I always enjoy when school assignments involve music, so it was nice to listen to the podcast and the two music videos. I think music is one of the best and most effective forms of expression, and that has been the case for quite some time. I was previously aware of the origins and background of jazz music, but “Alice’s Restaurant” was a new one for me. I was a little curious about some of the background of the song, so I looked up some additional information. The full song is over 18 minutes long and inspired the movie Alice’s Restaurant, but what I found most interesting was that in 2009 and 2005 interviews Arlo Guthrie describes the song as “anti-stupidity” and not necessarily anti-war. In those interviews Guthrie also considered the song to be as significant then as when he first wrote it. The fact that it has maintained its relevancy is a little disappointing, as one would hope that the cautionary tales of a protest-type song would not still apply to the modern day. I found this to be a common theme as I read through some of the YouTube comments on “This Is America.” Some comments were saying Glover’s 2018 song had predicted the future, while others corrected them saying that these events have continually gone on and were not some sudden change. One of the main things that the song addresses is gun violence in America, among other issues, which is something that is seemingly only worsened since the song’s release. In the past month alone, I’ve seen a news headline about a new mass shooting nearly every other day. It’s not like attention isn’t being brought to these issues. “This Is America” has over 769,000,000 views. If that isn’t a big enough statement to bring attention to something, then I don’t know what is.
One of the other things I thought about while listening to the podcast and music videos is the misinformation and irony of playing some seemingly “American” songs during patriotic events like the fourth of July. A big example of this is Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” which I’ve heard at every remotely-USA-themed event. The contents of the song is reflective of American values, but not in a positive way. The song is about a working-class veteran who has returned from war (not explicitly mentioned which war in the song but it was Vietnam era) and been abandoned by the government. I’ve written a whole paper on this song alone for another class before so I won’t go too far in, but the main gist is that this song has been misappropriated as some sort of iconic patriotic anthem. The “Born in the USA” chorus is definitely catchy, but it’s always funny to see people unironically play it without paying attention to any of the other lines. The same is the case for “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Rival, which was created in irony as an anti-war song. Many people, including President Trump (who was given a cease and desist by band frontrunner John Fogerty for using the song at campaign rallies), have completely missed the point of the song, turning it into a patriot anthem instead. I think music is really great to analyze, and important to do so, because it’s almost always at least a little deeper than one may have originally thought.
That’s really interesting. I did not know that Born in the USA had that hidden message, but unfortunately like everyone else I wasn’t looking for it. We just covered a similar topic in my justice and civil society class where we listened to This Land Is Your Land, which is also always played at patriotic events but the song was actually targeted at the mistreatment of migrant workers in California at the time and contains lines such as “I start to wonder: is this land made for you and me?”.
I also found your summary really interesting. It is ironic that we will play “patriotic” songs at events that are supposed to be in celebration of the country. In some situations, we don’t analyze songs or pop culture to its fullest. It wasn’t until English classes in high school where I begun to do so and realized the messages that some songs were sending.