While military conflicts throughout American history have
mobilized millions of troops, they also inspired millions of others who stood
up and spoke up against these wars, either because of a pacifist morality or
because of what they considered the unjust policies or conduct of a particular
government at a particular time.
A big inspiration and motivation for those protests has
always been music. Through the power of
song, artists have attempted to raise awareness and spark action.
And protest songs have commented about many more issues
than simply war. Songs have cried out
against injustice in many forms, such as sexism, racism, economic inequality
and political corruption, and have been part of many movements, from Civil Rights
to Women’s Rights to Workers’ Rights.
Your
assignment: on the blog (due this Friday, 10/23) introduce us to a protest
song that inspires you. It could be from
the past, but it is probably more interesting if you chose one from the
present-day, so we can discuss issues that matter to us now.
Your blog entry should include the following:
- an introduction to
the song: the "title" of the song, the artist, and the album
- Provide context.
Especially if the song is from an earlier era, what do we need to know
about history to understand it? But
also let us know if the song is part of a “concept album” – a series of
connected songs – or if knowing something about the songwriter would help
us understand it better.
- link the title of the song to the lyrics. Do not just
dump the entire web address into your post
- state the "what" --
the central idea or theme of the song. What is the song protesting? Who or what attitudes or policies is it
criticizing? What is it trying to get the audience to understand? What action is it asking the audience to
take? How is it trying to change
the world?
- discuss the "how" –
quote and analyze at least one set
of lines from the song and discuss how the lyrics enhance the meaning
and purpose of the song.
- You can quote more than one
example, but do not dump a huge
chunk of lyrics into your post. Remember, when quoting poetry,
you have two options: make it a blockquote,
no matter how few lines, or
integrate the quote into a paragraph but use dashes/to indicate line breaks.
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