Personal Narrative Essay: The Song I Was The 1975

Combining with the motif of protest was the issues of women rights. Women celebrated the 50th anniversary of the 19th amendment, and liberal abortion laws in the year of 1970. No longer merely entertainment, popular music became a powerful means of protest and an effective force for social change. The whole feeling of fighting for what is right was often found in lyrics and music of the time. Although women had been in the music industry for centuries the song of the seventies that backed the idea of woman’s push for power was “I Am Women,” by Helen Reddy. The first line simply stats the mood of the whole song by stating, “I am women, hear me roar.”

When listening to David Bowie for the first time, one of the songs that stuck out the most was “She Shook Me Cold” from the album The Man Who Sold the World. This song, at first, sounds extremely sexual and is uncomfortable to listen to. When this song was discussed in class, everyone said their annotations led them to believe it was solely about Bowie having intercourse with a girl. The intention of this paper is to open your mind to the idea that Bowie is actually talking about coming to terms with his feminine side. Knowing that Bowie is very gender fluid makes this theory more plausible. One thing to keep in mind is that many artists hide underlying messages in songs that sound nowhere similar to the intended lyrics. Dan Wilson, the lead singer of Semisonic, shocked everyone when he announced that the hit song “Closing Time” was actually written about the birth of his daughter; not leaving a bar. Through diction, allusion, and anecdote Bowie cleverly hinted to his sexuality in “She Shook Me Cold”.

Some believe that about 30,000 to 60,000 years ago, music was first discovered. The love of a song back then could only be heard live or if you learned to play it yourself. Since then, there have been many inventions for you to listen to your favorite genres, songs, and artists anytime you like.

Women’s music came from radical, grassroots origins in the 1970s thanks to contributions by brave women, mostly lesbians (Mosbacher, 2002). These women used non-violent, peaceful force to forge their own way into the music industry. It was a peaceful yet political revolution of togetherness and liberation. It brought together women of different backgrounds who produced easy-listening, mellow harmonies played with lyrics filled with tumultuous

Identity-“Ones personal qualities.”Identiy is something only he or she can fully define. My uncle says I am affectionate,cheerful, and calm. My grandmother sees me as slim, pretty and sweet. My dad described me as perky, cheerful and happy, my mom says beautiful, gentle, and self-conscious. These adjectives describe me accurately, yet they are only abstract versions of me. Adjectives cannot begin to describe me and I aknowlege these descriptions for what they are, a condensed translation from my outward self to the world. It is impossible for anyone to understand me completely because nobody has experienced the things I have. My mother has never cherished a raggedy doll named Katie and my father never

Women have been the "pretty faces" of the band since they started playing music. Women were

Despite the fact that they were usually written by older and often male songwriters, common issues that were discussed in the songs are romance, heartache, the never ending search for true love and other, similar teenage drama. This made the lyrics, like the image, very engaging and relatable to the audience of the groups. The early girl groups kept their lyrics fairly light and optimistic, but during the ‘60s a new rawness of emotion and a certain darkness emerged in girl groups’ songs. An example is ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’ (1960) in which The Shirelles do not just describe an ideal romantic scenario, but go on to question its durability and permanence. The Shangri-Las took teenage angst to an even higher extreme in ‘Leader of the Pack’ (1964), which tells a ‘Romeo and Juliet’-style narrative where a ‘good girl’ loses her ‘bad boy’, the ‘leader of the pack’, to a motor cycle crash after her parents pressured her into breaking up with him. A different side to girl group lyrics, often combined with the teenage drama theme, is the description of the trendy dances of the time (e.g. the twist in ‘Twistin’ Postman’ (1962) by the Marvelettes)

Chapter 8 of the textbook Women, Music, Culture discusses popular American music in the late 1800s to mid 1900s. This chapter has many examples of all girl bands and share information about their member composition to performance venues to discrimination the women faced. Also, it is important to note that all-girl groups did not form in the twentieth century; I am confident all girl bands were present long before anything was recorded about them. However, the all-girl band references in this paper will refer to the ones mentioned in the book or ones I have heard about in my life.

Members of this all-girl band consisted of African American women, Asian women, white women, Hispanic women, and women of Native American descent. In the back of my mind, I was perplexed that this group even existed given the time period– mid 1900’s. But then I realized that World War II switched up society and negotiated previous gender roles. Women took on once “male roles” in society, like working in the factory. Initially, I did not think of music as one of these male dominated platforms.

“I wanted to have a band that was like a gang. I wanted us to be a real, wild, fast, punk rock, country band with girl group harmonies,” she says. Though she worked out the everything in her mind, this was, of course, in the days before the Internet—in other words, a bit of legwork was necessary to find other musicians, considering that female instrumentalists were thought of as a novelty at the time, especially drummers. She knew of one girl who could play, but they were constantly at odds with one another. Diane “Boom Boom” Dixon, was playing with the Keith Joe Dick band at the time. “We hated each other. I would see her get thrown out of clubs and think, who the hell is this girl?” she

The late 60s and 70s was still a time period of a male dominated, sexist culture, and in the music industry, women relied heavily on male producers. Although the youth were proclaiming sexual freedom, and forming a counterculture against their middle class parents, rock music was still written and performed almost entirely by men, with lyrics that heavily labeled women as objects. There was also the inference that many of the existing female singers were fairly interchangeable. Feeling a need for transformation, artists like Janis Joplin created their own musical identity. Popular songs had told women that they were sexual objects, but Joplin delved deeper than that in her lyrics. Joplin spoke of the pain of being a woman and how to live with and compensate for that pain. Most female musicians weren’t accustomed to the independent formation of identity portrayed by Joplin’s lyrics, and that identity as a

Growing up, I was always surrounded with music, whether it be on the record at home, the IPod, live music, or the built

Joan Jett has had an immense impact on the Rock n’ Roll world, which is why she’s been nominated for the Hall twice since she’s been eligible, but she didn’t make it either time. But she is up for the honor again in 2015, and pretty much everyone knows that she will be inducted this time. In 1975, Joan Jett formed the first all girl Rock N’ Roll band- The Runaways, which consisted of Lita Ford, Sandy West, Jackie Fox, Cherie Currie, and Joan Jett herself.

Now,I feel so much clear . music progress my ear better , when I wish "I want to know” ,then I got to know many good song , great album and artist more and more for instance Michael Jackson , Miles Davis , The Eagles , The Hillsong , Louis Armstrong , Led Zeppelin , Charlie Parker , Igor Stravinsky , RHCP , Stevie wonder , Eminem , Justin Bieber etc. I know the meaning of Music more and more .

In comparison to the Fugees’ version, the switch to the female vocals resonates a more intimate and personal experience. The introduction of background vocals