In Roxanne Harde’s essay, “ Living in your American skin: Bruce Springsteen and the Possibility of Politics”, she argues that many of“Springsteen's lyrics is portrayed as literature and political narratives” since he uses his music to discuss many of society’s underlying social and economic issues. (125). Her targeted audience is to fans of Springsteen who has a strong interest in politics. From her essay, Harde “draws on political theorist to examine Springsteen’s politics and the way of being political he has exemplified for more than thirty years” (125). Harde uses ethos and structure to develop many her arguments, providing an effective essay that supports her thesis statement.
Harde notes that the last song on Springsteen’s album,
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Harde discusses how this song of Springsteen’s has shown that although we, commoner trying to advocate for equality for the all, but our voice is being silenced. The government does not care about lower and middle class, in fact the government has made the gap between the rich and the poor even bigger.When the top 1% of the social class gets a tax cuts well the rest of society has to pay for more taxes; it will only result in the much greater poverty for those at the bottom of the social hierarchy (132). Harde’s uses her passion in this subject matter to deliver her message to her reader. The topic of economic unjust arouse anger and pain because there are many of Harde’s audience that has had a personal experience with this issue, and feels as if what Harde is trying to express completely represent them. As a result, they are able to connect with Harde’s argument on a spiritual level.
The organizing of Harde’s essay is similar to a timeline; this is not a coincidence. She intentionally structures her essay in a chronological order to show how Springsteen political views and belief has changed over the years. In Springsteen’s early work Harde notices how he
“avoided partisan politics and only focused on the subject of his song”(126). His albums such Darkness on the Edge of Town, Born in the USA, and The River deals with issues in regards to economic ” (129). It
Blanton, Amy. Bob Dylan: An Impact on American Society in the 1960’s. N.p.: Dartmouth, 10
After all, Dylan’s hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota, was as meat-and-potatoes as it could get. It wasn’t possible to be a rebel in Hibbing because there was nothing to rebel against. No one had any strong beliefs or ideology; they were a working class people that did not really listen to music. No one liked country, R&B or rock n’ roll – they barely knew what it was (No Direction Home). Dylan, on the other hand, was interested in music, and fiddled around on an electric guitar for a bit until he discovered folk music: “The first thing that turned me on to folksinging was Odetta. I heard a record of hers in a record store…Right then and there, I traded my electric guitar and amplifier for an acoustical guitar…[Her first album] was just something vital and personal” (McCombe). Without Odetta, folk music would have never entered Dylan’s life, and when it did, he was moved by it. It caused him to imitate Odetta’s rough, natural sound and unplug his electric guitar. Folk music was like nothing he had ever heard of before. It told the story of hard-working people just trying to get by. It wasn’t flashy or famous; instead, it was stories and songs that had been passed down from generation to generation of Americans. Odetta was just the person to introduce him to such a genre: “Bobby had become an apostle of a woman named Odetta, a husky-voiced black folksinger whose blend of
Supposedly, both the individuals with ascribed statuses with hereditary wealth and the poor and homeless have equal chances to become successful although, Orestes Bronwnson in The Laboring Classes, pointed out that this is not true. “Do the young man inheriting ten thousand pounds and the one whose inheritance is merely the gutter, start even?” (219). As a result, the harsh separation of the rich and the poor, where capitalism thrives and,” the division of the community into two classes, one which owns the funds…the other provides the labor” (216). The inhumane apprehension of a capitalist society that keeps its workers “in a permanent system, [has] given preference to the slave system” (214) says a lot about the evils of capitalism corresponding with the false American Dream. An outcome of capitalism is the frustrating rivalry between the poor. “There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining the country. The competition is maddening”
The proposal of this rhetorical analysis paper is to analyze how Simpson in his on-line article for the Australian Elvis Presley Fan Club, make use of ethos, pathos, and logos to appeal to the senses of the masses about how protest music can be subtle, but yet strong enough to challenge and change the social norms of America’s society of the fifties. Simpson has been
The essay, “Richer and Poorer” was written by Jill Lepore and published in The New Yorker on March 16, 2015 arguing about the increasing economic inequality in the United States over time for an academic audience. Throughout the essay, the author reviews various facts regarding the dramatic rise of income inequality in the U.S. in comparison to other countries. In order for her purpose to reach her audience, she incorporates rhetorical strategies including ethos, pathos, as well as logos. Her attempts to appeal to readers have been successfully built into her essay as she denotes how drastic the income inequality has become.
Change is something you are probably familiar with. In “Beneath the Smooth Skin of America,” Scott R. Sanders talks about many changes in his life. The author starts the story looking throw the eyes of himself as a child. As a child he remembers that all that was in his sight was all he could see. The author’s best example of this is he says, ”Neighbors often appeared…where they came from I could not imagine” (27). As the author begins to see more by leaving the area he was around so often he starts to see more and more things. He started moving around to different places and started seeing the things that he had not see before. The author points out many things that he began to see like the stores
Rock ‘n’ roll presented us with the emergence of a cultural phenomenon, which the book lays out for us. Altschuler sees rock as a “metaphor for integration, as the focal point for anxiety that cultural life in the U.S. had become “sexualized”, a catalyst
Through songs many people express their feelings of the world threw the words they have wrote. Many songs talk about civil rights of the people and how change should be an option. In the world we live in today we have social issues that people have to face such as: police brutality, racial profiling, discrimination etc. Through Kendrick Lamar, Public Enemy, The Game, Bebe Winans, and N.W.A they will use their voice as a weapon for change among all people. Music with a message thrives in a live setting, for obvious reasons, and many politically conscious musicians aim to channel the heightened emotions
Arguably one of the most powerful of Dylan’s social issue charged song is The Death of Emmet Till, a young black man who was unrightfully killed by the Ku Klux Klan. By 1963, Dylan and his on and off lover Joan Baez were both very well known in the civil rights movement. Baez and Dylan would sing together at rallies including the famous March on Washington. Dylan was on stage with Martin Luther King Jr. when his gave his infamous I Have a Dream speech. Though Dylan sang of American injustices, he was never incredibly interested in politics and he was ultimately frustrated by people defining him solely as a protest singer. Dylan’s frustrations with the unsought political branding are expressed in It Ain’t Me Babe, which “appears to be a song about rejected love, [it] was actually his rejection of the role his reputation and fans had thrown on him” (Carlson).
The essay “Richer and Poorer Accounting for Inequality,” written by Jill Lepore, and published in The New Yorker on March 16, 2015, is a demonstration of how Jill Lepore effectively uses rhetoric in her essay “Richer and Poorer Accounting for Inequality,” and shows American Citizens the realization of Inequality in America by using Logos, Ethos, and Pathos. When reviewing Jill Lepore's essay, it is obvious that she is very straightforward in trying to reach her audience of the U.S Citizen. Jill Lepore uses assorted rhetoric strategies to inform U.S Citizens of her view on Inequality in America and have them adopt her position on the argument, that the U.S is not fixing an ongoing issue of Inequality in America. She then explains how Congress needs to be the one responsible for the steps towards improving and lowering Inequality in America.
Particularly in his work(s) titled Harvest Song, we can see these characteristics. For example one of them is about African-Americans harvesting but saying how they feel, second is they made a song about how they felt, which reflects to music and lastly they are African-American who were harvesting, treated as slaves.
In terms of logos, Springsteen partially uses logical fallacies to generalize people. To start, the musician effectively generalizes a group of people. In the first stanza, he says, "In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream" (1). Springsteen successfully creates a generalization by using the word
Meaning in music is derived from parenthetical analysis of several technical aspects including lyrics, form, historical context, emotional content, and personal connection. A hermeneutical approach to the Star-Spangled Banner can yield only interpretational results. Therefore, we must examine the more concrete details of the work, and how the music relates to the meaning of the protests as stated by Colin Kaepernick in August of 2016.
Just as it was a crucial time for America in terms of politics and social issues, it was just as big for the music industry. People expressed their social opinions and political beliefs in a way that was the most true to them. Music was, and still is, a worldwide phenomenon for it has been able to take the shape of justice and to mold the minds of it’s listeners. Artists at the time had extreme social and political influence and used their defined stances on cultural issues to influence their music as well as their
During this period, Pete Seeger began writing books. His greatest publications include The Bells of Rhymney and Other Songs and Stories and American Favorite Ballads, Tunes and Folksongs as Sung by Pete Seeger. In the book “Carry it on! A History in Song and Picture of America’s Working Men and Women, Seeger and Reiser tell a story with songs describing every little aspect to the struggle of workers, specifically what they did in order to make things right. “Farm workers have been treated like livestock, herded into overcrowded dormitories or housed in shacks. In the prosperous 1960’s, the average farm worker made less than $2000 a year” . This example is followed by a song called “Deportee” which is written from the perspective of a farmer. Another book “The Incompleat Folksinger”, explores the many aspects of folklore music and what impacts it has had on Pete. He describes his songs to “tell of