Monday, January 30, 2012
Response Bruce Springsteen - Into the Fire and Toby Keith's - Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue
I think that what the class is getting into now is going to be very interesting; 9/11 and its effect on the musical world. Music has always been very special to me and I love playing guitar and piano and have even written a few songs. Therefore, I can appreciate Bruce’s and Toby’s musical talents and there ability to write the lyrics in response to the 9/11 attacks.
I believe, songs, like pictures, can depict emotion far better than ordinary writing can. Both of these writers did a very good job at doing this in different ways. “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue: by Toby Keith portrayed most Americans reaction a little while after the attacks. They were feelings of revenge, American pride, and patriotism.
As he sang, “American girls and American guys, will always stand up and salute.
We'll always recognize, when we see ol' glory flying...”
“Now this nation that I love is fallin' under attack.
A mighty sucker-punch came flying in from somewhere in the back.
Soon as we could see clearly through our big black eye,
Man, we lit up your world like the fourth of July.”
This is a tactic to inspire a patriotism inside Americans to stand up against our oppressors. It is a opportunity to “round up the troops”. This was Toby’s motive. To help Americans out of their shock and sadness and get them excited and patriotic again.
Bruce Springsteen, on the other hand, took another approach. In his song, Into the Fire, he sings of an account of a brave fireman diving into the fire in the twin towers to help those who were trapped. I believe that the song is taken from a girlfriend/wife perspective because Bruce sings,
“I need you near, but love and duty called you someplace higher
Somewhere up the stairs, into the fire...”
This song is to provide comfort and strength to those who lost loved ones in the rescue attempts. They were the bravest of the brave. It is also a great testimony to sacrifice. All the wife wanted was one last kiss from her husband, but she knew that his responsibility of saving lives was much more important. The lines that are repeated throughout the rest of the song are,
“May your strength give us strength, May your faith give us faith, May your hope give us hope ,May your love give us love...”
It shows the listeners to look to those who have fought and died for this country for strength not sadness. They are to be our worldly examples of strength, faith, love, hope. The melody of the song is somewhat slower and sad, but I do not think that is the intention. Just as Bruce sang, “May your strength give us strength...”
So as we can see the musical world was very much affected by the 9/11 attacks. It inspired artists in many ways such as patriotism and heroism. Bruce Springsteen’s album The Rising, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of over 520,000 copies. Americans responded well to his response and I believe that it helped Americans better remember and understand what happened on 9/11.
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David - I don't think it will come as any surprise to you that music is important for both Dr. Metres and me. I have written a fair amount about the role of emotions in the moral life, and certainly music can mobilize our emotions, just as other forms of art do. On my view, emotions are not just blind, pushes or pulls, but have, at least for complex emotions, a cognitive/rational dimension to them. Thus it makes sense to evaluate/critique our emotional responses. There is something indisputably emotionally satisfying about the Toby Keith song; it's just an emotional reaction that, in my view, we ought to resist.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things we did not explicitly invite in class were posts on/links to other music that references 9/11. I would welcome students posting on this. Chad mentioned something after class. Chad, if you are out there, post the link.
David, I was particularly intrigued by your phrase, "stand up to our oppressors." As horrible as the attacks of 9/11 were, I'm not sure that they would be called "oppression," which usually refers to ongoing and damaging treatment. Maybe "terrorizers" would have been more appropriate.
ReplyDeleteI would also concur with Dr. Lauritzen's notion that our emotions are important to listen to and to interrogate; emotions contain important information, but that information is always partial and requires discernment. Think of the times that your gut feeling about something turned out to be wrong...
I am also intrigued by the phrase "stand up to our oppressors". I think the part of the reason why the attacks happened was because the US was oppressing them. I think it was more of an attack because of our lack of consideration or even just recognition of these other people. I am not saying the US should have complied with their desires but at least to hear these people out. If anything right now we are over there "oppressing them" The definition of oppression is "a : unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power b : something that oppresses especially in being an unjust or excessive exercise of power 2 a sense of being weighed down in body or mind
ReplyDeleteRight. I am not advocating that we act solely upon our emotions in a situation like this. Our decisions must be guided by our will and our reason. That being said, responding emotionally in a time that this song was written would be a reasonable thing to do. It is when artists take that emotion to extremes is when people tend to have contrasting reactions.
ReplyDeleteAlso I probably should have used terrorists instead of oppressors. I did not take into account that oppression would infer a longer period of time of violent or aggressive acts. That being said, and in light of the "oppression" that the US put on the middle east, I want to make sure that we do not justify the actions of the terrorists with some wrong things we may have done first.
I do agree with you on not doing pay back or taking revenge. I am not justifying anything they have done to us or anything. I don't know how much behind the scenes research you have done on 9/11 and there are numerous warnings we had and could have taken into account. Also if you think about it, if America would have been in Al-Qaeda do you think similar types of actions would have been made?
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