Music fans love lists. We love making lists of favorite love songs, songs to fit certain moods and the always entertaining countdowns. I have over 200 playlists, myself, covering everything from "Creepy" and "Angry" to lists that fit video games I play and a master list for the novel I'm writing. Making lists is my thang, and on occasion, I'll share a list of my own creation.
I decided to make my first playlist in honor of the 4th of July. At first I'd had it in my mind to make a list of songs that I felt encapsulated what America was all about. But as I sat down to write that idea, it failed to come together. I think that's because it's a bit on the trite side, but that bit of self-criticism doesn't preclude that post being written in the future. There are a number of songs I'd like to share on that topic.
That said, the idea that did get my mental motor running was a list of my favorite songs about American history. I suppose one could make the argument that all historic songs do, but what I'm really going for here is a list of great, poignant songs written about some topical point of American history. Be they written about our high points, our low ones, or just something interesting that's happened at one time or another, these songs all convey some real, tangible event and, in my opinion, do it better than their contemporaries.
In some playlist articles, I'll do a countdown style of presentation. But this time around, the songs are listed in in chronological order. For your convenience, I've linked the songs to Youtube videos so you can listen while you read (if you are so inclined)
Date Recorded: 1930
Event: Unspecified Flu Plague in Memphis
Listening to this bouncy, peppy sound of this old gospel stomp, one might be surprised at how dark the lyrics are (a mistake easily compounded by the exceptionally low quality of the vocals. Tin records don't age well). Beneath the fun exterior, this song is actually about God cleansing Memphis of sin by exterminating its population with a violent flu plague.
"Yes he's killed rich and poor
And he's going to kill more
If you don't turn away from your sin"
The context of the song is a little fuzzy. It opens by proclaiming that "In 1929, men and women sure were dying", though there are no records of major flu outbreaks in Memphis at that time. However, Elder Curry was a very pious man that never let a bit of truth get in the way of his fire and brimstone message. More likely, this song is either an old negro spiritual about a real plague, or simply a more phonetically catchy way of describing the 1919 flu pandemic. Assuming it's the latter, Memphis was hit especially hard by the pandemic, with roughly 7,700 victims in the area succumbing to the disease. This song represents a very devout (and thankfully, extinct) school of thought among mainstream Christians that everything is part of God's plan, and even major disasters are probably your fault. None the less, it's a fun song.
Date Recorded: 1939
Event: The Lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smite
This song is not fun, though it is extremely poignant.
On July 7th 1930, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smite were sitting in an Indiana jail house. They were accused of murder (of which they might well have been guilty) and rape (which they were absolutely not; the woman who claimed to be the victim would admit on record that her story was a fabrication). Neither man got a chance to see their day in court, because that night, a mob of citizens broke into the jail with sledgehammers, beat them to death and hanged them publicly. The photograph of their bodies hanging in front of the mob who killed them became one of the most iconic of the Civil Rights movement.
The photo, which was widely proliferated at the time, inspired Jewish schoolteacher Abel Meeropol to write the poem "Bitter Fruit" about the incident. Billie Holiday put it to music.
"Southern Trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees"
The song is a chilling thing to behold. Holiday sings it with a haunting sincerity, made all the more somber by the slow, funeral-style blues melody that forms the backbone of the song. There's a genuine fear in Holiday's vocal performance. To most us now, the phenomenon of lynching is just a historical abstract, but at the time it was a very real threat to southern blacks. Shipp and Smite may have been guilty of their crime, but others (such as Emmit Till) never committed any crimes to begin with.
3. Anything Goes by Cole Porter
Date Recorded: 1934
Event: The Great Depression
Anything Goes is one of the earliest (and in my opinion, one of the funniest) pieces of satire in American pop music. Written by American Songbook master Cole Porter, the song takes aim at a number of prominent social figures and absolutely skewers them. The roast of Depression Era high society comes so fast that it can be hard to catch all of the barbs, and most of them aren't really funny unless you know the historic context behind them.
In olden days, a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking.
But now, God knows,
Anything goes.
Good authors too who once knew better words
Now only use four-letter words
Writing prose.
Anything goes.
Even these opening lyrics, which seem to be fairly standard indictments of fast moving, risque society, are a joke if you know who they're coming from. Porter was a homosexual in a marriage of convenience with a woman who shared his tastes for taking with multiple partners and opulent, scandalous parties; thus making him the last person to genuinely wax nostalgic about the decline in American puritanism.
From this point, the song goes on to trash just about anyone with any kind of name, albeit it a friendly, cheeky manner. The declining wealth of the Vanderbilts, box office disasters funded by the Rockefellers, and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's unusually chummy relationship with the press are all targets. Sadly, as most of the humor in this song is a bit dated, most of these historical lyrics get cut out of its more modern interpretations.
4. MLF Lullaby by Tom Lehrer
Date Recorded: 1962
Event: Cold War nuclear proliferation
In the early parts of the Cold War, there was a certain madness prevalent in the upper echelons of military and political apparatuses of the United States, where conventional wisdom held that a nuclear war with the Soviet Union could not only be deterred, but actually won outright. As part of a decades long effort to turn that lunatic philosophy into a reality, much ado was made about a Multilateral Force (or MLF) agreement between the US and its European allies, in which naval ships manned by European crews would be armed with American nuclear missiles. The theory was to increase the non-commie first and second strike capabilities.
Naturally, people who knew what nuclear war would actually do to the world were critical of the proposal, to put it lightly. Tom Lehrer, scientist, mathematician and unquestionably one of the funniest satirists in American history, was among them. Lehrer, a Jewish activist, took particular umbrage at the notion that Germany would become a nuclear power under the proposal.
Once all the Germans were warlike, and mean
But that couldn't happen again
We taught them a lesson in 1918
And they've hardly bothered us since then
Lehrer's condemnation of Germany was somewhat unfair. But given how many times he'd seen nations change loyalties and governments, and the relative instability of the world at the time, some of his doubts were understandable. Lehrer delivers the song as a lullaby being sung to a frightened child, which was more or less the degree of deference shown to the American people by the military and political bigwigs making these sorts of decisions.
The MLF proposal, which was pushed by both the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations (proof that insanity can be a bipartisan endeavor), ultimately fell flat because the Europeans and Americans couldn't agree on how the missiles should actually be deployed. And Lehrer would ultimately retire early from music because he couldn't handle touring and performing regularly. None the less, the song stands as a testimony to the grade-A scorn that a capable songwriter can apply to the people who deserve it most.
5. Long Hot Summer by the Tom Robinson Band
Date Recorded: 1978
Event: The Stonewall Riots
With homosexuality so widely tolerated now, it may be difficult to remember that it was at one point not only socially unacceptable to be gay, but punishable by law. There was a wealth of laws on the books across the country that not only prohibited homosexual acts, but punished businesses that catered to gays. NYC was particularly notorious for this, and would often revoke the liquor and boarding licenses of hotels that would serve liquor or rent rooms to homosexuals.
In 1969, there was a massive police raid on the Stonewall Hotel in Greenwich Village. The homosexual community decided that they'd had enough at that point, and rioted, throwing the police out. The event was a major catalyst of the Gay Rights movement, and prompted homosexuals to start coming out of the closet and advocating their social dues for the first time.
Hey man, I don't understand
We ain't hardly bothering you
Say fag, you're just a drag
We ain't nearly finished with you
The incident is remembered in the 1978 song Long Hot Summer by the Tom Robinson Band. The punk scene was no more friendly to homosexuals than most others. In fact, the overly machismo attitude of the early punk scene made writing this song about the riots, which were a lightning rod for controversy even 9 years after the fact, a fairly brave thing to do. Written as a dialogue between homosexuals and straights, the perspective alters every couple of lines. Eventually, the two come to an understanding in which the straights realize that the gays don't bother them, and start assisting their efforts to be left in peace. Given that this is ultimately what's happening to the gay/straight relations in this country, it makes the song surprisingly prophetic.
6. Tupelo by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Date Recorded: 1985
Event: Tupelo Flood of 1936
Tupelo, Mississippi is famous for 2 things: being the birthplace of Elvis Presley, and getting repeatedly flattened by natural disasters. The town was devastated by a floods in 1927 (along with everything else in the Mississippi Delta) and 1936 as well as a tornado later that year. The latter flood happened to occur about the same time the singer was born, and thus the mad genius that is Nick Cave combined the two events into one song.
But the lil children know
They listen to the beating of their blood
They listen to the beating of their blood
The sandman's mud!
The sandman's mud!
And the black rain come down
the black rain come down
Water water everywhere
Where no bird can fly no fish can swim
No fish can swim
Until The King is born!
It wouldn't be much of a Cave track without a frightening level of melodrama, so naturally the flood's scale and the significance of Presley's birth are elevated to Biblical proportions. The song itself is a dark, bass driven and sinister sounding one chronicling the town's salvation by the birth of "The King". It ends on a threatening note that Tupelo will "reap what it's sown" when the King walks out of the city, which is a vague reference to the tornado, which killed 216 people, though Presley was actually in the town at the time it took place (albeit as an infant). Cave obviously intended this track to fun rather than historically accurate, and to that end, it succeeded brilliantly.
7. James K. Polk by They Might Be Giants
Date Recorded: 1990
Event: The Presidency of James Knox Polk
James Knox Polk, Speaker of the House, Governor of Tennessee and 11th President of the United States, was an interesting man. A staunch believer in preserving the Union and Manifest Destiny, he oversaw the annexation of the American Southwest, the expansion of US trade with the rest of the world and a very successful war against Mexico. The term "Dark Horse" was first used in politics relating to his success at the Democratic Convention, where he entered hoping to secure the nomination for Vice Presidency, and left as the Presidential nominee. Polk is well known among political scientists for setting an agenda and achieving all of it. Whether one agreed with that agenda or not, it can't be argued that he was anything less than an effective President.
In 1844, the Democrats were split
The three nominees for the presidential candidate
Were Martin Van Buren, a former president and an abolitionistJames Buchanan, a moderateLouis Cass, a general and expansionistFrom Nashville came a dark horse riding upHe was James K. Polk, Napoleon of the Stump
The 1990 song in his honor by They Might Be Giants was actually written by a friend of the band named Matthew Hill. It sings his praises, ignoring the controversial nature of the Polk presidency. But that's the band for you: always catchy, always entertaining and never particularly offensive or challenging. An accordion and singing saw drive the music, and the song is both catchy and lighthearted. Ultimately, this song seems like something from a grade school history book, which more or less fits They Might Be Giants' aesthetic perfectly.
8. The Big Three Killed My Baby by the White Stripes
Date Recorded: 1999
Event: Decline of the Big Three auto manufacturers
For decades, the Big Three American auto companies (Chrysler, Ford and General Motors) made repeated, poor decisions in regards to their businesses. They ignored demands for increased fuel economy, failed to invest in technological advancement and designed flaws in their cars to swindle consumers. These decisions helped bolster European and Japanese manufacturers' rise to prominence in the American market as US consumers turned on their homegrown companies. The problem came to a head in 2008, when the world economic crisis would eventually force Congress to bail out Chrysler and GM, lest they fail entirely.
Though 2008 may have been the peak of their crisis, the problems that the Big Three faced had been recurring for decades, and each of the companies has received government assistance at one time or another. The effect of their repeated flirtations with bankruptcy have had a particular impact on Midwest cities like Detroit, MI, Gary, IN and Dayton, OH, which over the course of the 20th Century, gone from some of America's most prosperous cities to some of its poorest.
Why don't you take the day off and try to repair
A billion others don't seem to care
Better ideas are stuck in the mud
The motors runnin' on Tucker's blood
The White Stripes are a Detroit based band, and their 1999 song about the Big Three's downfall is rage distilled. The guitar chord progression is simple, as is the percussion beat, but both pound furiously between Jack White's vocal cries of anger at the companies whose negligence he claims killed his hometown. The song offers scathing indictments of Big Three's policies of planned obsolescence and coziness with oil companies. White also mentions Preston Tucker, an early challenger to Big Three dominance that they ultimately conspired to remove from the market; an action which dissuaded future competition and allowed them to maintain the chokehold on American market that ultimately made them comfortably enough to start the foolhardy decision making that would later lead them to disaster.
Got any other songs you'd like to add? Leave them in the comments section!
