Today's History Lesson--Livin' In the Past, the Musical!!
- scottdavismktg
- Aug 29, 2018
- 10 min read
It's no secret, I am an unabashed history nerd. I raised a history nerd who now teaches middle school history. I have no less than three history books on my night table I am in different stages of digesting (The Fraud of the Century--about the 1876 US Presidential Election--1927 --about the confluence of several major cultural, scientific and historical changes during that pivotal year--and The Shattered Peace--about the Treaty of Versailles). I truly believe that history is one of the most undervalued social sciences. This is true especially considering the context of the turn-of-the-century philosopher George Santayana quote: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Whether you choose to believe it or not, that quote is playing out on the news every day and we are being forced to relearn so many lessons.
So, before you yell at your monitor, "I get enough of soap-boxing on my Facebook feed and I come to this blog to simply appreciate music. What does any of this have to do with that!" True. In response to the feedback I received a few weeks back on my science fiction song blog, I decided to focus this week on songs about history and historical figures. Music is rife with references to and allusions to historic events and people. However, I will take my list one step further--the song must be specifically about a certain event or person.
For example, consider the tragic Triangle ShirtWaist Factory Fire in 1911. It was, at the time, the largest industrial disaster in US history, killing nearly 150 people including several children. This horrible event became the impetus to investigate deplorable factory conditions and reform work and safety of the workplace. The Brandos, a great roots rock outfit, recorded The Triangle Fire in 2006. The song is sung from the perspective of a man who's wife worked at the factory. There was no reason, there was no rhyme, and now law/To save us from this crime at all/The owner's trial did reveal/That the girls were locked in - the doors had all been sealed. The song is written in the folk tradition of story telling.
But sometimes the subject can be handled with a good dose of humor...They Might Be Giants have done this several time with songs like Istanbul (Not Constantinople) and The Mesopotamians, But, in this case, I point to their song James K. Polk, about an often forgotten 11th US President who was the driving force of the United States' philosophy towards Manifest Destiny. The song is a straight out fun history lesson about a man who was called the Napoleon of the Stump. Austere, severe, he held few people dear/His oratory filled his foes with fear/The factions soon agreed/He's just the man we need/To bring about victory/Fulfill our manifest destiny.
These two songs are somewhat obvious by their titles what they are about, but sometimes the content becomes less obvious by the title, so you need to listen to the lyrics. Take Pride (In the Name of Love) which is about the assassination and legacy of Martin Luther King. Or, Far Away Boys by Flogging Molly, which is about Irish farmers fighting in the trenches in World War I and dealing with the specter of constant death. OR, keeping with the Irish theme, AND showing that history isn't relegated away in olde dusty corners, the 1994 song Zombie, by the Cranberries which solemnly protests and condemns the death of 2 children in a 1993 IRA bombing in Warrington, England.
Often times history is played out in the terms of protest songs or folk songs. Ohio by Neil Young and recorded with Crosby Stills and Nash, is one of the more notable examples of this. It is about the Kent State shooting in 1970 by National Guardsman against generally peaceful protesters. Tin soldiers and Nixon comin'/We're finally on our own/This summer I hear the drummin'/Four dead in Ohio. Like any good protest song, it uses the event to shed light on current policies and raise awareness. Same is true with Biko, by Peter Gabriel. It uses the arrest and unofficial and factually murky "accidental death" of African activist Stephen Biko to bring to light the horrors of apartheid afflicted by the government of South Africa. This 1977 event was the first to wake the world to events that were happening in a little regarded corner of the world: You can blow out a candle/But you can never blow out a fire/Once the flames begin to catch/The wind will blow it higher.
But protest or cries for social justice is not always the case for history songs. Sometimes it's just a catchy pop tune...like Waterloo, by ABBA. This is one of those songs where it uses the context of Napoleon's final battle, more as a metaphor for being enticed (coaxed?) into a romantic relationship: Waterloo I was defeated, you won the war/Waterloo promise to love you for ever more/Waterloo couldn't escape if I wanted to/Waterloo knowing my fate is to be with you. I know what I said about relevance, but I had to add it! We can also look at the ultimate history song...We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel. It's not so much about a single event, but he chronicles or alludes to more than 100 events that happened between Joel's birth in 1949 and 1989 (when the song was written). It is more of a warning to that current generation that where you might think things are terrible, but history never stops. There will always be another shoe to drop next week. We didn't start the fire/It was always burning/Since the world's been turning.
Lastly, before I start listing some other history songs to which you should listen or might enjoy, there is the issue of romanticized history. Things that sort of happened, but not exactly the way the song describes. I am thinking specifically of Chris DeBurgh's Crusader. Chris DeBurgh is most known for his 80s hit Don't Pay the Ferryman. But this was an earlier tune and it is, in itself, a really good song. It just doesn't quite get the reality of what happened after the fall of Jerusalem in 1187. This spawned the failed Third Crusade mythologized by the involvement of Richard the Lionheart. The song portrays the Muslim leader Saladin in a particularly historically inaccurate light so theta he easily fits the role of the villain. It intimates that Richard, overlooking the city of Jerusalem, decimates Saladin's army. Not quite. Where he was successful in his attempts to recapture parts of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, most notably Jaffa and Acre, he never realized a victory to retake the holy city as the song implies. In fact, he got about 12 miles from Jerusalem, before the his army internally eroded because they couldn't agree how to attack Saladin. To be fair, the message of the song is not about the Crusades themselves, but rather the lack of honor in which men fight today: With your talk of vast persuasion and searching through the past, There is only greed and evil in the men who fight today. Rather than devolving into a history lesson, I will leave it at the understanding the Crusaders were not an honorable lot fighting for the glory of God, (and Richard was not the super hero the legend of Robin Hood makes him out to be but rather a vile political backstabbing creature who was only good a warring) but rather mercenaries fighting for greed, power and favor---just like today. Besides, I still really like the song!
Oh, from the "for what it's worth department," this blog was written on the 91st anniversary of the execution of Sacco and Venzetti---a pair of Italian immigrant anarchists accused of the armed robbery and murder at a shoe company. Some believe they were railroaded because of their immigrant stature. I mention this, because, of course, there is a song called the Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti by Joan Baez!
Some other nice songs about history and or historical events:
Louisiana 1927 (Randy Newman)- about a devastating flood that left more than half a million people homeless (Led Zeppelin's When the Levee Breaks is based on the same event)
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Gordon Lightfoot) - about a devastating shipwreck during a huge squall in Lake Superior in 1975
Warren Harding (Al Stewart)- well, about the 29th president of the US. who oversaw one of the most corrupted administrations in US history
Spanish Bombs (The Clash) about the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s
ME 262 (Blue Oyster Cult) about an aerial dogfight during WW2 (the ME 262 was a German fighter bomber)
Paris 1919 (John Cale) about the aftermath of World War 1
Vesuvius 79AD (Triumvirat) about the devastating volcano explosion that buried Pompeii
Zoot Suit Riot (Cherry Poppin Daddies) - about the riots between US servicemen and Latino minorities
Children's Crusade (Sting) using the title of a failed Crusade in 1212 to retake the Holy Land, but the song is about sending innocents to their death during World War I
Dust Bowl (10,000 Maniacs) about the terrible weather conditions experienced by midwest farmers during which exacerbate the Great Depression
Factory Girls (Flogging Molly) about a woman looking back to her struggles as a factory worker in the late 1950s.
Tesla (Unitopia) about inventor and Edison competitor Nikola Tesla
Last Day of June 1934, (Al Stewart) about the Night of the Long Knives in Germany where the Nazis violently purged their rivals
1893 World's Fair (Product) about the introduction of the electric light by Edison at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago
Gettysburg (The Brandos) about the famous Civil War battle and its solemn aftermath
4 June 1989 (Mary Chapin Carpenter)- about Tiananmen Square
All The Things She Said (Simple Minds) about Polish political prisoners who had been in Russia since the end of WWIi
Rox in the Box (The Decemberists) about early 20th century Montana miners
Run to the Hills (Iron Maiden) about the decimation of the Native Cree tribe by white settlers
The Way It Is (Bruce Hornsby) about the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s
Nantucket Sleigh Ride (Mountain) about whaling in the 19th century--the song alludes to the 1819 disappearance of the whaling ship The Essex--the inspiration for Moby Dick
Manhattan Project (Rush) about Robert Oppenheimer and the development of the atomic bomb
Joan of Arc (Arcade Fire)--obviously about the eponymous Maid of Orleans
The Battle of New Orleans (Johnny Horton)- a novelty song about the War of 1812 battle in 1814!
There are plenty of others, so, what do you think should be on the list? Remember, the song needs to be about the subject or event not using it as a obvious modern metaphor-I am thinking of something like Cleopatra by the Lumineers which is about an aging woman looking back on her life and not about the Queen of the Nile.
WHAT I AM LISTENING TO THIS WEEK: Scandinavia Edition
There are so many great bands coming out of this corner of the world, I thought I would dedicate this week's review to highlight a few choice bands:
Flower Kings: Stardust We Are (Sweden) 1997: By this point this group led by guitarist Roine Stolt, were firing on all cylinders. When people ask me about their sound, it falls in the Yes camp, but their influences are taken from a the variety of usual suspects from the Beatles to the Grateful Dead. This is the album I recommend to introduce people to TFK, but it is not without its faults. It, like many of The Flower Kings output, could have used some editing. Clocking in at a little under 2 hours, it takes a bit of a time investment, but once you get to the 25 minute title track you will have seen it time well spent. There is a 13 minute edit of this tune on their greatest hits package, and that might be even better. Honestly, there is at least 30 minutes of filler on this one. However, songs like In The Eyes Of The World, Circus Brimstone, and Stardust We Are are truly sweeping and emotive progressive rock tunes done by excellent musicians. Tomas Bodin is really an underrated player that rises to ranks of the top tiered of keyboardists. Like the whole band, understated when necessary, bombastic when required.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPSQDbW9QjY
Moon Safari: Lovers End (Sweden) 2010: Imagine Yes with Beach Boys sunshiney harmonics! Then add a dash of 10cc sardonic artsy-ness and a bit of Queen, and if you can believe it, Springsteen, and you get a sense of the delicious brand of music these guys bring to the table. And this, there third album is uplifting and warm and sadly reminds you about everything unique that the modern pop output has lost. The album is awash with Brian Wilson-esque arrangements and layered with vintage sounds like mellotrons and soaring guitars. The highlight of the album is the 14-minute tune A Kid Called Panic. It has everything I ask in a song: After a fantastic instrumental powerhouse section, there is some beautiful piano playing with some of the best singing on the record. Some make the comparison to Kevin Cronin of REO Speedwagon because of a similar smooth tenor timbre. World's Best Dreamers is a close runner up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQFW-0im9eg
Pymlico: Guiding Light (Norway) 2014 This is an instrumental record, so your first thought is that these guys are a lot like Camel. Whereas the guitar player has a Andy Latimer-esque feel to his solos, the overall arrangements are much more varied from Arabic music, jazz, metal, and world music. For example, A Day Out gives you a good idea of the variety of sounds on the album. Starting with pounding African drums and a nice alto saxophone towards the end. While Sounds of the City reminded me of Peter Gabriel's Digging in the Dirt. The album offers melodic touchstones to Alan Parsons Project instrumental work as well as an apparent alchemy of Genesis and the aforementioned Camel, interrupted by Arabic motifs and jazzy elements. All these accents are superbly executed. Very good album...my choice Neptune!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_cepZEXiCk
Major Parkinson: Twilight Cinema (Norway) 2014: This is the Anti-Moon Safari...and just as good. Whereas Moon Safari is smooth and flowing, this is hard and angular. It is a slap of cold water in the face on a humid day. It sort of falls closer to the latter day King Crimson...but more avant while doffing their collective caps to the garage band sound of the 60s. There are moments of folk, pop, classical, and Broadway, and maybe some electronic Kraftwerk-like bits thrown in. It's a whirlwind a collective elements. It's soft. It's hard. It's fast. It's slow. It's weird and totally technical. I read someone that said its dark freakshow cabaret meets prog. The singer isn't great (I don't care for his vocal inflections), but you can forgive the limited range because of the uniqueness of the music. Take Cabin in the Sky with its French cabaret accordion and Leonard Cohen vocal and put it on the same album (in fact it's the next song) as the eerily malevolent Heart Machine. I will say this...it is a wild and compelling listen.
https://majorparkinson.bandcamp.com/album/twilight-cinema
Änglagård: Hybris (Sweden) 1992. THe only negative thing I will say about them is that they have only released three albums since 1992, none since 2012 and they are all wonderful...classics on the level of the best of the progressive genre, even if they are clearly influenced by them. Hybrid is there first and works to create a vintage sound as if the album were released 20 years earlier. This is mostly an instrumental album and the vocals, in Swedish, are fairly weak, but there's enough Mellotron and Hammond organ and to make any '70s prog fan, like yours truly, happy. I love that they infuse Scandinavian folk music into the symphonic arrangement and providing engaging complex rhythms, that flirt between lyrical melody and dissonance. Only four tracks (between 8 and 13 min) on the disk and the last track, "Kung Bore" (Winter King for those of you not fluent in Swedish) is probably my favorite. It offers up intricate passages and mixtures of baroque and rock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFI554_xM-I
Also definitely worth a listen...
· Gosta Berling Saga (Sweden) wonderfully eclectic instrumental
· Anekdoten (Sweden) - like a symphonic Deep Purple
· Wobbler (Norway)- for your Genesis crush
· Von Hertzen Brothers (Finland) - If Led Zeppelin were more progressive
· Brimstone Solar Radiation Band (Norway) - for the psych lover
· Dynamo Bliss (Sweden) - fantastic art rock!
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