Monday, March 12, 2012
Music
US Position :
Music in the United States, like in France and anywhere in the world, is a very powerful way to broadcast ideas, perspectives and feelings. And a song can be an easy way to express all of this to a large range of people.
Moreover, The United States are compound of many communities from a lot of country, and so there are many points of view, and stories about their life of immigrant and what they think about policy and the system.
That’s why we can find a lot of songs speaking about immigration, integration and protestation. We chose to talk about these subjects by giving examples based on lyrics, because it’s a wide subject, and lyrics give us guiding principle to understand what is happening.
First, there is a song from K’naan, who spent his childhood in Somalia during the war, and moved to United State when he was 13. In the song “Coming to America” he speaks about his own story. He explains the war situation in his country, and how much awful it was. Then he shows why people wanted to go to America, because he just wanted to live a good life and just leave danger in Somalia.
Secondly, “icky thump” a song from The White Stripes more provocative, who denounces (for them) an anti-immigration policy too severe in the United States. They speak about racism illegal racism, and they say that we are all immigrant and we should not make distinction.
Thirdly, “The Refugee” sung by U2 go back on K’naan song idea. Here, United State is assimilate as a promised land for refugee to escape war and bad life condition.
To conclude we can see that music express a lot of things, and we can see their point of view of stranger, and their point of view of coming to United States. And so the difference between their old and their new country. By music, we can understand what they lived and have lived in their life, and how immigration and integration is felt.
Bibliography :
http://www.songfacts.com/category-songs_that_deal_with_immigration.php
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/knaan/comingtoamerica.html
http://www.metrolyrics.com/icky-thump-lyrics-the-white-stripes.html
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/The-Refugee-lyrics-U2/E83B9B10597F72A648256896003147F7
Jérôme and Sylvain
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Je pense que si on est un citoyen des Ètats-Unis, on est un American malgré d'origine. Je détéste les termes de "African American ou..American. Non. Je pense que l'origine ne fait rien. Juste "American" devrait-on dire parceque nous sommes tous des immigrants.
ReplyDeleteIt's really cool that's you investigated song lyrics and what ideas they suggest. A lot of contemporary American music is about violence, so it's different to think about how a variety of other songs address issues like immigration and wanting to come "home".
ReplyDeleteI love that you brought up the fact that music can be more than just entertainment for its listener. It can give us its creators point of view and a peek into their life experiences that influenced them to write and express themselves through music. The popularity of music like U2 shows the musics ability to reach more people than other forms of communication
ReplyDeletetaylor fettrolll