- 18 Mar, 2021
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- 4 Mins Read
The relationship between music and society in the 1960s and 1970s
3.5-4 single-spaced pages, using 6-8 songs
The relationship between music and society in the 1960s and 1970s is so obvious and well-known that it will be easy for you to find 6-8 relevant songs to illustrate the events, attitudes and changes that took place during those decades. It is important that you read the sample midterm papers posted on ol.berklee to see examples of how this kind of paper should be written. Most of the paper should be a discussion of, and an analysis of, the historical events. The songs are there as evidence, and are not the primary substance of the paper, which will be 4 single-spaced pages.
HUGELY IMPORTANT: you MUST use Terry Anderson’s book The Sixties as your source of information for the events you are writing about. You MUST quote directly from Anderson’s text, and cite page numbers with parenthetical citations (234 Anderson). I don’t want to read what the writers of online sources have to say about these important social and cultural events. I don’t care at all what the people who wrote the Wikipedia entry on Black Power say about that movement, and neither should you. Did Martin Luther King, Jr. write that entry? No. Did Chris Rock? Not even.
So no matter how compelling you find the Wikipedia entry on the Vietnam War, do not use it in your paper. For all you know, it could have been written by the Viet Cong on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Use Anderson’s book. Quote from it. If you choose to use other sources, then by all means, use reputable (.edu, .gov) online sources only to supplement your use of The Sixties. If you use, as the main source in your paper, something other than The Sixties book, I will read something other than your paper (a church pamphlet, a Chinese menu) when you turn it in.
Focus on the issues that Anderson covers, and that we have covered in class. For example, Anderson is primarily concerned with Nixon’s response to the countercultural and protest movements, and the conservative backlash against “the movement.” Therefore, in your paper, should you choose to discuss Nixon, you should focus on his anti-movement politics (i.e., Neil Young singing “Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,” in his song about the shootings at Kent State) rather than on his trip to China and the fact that China gave the U.S. two panda bears that went to live in the National Zoo in Washington, even if you’re really, really into pandas (and aren’t we all?).
The assignment is not to present online information about the 60s and 70s alongside music from those decades. It’s to present information FROM THE ANDERSON BOOK AND OUR LECTURES AND FILMS alongside music from those decades. You may use the films to supplement your use of the Anderson text, but the Anderson text should be a primary source of information.
The paper is due on Wednesday, August 14, and I need to receive the paper on August 14 in order for you to receive a grade for the course.
Formatting: 12 pt. type, standard margins, single-spaced block paragraphs with single, not double, white space between paragraphs. Times Roman typeface, 4 single-spaced pages, using 6-8 songs. You don’t need to have 6-8 separate topics, but please have at least 3.
For example, you could find 2 songs on the civil rights movement and race relations, 2 war protest songs and 2 songs about the counterculture, including psychedelic drug culture. Or, you could find 3 on the women’s movement, 3 on feminism, 3 on the counterculture, and use Graham Nash’s 1970 song “Chicago,” which opens with “the whole world is watching!” and the lyric “So your brother’s bound and gagged, and they’ve chained him to a chair” – a reference to the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention. Just be sure you have at least 3 topics.
Here are some more examples: In Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman,” Reddy says that the struggle against women’s rights has only made her “More determined to achieve my final goal.” What was the final goal of NOW? What was the final goal of radical feminists, or anti-feminists? Why did Ms. magazine name Paul Anka the “Male Chauvinist Pig of the Year” when he recorded the 1974 “(You’re) Havin’ My Baby”?
Let’s say that I chose the counterculture. I could pick Scott McKenzie’s 1967 “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair),” in which McKenzie claims that “there’s a whole generation with a new explanation,” and describes hippies as gentle people who believe in a “love-in.” Our friend Terry Anderson knows so much about this that he wrote about it in his book!
Keep in mind that you are trying to account for the song as it would have been understood by the average listener, so we aren’t interested in the deep, complex back stories told by musicians about the songs, or about the musicians themselves. We’re trying to “hear” the songs from the point of view of a listener in the past who is responding to the song as a reflection of the events and mood of that moment in time.
Do not fill the paper with the musician’s bio, the song’s recording history, and so on. Don’t dump the lyrics in – cite phrases here and there to back up your argument, and summarize the narrative of the song if you’d like – but don’t use the song lyrics as mere filler to substitute for the historical argument.