“Over There” is a song written by George M. Cohan in 1917. Nora Bayes, Enrico Caruso, Billy Murray, Arthur Fields, and Charles King were among many who recorded the song. It was written as a propaganda piece encouraging young American men to join the army to fight in World War I. The song was incredibly popular, selling over two million copies of sheet music and one million copies of recordings by the end of the war. Cohan, the writer, was eventually even awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor for his work on this song.
The song was written to motivate young men to join the army, idealizing soldiers as patriotic “son[s] of liberty” who would make their fathers, girlfriends, and country proud. The US soldiers are shown as the liberators of
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It was a way for the United States to recruit soldiers to send to Europe, as the United States was short on soldiers and even passed conscription acts to draft people into the army. In addition, Americans still held anti-war sentiments, as Wilson was reelected campaigning on not going to war. This patriotic song help ease American fears and provided confidence that US troops would be able to end the war swiftly. On a global scale, the song is tied to the American entry into World War I, an event that solidified the Allied victory, shaping the history of the world leading to World War II. On the national level, the song gave the people hope because it reflected the belief that the United States’ troops would be able to dominate Europe and come home safely. By the end however, the death and destruction left by the war became apparent. The trust in Wilson’s grandiose ideals and the patriotism faded as the people began seeing US involvement in the war was a mistake, taking up Harding’s offer “to return to normalcy”. As a result, this song is also firmly situated in a change of eras as the United States moved past World War I and into the Roaring
...ritten about Brown. It was entitled, "John Brown's Body". Union soldiers would chant and sing this song as they marched. After the worst defeats they would use it to cheer themselves up.
The progressive nature of our humanity is demonstrated through the independent development of new morals and perspectives within each individual throughout their day to day life. This natural inclination to evolve and expand, physically and psychologically, is the process of discovery. The importance of discovery is evident in Ivan Mahoney’s 2011 trilogical documentary ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’ and is further supported by Matt Ottley’s 2008 graphic novel ‘Requiem for a Beast’. Both texts explore fresh experiences that allow individuals to reassess their former perspectives of self and society. These transformations can be a result of challenging undertakings, conflict between differing views, and physical isolation. (don’t list) It
The speaker suggests that the “eagle” is prideful, he doesn’t care about being known or having an ovation, he is satisfied just by knowing his achievements and doesn’t need approval from a crowd. And again, in the next stanza by saying, “The American eagle never says he will serve; if drafted, will dutifully serve etc. He is; not at our service” (Stanza 4). This quote is referring to the social standards that are “required” by all American men to have, i.e. pridefully serving your country when your country needs combatants, regardless of the results (life with PTSD or death). A “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” Mentality (Kennedy inauguration speech). In this case the “eagle” does not give in to societies standards but rather lives life with his own and pridefully
It was a way for the United States to recruit soldiers to send to Europe, as the United States was short on soldiers and even passed conscription acts to draft people into the army. In addition, Americans still held anti-war sentiments, as Wilson was reelected campaigning on not going to war. This patriotic song helped ease American fears and provided confidence that US troops would be able to end the war swiftly. On a global scale, the song is tied to the American entry into World War I, an event that solidified the Allied victory, shaping the history of the world leading to World War II. On the national level, the song gave the people hope because it reflected the belief that the United States’ troops would be able to dominate Europe and come home safely. By the end, however, the death and destruction left by the war became apparent. The trust in Wilson’s grandiose ideals and the patriotism faded as the people began seeing US involvement in the war was a mistake, taking up Harding’s offer to return to “normalcy” (Brinkley, 530). As a result, this song is also firmly situated in a change of eras as the United States moved past World War I and into the Roaring
Although the song was written in response to Billie Joe Armstrong’s father’s death, the music video preached a different message. It became a “Sympathy for the Soldiers” campaign. The video follows a young man and girl in love. At the beginning, they sit in a field where the boy promises the girl that he will never leave her. Their relationship evolves and the video shows the young couple getting married, still very much in love with each other. However, the boy sees very little future at home and decides to enlist. He deceives his bride and joins the marines. His wife finds out and confronts him, hysterical, where he admits that he did enlist and defends his decision shouting, “I did this for us! I did this for us! This was supposed to make it easier! I thought you’d be proud of me!” However, the girl sees it as him breaking his promise to never leave her. Subsequently, he is shipped off the Iraq and after that, the music video continues, flashing back between the young man as a soldier and his wife waiting for him to return home. The boy and his unit stand before two children and their mother. The unit walks through a destroyed town where they undergo fire, a bomb being fired at the soldiers. Gunfire is exchanged with more bombs going off, and soldiers drag other wounded soldiers to cover. The video ends with a final close-up shot of the young man, under fire and terrified, clutching his gun and then flashes to his wife, at home, waiting for her husband. It presumed that he never returns home to his wife. The message of the video was so serious that it “commits the cardinal sin of interrupting the song midway through for more dialogue”. The question to enlist was a common conflict amongst many of Green Day’s college fans at that time and Green Day really hit home with that message. However, the video itself “hedges its bets politically; saying nothing explicitly for or against the
This song reminisces about the loss of Private Rodger Young and reminds soldiers to push forward through the loss. Since death was something typically seen on the battle field Losser took this sad moment and turned it in to a rally together moment to get the job done. Loesser reflects the idea that America is tired of the war and are ready to keep progressing in life. While this song may not have been the most popular of the time period, Life magazine at the time felt like it was vital to print the music in the worlds for all to
To the persistent individual, though, there is a body of music in existence that merits regard. It is powerful music written by the youth of America, youngsters who did have a stake in the Vietnam War. There can be little question about the origins of the power which American protest music conveyed: those who wrote such music lived each day with the real knowledge that they were losing friends in, and could possibly be forced themselves to go to, Vietnam. One such group, Creedence Clearwater Revival, made its contribution to this genre near the end of the Vietnam War.
World War II may have been the focus of the decade, but music was the focus of the war. Songs ranged from patriotic songs to songs for fun and dancing such as the Rumba, mambo, cha-cha, and conga line. These South American dances became very popular during the 1940s especially among the women (Popular and Social Dance). The war was a very emotional period for everyone, not just the soldiers, so the music of the war tapped into a lot of emotions. The songs were made for people to help get through their rough times.
"HUT, TWO, THREE, FOUR...HUT, TWO, THREE, FOUR...” What do a bunch of grunts calling out raunchy marching cadences have to do with pop culture? There’s more to the cadence then just keeping soldiers in step, there is a deep sense of pride, patriotism, unity, motivation, and nostalgia, which can be found within these songs. The Military cadence is used to motivate, inspire, and foster company cohesiveness while keeping soldiers steps in time and hands down the rich oral traditions of the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air force. The cadence is a song sung when marching or running and the songs require a caller, who normally sets the pace and leads the formation. Like robots, the soldiers echoed their leader's sing-song" Jody Call" in beat to their pounding footsteps. The way a unit sounds while running or marching tends to reflect on that unit's morale and leadership. This paper will illustrate the similarities that cadences share with pop culture music through lyrical examples. As you will see, the lyrics of these cadences are expressions of individual feelings, goals, and fears, and are quite similar to the themes of other popular culture musical genres. The theories of subculture, appropriation and improvisation that have been proposed in lecture will be reviewed and illustrated within cadences. The military cadence as a subcultures oral tradition will be examined, through analyzing the theories of popular music which can be applied to the genres’ history, structure, and socio-political influences.
Men have always been taught to be brave and strong through tough times and not to show weakness. This song tells a story of a young soldier who has been shot and is scared of battle and he runs into a field, a sea of yellow men. On line three and four, verse one, it states, “I send a letter to my mommy, on the way I dropped it.” There is desperation for this man to get back to a safe place. ” A brown and yellow basket”,
While the songs written for the American Revolutionary war were somewhat speculative, and depending on the song, poked fun at their enemies. The songs written and sung about the war in Iraq were anything but. They outlined the issues and say everything that they feel is true regarding the situation the United States is in. For example in the song written by Neil Young "Lets Impeach the President." The lyrics in this song are deep and correlate directly with the feelings of many American citizens. For example “Let 's impeach the President for lying and misleading our country into war” (YouTube) these lyrics as well as the video depict a propaganda style. Following life changing events, such as a new life experience or a national crisis, songs are written to show and demonstrate its impact. Whether it is in the 18th century or the 21st century the premise is still the same and can be seen throughout the
The song “Strangers in the Night” was composed by Bert Kaempfert and lyrics by Charles
“Some folks are born, made to wake the flag; some folks are born, silver spoon in hand; some folks inherit star spangled eyes” (ll, 1,7 14). Folks are repeated to indicate that these different groups of people possess privileges than others. This describes the gap between different classes of families. “It ain’t me, it ain’t me…” (ll,5, 6, 11, 12, 18,19,20). This phrase has been repeated six times in the short song, which emphasizes the role of this phrase. This is what the speaker, the one who is unprivileged, desires to declare to the audience and the public, which enable common people to notice the gap between those first class families and themselves. “More! More! More!” (l, 17). This describes what government’s attitude for dispatching soldiers, which indicates that the leaders appear to neglect the life of soldiers. Obviously, soldiers devote their lives to the war, but they are regarded as fighting machine; their lives are not respected by the government. By using the repetitions, the inequalities are expressed by those ordinary
2. For example, the song “When Our Army And Our Navy Overtake the enemy” disseminated patriotism during the WWII, “Vietnam Blues” reflected that a majority of American opposed to the Vietnam War, and “Man In Black” protested racism in 1970s.
When watching this I caught on to the meaning of the storyline, and how yeah everything may be all happy and nice because everyone got what they wanted in the end, but that only fixed their problems, not the world, not the reality of what was really happening behind all the glitz and glam that was occurring in their own world. Throughout the song the scene shows American soldiers getting shipped off to war and everyone is so happy and proud that America is in the war and going to win, it then changes to the soldiers marching in the rain trying to stay strong and hold on for dear life as they get battled down. Eventually those who have made it out through the war alive, they become veterans with medals that don’t do much justice to recognize the sacrifice they have made and then turn into forgotten men of the war. I found connections with the economy and war which showed how the president failed his country even with bringing in ideas such as The New Deal that clearly did not work out according to plan. Poverty was a common thing during the depression, and reflecting back to the girls in the scene where they are in their conjoined beds due to lack of furniture and stealing milk from neighbors and soldiers