MUSIC TO YOUR EARS – 12. Dance to the Music

artwork by Murray Young

From Slim and Slam to ring shouts and the macabre. A series of posts about the politics and history, the culture and structure of music.

PLEASE NOTE: I have attempted to include a wide range of music in these posts, including music I don’t like but which is important or demonstrates a musical idea well. Almost any piece of music is interesting in some way. I recommend at least sampling all the music here – you might be pleasantly surprised. At least check out specific sections of compositions which I have identified. If you don’t like a clip just stop and jump to the next clip.

Please, if you will, take a look at each of these clips and then decide which is the most natural or authentic. What is the definition of the word ‘dance’?

Clip one – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt6Fy0ZlgEw&list=RDHcuKAgoCir8&index=4&ab_channel=HoToox

Clip two – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HihKhKug4YE&ab_channel=AlexanderZhiratkov

Clip three – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHWcN5YxuYc&ab_channel=BrianSetzerOrchVEVO

Dance is one of those wonderful phenomena which has a beautiful serious side (Swan Lake), a sacred awe-inspiring side (The Whirling Dervishes), a joyful renewing energetic side (The Jitterbug), and even a political side (Slam Dancing). Classical ballets can boast the impressive talents of Anna Pavlova and Rudolf Nureyev, Margot Fonteyn and Vaslav Nijinsky. In the twentieth century Neoclassical Ballet was dominated by choreographers such as Balanchine and Robbins. Here is an example of two great ballet dancers, Twyla Tharp and Mikhail Baryshnikov, doing a very non-traditional dance to what I think is Frank Sinatra’s best track, That’s Life, featuring a startling very well-rehearsed ending – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI6PbzHPVgs&ab_channel=ApreciandoPassos

Dancing can be exuberant or it can be formal and stilted. Slaves in the West Indies performed a transcendent religious ritual known as a ring shout. On the southern slave plantations the ring shout evolved into the rudimentary cakewalk and that eventually became a subtle form of mockery of the formalized dance styles of white society, as in this 41 second example, from 1903 shows – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QifiyNm6jG4&ab_channel=LibraryofCongress

Before long whites in blackface in highly-racist minstrel shows caricatured black dancing, including the Cakewalk – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6dXrm1YjBE&ab_channel=ikachina . Then the Cotton Club opened in Harlem in which black performers entertained white audiences only, and the revues often featured racist jungle themes – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEaZkNQTVVc&t=10s&ab_channel=GeorgeRothacker . Even dancing is political.

CAKEWALK DANCE POSTER 1896
By Scan by NYPL – https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e3-fc4f-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47257704

Benny Goodman rose to fame in the 1930’s as the greatest practitioner of Swing Music, and was helped in great part by the Swing dancing of the Lindy Hoppers. Swing music took off when the Goodman band played at the Palomar Ballroom, and it is said that jazz became respectable when Goodman played his famous concert at Carnegie Hall in 1938. The Lindy Hoppers were particularly creative and athletic. Here are two particularly amazing Lindy Hopper dance sequences:

– A black and white dance routine from the 1941 film ‘Hot Chocolate’ introduced by Duke Ellington and Ben Webster – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_262uUGwzgk&ab_channel=VintageSwingDance

– An extremely frenetic colourized swing dance sequence from the 1941 film ‘Hellapoppin’ which starts slowly with some music from the great multi-instrumentalists Slim and Slam (Bulee ‘Slim’ Gaillard and Leroy ‘Slam’ Stewart) and builds to an enormously fast-paced ending – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzc7vY9VTnk&ab_channel=BlackPepperSwing . Why do you suppose the dancers run off at the end looking apprehensive?

There have been some pretty impressive dance sequences in feature films in the first half of the twentieth century. Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly are often considered to be the best of the Hollywood dancers. Some feminists have wryly pointed out that as great as Astaire was, his longtime dancing partner, Ginger Rogers, deserved at least as much acclaim because she matched Astaire step for step but backwards and in heels. Here is one of Astaire’s most innovative sequences – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n7R61gtSZw&ab_channel=FEATUREFILM

and here is how it was done – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNSHjZmvZTM&ab_channel=BigfottStudios

GENE KELLY DANCING WITH AN ANIMATED MOUSE NAMED TOM, 1945
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5997990

Gene Kelly was an actor, dancer, singer, film director and choreographer, and the greatest of the Hollywood dancers IMHO. He came up with many innovations and single-handedly made ballet acceptable to American film audiences. He dominated the ground-breaking film ‘American in Paris’ which won six academy awards, featuring the amazing Third Stream masterpieces of George Gershwin. Many say that the greatest filmed dance sequence of them all was his performance of Singing in the Rain (while suffering from the flu!) which you have probably seen, so instead here is a clip in which he performs an incredible light-hearted dance on roller skates – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf4c-LMJeeA&ab_channel=seneca91

Gene Kelly was very outgoing but Fred Astaire was intensely private; he was also a drummer and he took up skateboarding in his seventies. Astaire, a lifelong Republican, was (with Bing Crosby and others) a founding member of the Hollywood Republican Committee. Gene Kelly, on the other hand, was part of the Committee for the First Amendment which flew to Washington to publicly protest against the official hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) fuelled by the hysterical anti-Communist witch hunts of the 1950’s dishonestly engineered by Senator Joe McCarthy. When HUAC proclaimed that Gene Kelly’s wife, Betsy Blair, was a Communist sympathizer and the American Legion attempted to get Blair fired from the film Marty, Kelly fought back and had her re-instated. Kelly, brought up Catholic, also separated all ties with Roman Catholicism over its support of Spanish fascist dictator Francisco Franco.

IT TAKES ALL KINDS

This video by Club Nouveau covers a wide range of dancing accompanying the song Lean On Me – (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbyjaUJWWmk ). Some examples of dance forms:

WALTZES – The Rebel Waltz (recorded by The Clash), Arabian Waltz (recorded by the Silkroad Ensemble), The Spanish Waltz, Pursuit Waltz, Viennese Waltz, The Cajun Waltz, The Tropical Waltz, The Cross-Step Waltz, The African Waltz, The Jitterbug Waltz, The Last Waltz, The Tennessee Waltz, The Millionaire Waltz, The Shadow Waltz, Gravy Waltz, Skaters’ Waltz, and The Blue Danube Waltz (from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZoSYsNADtY&ab_channel=ScreenThemes )

SHUFFLES – The T-Bone Shuffle, The Roseland Shuffle, The Showboat Shuffle, The Monkey Shuffle, The Melbourne Shuffle and The Mull River Shuffle performed here by the Rankin Family – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptDBWCII_4g&ab_channel=DavidAlexander )

ROCK AND ROLL DANCES – The Twist, The Watusi, The Frug, The Swim, The Stroll, The Shake, The Hitch Hike, The Chicken, The Pony, The Dog and The Mashed Potato, and The Nitty Gritty ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S3Yt-NxY0E&ab_channel=MatthewEnderlin ).

DANCES COME IN A WIDE VARIETY OF FORMS

Camille Saint-Saens (1835 – 1921) was a child prodigy and musical historian who also happened to be a well-respected classical French composer. His work anticipated the work of Stravinsky himself. The noted composer Maurice Ravel (whose Bolero was itself brilliantly ground-breaking) was a pupil of the noted composer Gabriel Fauré who was, in turn, a pupil of Saint-Saëns, and both men had great admiration for the man. Here is a short animated interpretation of the main theme from Saint-Saëns’ greatest composition, Danse Macabre, composed in 1874 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcOZmtbLRP0&ab_channel=TempleTiger

In contrast to Saint-Saëns, Jonathon Paul Clegg, OBE, OIS, was a South-African musician, singer, composer and dancer. He was also an anthropologist and an anti-Apartheid activist. His father was British (of Scottish descent) and his mother was Rhodesian (a descendant of Lithuanian Jews). As an infant he lived in Rhodesia, Israel and South Africa. It was in South Africa that Clegg learned the Zulu language and mastered the maskandi guitar and the Ishishameni dance styles, then he attended the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and attained a degree in Social Anthropology. He lectured there as well, and wrote several seminal scholarly papers on Zulu music and dance. Then he became a musician, initially forming the band Juluka with Sipho Mchunu, getting arrested in the process several times because Apartheid was still the law and since Clegg was white and Mchunu was black it was illegal for them to play music together. In 1986 he formed the band Savuka, still under Apartheid. This is a track from Savuka, Scatterlings of Africa, and the video includes Clegg performing Zulu dance moves as well as playing electric guitar and singing – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnYtcH4YS44&ab_channel=Oxygene80 . Clegg died in 2019 of pancreatic cancer.

The Mevlevi Order is a Sufi order that originated in Konya (the former capital of the Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate), founded by the followers of Jalaludddin Muhammad Balkhi Rumi, a 13^th century poet, mystic and theologian. The Mevlevis are also known as whirling dervishes or semazens. Rumi taught a number of well-known female students. In the order there were female shaikhs and semazens (e,g, Destina Khatun) and males and females prayed, shared spiritual conversation and whirled within each others’ company. Here is a performance by whirling dervish Meleika Fathi to a composition called Robabi ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k-fN2wz1U8&list=RDlFIQMM8bZQk&index=2&ab_channel=MeliekaFathi ) and here is a larger group of whirling dervishes in Konya ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv4K1Ja3g84&list=RDlFIQMM8bZQk&index=24&ab_channel=AmyAr )

Finally, here is an electrifying performance of the Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance featuring Vanessa Mae on violin – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R05UjtmZyn4&ab_channel=MySecretGardenmdp

TERPSICHORE ON FILM

Most people have seen Michael Jackson’s music videos, perhaps the best and most famous (certainly the longest) being Thriller, with its iconic dancing zombies. It was released as part of the emergence of a new category of film known as the music video. Some early videos had sizable production budgets and were directed by people who went on to direct feature films. The Thriller video broke new ground in that it lasted much longer than previous music videos, coming in at 13 minutes and 42 seconds. There were other music videos at that time that also featured exceptional dancing, for example:

1. Jump – The Pointer Sisters – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyTVyCp7xrw&ab_channel=PointerSistersVEVO

2. The Safety Dance – Men Without Hats – this features Morris Dancing – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjPau5QYtYs&ab_channel=UnidiscMusic

3. Once in a Lifetime – Talking Heads – I will let you decide whether or not this is dancing – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IsSpAOD6K8&ab_channel=DavidByrne

Here are a few noteworthy dance sequences from feature films:

1. Time of My Life – from Dirty Dancing
2. Wilkommen – from Cabaret
3. Prologue – street dancing from West Side Story
4. Think – featuring Aretha Franklin, from The Blues Brothers
5. All That Jazz – from Chicago
6. The Twist Competition from Pulp Fiction
7. The audition scene from Footloose
8. Lady Marmalade – from Moulin Rouge
9. Dancing Pianos – from Gold Diggers of 1935, choreographed by Busby Berkeley
10. Springtime For Hitler – from The Producers
11. Every Sperm is Sacred – from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life
12. Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. This was done originally by Marilyn Monroe in 1953 then re-imagined thirty years later by Madonna –

– the original – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knLd8bfeWtI&ab_channel=rex

– Madonna’s update – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p-lDYPR2P8&ab_channel=Madonna

I will finish with two completely bizarre dance sequences. The first deals with necrophilia so you have been warned. The second deals with fish. You have been warned a second time.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aowSGxim_O8&ab_channel=TomPettyVEVO

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8XeDvKqI4E&ab_channel=ArmyTanksStudios

MUSIC TO YOUR EARS

Posts already posted or still being planned as we speak:

1. STAND TO ATTENTION, OR ELSE – Anthems, National and Unofficial. From Black Power to one small flower of eternity, from Oceania ‘Tis of Thee to Lift Every Voice and Sing – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/09/22/music-to-your-ears-1-stand-to-attention-or-else/
2. WHY? – Twenty-five purposes and functions of music. From Pressed Rat and Warthog to Rainy Day Women Number Twelve and Thirty-five, from propaganda to religion, labour relations to storytelling – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/09/29/music-to-your-ears-2-why/
3. LISTEN UP – Things to listen for when you listen to a piece of music. From Kashmir to Vine Street, St. James Infirmary to Scarborough Fair – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/10/06/music-to-your-wars-3-listen-up/
4. THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE – Silly and Satirical Songs. From vegetables to metaphysical dogma, inebriated philosophers to short people – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/10/14/music-to-your-ears-4-the-bright-side-of-life/
5. THE COMPLEXITIES OF WAR – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/10/21/music-to-your-ears-5-the-complexities-of-war/
6. HOMELAND AND LIFE: A Case Study – An examination of the recent explosive viral video Patria y Vida – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/10/27/music-to-your-ears-6-homeland-and-life/
7. REALITY CHECK – From Kristallnacht to the Long March, massive floods and burning rivers, Wounded Knee to the École Polytechnique – Music memorializing real events – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/11/03/music-to-your-ears-7-reality-check/
8. CINEMATIC MUSIC – From the Squid Game to the Witcher in the heat of the night in the darkest depths of Mordor – how music offers an added dimension to the cinematic experience – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/11/10/music-to-your-ears-8-cinematic-music/
9. DRAMATIS PERSONAE – From Nelson Mandela to Albert Einstein, Harriet Tubman to Sally Ride – Music celebrating real people – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/11/17/music-to-your-ears-9-dramatis-personae/
10. THE BEATLES – GOOD, BAD AND WRONG – From The Rolling Stones to Pete Best, from Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds to the Walrus – things about The Beatles rarely said but which need to be said – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/11/22/music-to-your-ears-10-the-bad-the-good-and-the-wrong/
11. MUSIC LEFT AND RIGHT – From the King to the Kid, Uncle Son to Joe Hill – music from the extremes of the political spectrum – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/12/02/music-to-your-ears-11-music-right-and-left/
12. MUSIC LEFT AND RIGHT REDUX – Further thoughts about MUSIC LEFT AND RIGHT – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/12/08/music-left-and-right-redux/
13. DANCE TO THE MUSIC – From Slim and Slam to ring shouts and the macabre. – dances political, religious and silly.
14. STREAMING AUDIO – Third Stream Music from Bach as Rock to Yiddish Reggae – deftly combining broad categories of music
15. Musical Women, Musical Men – 2700 BCE to 2021 CE
16. Music Religious and Secular
17. Session Musicians – the forgotten
18. Supergroups – the famous
19. Rhythm Part One
20. Rhythm Part Two
21. The Great Depression – music born out of the economic devastation of the Stock Market crash of 1929 and the hellish decade (for most) that followed.
22. Musical Families – musical dynasties and the women left out
23. The British Invasion
24. The Evolution of Music
25. Crossroads and Crossbones (Musical Deaths)
26. Economic Inequities
27. Music About Music and Musicians
28. Extraordinary Musical Instruments
29. Girl Groups
30. Boy Bands
31. Weak Here, Strong There
32. Rappers, Little Ones and The Blues
33. A Starr by Any Other Name
34. Bonzo, Satchmo, Left Eye, Slim and Slam
35. The Nerk Twins, The Glimmer Twins and the Pet Shop Boys
36. Doug and the Slugs, Johnny Kidd and Kid Creole
37. Brother Buzzard and The Incredible Quicksilver Experience
38. Flamingoes, Crowes, L7, Ladysmith and Jethro

Music Left and Right Redux

My last post brought up an issue which is fascinating and important so this is a follow-up to address those musical issues at greater length, and talk about them in a non-musical content as well. Is it important to differentiate the non-musical views of a composer and the quality or appeal of that composer’s work? That is the question. There are many examples of musical recordings I admire and love by people who I disagree with non-musically and it would be a surprise if that was not the case. These things lie on a continuum, however, and the question becomes whether a sufficient change in quantity ever creates a change in quality.

Many great musical figures are devoutly religious, for example Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frederick Handel, Ludwig van Beethoven, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Johnny Cash and on and on. The greatest single musical composition that I have ever come across, in my opinion, is The Goldberg Variations by the devoutly religious Johann Sebastian Bach ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv94m_S3QDo&ab_channel=kanfoosj ). I am not devoutly religious. That’s irrelevant. The Beatles came up with some great stuff and the de facto leader, John Lennon, was an atheist, while the lead guitarist, George Harrison, was a serious follower of the Hindu faith. On a less serious level, Procol Harum have come up with some excellent music (Repent Walpurgis, Crucifixion Lane and Pilgrim’s Progress) ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNag2W9yFBU ) but the leader and primary composer, Gary Brooker, is a standard issue conservative who has actively supported the upper class spectacle called the Fox Hunt. I still love Procol Harum’s music.

I love recordings such as Salt of the Earth, Factory Girl and You Can’t Always Get What You Want by the Rolling Stones, ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlZ1o1EIA9s&ab_channel=ABKCOVEVO ) but the Stones were a bunch of unapologetic misogynists, Bill Wyman loved underage females, and Mick Jagger treated his first wife terribly. For a good, detailed analysis of Jagger’s misogyny see ‘Betwixt and Between: The Travesties of Mick Jagger’ by Manon Steiner in the anthology Under My Thumb: Songs That Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them edited by Rhian E. Jones and Eli Davies. This particular collection gets right to the point. It is not a straightforward book that simply condemns woman-hating lyrics (and some of them are pretty extreme) and the people who write those lyrics. It tries instead to get a handle on how it is possible for women to love misogynist music, even women with feminist insights.

As Em Smith writes, in another essay from the book (‘It was a Different Time: Negotiating With the Misogyny of Heroes’) – “The Velvet Underground appeal was already entrenched in so much of what I loved, so then came the tricky business of separating my feelings about the treatment of women and my feelings about the creation of great art” (page 61) after she referenced the line “You’d better hit her” from the Velvet Underground song There She Goes Again. The question becomes how serious do the unethical behaviours have to be before the music is ruined. David Bowie had sex with an underage girl (fifteen year old Lori Maddox) and Iggy Pop had sex with Sable Starr when she was thirteen. In my earlier post I condemned Ted Nugent for his song Jail bait about wanting to have sex with a thirteen year old girl. Mick Jagger in concerts also talked approvingly of bedding a thirteen year old.

I would list the album Wheels of Fire by Cream as one of my ten favourite albums. Eric Clapton was a member of Cream. When he became not slightly but vociferously, poisonously and publicly racist I had second thoughts, but Cream also included Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, and Clapton really is a good guitar player. When I found out that Clapton, like his good friend Gary Brooker, were both aggressively supportive of the Fox Hunt I began to have second thoughts. Recently Clapton has, again openly and loudly, proclaimed that Covid 19 is a hoax, that people must ignore mask mandates and refrain from getting vaccinated, and I can no longer listen to his music without thinking of his politics. Fuck him.

I love David Bowie’s work (Cygnet Committee, Fame, and Lazarus) ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JqH1M4Ya8&ab_channel=DavidBowieVEVO ) but he went through a Nazi phase. He voiced support of a right wing revolution and praised Adolf Hitler. But first of all the phase didn’t last long, and second of all he apologized profusely afterwards. Does that make a difference? Enough of a difference? What do you think of Leni Riefenstahl’s abilities as a film director? ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu-CK47NM8E&ab_channel=DreamWeaver ).

I have never flirted with right wing ideas. In my day, however, going back more than fifty years now, I was actively involved in leftist politics, but then political activism was surprisingly common at the time. It was the 1960’s. Besides, I’m still almost as far left now as I was then. I also tried my hand at composing music and creating mathematical art, and I would like to think that people judged and either enjoyed or condemned such efforts based on the works themselves and not on whether their political opinions lined up with mine. On the other hand if my political ideas were expressed through my music and art, that’s a different matter, isn’t it? If the greatest artist in the world created a work of art in praise of Pol Pot or Torquemada or Augusto Pinochet, I would not be surprised or upset if people hated the work. That the work was well-done becomes irrelevant to whether or not someone likes the work, irrelevant to whether the work can be judged good or bad in an ethical sense. Of course if I was a follower of or supporter of people like Pol Pot, Torquemada or Augusto Pinchet I would most likely love any artwork that celebrated my heroes.

There are those on the far right who may be going through the same process as those on the left. What happens if a hawk who supported the Vietnam War likes the musical style of a band that opposes the war? Are they still going to buy that band’s music as long as that band writes songs with lyrics about things other than the Vietnam War? During the 1960’s the overwhelmingly dominant views among popular bands were left wing. That must have been a tough decade for them. They also had every right to their views, and the views of right wing bands they supported. It just becomes tricky if the views of, say, Ted Nugent, in opposition to gun control expressed in his songs has a measurable negative effect on the effort to introduce gun control legislation.

It’s one thing to write a sonnet in praise of Christianity. It’s quite another to write a sonnet in praise of Christianity that also condemns Islam, Hinduism or the Jewish faith. What about a sonnet that condemns how Hindus treat the Dalit community?

In my previous post I set forth the works, with links to examples, of a series of right wing musicians whose ideas I abhor (Ted Nugent, Elvis Presley, Kid Rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Gene Simmons, Johnny Ramone, Meat Loaf, Mike Love of the Beach Boys, Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Charlie Daniels, Marty Robbins, David Bowie and Eric Clapton). Unfortunately musicians write songs and songs have lyrics and lyrics sometimes express political ideas. I might love the wonderful way in which a particular band composes and executes a wonderful instrumental song, and I would probably get the song from Spotify. But if that same band then releases the same song again, this time with lyrics about how wonderful Donald Trump is, I would pass on downloading a copy of the song.

Just as importantly, people change and so do their opinions. I concluded things, thought things, felt things, did things in my teen years and twenties that were at times immature and irrational. As long as people acknowledge the follies of youth and learn from past mistakes, and therefore make meaningful changes in their behaviour, they should not be held accountable forever, and repeatedly be condemned for such past behaviours.

What goes through your head when you watch a Roman Polanski film? He sexually interfered with an underage girl years ago, he has never denied it, he fled the United States before he could face the consequences of what he did. Since then he has lived in comfort in Europe, and his later work has been lauded and rewarded. Woody Allen has been credibly accused of sexual predation but has never been held to account. Would you pay to stream some of his more recent work? Would you work on his latest project if the pay was good enough? If you did boycott his work would that make any difference in terms of the damage done which can’t be undone? Perhaps it would. Perhaps it would give his victim some solace knowing that Allen didn’t get away with it entirely.

There is overwhelming evidence that Bill Cosby violated dozens of women. He admitted some degree of guilt. He has also shown no remorse but expressed only anger at being held to account. Now, after only serving a short fraction of his sentence it looks like he’s going to be released. How would you feel now watching an old episode of The Cosby Show? Or, in my case, how would I feel if I went back and watched an episode of I Spy which I enjoyed as a kid, a series in which Cosby displayed impressive serious acting skills? I know how I would feel.

If I only listened to music recorded by people whose political ideas agreed with mine I’d lose out on the joy of listening to a lot of great music. What usually happens is that one listens to songs whose lyrics are politically neutral, or are political identical to one’s own political views, or are at least in the ballpark to one’s own views, or are only mildly different from one’s own views so that they can be ignored for the sake of great music.

If one is a professional session musician then one plays as well as one can on a particular singer’s album even if one disagrees with the singer’s political views. Nine times out of ten the session musician has no idea what the political positions of the singer they’re working for are anyway. I have come across only one exception to this rule. James Taylor’s album One Man Dog, consisting of 18 short tracks, includes the track entitled Mescalito whose lyrics praise the use of the illegal hallucinogen drug mescaline. The musicians who play with Taylor on that track went on the record, in a notice on the album’s accompanying lyric sheet, saying that they disagreed with the lyrics of the song. This was in 1972 so it may have been a reaction to the drug-related early deaths of Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones in 1969, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin in 1970, and Jim Morrison of the Doors in 1971.

Time to move from the musical arena to the political. Many voted for and supported John F. Kennedy because he was young and witty and optimistic. But his political opinions were terrible. People talked admiringly about The Great Communicator, smiling friendly Ronald Reagan who would give you the shirt off his back. His political policies made sure you needed his shirt. Furthermore, the idea that one’s political or religious opinions must take precedence over things like human rights puts this issue onto a higher level. Ted Nugent’s music is boring anyway so not listening to it is no loss to me. But in June 2018 The Supreme Court of the United States ruled seven to two that a baker in Colorado could legally refuse on religious grounds to bake a cake for the legal marriage of a same-sex couple. So they can go to another bakery. But what if all the bakers refuse them service? Does this mean that another business or institution (e.g. a bank or grocery store) could on religious grounds refuse to provide service to someone who was a Democrat, or who was Jewish, or black, or female? What if all the banks, and grocery stores, and churches, and hospitals in the state (or the country) refuse to provide services to LGBTQI+ people, or Jewish people, or blacks, or women? There was also the Hobby Lobby Case ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU7UA8dTbdk&ab_channel=CompanyMan ). People who run these businesses and institutions shouldn’t even have the right to know what the political and religious views of their customers are anyway. None of their business. They shouldn’t have the right to know what the political and religious views of their employees are either.

The principle of helping or refusing to help people according to one’s religious views if one is providing a service or product can have life-threatening implications. A pregnant woman in an ambulance on the way to Mercy Health Partners Hospital in Michigan began to miscarry. The doctor waiting for her at the hospital, upon hearing about the miscarriage, consulted a specialist who said unequivocally that the baby would die and there was a good chance the mother would as well unless labour was induced immediately. When the ambulance arrived at the hospital, however, staff refused to do this. They were following a set of instructions put together by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that forbid terminating a pregnancy unless the mother is in grave condition. So the doctors delayed until sepsis (a life-threatening response to an advanced infection) set in. The health and lives of five women over a span of 17 months (2009 – 2010) were put unnecessarily at risk in this way ( https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/18/michigan-catholic-hospital-women-miscarriage-abortion-mercy-health-partners ). Catholic hospitals in the United States are legally allowed to refuse abortions but what if the only hospital near you is a Catholic hospital? What about contraception? What about the Supreme Court of the United States showing themselves this week to be on the verge of outlawing abortion or at least making it pragmatically impossible, due to the religious views of the conservative justices on the court? So what happened to diversity of opinion? What about the capitalistic promise of a free market of ideas? What about the old cliché that tells us that your right to vigorously swing your arm ends when your arm meets my face?

Even if one party gets more votes than the other, and therefore is given more power, in any democracy worth its salt the views of those whose party didn’t win still need to be heard and in some cases heeded, particularly if no harm is done to unwilling victims. There is a fear of the other in the United States, a fear of those outside one’s tribe, fears that are used to justify the suppression of minority opinion, which would be bad enough. However, the Republicans have updated the game in some bizarre sort of irony. They are able to impose their will with regard to certain issues such as abortion and gun control even though the majority disagrees with them.

When Donald Trump was running for election he actually said (at least) three things which are startlingly horrific after which Trump still won the election. First of all he said that any woman who gets an abortion (abortions are legal remember) should be punished. Second, he said that he intended to make sure that he would only nominate people for the Supreme Court who will remove the right for women to get an abortion in the United States. Then, in terms of just the standard issue degradation of women he also made his famous statement about grabbing women by the pussy. Why didn’t any one of these three guarantee that he would lose the election? Since then more than one Republican woman has said that they were fine with that. Trump got a lot of votes in 2020. He may win the 2024 election. A large enough minority of people in the United States hold racist and misogynist views so that with voter suppression and intimidation, gerrymandering, the anti-democratic primaries and Electoral College, coupled with the complacency of the rest of the electorate, and people who don’t represent majority opinion still end up in power. This goes right back to the death of democracy in the United States when Bush was handed the presidency by the Supreme Court in 2000.

As I said above, people change. If you can come up with what I consider to be good reasons for disagreeing with something I have said here I would like to think that I was still capable of changing my mind on the matter. There may be facts I am unaware of, arguments that have not occurred to me. Feedback welcome.

MUSIC TO YOUR EARS – 11. Music Right and Left

artwork by Murray Young

This is a series of posts about the politics and history, the structure and the culture of music. From The King to the Kid, Uncle Son to Joe Hill.

“Obama, he’s a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Singer Ted Nugent quoted by Rolling Stone Magazine August 24, 2007, not long before Obama became the president of the United States for the first of two terms.

PLEASE NOTE: I have attempted to include a wide range of music in these posts, including music I don’t like but which is important or demonstrates a musical idea well. Almost any piece of music is interesting in some way. I recommend at least sampling all the music here – you might be pleasantly surprised. At least check out specific sections of compositions which I have identified. If you don’t like a clip just stop and jump to the next clip.

ELVIS PRESLEY AND RICHARD NIXON, DECEMBER 1970.
By Ollie Atkins, chief White House photographer at the time. See ARC record. – White House photograph by Ollie Atkins via https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/nixon-met-elvis/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39264

The terms left wing and right wing are derived from the seating arrangement of the Revolutionary Assembly during the French Revolution and you may not have been aware of where on that political spectrum various well-known and highly successful musicians have positioned themselves. Elvis Presley, for example, was a great fan of an anti-Semitic anti-progressive American president by the name of Richard Nixon who was forced to resign over his illegal political actions. I will attempt to avoid mindless mud-slinging and simply present the political views of various musicians. My own position is more or less on the far left but there are those on both the left and right whose views and actions I reject. As time goes on I discover that things aren’t always as simple as left and right.

TED NUGENT. Lead vocalist with The Amboy Dukes, he has also had a lengthy solo career. He is a strident supporter of gun ownership rights, a board member of the NRA and a staunch Republican. He has admitted to having sexual relations with underage women and his song Jail bait is about wanting to have sex with a thirteen-year-old girl ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJwOlRhGbeU&ab_channel=therockandrolltv ). He is quoted in a Newsweek article by Greg Price (April 7, 2018) as saying that Democrats, members of the media, and others, are like “rabid coyotes” and people should shoot them on sight. He has been out-spoken on other political matters but this is enough. He seems to be sincere and not just attention-seeking. At least the band Goldfinger released a track on their CD ‘Open Your Eyes’ entitled Fuck Ted Nugent.

TED NUGENT AT THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE APRIL 2017
By Madeleine Westerhout – https://mobile.twitter.com/madwest45/status/855051139833843712/photo/1, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69878581

KID ROCK. An American singer, rapper and songwriter, he is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist who has overseen the production of most of his albums, and has a long list of awards to his name. He also flies the Confederate flag at his concerts, and was a supporter of the Iraq War. In 2012 he campaigned for Republican candidate Mitt Romney who used his song Born Free on the campaign trail, and he is a vocal supporter of Donald Trump ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu3rsha1ZtI&ab_channel=KidRock ). He was arrested in 1991 and 1997 on alcohol-related charges, he was charged for assaulting Tommy Lee (the drummer for Motley Crue) and a month after that he was arrested for assaulting a customer at Waffle House.

LYNYRD SKYNYRD. This was a southern band that displayed the Confederate flag during their shows, then stopped because they didn’t want to associate with racists, then started displaying it again when their fans got angry at its absence. Draw your own conclusion. The band also appeared at the Sean Hannity Freedom Concert in 2010. Here are some lyrics from their song This Ain’t My America:

“It’s to the women and men who in their hands they hold a Bible and a gun

And they ain’t afraid of nothing when they’re holding either one

Now there’s kids that can’t pray in school, hundred dollar tanks of gas

I can tell you right now this country ain’t supposed to be like that”

Here’s the complete track – ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J4ysDsI0Yg&ab_channel=BillyRay ).

GENE SIMMONS. He is a bassist, co-lead singer and composer with the band Kiss. He referred to Islam as a “vile culture”, he supported the Iraq War and he hates people who condemn the soldiers that fought in it. Of course there are many who condemn that war but do not condemn the soldiers who fought and died for what they had been told was a just cause. Simmons also says that he is “grateful to America for going into World War II when it had nothing to gain . . . and rescued my mother from the Nazi German concentration camps”. Of course the way ethics works is that often there are ethical imperatives that must be heeded though one not only has nothing to gain but one has a great deal to lose sometimes. Also, at the end of World War Two, it turns out, many Nazi war criminals were welcomed into the United States covertly (google Operation Paperclip) while many concentration camp inmates were shut out and in many cases left in horrible conditions in those same camps for months and in some cases more than a year after the war. The famous General Patton who was in charge of the liberation of many of the concentration camp inmates, said this about the Jewish victims of Nazi brutality: “They have no conception of sanitation, hygiene or decency and are, as you know, the same sub-human types that we saw in the internment camps.” ( https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/the-passion-of-american-collectors-property-of-barbara-and-ira-lipman-highly-important-printed-and-manuscript-americana/patton-george-s-jr-a-dark-and-disturbing-letter ). This was the same General Patton who was the subject of a highly laudatory book by Bill O-Reilly of Fox News.

JOHNNY RAMONE. He was the guitarist with the punk band The Ramones, and a staunch supporter of the Republican Party. He once declared “God bless President Bush” and “Ronald Reagan was the best President of my lifetime”. Shall we talk about the horrors of Reaganomics, and the Iran-Contra affair? Ramone has also said that “punk is right wing” which actually is somewhat (but not completely) true.

MEAT LOAF. He has sold more than eighty million units worldwide and his first album stayed on the charts for nine years. He has also endorsed Rick Santorum, John McCain and Mitt Romney, Republicans all, and has said various complimentary things about Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Junior.

MIKE LOVE. He co-founded The Beach Boys, one of the most musically creative, innovative and successful groups to emerge from America. He is a long time singer and songwriter with the group. He has not performed with other members of the group since 2012, however, and after a great falling out between him and other group members he formed and toured with his own group known as Mike Love’s Beach Boys. It was this group that performed as the headliner at a fundraiser for Donald Trump’s re-election campaign. Love’s group also played at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago’s New Years Eve celebrations in 2020. Love has praised Trump for his “support of music” and Love has said that Trump had “been a friend for a long time”.

JOE PERRY. Joe Perry is a founding member and lead guitarist with the band Aerosmith, the best selling American hard rock band of them all, with 150 million units sold worldwide. Perry and lead vocalist Steven Tyler make up one of the most successful rock songwriting duos. However, Perry is a self-described lifelong Republican who endorsed John McCain in the 2008 presidential election.

JOE PERRY, MICHIGAN 2015
By Abog – Photographed Joe Perry performing with Aerosmith at a concert on August 4, 2015, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53763174

ALICE COOPER. Alice Cooper, the Godfather of Shock Rock, is a singer and songwriter with a career spanning five decades, and whose stage show includes guillotines, electric chairs, reptiles and miscellaneous stage illusions. In 2004 he said that musicians campaigning for Democratic candidate John Kerry were committing “treason against rock and roll” and he was a supporter of President Bush.

CHARLIE DANIELS. Daniels was a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose career lasted more than fifty years before he died last year. Daniels in his day has been on both ends of the political spectrum but he ended up firmly on the right. He once stated that “In the future Darwinism will be looked upon as we now look upon the flat earth theory.” When New York governor Andrew Cuomo passed the Reproductive Health Act Daniels responded like this: “The NY legislature has created a new Auschwitz dedicated to the execution of a whole segment of defenceless citizens. Satan is smiling”. Nice.

MARTY ROBBINS. This American singer, songwriter, actor and multi-instrumentalist had a highly successful career over four decades. He was a self-taught guitarist who was an early Outlaw Country pioneer. He also recorded the song Ain’t I Right during the Vietnam War era, with these lyrics:

“Communism, socialism, call it what you like. There’s very little difference between the two

. . . If we’re to win this war with Communism let’s fight it here as well as Vietnam

Let’s rise as one and meet our obligations so Communistic boots will never trod

Across the fields of freedom that were given to us with the blessing of our great almighty God”

Here’s the complete song – ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWsxkzSzKRo&ab_channel=DhshkaBeutmetka

DAVID BOWIE. Bowie is one of those rare individuals who is a talented and charismatic musician and actor but who is also head and shoulders above most of his contemporaries as a cultural force. Unfortunately he also went through a Nazi phase and has been quoted as follows: “I think Britain could benefit from a fascist leader . . . Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars . . . You’ve got to have an extreme right front come up and sweep everything off its feet and tidy everything up.”

ERIC CLAPTON. There have been various white supremacist bands over the years but their following has always been relatively small. Eric Clapton, however, is one of the mst successful musicians of all time, selling more than 280 million units worldwide, receiving eighteen Grammy awards, a Brit award and four Ivor Novello awards. He is the only musician to be inducted, most amazingly, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three times, as a solo artist and as members of the bands The Yardbirds and Cream. I loved his work with Cream, and as a solo artist. I think he is incredibly talented. But then it was Clapton who inspired the creation of Rock Against Racism and its offshoots by publicly declaring his support for right wing racist Enoch Powell and, at a concert in 1976 in Birmingham making the following incredibly racist statements:

“Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white. I used to be into dope, now I’m into racism. It’s much heavier, man. Fucking wogs, man. Fucking Saudis taking over London . . . The black wogs and coons and Arabs and fucking Jamaicans don’t belong here, we don’t want them here. This is England, this is a white country.” He continued in this vein, ending finally with the phrase ‘Keep Britain white’.

Given that throughout his career Clapton specialized in playing the blues, a genre created and popularized by African-Americans, this speech was unexpected and devastating. However now, forty-five years later, Clapton has done it again, supporting Van Morrison in championing the idea that the Covid-19 pandemic is a hoax and that mask mandates should be strongly opposed. It’s always disappointing to discover that people you admired and assumed to be progressive were actually dangerous and ill-informed, and who refuse to change when someone informs them.

Some punk bands have displayed swastikas simply for shock effect but then there are the extreme right wing bands whose lyrics are full of overt hate towards various groups.

Some Neo-Nazi bands: Endstufe, Prussian Blue, Honor, Race War, Skrewdriver, Stahlgewitter, No Remorse, and Skullhead.

Some National Socialist Black Metal bands: Aryan Blood, Aryan Terrorism, Before God, Blutkult, Clandestine Blaze, Der Stürmer, Evil, Gaszimmer, Gestapo SS, Graveland, Hate Forest, Inquisition, Kristallnacht, Legion of Doom, Nacht und Nebel, Reich of the Black Sun, Satanic Warmaster, The Shadow Order, Thor’s Hammer, Thunderbolt, Totenburg, Wolfnacht, and Xenophobic Ejaculation. The Metal Archives list about 200 active bands in this genre ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr8ljRgcJNM&ab_channel=RammsteinOfficial )

Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) refers to November 9, 1938, during which the Nazis demolished Jewish homes, hospitals and schools, destroyed 267 synagogues, damaged or destroyed over 7000 Jewish businesses, and sent over 30 000 Jewish men to concentration camps. Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog) refers to a directive from Hitler issued December 7, 1941 which led to the imprisonment, execution or disappearance of thousands of political activists and resistance fighters.

KRISTALLNACHT SHOP DAMAGE IN MAGDEBURG, GERMANY
By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1970-083-42 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5418870

There are also the White Power bands such as Tragic Minds and White Boss, and the extremist Christian musicians (for example Struggle Jennings who recorded the song God We Need You Now. Jennings is the grandson of that great pioneer of guitar instrumentals Duane Eddy).

Keep in mind, however, that there have also been hard rock and punk bands who have publicly condemned racism and specifically the rise of the fascist National Front party in England. The Clash, Elvis Costello and others hve played benefits in support of the Anti-Nazi League and the Rock Against Racism movement. In Germany, too, another European hotbed of fascist music, you also have the highly popular long-lived hard-edged band Rammstein playing in support of left wing political parties, and recording songs with left of centre lyrics mocking fascist bands. For example, in the following song notice that starting at the 3 minute 12 second mark those are left wing raised fists from the audience not Nazi salutes – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6TFkmzUIbU&ab_channel=electroteck60 . In this second video, from 2004, the band unambiguously satirizes American economic imperialism with lines like “We’re all living in Amerika, Coca-Cola, sometimes war” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr8ljRgcJNM&ab_channel=RammsteinOfficial

There are plenty of left wing musicians as well, many of whom I have referenced and discussed at length in previous posts on political music, for example Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, The Doors, Pete Seeger, Rage Against The Machine, Billy Bragg and others. Here are a few particularly political left wing tracks:

1. The Kinks – Uncle Son – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koFuwPiV7R8&ab_channel=LightningLyrics
2. Paul Robeson – Joe Hill – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Kxq9uFDes&ab_channel=JulianO.Long
3. John Lennon – Working Class Hero – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMewtlmkV6c&ab_channel=johnlennon
4. Chumbawamba – The Day The Nazi Died ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLkPwxcIji0&ab_channel=Huppelplopp1848 ) and Her Majesty ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2d4FD9SRww&ab_channel=jshchingchongchoocho ) which is an expanded version of a Beatle song.
5. Pink Floyd – On The Turning Away – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZLuDvN7W0c&ab_channel=DavidGilmourHD
6. The Clash – London Calling – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfK-WX2pa8c&ab_channel=theclashVEVO
7. The Rolling Stones – Little Indian Girl – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvLGadrbBCo&ab_channel=meganmcr

Are the musicians on the right simple folk who have imbibed the patriotic propaganda poured over them from birth, in school and at church, about how great their country is, and about how everything is black and white, good and bad? In highly politicized places like America on the Good Side are the Christians, the flag-wavers, the Republicans, the obedient souls who love their country right or wrong. On the Bad Side are the non-Christians, the media, those who think their country isn’t perfect, the uppity females, the uppity blacks, the nasty people who want gun control and abortions, the Democrats. Should we feel sorry for these poor manipulated folk on the right, and try to civilize them? That’s pretty condescending and elitist, isn’t it? There are also some on the right who are quite capable of nuanced political analysis but who continue to aggressively espouse anti-democratic views.

The people who say they love their country obviously do, but many also say they aspire to democracy, but I don’t think they do. They seem to think that white Christians, usually male, somehow deserve to be in charge, deserve to have more rights than people not like them. Selective democracy is an oxymoron. Most of those on the right are racist, anti-Semitic and misogynist so Trump is their man. Don’t feel sorry for them. Make sure they have no power or influence. Condemn their attitude though remember that attitudes lie along a continuum. Not everyone more or less on the right is an extremist. There are also those who hold some traditionally conservative / right wing views on some issues and traditionally liberal / left wing views on other issues. It’s also imperative that one keep a global perspective since right and left are relative terms. The Democratic Party in the United States is viewed there as left wing yet it would lie to the right of centre in countries such as Canada or the Scandinavian nations.

What to do? Complacency favours the right. Make sure authoritarian people don’t take away the rights of people they don’t like, keep everyone informed, teach people critical thinking, then let them decide who to vote for and let the chips fall where they may, making sure that the voting process is itself is as unbiased as you can make it, and more or less is accurately reflective of the views of the voters. From all that I have read about the United States it never was a real democracy, and now a huge segment of the general populace aren’t even in favour of democracy while most of the rest of the populace are complacent. There is an ever growing list of absolutely horrible anti-democratic overt behaviours being exhibited by politicians who continue to be re-elected, who face little or no backlash or sanctions by most Americans, politicians selling out their country to corporate America. I see no hope for the country. Please prove me wrong.

One can argue that the right wing people can only take the stance they do by ignoring reality, by denying provable facts. That may be true of some of them, but many of them are quite aware of reality and are all right with ignoring empirical evidence. They have psychological or economic reasons for ignoring evidence, or for rationalizing the evidence away. At least with people like Trump, who knows he’s lying, it’s not complicated, or not even particularly ideological.

MUSIC TO YOUR EARS

Posts already posted or still being planned as we speak:

1. STAND TO ATTENTION, OR ELSE – Anthems, National and Unofficial. From Black Power to one small flower of eternity, from Oceania ‘Tis of Thee to Lift Every Voice and Sing – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/09/22/music-to-your-ears-1-stand-to-attention-or-else/
2. WHY? – Twenty-five purposes and functions of music. From Pressed Rat and Warthog to Rainy Day Women Number Twelve and Thirty-five, from propaganda to religion, labour relations to storytelling – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/09/29/music-to-your-ears-2-why/
3. LISTEN UP – Things to listen for when you listen to a piece of music. From Kashmir to Vine Street, St. James Infirmary to Scarborough Fair – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/10/06/music-to-your-wars-3-listen-up/
4. THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE – Silly and Satirical Songs. From vegetables to metaphysical dogma, inebriated philosophers to short people – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/10/14/music-to-your-ears-4-the-bright-side-of-life/
5. THE COMPLEXITIES OF WAR – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/10/21/music-to-your-ears-5-the-complexities-of-war/
6. HOMELAND AND LIFE: A Case Study – An examination of the recent explosive viral video Patria y Vida – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/10/27/music-to-your-ears-6-homeland-and-life/
7. REALITY CHECK – From Kristallnacht to the Long March, massive floods and burning rivers, Wounded Knee to the École Polytechnique – Music memorializing real events – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/11/03/music-to-your-ears-7-reality-check/
8. CINEMATIC MUSIC – From the Squid Game to the Witcher in the heat of the night in the darkest depths of Mordor – how music offers an added dimension to the cinematic experience – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/11/10/music-to-your-ears-8-cinematic-music/
9. DRAMATIS PERSONAE – From Nelson Mandela to Albert Einstein, Harriet Tubman to Sally Ride – Music celebrating real people – https://thekiddca.wordpress.com/2021/11/17/music-to-your-ears-9-dramatis-personae/
10. GOOD, BAD AND WRONG – From The Rolling Stones to Pete Best, from Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds to the Walrus – things about The Beatles rarely said but which need to be said.
11. MUSIC LEFT AND RIGHT – From the King to the Kid, Uncle Son to Joe Hill – music from the extremes of the political spectrum.
12. STREAMING AUDIO – Third Stream Music
13. Dance to the Music
14. Musical Women, Musical Men – 2700 BCE to 2021 CE
15. Music Religious and Secular
16. Session Musicians and Supergroups – the forgotten and the famous
17. Rhythm Part One
18. Rhythm Part Two
19. The Great Depression – music born out of the economic devastation of the Stock Market crash of 1929 and the hellish decade (for most) that followed.
20. Musical Families – musical dynasties and the women left out
21. The British Invasion
22. The Evolution of Music
23. Crossroads and Crossbones (Musical Deaths)
24. Economic Inequities
25. Music About Music and Musicians
26. Extraordinary Musical Instruments
27. Weak Here, Strong There
28. Band Names