Which Songs Have Truly Created Change?

John Steele (deceased) · Post by **John Steele (deceased)** » 29 Jul 2002 12:38 pm

A few years ago on this forum, someone told the story of the song "Okie From Muskogee" and it's impact on society and industry in Oklahoma in general. I wasn't aware of it at all, it was shocking.
As far as songs that define a train of social thought, the first that comes to my mind is the Lovin' Spoonful's "Do you believe in magic"
-John

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 30 Jul 2002 9:47 am

Speaking of "The Weight" a few posts above,
What the heck is that song about?

Martin Abend · Post by **Martin Abend** » 30 Jul 2002 9:58 am

FWIW, It's been said that Teach Your Children Well gave birth to a new generation of steel players in the '70's.

oh no, pleeeeeze... that was on purpose, right?

------------------
martin abend Pedal-Steel in Germany
s-10 sierra crown gearless 3 x4 | Regal RD45 | fender hotrod deluxe

Chris Forbes · Post by **Chris Forbes** » 30 Jul 2002 10:58 am

I too would like to know, I've sung The Weight many times, but still have nooooo clue at all.

Susan Alcorn (deceased) · Post by **Susan Alcorn (deceased)** » 30 Jul 2002 11:34 am

for me:

"Horse Falls from the Sky" -- Paulime Oliveros
4'33" -- John Cage (frequently misunderstood piece)
"I Told Jesus" -- Roberta Flack
"Quartet for the End of Time" -- Olivier Messiaen
"They Say It's Spring" -- Blossom Dearie
"Et Expecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum" -- Olivier Messiaen
"Ameriques" -- Edgar Varese
"Gracias A La Vida" -- Mercedes Sosa
"Strange Fruit" -- Billie Holliday
"Lonely Woman" -- Ornette Coleman
"Giant Steps", "Naima" -- John Coltrane
"This Bitter Earth" -- Diana Washington
"Save the Country" -- Laura Nyro
"Blue Jade" -- Buddy Emmons
"Kundun" -- Phillip Glass
"One of a Kind" -- Tammy Wynette
"Kern River" -- Merle Haggard
"Blue Nile" -- Alice Coltrane
"Tal" by Choyling Drolma

These songs have all affected me personally and I was not the same person after having heard them.

-- Susan

Jeff A. Smith · Post by **Jeff A. Smith** » 30 Jul 2002 2:46 pm

As far as which follows which, art or life, I think art IS life. If someone is imitating something, they are once-removed from where the action is.

I've definitely had the experience of an instrumental musician showing me where the action was a few times.

I think people like Bach or Coltrane have the ability to show us a higher level to live from. Sometimes this stuff makes it into popular music. Eddie Van Halen represented a huge shift in where rock guitar was coming from, just as an example. [This message was edited by Jeff A. Smith on 30 July 2002 at 03:48 PM.][This message was edited by Jeff A. Smith on 30 July 2002 at 03:50 PM.]

Dave Birkett · Post by **Dave Birkett** » 31 Jul 2002 7:50 am

I have to believe that Billie Holiday's recording of "Strange Fruit" must of had a powerful effect on those who heard it. It probably still does. I know it does on me.

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 31 Jul 2002 9:04 am

"Which Songs Have Truly Created Change?"

I put a dollar in and sellected A-11.
Two quarters came out.

Butch Foster · Post by **Butch Foster** » 31 Jul 2002 12:06 pm

Songs the Caused Chang:

Don't forget " AMAZING GRACE"!

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 31 Jul 2002 12:53 pm

In that same vein, "We Shall Overcome"

Jason Odd · Post by **Jason Odd** » 31 Jul 2002 3:39 pm

Actually there's some great points made here.
Larry, I couldn't agree more that the visual medium has indeed influenced the mionds of those who have blank enough personas to let anything fill the void.
An earlier example would be in the U.K in 1972 when some teens were caught and charged for setting alight human beings.
Basically they'd been inspired by a scene from the 1971 Stanley Kubrick film "A Clockwork Orange" a futuristic film where gangs committed ultra-violence and a new type of brainwashing had evolved to control said dissidents. The teens claimed to have been influenced by the film, and were apparently dressed in similar clothing to the characters in the film.

What about Bob Dylan's move from folkie covers, to originals and protest material and then to rock instrumentation?
I think his gig at Newport in 1965 changed a lot of heads, but lets not forget that the awesome Butterfield Blues Band were there as well.
That and Dylan's 1965-1966 recordings (their sound and commercial success) changed how people percieved folk music and it's posiblities.

None of these are good examples of anyone trying to change the way people think and act. Although I think many folk protest songs were concieved with the idea of 'opening' certain people's eyes.

Billie Holiday's recording of "Strange Fruit" is just amazing, it blowws me away.
Has anyone heard the new mix on the latest Verve compilation, it's nice but not as spooky as the original.

Joel Glassman · Post by **Joel Glassman** » 1 Aug 2002 10:53 am

Yes I would say "We Shall Overcome" as a civil rights song written by Pete Seeger. Also "Blowin' in the Wind" written by Bob Dylan as an antiwar song.
Also "If You're Going to San Francisco" (Wear Some Flowers in your Hair)caused a lot of people to move there and become hippies

Similarly "Aquarius".
Whether you agree with the politics or not, each of those songs has profoundly influenced people. I'd add national anthems to the list. Plus there are war songs on bagpipes which inspire people to kill each other.

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 1 Aug 2002 11:06 am

Actually, "California Dreamin'" was what inspired me, as a teenager, to stick out my thumb and head west. I'm sure that the music from San Francisco in the 60's affected migration patterns among young people, and many of us stayed here.

Eric Jaeger · Post by **Eric Jaeger** » 1 Aug 2002 3:37 pm

FWIW, Robbie Robertson says "The Weight" is about the impossibility of sainthood (I think he'd been watching too much Luis Bunuel).

We're tangling up "songs that changed the music world" with "songs that changed the world". Bob Dylan changed the world. The Band changed the music world. Coltrane changed the music world. The Beatles? They sure changed things, but other than delivering us from the teen-idol pap that preceeded them, I can't put my finger on what they changed.

Jason Odd · Post by **Jason Odd** » 2 Aug 2002 8:01 am

Gee, what did the Beatles do?
hmmmmmmmmm,
Oh I know:

They radically altered the concept and media persona of how a 'group' could record and exist, yeah that's right.
The put forward the concept of the musician as 'artist.'
Now, John, George and Paul all expanded into other mediums while with the Beatles, and even Ringo showed a nice onscreen presence for the films they did.
They were involved in films, theatre, had their own labels as part of Apple Corp. which also had their shop and other projects.
Poor old Elvis wouldn't have known what a sound collage was if it bit him on is butt.
The Beatles alone or together made bold (be they good or bad) sonic experiments in the studio, something a top pop act would hardly attempt today, but became common practice in the late 1960s.

Lennon showed that a pop idol could go beyond the simple boundries of music, he went into art and politics with the same amount of enthusiasm.
When the Beatle released the Sgt. Pepper LP, it was a heads up to the new crop of recording artists, even the Stones emulated the psyche style for their '67 album.

The only changed the whole concept of what a pop icon could be and ultimately the process of a pop artist gaining respect outside of the industry, and thus helped influence pop-culture to this day.

David Weaver · Post by **David Weaver** » 2 Aug 2002 9:49 am

b0b said:

Actually, "California Dreamin'" was what inspired me, as a teenager, to stick out my thumb and head west. I'm sure that the music from San Francisco in the 60's affected migration patterns among young people, and many of us stayed here.

We were all thinking about it if we didn't go. Some of us resisted the temptation, but we always felt we were not whole if we didn't live in California.

I talked to a woman of the same era and explained the Calif. phenomenon for boys. She said, "How do you think we felt?!....'I wish they all could be California girls'!

Made is all wonder what you guys were doing out there in California!

Eric Jaeger · Post by **Eric Jaeger** » 2 Aug 2002 2:19 pm

Jason, my comment about the Beatles' impact was not meant to say they didn't have an impact, just that it's hard to figure out exactly what it was. Musically, for example,
they wrote some great songs, recorded well. But others had done many of the same things (multi-tracking, sound collages). What you say about their changing the definition of "musician" is true as well. Not sure how they did it.

Nominations for songs that changed people's minds:

- Ballad of a Thin Man ("You know something's happening...)

- Masters of War

- Desolation Row

Hmmm, there's a there here....

Jason Odd · Post by **Jason Odd** » 3 Aug 2002 4:48 pm

Eric, I just thought about it then and typed it out, I'd not really thought about how they changed things, and of course it was an amazing thing, how it evolved is quite beyond me to say for sure.
I mean look at Elvis, who would look at the Memphis truck driver in 1953 and have said, in a couple of years this guy will be a star, when he dies he'll have the most recognisable name of any personality, performer and have hits decades after he's passed away.

An artist doesn't exist in a vaccum, things have to happen and be forced and pushed into place. If the Beatles had got that deal with London/Decca in 1962 the outcome would have been different, the label was a lot tougher on groups with originals and had a real restrictive approach to their artists in the UK in the 1960s. Would they have flourished so much then.

Dylan is another great example, from darling of the folk scene to international pop artist with an image as an intellectual.
What I've always found fascinating is that in the mid 1960s there seemed to be two dominant 'scenes' in New York, Dylan and his crowd and Andy Warhol's scene (including the Velvet Underground), they were almost like rivals and were big news in the papers and press all the time.

Kind of hard to imagine either artist getting that sort of press if they had come around in 2000.

Reggie Duncan · Post by **Reggie Duncan** » 4 Aug 2002 5:22 am

Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes
Amazing Grace

Derek Duplessie · Post by **Derek Duplessie** » 4 Aug 2002 2:41 pm

Turn,turn,turn!-the Byrds
-Derek