Songs of America: Patriotism, Protest, and the Music That Made a Nation (book)

Meacham, J., & McGraw, T. (2019). Songs of America (Music Stacks). Random House, an 

imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Songs of America: Patriotism, Protest, and the Music That Made a Nation by Jon Meacham & Tim McGraw

Chapter Three: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

This chapter is on slavery, abolition, and the Civil War

• Frederick Douglass
  • Julia and T. Powis Griffiths composed a piece called Farewell Song of Frederick Douglass: On Quitting England For America
    • Song idolized england as a land of freedom and painted the U.S. as a land of slavery
      • “Farewell to the land of the free! Farewell to the land of the brave. Alas! That my country should be America! Land of the slave…” (CITATION HERE)
      • “The Griffithses had captured a great tragic contradiction at the heart of the American experiment: that a nation conceived in liberty preserved and perpetuated human slavery.” (McGraw & Meachum 63)
  • Independence day oration in NY, Douglass points out that he has nothing to do with independence day because he, and those he represents, are not free
    • “To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless……. [and they] are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.” (McGraw & Meachum 65)

(FROM THIS SMALL SECTION I HAVE DECIDED NOT TO HAVE MY FOCUS BE ON CIVIL WAR- ERA PROTEST MUSIC)

Chapter Four: March, March, Many As One

This chapter is on the suffrage movement and jim crow in the early 20th century

• “Suffragist Rebecca Naylor Hazard wrote lyrics for “Give the Ballot to the Mothers”, sung to the tune of “Marching Through Georgia”.” (McGraw & Meachum 99)
  • “Bring the dear old banner, boys, and fling it to the wind/ Mother, wife and daughter, let it shelter and defend/ “Equal Rights” our motto is, we’re loyal to the end/ Giving the ballot to the mothers” (CITATION HERE)
• The early 20th century was a tumultuous time for the U.S.– included the founding of the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union, and the revival of the KKK. Also included the beginning of WWI
  • Led to ‘white anxiety’ and the feeling that the times were changing too dramatically for the country
  • “The Principle of racial and class equality is at the basis of American political life, and to wantonly destroy it is one of the gravest outrages against the Republic” -Jane Addams (McGraw & Meachum 100).
• James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson wrote a song titled “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, which soon became an anthem for civil rights and equality
  • “Lift every voice and sing/ Till earth and heaven ring/…. Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us/ Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us/…. We have come, trading out path through the blood of the slaughtered/ out from the gloomy past/ till now we stand at last/ where the white gleam of our bright star is cast” (CITATION HERE) 
    • pages 103-106 of the book
  • This song quickly came into popularity, later to be known as the “Negro National Hymn”.
    • “The lyrics acknowledge the past but sketch a hopeful picture of the future. Modern performers– from Beyonce at the Coachella festival (where she was the first black woman to headline the event) to Aloe Blacc at Super Bowl 53– continue to keep the song and its message alive” (McGraw & Meachum 106).

(I’VE DECIDED THAT THIS ISN’T THE TIME PERIOD I’M INTERESTED IN RESEARCHING)

Chapter Five: As the Storm Clouds Gather

This chapter is on the dust bowl and the Great Depression

• FDR often traveled to visit everyday Americans, and the song “Happy Days Are Here Again” was inseparable from his image (McGraw & Meachum 121) [this is a paraphrase]
  • “The public heard it in the context of hard economic times and, as historians have noted, the song’s “seemingly upbeat lyrics laughed off the Depression; better days had to be coming.”” (McGraw & Meachum 122)
• “The task that fell to Roosevelt: to rescue a nation torn between the hope of “Happy Days Are Here Again” and the soul-crushing reality of “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” (McGraw & Meachum 124).
  • Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? was originally written by Woody Guthrie 
    • It was covered by Bing Crosby, which is supposed to be a particularly good performance
• Guthrie Quotes:
  • “A song ain’t nothing but a conversation fixed up to where you can talk it over and over without getting tired of it? – Woody Gutherie (page 124)
  • “A fold song is what’s wrong and how to fix it or it could be who’s hungry and where their mouth is or who’s out of work and where the job is or who’s broke and where the money is or who’s carrying a gun and where the peace is.” – Woody Guthrie (page 124)
• A couple verses of Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” have been omitted from widely published versions of the song
  • One references people going hungry: “In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people/ By the relief office I seen my people/ As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking/ Is this land made for you and me?” (CITATION HERE)
    • Page 126 of the book
  • Another verse sings about a “big high wall” with a “Private Property” sign– an image of capitalistic coldness (McGraw & Meachum 126) [this is a paraphrase]
  • NOTE TO SELF: look into Pete Seeger’s performance of this song at Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration→ he apparently included these “forbidden verses”
• Poem titled “Strange Fruit” was written by a NYC teacher named Abel Meeropol, which Billie Holiday later recorded in 1939
  • Related to this discrimination, Marian Anderson was not allowed to perform at a DAR meeting, so Eleanor Roosevelt resigned in protest
    • Lady Roosevelt then scheduled Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday in 1939. 75,000 people came to the concert.

(I SKIPPED THE PART OF THIS CHAPTER ABT WWI, BUT I LIKED THE IDEA OF NARROWING DOWN TO THE DUST BOWL AND GREAT DEPRESSION)