Music As A History Book

One of our first conversation threads in this course was on the topic of music and our families, and before that, we had a discussion about our favorite songs. In almost every response, the author spoke about a memory attached to a song or an artist. To me, and it would appear to my classmates as well, music is an unintentional way to chronicle your life, current events, and your evolution as a person.

I cannot speak for my peers, but I will explain what I mean through my own examples. I have had the privilege to go on many adventures and meet more amazing people than I deserve in my young life. I have been fortunate enough to go on trips around the world, live across the ocean, and make friends from all walks of life that I will have and remember forever. Now obviously, I cannot always be with all of my friends and family all of the time, nor can I constantly be traveling and neglecting my responsibilities at home, but this does not mean that I want to forget them. "Sweet Home Chicago" by Robert Johnson will always take me to my dads kitchen on school nights when we would cook dinner together and solve all of the worlds problems while making some new culinary creation he had conjured up. When I listen to the Ed Sheeran alubum "X", it reminds me of the nights I spent in the home of a dear friend in England and how I felt like I had the world in front of me. Any time I hear the Mumford and Sons song "Holland Road", I feel like I have been picked up and whirled back in time to 2014 where I am practically skipping up St Leonard's Hill in Windsor on my way home from my very first day at work. If I play "Colder Weather" by Zak Brown Band, I am brought to tears by the memory of my best childhood friend and I on a road trip, terrified because we were about to set off to college and had no idea what to expect. These are just a few examples of songs that serve as memories for me.

To tie this in closer with a specific topic from class, when we spoke about Jimi Hendrix iconic rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, I felt the same way about that recording as I do about the aforementioned examples. Hendrix uses a sort of musical onomatopoeia to convey the absolute chaos and horror of the war raging at the time. This exhibit of what can almost be called protest is so monumental and historic because it embodies the feelings of the time wherein people were told everything was fine, but in reality the world was in turmoil and the rock and roll movement was the "truth" in a lot of peoples eyes. This is an example of music serving as an actual history book rather than just a personal one.

These are only a few examples of how music holds memories and mindsets, but it is a very important concept to me and I am so glad that we discussed personal connections to public music in this course because music is the one thing that we all have in common.

Song Links:

Sweet Home Chicago : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8hqGu-leFc

X :https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpMUJrYyZ563rRimU2hC6ekg3LiOtpxPI

Holland Road: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHlTZcu6w8I

Colder Weather: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oouFE51HcqM

Star Spangled Banner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKAwPA14Ni4