I have learned more history from TC than from my high school or college history classes. There was never enough time to cover things properly. If history had been told in narrative form accompanied by a timeline, I think students would have had a better understanding of our country’s history even with all the whitewashing and failure to disclose things such as the Wilmington, NC coup in 1898. I only learned such atrocious, appalling history as an adult. I grew up 100 miles from Wilmington.
TC, I thank you for your cogent writing that educates so many of us. Keep the facts coming.
When I'm writing, I like to play music of the period, you can learn a lot by what people were listening to and when. This collection below has a lot of English "music hall" songs from World War II. You can go from the enthusiasm of the early period before the attack in the west in May 1940, with the rousing "We're going to hang our laundry on the Sigfried Line" (the German equivalent of the Maginot Line) and Gracie Fields' "Wish Me Luck," to the bitter feeling of a soldier with George Formby's "Bless 'Em All," the fortitude of the Battle of Britain in "There'll Always Be An England," the wistfulness of Very Lynn's "You'll Never Know" or her classic, the most popular song of the war, "We'll Meet Again." The American songs are different: the sad wistfulness of Irving Berlin's "The Last Time I Saw Paris," which he wrote after seeing the newsreel of German troops marching under the Arch de Triumph in 1940, or the home front with Fats Waller's "Cash for your trash," the in-your-face of Spike Jones' "Der Fuhrer's Face,"
That you would write while listening to music of the period you are writing about makes perfect sense to me, music 🎶, like all art forms reflects the time in which it was created. Art history is just the study of history looking through a different lens, all of those lenses sharpen our focus on what has happened in days passed.
a quick correction: "The Last Time I Saw Paris" was Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II (the "Showboat" team), and you're entirely correct about the occasion. for myself, I'd thought it was Cole Porter.
there's "topical music" in our time? I mean, aside from Hip-Hop, which I don't consider to quite be music in any conventional sense. I actually find myself liking some of it, but to me, it exists in some kind of "music-adjacent" space. but, as somebody who really likes melodies, I can't quite think of it as "music," except in the most meaninglessly generic sense. I'm perfectly prepared to have my mind changed, but....
As I said, non-existent or drech; one of the motivating strengths of previous movements has always been the music that expressed the themes and issues of the day. Nothing now matches any of the protest songs written before the turn of the current century.
Really well written TC. Your books and comments here, consolidated, would make a fascinating history of the US. Might even be a textbook.
I have learned more history from TC than from my high school or college history classes. There was never enough time to cover things properly. If history had been told in narrative form accompanied by a timeline, I think students would have had a better understanding of our country’s history even with all the whitewashing and failure to disclose things such as the Wilmington, NC coup in 1898. I only learned such atrocious, appalling history as an adult. I grew up 100 miles from Wilmington.
TC, I thank you for your cogent writing that educates so many of us. Keep the facts coming.
When I'm writing, I like to play music of the period, you can learn a lot by what people were listening to and when. This collection below has a lot of English "music hall" songs from World War II. You can go from the enthusiasm of the early period before the attack in the west in May 1940, with the rousing "We're going to hang our laundry on the Sigfried Line" (the German equivalent of the Maginot Line) and Gracie Fields' "Wish Me Luck," to the bitter feeling of a soldier with George Formby's "Bless 'Em All," the fortitude of the Battle of Britain in "There'll Always Be An England," the wistfulness of Very Lynn's "You'll Never Know" or her classic, the most popular song of the war, "We'll Meet Again." The American songs are different: the sad wistfulness of Irving Berlin's "The Last Time I Saw Paris," which he wrote after seeing the newsreel of German troops marching under the Arch de Triumph in 1940, or the home front with Fats Waller's "Cash for your trash," the in-your-face of Spike Jones' "Der Fuhrer's Face,"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b6DgeTf1BE
Priceless!
That you would write while listening to music of the period you are writing about makes perfect sense to me, music 🎶, like all art forms reflects the time in which it was created. Art history is just the study of history looking through a different lens, all of those lenses sharpen our focus on what has happened in days passed.
a quick correction: "The Last Time I Saw Paris" was Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II (the "Showboat" team), and you're entirely correct about the occasion. for myself, I'd thought it was Cole Porter.
Yes - you're right. They saw the newsreeel and left the theater, went to their office in the Brill Building and wrote it.
It is interesting that, by comparison, the topical music of our time is either non-existent or drech.
True dat!
there's "topical music" in our time? I mean, aside from Hip-Hop, which I don't consider to quite be music in any conventional sense. I actually find myself liking some of it, but to me, it exists in some kind of "music-adjacent" space. but, as somebody who really likes melodies, I can't quite think of it as "music," except in the most meaninglessly generic sense. I'm perfectly prepared to have my mind changed, but....
As I said, non-existent or drech; one of the motivating strengths of previous movements has always been the music that expressed the themes and issues of the day. Nothing now matches any of the protest songs written before the turn of the current century.
So true!
absolutely.
You're not alone in that.