How I find these songs
My inspiration
I was recently asked how I find the songs I write about, so that’s the topic of today’s Sunday Special commentary.
Welcome to my subscribers and to guests who might be reading for the first time. Glad you’re here!
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Well, the answer its quite simple. I have been researching these songs for about 20 years now, on and off. More recently, I’ve been teaching a university course called Songs of Social Significance. In that course, we cover songs from the Spanish Civil War, Latin America, Unions, the Civil Rights Movement (U.S.), the world in the 1960s, the Iraq War, the Fukushima nuclear disaster, environmental issues, and gender issues. All of those areas have songs that have been written about the problems or the people who were involved in the issues.
That means that I have a lot of material to write about. And there are many, many more out there.
Another place that gives me a clue as to where to look for songs is a course I’m currently teaching on American Culture. For example, in a few weeks, we’ll be talking about the early Women’s Rights movement (U.S.). I have been doing some reading about Hull House and the songs written by a woman who was involved with it, Eleanor Smith. I had no idea what Hull House was, nor the fact that Smith wrote songs about the horrible conditions in the factories in Chicago. More on that soon.
Other suggestions come from the comments that subscribers have left. For example, someone mentioned the situation in Ukraine, so I decided to write about songs dealing with that issue on 26 April. Another reader asked about the codes in slave songs, so that was the topic on 19 April.
There are thousands of songs to choose from, but each song should contain some specific lyrics that refer to a person, place, or historical issue. That’s why I probably won’t write about a song like 99 Red Balloons, because although it’s a cool song about the possibility of an escalating nuclear war (not cool), there’s nothing that connects it to a specific event that has happened. (Read about it at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Luftballons.)
I welcome any suggestions for topics or songs, so please leave your ideas in the comments.