California, rose to political power as a proponent of''law and order" and received t~d, ~ccepted, set, proofread, and published, I went back a year from the dat~ of pub­ wide media coverage in the late 1960s as a forceful opponent of that state's rampant hcat~on of the article, to the chart for the week of 8May1954 for a sample of what student activism. Though Hayakawa doesn't acknowledge it, the title of his article was in fact popular when he was writing. The ten most popular songs were: 7 invokes Sigmund Spaeth's The Facts of Lift in Popular Song. (1) Wanted Perry Como *** (2) Make Love to Me Jo Stafford 1 S. I. Hayakawa, in an article called "Popular songs vs. the facts of life," explains (3) Cross Over the Bridge Patti Page that he is very fond of jazz and sometimes listens to popular music also, but he (4) Oh, Baby Mine Four Knights Frank Sinatra finds the latter disturbing. He recalls that Wendell Johnson, in People in (5) Young at Heart (6) Secret Love Doris Day isolated a disease infecting American society that he labelled IFD: Quandaries,2 (7) Answer Me, My Love Nat King Cole Idealization (the making of impossible and ideal demands upon life), Frustration (8) A Girl, A Girl Eddie Fisher (as a result of these demands not being met), and finally Demoralization (or (9) Here Tony Martin Disorganization, or Despair). The products of our popular culture are some of the (10) Man with the Banjo Ames Brothers chief carriers of this disease. Citing lyrics of songs by George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, Irving Berlin and the like, Hayakawa says that popular music ~his li~t doe.s indeed verif! Hayakawa's thesis, and makes possible some amplifica­ is concerned almost solely with idealized romantic love. He contrasts this with the t~on of it. With one except10n, these songs deal with romantic love from the point of lyrics of some of his favorite blues, particularly those of Bessie Smith, in which a ;iew of the mores of.American white middle- to upper-class society: one man seek­ much wider and more realistic range of what can happen between a man and a ing one woman, going through difficulties and perhaps even heartbreaks in h' woman is portrayed-happiness, unhappiness, despair, loneliness, desertion, search, but eventually attaining his goal, an~ with it lasting happiness. If there a:: unfaithfulness, tenderness, and earthy passions. He concludes that blues show a other aspects of th: man-:-w~man relationship, they are scarcely hinted at here. If willingness to acknowledge the "facts of life," suggesting, though he does not there are any other issues in life, this body of music is silent about them. develop the point, that these "facts" include not only a wider spectrum of love but ~ayakawa was concerned only with the lyrics of these songs, not with the m~sic. If he had been, he could have pointed out that the homogeneous nature of this repe~tory extends to the music itself. The songs all sound alike. Each was sung 6New York, Toronto, and London, 1955. by one singer, or occasionally a small vocal group, to the accompaniment of an 7New York and London, 1934.

1Etc. 12 (1955), pp. 83-95. Reprinted in Mass Culture, ed. Bernard Rosenberg and David Manning White (New York, 1957), pp. 393-403. 3Hayakawa, "Popular songs," p. 91. 2New York, 1946. Rock and the Facts of Life 229 228 Charles Hamm orchestra dominated by strings but making some use of winds and brass. Each had a choice of what he listened t?, a choice among Perry Como, Doris Day, Frank uses the same melodic style (diatonic, tonal, and heavily dependent on sequential Sinatra, and Pat Boone, but in terms of musical style and content oflyrics this was a writing) supported by a common harmonic style (thick, lush chords-tonal but very narrow choice. Popular music was the music of middle- and upper-class white liberally sprinkled with post-Debussyian seventh and ninth chords). Each is writ­ Americans, by and large, the people who held positions of power in financial, politi­ ten in precisely the same form, in the same meter, moving at more or less the same cal, religious, and educational institutions; the people who listened to this music were tempo. A person whose knowledge of music was derived from this repertory would the children of both groups, who would eventually succeed them. This music offered there have a remarkably limited view of the potential of the art. no view oflife in America that questioned the way things were going. Of course Hayakawa was correct. Whether or not he was listening to these or any other was jazz, blues, country music, and folk music of many sorts, and much of this music popular songs in 1954, his thesis that popular music gave a narrow and distorted was bitterly critical of one aspect or another of American life-of the kind oflife that view of reality, that it was not facing up to the facts of life, was a sound one. many people were forced to live. But this was the music of minority groups, and the At the time that Hayakawa was writing his article, ten years after the end of hard facts of life, of poverty, of repression, of apparently inescapable unhappiness, World War II, Eisenhower was president, America was engaged in the Cold War, were unknown or ignored by the people who listened to Perry Como and Eddie politicians and would-be politicians were making capital of Communist-hunting in Fisher, who heard in this music nothing that disturbed their limited and unrealistic and out of government, and with a few exceptions Americans felt it in their best per­ view of what was and was not happening in the country. Bob Dylan said: sonal interests to go along with the internal and foreign policies of the government, Rudy Vallee. Now that was a lie, that was a downright lie, Rudy Vallee being popular. to fit into the life style appropriate to their social and economic class, to conduct What kind of people could have dug him?, .. Ifyou want to find out about those times their lives so that they were moving towards maximum material gain, and to avoid and you listen to his music you're not going to find out anything about the times. His any behavior or expression of beliefs that might impede their attainment of this goal. music was a pipedream. All escapes,5 High school and college students seemed content to play the role of careless, unin­ That's not completely true, though, because you can find out something important volved, transitory people, with responsibilities, decision making and involvement in about those times from listening to such music. You can find out that the people the problems of the country off somewhere in the future. Deviation in belief and who produced and consumed popular music were shielding and shielded from any behavior among them was largely confined to a rather small group, mostly male, contact with reality that might conflict with a certain narrow view of life in often on the fringe of criminal activity, almost all of them the children of families America. You can find out that the function of this music was clearly not to provoke low in the economic scale of the country. The image of America as a benevolent, or ~timulate any thoughts or discussions of alternate ways of viewing American righteous nation dispensing impartial justice at home and abroad was rarely ques­ society. tioned or even examined, at least by those people in the groups and classes that Hayakawa's article was probably conceived in 1954; mine was first delivered listened to popular music. a~ a lecture in May of 1970. Conditions in the United States were dramatically America4 One of the most convincing parts of Charles Reich's The Greening of different then. The first general student strike in the history of American edu­ is his characterization of this period in American history, which he calls cation had closed or at least impeded operation of most American colleges and Consciousness II. He insists again and again that most decisions affecting the lives universities: the strike triggered by President Nixon's decision to send troops into of the country (political, religious, edu­ of Americans were made by the institutions Cambodia and the killings of students at Kent State and Jackson State. This that they were cational, economic, social), that people were under the impression strike was of course no isolated, impulsive happening. It came at the end of a offered freedom of choice but this choice was from among options that were essen­ decad~ of involvement by students and other young people in protests against choice by his infa­ tially the same. He illustrates this paradox of a choice that is no the Vietnam War, attempts to focus attention oq and seek solutions to racial dis­ in search mous peanut butter diatribe: American housewives going to a supermarket crimination, concern with the environment, and opposition to laws and practices labels in differ­ of peanut butter have a choice of different brands bearing different that seemed discriminatory. The American student with his serious involvement ently shaped containers, but inside everything is essentially the same; and a person in such matters and his insistence on being in the middle of-and if possible wanting something genuinely different, such as peanut butter that has not been shaping-political and social matters, would have been almost unrecognizable to homogenized, cannot find it, because a decision has been made that American his counterpart in 1955. peanut butter is homogenized. A more telling example of this point is the situation with popular music of the time. Someone dependent on the large radio stations or certain types of record shops

5Nora Ephron and Susan Edmiston, "Bob Dylan interview", in The Age of Rock, ed. Jonathan Eisen (New York, 1970), p. 70. , 4New York, 1970. Rock and the Facts of Life 231 230 Charles Hamm

And his music would have seemed equally curious. Here is the list of the top most legato line of "Reflections of My Life" is almost operatic. There is an equally wide popular songs for the week ending 9 May 1970, the week of the strike. The list is range of musical forms in this collection of pieces. Thus listeners in 1970, even those' who listened only to stations playing the most again taken from Billboard. popular songs, were offered the sort of choice in musical style and content that had (1) American Woman Guess Who not been available in 1954. Millions of Americans, most of them young, were listen­ (2) ABC The Jackson Five ing to songs concerned with a wide variety of subjects, many of them dealing with (3) Let It Be Beatles political and social issues of the day, many of them at variance with the view of (4) Vehicle Ides of March American life offered by popular songs several decades earlier. (5) Spirit in the Sky Norman Greenbaum Just as the events of May 1970 were merely episodes in a chain of events stretch­ (6) Love or Let Me Be Lonely Friends of Distinction ing back at least a decade, so the songs popular that week represented no sudden new Ray Stevens (7) Everything is Beautiful development but rather. a continuation of currents that had been flowing for some John Lennon (8) Instant Karma time. It is not the intent of this article to discuss in any detail the history of popular (9) Turn Back the Hands of Time Tyrone Davis music of the past decades. I will merely point out what is obvious to anyone who has (10) Reflections of My Life Marmalade been in any way involved with this music: since the mid-1950s, elements have been Comparing this list with the one from 1954, two things stand out in shocking con­ pouring into popular music that had not been found in it before. They have come from black music, country music, folk music of various types, art music, electronic trast. First, the subject matter of the lyrics: only one or two deal with romantic love. music, and rock 'n' roll (itself indebted to black and country music). Some have come The most popular song, "American Woman" by the Canadian group Guess Who, is in directly, as songs in one or another of these styles that have become popular, other a naive but direct criticism of some aspects of American life: "American woman, elements have been diluted or filtered or mixed with other styles. stay away from me . . . I don't need your war machines, I don't need your ghetto In sociological terms, popular music has been infiltrated by music from some scenes ...." "Spirit in the Sky" and "Let It Be" are religious songs, and "Instant of the minority cultures of our country, and this music has brought with it not just its sound, but in its lyrics Karma" reflects the curious, highly personal religious mysticism of John Lennon. ''ABC," done by a black group, deals with love-sex, rather-in a teasingly erotic the attitudes towards life prevalent in these subcultures. The main audience for pop­ fashion not unlike some blues. "Vehicle" speaks of the risks of accepting rides with ular music has been the young and the relatively affluent, the white middle- or upper­ strange men in large new cars. "Everything Is Beautiful" praises tolerance by offer­ class youth. The infiltration into their popular music of music from various minority ing as its main theme the notion that anything can be beautiful "in its own way." groups and subcultures, with the views of American society as seen through the eyes "Reflections of My Life" is quite remote from blues, musically, but offers a view of of these people, has exposed them to facts of life not habitually acknowledged in this life as a difficult and troubled journey that Hayakawa would have had no difficulty layer of American society. What are these facts of life? Charles Reich says: in relating to the "truths" of black music: "Oh my crying, feel I'm dying, Take me The very first thing that began. to happen when rock came in on a mass cultural level back to my own life .... The world is a bad place, a terrible place to live, Oh but I was it started to say "we feel lonely and alienated and frightened" and music had never don't want to die ...." If anyone was listening to the radio this week, he would have said that before. Blues has always said it .... But white people were told how happy, been exposed to songs that gave a wide variety of views about life and love. how romantic, how nice, how smooth the world was. And that didn't reflect the truth. From a musical point of view, each one of these songs is different from any other Then all of a sudden there was Elvis Presley singing about "Heartbreak Hotel" full one in sometimes small but often great matters of style. Four are done by solo artists, of lonely people, and he. said no matter how full it is, when you get there you're lonely, because none of these people can communicate with you and you can't communicate six by groups of differing sizes. The instrumental backing ranges from the percussion with them .... So the first truth of rock, the first big communication, was to say things of"lnstant Karma" through the standard rock ensembles of amplified guitars and per­ aren't that good. 6 cussion of"American Woman' to the studio orchestra, with strings, of"Reflections of My Life." Harmonic style is sometimes simple, diatonic, tonal, and triadic, with refer­ This may not have been the first thing that rock said, but it did say, often, that the ence either to rock simplicity (''American Woman') or country-music simplicity world is full of lonely, unhappy people, that lives can be or become tragic, that all ("Spirit in the Sky"); sometimes it derives more from gospel and rhythm-and-blues people do not have an equal opportunity for happiness. Popular music of the past style ("Everything Is Beautiful"); sometimes its reference is more to the popular music decade has seen a long parade of characters whose lives have gone in directions never of Hayakawa's time, as in "Reflections of My Life." Melodic style is equally varied: hinted at in the songs done by Patti Page or Doris Day: the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby," in ''American Woman' it is repetitious, fragmented, declamatory and almost non­ melodic; "Everything Is Beautiful" has a simple, symmetrical, almost folk- or child-like tune; "Let It Be" has a flowing, balanced, diatonic, sequential melody; the long-spun, 6Rolling Stone 75 (4February1971), p. 32. Rock and the Facts of Life 233 232 Charles Hamm

Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer," Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling S~one," and the Some of the songs are sympathetic to the use of drugs, some are not, most simply down-and-out aging hoofer in "Mr. Bojanglcs" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. accept the fact that there is a drug culture in the country. Probably the first thing that rock said that "white music" .had not said wa~ ~hat t~ere There are songs that deal with ecology, politics, old age, historical characters, is a physical side to love in addition to or in place of the sentimental: r,oman~icized vi~w humor, religion, patriotism, family relationships, the treatment of the American of love portrayed in earlier popular music. The first wave o~ rock n roll, m t~e ~id- Indian-indeed, with an ever-expanding range of topics. 1950s, was certainly not characterized by lyrics of profound mtellectual or soc10l~gical The matter is quite simple. Hayakawa complained that popular music offered a value. To the contrary, the words were unimportant. What matte~ed, what was diffe~­ narrow, unreal view of life, that it did nothing to prepare its consumers for what life ent (and shocking to many people), was the feel, the beat, the excitement of the music was like outside the fantasy world of this music. He called on "poets and songwriters" itself, the unabashed movement and sensuality of the sound. As Dylan says: to create music that would provide "symbolic experiences" to help Americans "under­ stand, organize, and better cope with'' the world they face. But he could not have You gotta listen to the Staple Singers, Smokey a~~ the Mira~les, ~artha a~d the guessed how quickly and effectively his call would be answered. Beginning almost Vandellas. That's scary to a lot of people. It's sex thats involved. Its not hidden. Its real. exactly in the year of his essay a succession of artists-most of them drawing on the It's not only sex, it's a whole beautiful feeling. 7 music of one or another of the minority cultures of Am.erica-began producing songs Elvis Presley could be added to that list, and the Rolling Stones, Sly and the F~mi~y suggesting that life was difficult, unpredictable, potentially tragic and lonely, sensual, Stone, Jim Morrison and the Doors, Ike and Tina Turner, and scores of other mdi­ humorous, exciting, and filled with experiences that families, churches, and schools viduals and groups. And hundreds of songs that have ~~en pla~ed o~ the Top F~rty had not prepared Americans for. This music often suggested that justice was not stations and risen in the charts, dealing in open and vivid fashion with the physical always administered in an impartial and humane way in America, that economic and side of love. . military policies were sometimes determined by factors other than moral principles. Another thing that rock has been saying fo~ ~~me t~~~ now is ~a;, war is ~nhealthy Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Bo Diddley, Elvis Presley, Peter, Paul and Mary, the for children and other living things. Bob Dylans Blowin m the Wmd was written l~ng Beachboys, Little Richard, Chubby Checker, the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, the before there was any mass opposition to the war among the young p~ople.of America. Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, It is difficult to say if the anti-war songs of the past decade .had a di~ect mfluence o~ the Rolling Stones,Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Phil Spector, Jim Morrison and the swinging the sentiment of a high percentage of young Americans agamst t~e war or if Doors, Janis Joplin, and dozens of other individuals and groups began offering "sym­ this sentiment was developing anyway, but certainly the songs and also the lives of such bolic experiences" that gave young Americans a sort of preparation for life that their artists as Dylan and Joan Baez have played a role in s?lidifyi~g-if nothing els~the parents and grandparents had not had. Movies, some novels, and journalism have beliefs of millions of people on this matter. The earliest anti-war songs were m the been saying some of the same things, but music has been the most popular and influ­ stream of folk-oriented music flowing into popular music in the early 1960s, but even­ ential art in changing the consciousness of a generation of Americans. tually music in other styles echoed this sentiment: basic roe~ which initially an~ for Hayakawa went on to become a college administrator. A television newscast many years was politically and ideologically neutral; black music (one of the most bitter sequence of several years ago caught him perched atop a car, wearing a tam, facing a outbursts against the war was Edwin Starr's "War," in what might ~e called a gospel­ crowd of angry, hostile students intent on forcing changes in educational and govern­ rock style, which rose to the top of the charts in late 1970); the .music of su~ a popu- mental policies. These students were a new breed in America, with attitudes and opin­ lar Solo artist as Donovan- and finally;, even white country music. The twentieth song ions quite different from those held by students in Hayakawa's day. They were aware of on the Billboard chart for the' week' of 9 May 1970 was Johnny Cas h' s "What I s Tiru th;> ·' " many facts of life not known to earlier generations of students. Much of this informa­ in style exactly what would be expected of this long-p~pular country singer, in content tion had come from the music that had been popular during their formative years. a condemnation of the hypocrisy of Americans who hide toleran~e of war and ~epres­ sion and intolerance of people whose views and appearance differ from their own A NOTE ONTHETITLE OFTHIS ESSAY behind their own notion of what is "American." . Still another fact oflife dealt with again and again in music of the last dec~de i~ that Certainly not all the music mentioned above is rock. I have used it as a convenient term drugs have become part of American life. There is no reason to belabor this pomt at for a large, varied body of music. When popular music began to change dramatically, this date. Recognition of the fact that lyrics of hundreds of songs of the past decade in the mid-1950s, the first group of songs to break in style and content with earlier make reference to drugs, their use and effects has spread even t? network popular music was rock 'n' roll, and a second major innovation came in the 1960s with television newscasts-and even to the office of the Vice President of the United States. West Coast and English rock, as opposed to rock 'n' roll. Other types of music also figured in the revolution of popular music. But they were all indebted to rock either stylistically or because it first opened the door for different kinds of music to enjoy the 7Ephron and Edmiston, "Bob Dylan," p. 70. 234 Charles Hamm

sentimental ballads discussed at commercial popularity previously possible only for the in my title should be under­ the beginning of this article. To put it another way, "roe).{' derived from the music of stood as "rock 'n' roll, rock, and other kinds of music, mostly part of and revolutionized one of the minority cultures in America, that have become have been too long a title. the popular music scene in America." But that would 31

EPILOGUE that popular music has played and the War: Changing attitudes of young Americans and the part Pop Music Seventy-five radio in this have not gone unnoticed by the American government. of 1971 for an expression of of Resignation (2007) executives were summoned to Washington in January The Sound of songs with lyrics making concern from the Nixon administration about the airing Communications Commission reference to drugs. On 5 March 1971 the Federal "Whether a particular record issued a "public notice" on the matter, reading in part: such illegal drug usage Jon Pare/es depicts the danger of drug abuse or, to the contrary, promotes on to say that someone in a is a question for the judgment of the licensee." It goes to make such a judge­ of responsibility at each station should be expected war ... ; But by position seemed so sure I That one day we'd be fighting/ In a suburban done, "it raises serious questions as to whether continued You ~!ways ment, and if this is not the time the first bombs fell I We were already bored. interest. In short, we expect licensees to operation of the station is in the public -Arcade Fire, "The Suburbs" musical or spoken selec­ ascertain, before broadcast, the words of lyrics of recorded tions played on their stations." from the notion of Nicholas Johnson, an FCC commissioner who dissented such a notice, gave more information about its background music. From Abolitionist son s preparing and circulating rote.st has played an important role in the history of American in San Francisco: .P ( 1939), to Rage Against the Machin:.s in an interview over KSAN-FM :~ ~~e nineteenth centu~~ to Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" inequality, poverty, and war; and sup­ we received was put together by Killing Name Of ( 1992), o~r songs have addressed The thing I find most ominous is that the presentation ln.~he Civil Ri hts on song lyrics in rights.That tradition was strong in the 1960s, when for the President, and this Defense Department briefing ported c1~il, human, and w~rker's g the Pentagon provided rich material for musical protest. talking about drugs at all-they're anti-war songs or songs and the Vietnam War fact used a lot oflyrics that aren't 8 that deals an? despair of ever again seeing a popular song standards of society, the standards of conspicuous consumption. . Many l?ok at the charts to~a:>' attacking the commercial some who aim for chart success, are taking on with such issues. But many ~us1c1ans, including particularly the FM rock stations, the seemingly endless wars in Iraq and Reaction to the notice was varied. Some stations, at lea~ one of ~hese topics: war (particularly as before. Some of the music critic for The New York Times and for­ it and continued to play the same music Afghani:tan). In th'.s short essay, Jon Pareles, pop seemed to ignore with those WLS, the most powerful Top the The Village Voice, contrasts today's war songs large commercial stations were more cautious though. mer edit~r at Ro.lling Stone and of and rebellious stance on the part of young immediately began playing an unprecedented number frorr: ~he 60s, wh1c.h, he s.uggests, reflected a fanciful Forty station in Chicago, "sober and earnest" as well as selected steered clear of con­ and their audiences. Today, war songs are instead "souvenirs," or songs popular in other years, and those '.:1us1c1ans. in the several months after pragmatic.'' troversial subject matter. A study of the weekly charts songs dealing with drugs, and a publication of the notice shows a dramatic drop in issues of d' ' of songs dealing with war or the sensitive social war." Those are the first words sung on TV on the R similar drop in the number :;i was a lover, before this a 10 s the action by the government will have any Retu t C ki M . " praised albums of 2006. the day. It is not clear at this moment if rn o o? e ount~m, one of the most widely the notice could not withstand a court lyrics, it could also apply to the long-range effects; there is sentiment that Whateve,r the lme mea~s within the band's cryptic of the United States has made it and comfort still dominated challenge. Whatever the outcome, the government past years popular music. Thoughts of romance, vice whereby popular music dissemi­ songwriters-including perfectly clear that it is not happy with a situation the cha~ts. and the airwaves. But amid the entertainment, with a war that wouldn't nates certain opinions and facts of life. some aimmg for the Top 10-were also grappling go away.

8Rol/ing Stone 79 (1April1971), p. 6.

235 Pop Music and the War 237 236 Jon Pareles

much as it became "She tells herself and everybody else/Father political consciousness rises in every electio~ ~ear, and '.'A~m~ Res~rv~," a wife and child wait: Pop's battle of old protest songs has been that voters are tired of war, music m 2006 also reflected is risking his life for our freedoms." The righteousness clear in November malaise. attitudes of belligerence, protest and yearning for replaced by sorrow and fatigue. Beyond typical wartime Merle a mood somewhere between war, bluster has toned down, even in country music. peace, in 2006 pop moved toward something different: After three years of has always been skeptical of the war in Iraq tersely insists resignation and a siege mentality. Haggard, a populist who ' ' and r:sent- ' f I and let's rebuild America first," on his touched on the war in 2006 were suffused with the mournful "L et s get out o raq, get back on the track, · Songs that song on the album Toby Keith titled the album he made and rush-released m the most recent solo album, "Chicago Wind." In another ful knowledge that-as Neil Young was one of ti~e. Awareness of the war the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)~' spring--we are "Living With War," and will be for sor_ne whose "Courtesy of in 2002,joins Mr. Haggard for a duet, suggesting like a chronic headache behind more pleasant distract10ns. country'~ mos~ bellicose war songs throbs the to war in Iraq and the war on terrorism-one protracted, a reconsiderat10n. The cultural response sympathy for the pa~allel. Un~ke World War all pop-can agree on across political lines is other possibly endless-doesn't have an exa~t histor~cal Like the electorate, o~rs The Seeger Sessions included an old has brought little national umty; unlike the Vietnam era, troops. Bruce Springsteen's We Shall Overcome: II, the current situation album's expanded edi­ for America's opponents. Iraq ma~ be. turnmg "Mrs. McGrath," about a soldier crippled in battle; the has no appreciable domestic support song, 'Em war has ~ot mspired ~alk version of a blunt Pete Seeger song from 1966, "Bring into a quagmire and civil war like Vietnam, but the current tion added an updated no draft to pit young agamst Home." of generationwide rebellion (perhaps because there's The war songs of the country singer Darryl Worley had a 2003 hit, "Have You old) or any colorful, psychedelically defiant counterculture. On the hawkish side, the . . as a reaction to 9/11. Now, he has a cur­ been sober and earnest, pragmatic rather than f~nciful. Forgotten?," that justified the Iraq invasion 21st century have war but concentrates on its to the invasion ?flraq ~rived along f~miliar Top 20 country hit that reiterates his support for the Immediate responses to 9/11 and rent Came m country music; the a returned soldier's post-traumatic stress in "I Just lines. There was anger and saber-rattling at first, particularly human cost, describing Maines disparaged the pres­ Back From a War." Dixie Chicks' career was upended in 2003 when Natalie about weapons portrays a soldier who enlisted as eve of the Iraq invasion. There were folky protest songs In a song called "Bullet," the rapper Rhymefest ident on the a face full of hollowtips." Oil" by B~~y Bragg; in a 21~t-century ~ouch, to get scho~arship money for college and dies "with and oil profiteering, like "The Price of a way with from songwriters as varied as Norah Jones starts her next album, due this month there were denunciations of news media complicity Even as cozy a smger, ' .. a song about a lover killed in combat. Haggard, Nellie McKay and the punk-rock band Anti-Flag "Wish I Could," Merle rhyme the war in 2006. But beyond top­ already slinging war metaphors for e;erythmg fron:1 . ~here were plenty of other songs directly about Rappers, who were The year's best­ crime soldiers, soon exploited the multitude of war also seeped into popular music more obliquely. battles to tales of drug-dealing ical~ty, the " a also bluntly attacked the and My Gang," by Rascal Flatts, includes "Ellsworth rhymes for Iraq, while some, like Eminem and OutKast, sellmg country album, "Me . husband, a veteran who left behind ,;his the war. song about "Grandma" and her dead president and single, "Crazy," is stick to love songs found themselves paymg cigar lette.rs." ,?narls Barkley's ubiquitous hit In 2006 songwriters who usually medals/A bo~ o~ think Another soldier gone to war," You really think you're in control? Well, I attention to the war as well. ''A new year, a new enemy/ about self-destructive msamty: ends his 2006 album, "Once you're crazy." John Legend sings in "Coming Home," the song that still cares. "It seems. the like "The Black Parade," by My Chemical It's a soldier's letter home wondering if his girlfriend Thoughts of mortality fill albums Again." wish­ War isn't the only factor behind we'll make it home again," Mr. Legend croons, more Romance, and "Decemberunderground," by A.F.I. wars will never end, but one. all the foreboding in current popular music, but it's certainly ful than confident. musical reper­ "Continuum," with "Waiting on t~e World to are. not the late 1960s, culturally or ideologically, but the John Mayer starts his 2006 album, ~he 2000s on one that feels passi~e be~ause War may hint at what comes next. As that war dragged Change," a popsoul ballad defining his generation as cuss10ns of the Vietnam home from war, he smgs, way to not only the sodden early 1970s of technique~ it's helpless: "If we had the power to bring our neighbors the delirious late 1960s gave ribbons on th~ ~oor." T~e singer-songwriters, but also to a flowering of social­ "They would never have missed a Christmas/No more obsesse~ rock an~ self-~bsorbe~ of more activist types, is soul, the music that John Legend and John Mayer best he and they can do, he muses, doubtless to the disgust ly consc10us, musically mnovative has skipped the giddy is gonna rule the population.''. , .. now delibe.ratel~ i~v~ke. It's as if this wartirr:e era s~mply to wait until "our generation gone directly to onslaugh: of albums like Pearl Ja.ms .Po~itically didn t, m the end, :urn bombers mto butterflies-and There is more rage in the guitar phase-w?ich by the of a soldier m Worl~ of the Vietnam War in 1975 was quickly followed charged, self-titled 2006 album. Contempla~mg t?e ~:ath th.e broo~mg. The end checks that others pay, and hip-hop; there's no telling what disengagement from Wide Suicide " the song lashes out at a president writmg rejuvenatmg energy of punk a war has taken over?" And in Iraq might spark. but ends up ~ondering, "What does it mean when 238 Jon Pareles

Music and the other arts, unlike journalism, don't echo the news. They can be counterweights and compensations, the fantasies that w~r~ out, rather than the f~cts that don't. In the weeks before Christmas, I started notic~ng that nearly e;~?' time I wandered into a store or heard holiday music from a radio, John Lennons f!appy Xmas (War Is Over)"-that chiming, purposefully optimistic song with th~ somber 32 undercurrent-was on the playlist. When even Muzak programmers are facing up to life during wartime, pop is no escape. Why I Gave Up On Hip-Hop (2006)

Lonnae O'Neal Parker

In the beginning, hip hop gave young African Americans a voice. A remarkable illustration of this is Lonnae O'Neal Parker's anecdote (see below) of young black kids on a school bus in 1979 singing "Rapper's Delight."The white kids on the same bus responded:"Disco Sucks!" So the black kids proudly sang louder. Hip hop shaped a generation's politics, perceptions, and aesthetics, and it continues to do so today. Parker; a Washington Post staff writer; was a passionate fan of early hip hop, but was eventu­ ally driven away. In this essay, which touches on issues of lyrics, race, and gender; she explains that for her; like many, it eventually became impossible to overlook the misogyny and materialism of commercial rap music despite "dope beats and tight rhymes."

My 12-year-old daughter, Sydney, and I were in the car not long ago when she turned the radio to a popular urban contemporary station. An unapproved station. A station that might play rap music. "No way, Syd, you know better," I said, so Sydney changed the station, then pouted. "Mommy, can I just say something?" she asked. "You think every time you hear a black guy's voice it's automatically going to be something bad. Are you against hip-hop?" Her words slapped me in the face. In a sense, she was right. I haven't listened to radio hip-hop for years. I have no clue who is topping the charts and I can't name a single rap song in play. But I swear it hasn't always been that way. My daughter can't know that hip-hop and I have loved harder and fallen out further than I have with any man I've ever known. That my decision to end our love affair had come only after years of disap­ pointment and punishing abuse. After I could no longer nod my head to the misog­ yny or keep time to the vapid materialism of another rap song. After I could no

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