<p>Rite of Spring (for world history) and the development of a modernist sensibility.</p>
<p>“Puttin’ on the Ritz” for the Roaring 20s.</p>
<p>“Anything Goes” would be great for the period between the world wars, too. It’s a fun pop song, but it’s all about huge social changes.</p>
<p>I know this isn’t really what you asked for, but I think seeing “Triumph of the Will” made me understand WWII in a way nothing else could. You have to see the joy and celebration and pride to understand how millions of people could embrace the Nazis. Even showing the class a 10 minute excerpt would be incredibly instructive.</p>
<p>Did anyone mention all the sad/beautiful Civil War songs and the traditional Spirituals?</p>
<p>I just found out Battle Hymn of the Republic was written <em>after</em> John Brown’s Body. I always thought John Brown was a rude parody of the Battle Hymn but no. Apparently Julia Ward Howe was inspired by the tune of John Brown to write the poem that became the Battle Hymn. And that concludes today’s history lesson…</p>
<p>If you do World History, there is so much–Irish songs like “The Wearin’ O’ the Green” for the struggle between England/Ireland. </p>
<p>World music from every culture.</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protest_songs[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protest_songs</a></p>
<p>this is a list of songs relating to a wide range of issues. you’ll be able to find plenty that will be appropriate</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_with_historical_references[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_with_historical_references</a></p>
<p>and as the link suggets, that is a list of songs with historical references</p>
<p>The Star Spangled Banner is a bit of a history lesson in and of itself. Lots of kids never pay attention to the lyrics at all.</p>
<p>
by Robert Lowrey? He was Baptist minister. That’s one of my favorites. Is there another Quaker version? </p>
<p>Amazing Grace has a wonderful background story.</p>
<p>Also, get The Civil War soundtrack to the Ken Burns documentary. Great music on that.</p>
<p>Agree that Sixteen Tons is perfect.</p>
<p>Actually it was written by Anne Hutchinson, a Presbyterian woman in upper New York State in the 1840s, and stolen and published in New York City by Lowrey as his own in 1866 (the song was already popular). </p>
<p>It became known as the Quaker Hymn in the early days of the Civil War, in the area around Greensboro, North Carolina. You see, all Friends had freed their slaves, and provided reparations to them and their families prior to the American Revolution, except in two places - Eastern Shore Maryland (we’ll leave them out of the discussion), and in North Carolina. Laws were in North Carolina that if you freed a slave, they could be taken in by another master. For awhile, Friends sent them north, mostly to New York, until that became impossible. They tried having them held in the name of the northern Meetings, but the northern Meetings eventually came to view that as dishonest. Then they tried selling them to their own Meetings - essentially making them free, but only if they were on Quaker lands.</p>
<p>Finally, in two great waves in 1805 and 1820, more than 20,000 Quakers and their slaves packed up from North Carolina and moved to southern Ohio and Indiana. They freed all their slaves, and helped set up colonies in Canada, and became the backbone of the Underground Railroad (Levi Coffin, born in Greensboro, as “President”). They also formed Earlham College in Richmond. For several decades, Friends continued to smuggle freed slaves with them to this region from North Carolina.</p>
<p>A small remnant stayed behind in the Greensboro area, forming the New Harmony School (later Guilford College) in 1848. They did not hold slaves, but all their neighbors did. When the Civil War hit, they (mostly) refused to fight on the side of the North against their neighbors, and refused to fight with the South in defense of slavery. As a result, they were set upon by both sides, and pretty much devastated. The song they sang throughout this period in their few remaining Meetings was Hutchinson’s “How Can I Keep from Singing?” Most of these Friends eventually joined up with a small Baptist pacifist sect. But to this day, you will find the streets of Greensboro and surrounding communities named with Quaker names.</p>
<p>New verses were added to the song in the 1970s by the Quaker folksinger John McCutcheon.</p>
<p>Here is my favorite version, sung by Julee Glaub:</p>
<p><a href=“http://cdbaby.com/cd/julee1[/url]”>http://cdbaby.com/cd/julee1</a></p>
<p>I have enjoyed a wonderful cd entitled “Songs of the Civil War” sung by such wonderful modern artist as:</p>
<p>-Kate & Anna McGarrigle
-Waylon Jennings
-Sweet Honey and the Rock
-Hoyt Axton
-Kathy Mattea and more…
<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Songs-Civil-War-Various-Artists/dp/B00000283E[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Songs-Civil-War-Various-Artists/dp/B00000283E</a></p>
<p>Also and even better:
“The Songs of Stephen Foster”
Wonderful versions by:
-John Prine
-The Dukhs
-Roger McGuin
-Mavis Staples
-Ron Sexsmith
-Michelle Schocked
-Suzy Boggus and more…</p>
<p>It was one of my favorite cd’s a couple of years ago. Wonderful interpretations.
<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Dreamer-Songs-Stephen-Foster/dp/B0002M64Z6/sr=1-1/qid=1170772169/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-0803445-5321404?ie=UTF8&s=music[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Dreamer-Songs-Stephen-Foster/dp/B0002M64Z6/sr=1-1/qid=1170772169/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-0803445-5321404?ie=UTF8&s=music</a></p>
<p>I just wanted the OP to know that this thread ear-wormed me. Hopefully, I can exorcise this demon by printing the lyrics of Tom Lehrer’s tuneful treatise on the relationship between Latin America and the US in the 20th century:</p>
<p>Send the Marines</p>
<p>[spoken introduction on the live version]
What with President Johnson practicing escalatio on the Vietnamese and then the Dominican crisis on top of that it has been a nervous year and people have begun to feel like a Christian scientist with appendicitis. Fortunately in times of crisis just like this America always has this number one instrument of diplomacy to fall back on. Here’s a song about it.</p>
<p>[singing]
When someone makes a move
Of which we don’t approve,
Who is it that always intervenes?
U.N. and O.A.S.,
They have their place, I guess,
But first send the Marines!</p>
<p>We’ll send them all we’ve got,
John Wayne and Randolph Scott,
Remember those exciting fighting scenes?
To the shores of Tripoli,
But not to Mississippoli,</p>
<p>What do we do? We send the Marines!
For might makes right,
And till they’ve seen the light,
They’ve got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
'Till somebody we like can be elected.</p>
<p>Members of the Corps
All hate the thought of war,
They’d rather kill them off by peaceful means.
Stop calling it aggression,
O we hate that expression.
We only want the world to know
That we support the status quo.
They love us everywhere we go,
So when in doubt,
Send the Marines!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My D’s chorus teacher arranged a gorgeous version of this hymn - if you use this, look for the Tyler arrangement.</p>
<p>Bruce Springsteen’s We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions might work for you. His versions of some great American folk music, and the recordings will probably be better than the originals.</p>
<p>CCR’s Fortunate Son to discuss similarities in vietnam era vs. W Bush’s war. Also “Born in the USA” by Springsteen helps talk about early 80s recession for Nam vets. </p>
<p>That Reagan used it for 1984 re-elelction is irony at its finest. Springsteen called campaign to forbid them from using it in mkting plan.</p>
<p>I suppose I shouldn’t mention Country Joe and the Fish Fixin’ to Die Rag… since there’s a lot of what teachers call “language.” However, it’s what I think of when I think of the Vietnam war…</p>
<p>“And it’s one two three
what are we fightin’ for?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,
next stop is Vietnam, and it’s
five-six-seven, open up the pearly gates…
Ain’t no time to wonder why,
whoopee we’re all gonna die.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think you misspelled “Fortunate Son” by Credence Clearwater Revival:</p>
<p>Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they’re red, white and blue.
And when the band plays “Hail to the chief”,
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord,
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son, son.
It ain’t me, it ain’t me; I ain’t no fortunate one, no</p>
<p>Please don’t use Malvina Reynolds’ “Pretty Boxes”. It’s one of the nastiest, most mean-spirited songs I know.</p>
<p>In the beginnig I didn’t know what it was about; just seemed like a cute song. Then, after I had moved to the Bay Area, I saw a folk-song movie in whch she sang that song, interposed with film showing those “pretty boxes all full of ticky-tack”, aka a certain style of houses built in this area in the 40s and 50s. Well, a number of my friends lived in those houses, and they were darn good people, not folks to be made fun of or treated sarcastically by someone just trying to make some points without giving a darn about people.</p>
<p>“Bruce Springsteen’s We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions might work for you. His versions of some great American folk music, and the recordings will probably be better than the originals.”</p>
<p>I’m going to take this thread a little off course! While the Bruce Springsteen version of Pete Seeger’s songs may be “better” for using with kids than the originals (assuming kids will relate to Springsteen more than Seeger…although Bruce is no spring chicken, either), Pete Seeger’s originals are better!</p>
<p>the Irish songs -original lyrics to Danny Boy, Patriot Game
The Patriot Game
<a href=“http://www.thebards.net/music/lyrics/Patriot_Game.shtml[/url]”>http://www.thebards.net/music/lyrics/Patriot_Game.shtml</a></p>
<p>Come all ye young rebels, and list while I sing,
For the love of one’s country is a terrible thing.
It banishes fear with the speed of a flame,
And it makes us all part of the patriot game. </p>
<p>besides the always perky union maid, which was mentioned, I like Woody Guthrie’s Do Re Mi about the folks heading in to CA from the Dust Bowl</p>
<p>Do Re Mi - free download at Amazon.com
<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Do-Re-Mi/dp/B000058UC1[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Do-Re-Mi/dp/B000058UC1</a>
Lots of folks back East, they say, is leavin’ home every day,
Beatin’ the hot old dusty way to the California line.
‘Cross the desert sands they roll, gettin’ out of that old dust bowl,
They think they’re goin’ to a sugar bowl, but here’s what they find –
Now, the police at the port of entry say,
“You’re number fourteen thousand for today.”
CHORUS:
Oh, if you ain’t got the do re mi, folks, you ain’t got the do re mi,
Why, you better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee.
California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see;
But believe it or not, you won’t find it so hot
If you ain’t got the do re mi.</p>
<p>Phil Ochs Draft Dodger Rag
<a href=“http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/ochs-phil/draft-dodger-rag-11443.html[/url]”>http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/ochs-phil/draft-dodger-rag-11443.html</a></p>
<p>Oh, I’m just a typical American boy from a typical American town
I believe in God and Senator Dodd and a-keepin’ old Castro down
And when it came my time to serve I knew “better dead than red”
Sarge, I’m only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen
And I always carry a purse
I got eyes like a bat, and my feet are flat, and my asthma’s getting worse
Yes, think of my career, my sweetheart dear, and my poor old invalid aunt
Besides, I ain’t no fool, I’m a-goin’ to school</p>
<p>beginning about the stabbing of Kitty Genovese in NYC
Outside of A Small Circle of Friends
Oh look outside the window, there’s a woman being grabbed
They’ve dragged her to the bushes and now she’s being stabbed
Maybe we should call the cops and try to stop the pain
But Monopoly is so much fun, I’d hate to blow the game
And I’m sure it wouldn’t interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends</p>
<p>This college site has a nice list of songs about vietnam era -no lyrics for it but mentions the ever silly Talking Vietnam PotLuck Blues</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.k-state.edu/english/nelp/vietnam_music.html[/url]”>http://www.k-state.edu/english/nelp/vietnam_music.html</a></p>
<p>OldinJersey: thanks for the link to The Patriot Game! I haven’t heard that song in probably 35 years! I had an Irish-descent boyfriend at the time and I was ready to get all sentimental at the plight of the Irish but he said they were just stupid and liked to fight. lol. </p>
<p>Which I guess makes a point about what we choose to teach impressionable HS students about conflicts that have been going on for centuries or more. It’s hard to be accurate and unbiased while standing on one leg, so to speak.</p>
<p>More Phil Ochs:</p>
<p>“I ain’t Marching Anymore”</p>
<p>Oh I marched to the battle of New Orleans
At the end of the early British war
The young land started growing
The young blood started flowing
But I ain’t marchin’ anymore</p>
<p>For I’ve killed my share of Indians
In a thousand different fights
I was there at the Little Big Horn
I heard many men lying I saw many more dying
But I ain’t marchin’ anymore</p>
<p>chorus)
It’s always the old to lead us to the war
It’s always the young to fall
Now look at all we’ve won with the saber and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all</p>
<p>For I stole California from the Mexican land
Fought in the bloody Civil War
Yes I even killed my brothers
And so many others But I ain’t marchin’ anymore</p>
<p>For I marched to the battles of the German trench
In a war that was bound to end all wars
Oh I must have killed a million men
And now they want me back again
But I ain’t marchin’ anymore</p>
<p>(chorus)</p>
<p>For I flew the final mission in the Japanese sky
Set off the mighty mushroom roar
When I saw the cities burning I knew that I was learning
That I ain’t marchin’ anymore</p>
<p>Now the labor leader’s screamin’
when they close the missile plants,
United Fruit screams at the Cuban shore,
Call it “Peace” or call it “Treason,”
Call it “Love” or call it “Reason,”
But I ain’t marchin’ any more,
No I ain’t marchin’ any more</p>