Weeks 10-12
Modernism:
What does 'The Wasteland' mean?
1) how has it been interpreted? (cite examples)
2)what are some of the key features
3) In what way has it been influential
Post-Modernism
1) What common qualities do 'the beats' share? Why 'beats'?
2) How is beat poetry linked to rap?
3) How was Bob Dylan's 'Masters of War' involved in controversy during the Bush administration?
4) On what grounds was 'Howl' accused of being obscene - grounds for the defense?
5) What kind of protest song/rap other media have come out in the last decade? Is there a spirit of protest anymore?
What does 'The Wasteland' mean?
1) how has it been interpreted? (cite examples)
2)what are some of the key features
3) In what way has it been influential
Post-Modernism
1) What common qualities do 'the beats' share? Why 'beats'?
2) How is beat poetry linked to rap?
3) How was Bob Dylan's 'Masters of War' involved in controversy during the Bush administration?
4) On what grounds was 'Howl' accused of being obscene - grounds for the defense?
5) What kind of protest song/rap other media have come out in the last decade? Is there a spirit of protest anymore?
How was Bob Dylan’s song ‘Masters of War’ involved in controversy during the Bush administration?
ReplyDeleteBob Dylan’s song 'Masters of War' was recently ranked number one on a chart of “The 100 greatest protest songs” by Mojo magazine. Its lack of subtlety is its selling point. “Come you masters of war, you that build the big guns…Not even Jesus would forgive what you do” the then 22 year old sings, before he says something that – even for a protest song – is pretty shocking. It was shocking in 1963 and it’s still shocking today; he calls for the death of the people he’s singing about. “I hope that you die.”
Dylan had stopped singing the song by 1964, but on the night of February 1st, 1991, at the internationally televised Grammy Awards where Dylan was to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award – he would sing it again. Why? Because of the Gulf War.
Bob originally sung ‘Masters of War’ about the Vietnam War, (when America had involved itself in an indo-china war in the name of preventing the spread of communism and in doing so caused many casualties) he now sung it in response to George H. W. Bush deploying forces into Saudi Arabia in response to Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait. America had also urged other countries to send their own forces to the scene, amassing the largest military alliance since World War II. The performance came square in the middle of round-the-clock footage of the bombing of Baghdad. It was an instantaneously famous performance and gave the song its second life.
In the fall of 2002 when George W. Bush the younger made known his intent to launch a second Iraq war – Dylan appeared at Madison square garden and once again offered ‘Masters of War’ to the people. The song once more began to circulate and many instances began to pop up of it being played in protestation. One of the most famous of these instances was a high school talent show in Boulder, November 2004. A group of students (who had suggested the name ‘The Taliband’ but had settled on ‘Coalition of the willing’) planned to perform Masters of War. One student overheard them rehearsing and alerted her mother, who subsequently called a talk back radio show saying that they were calling for President Bush to die – threatening the president being a federal crime. The Secret Service flooded the school and interrogated multiple people before taking a copy of the lyrics with them:
“You might say that I’m young, you might say I’m unlearned, but there’s one thing I know, though I’m younger than you, even Jesus would never forgive what you do… and I hope that you die, and your death’ll come soon. I will follow your casket in the pale afternoon. And I’ll watch while you’re lowered down to your deathbed, and I’ll stand over your grave, til I’m sure that you’re dead.”
For the moment, for the students, the war, the song, was theirs. “Beyond new wars, what has kept the song alive is its melody, and its vehemence: that final "I hope that you die." It's the elegance of the melody and the extremism of the words that attract people—the way the song does go too far, to the limits of free speech. It's a scary line to sing; you need courage to do it. You can't come to the song as if it's a joke; you can't come away from it pretending you didn't mean what you've just said. That's what people want: a chance to go that far. Because "Masters of War" gives people permission to go that far, the song continues to make meaning, to find new bodies to inhabit, new voices to ride.” – Greil Marcus, 2006.
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ReplyDeleteReferences:
ReplyDeleteDylan, B. Masters of War, 1963. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exm7FN-t3PY June 2016.
Maas, A. Is Bush afraid of a Bob Dylan song? November 19th, 2004, p 2. Retrieved from http://socialistworker.org/2004-2/521/521_02_DylanSong.shtml June 2016.
Marcus, G. Stories of a Bad Song, 2006. Retrieved from www.threepennyreview.com/samples/marcus_w06.html , June 2016.
O’ Connor, C. Gore, Dylan, Bush, Everly converge on campaign trail, 2000. Retrieved from http://www.mtv.com/news/620860/gore-dylan-bush-everly-brothers-converge-on-campaign-trail/, June 2016.