1991-2000: Smells Like Teen Spirit

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg

Nirvana came out with this song in 1991. Kurt Cobain, a member of the American rock band, was the one who wrote the song. He publically admitted that when he started writing the song, he was initially trying to copy the Pixies.

This song is famously known as being a part of the Grunge Movement. This song was written in a time when people were killed over the labels they were wearing or the brand of their shoes. The Grunge Movement started in Washington state when people refused to wear high-end clothes on the street. Quickly, the new “in” thing to do was wear oversized, messy-looking clothes with greasy hair. This drew attention away from the violence that spawned from expensive clothing.

Reading the lyrics can only be slightly less confusing once you know that Kurt Cobain was a heroin addict. The words themselves don’t make any sense, like many other songs of this same generation and genre. This song expresses the 90’s well because it was the time of the Grunge Movement and nearing the end of the age of sense-less dance music.

This item does not specifically talk about one subject, so there is a lot that isn’t discussed. The Grunge Movement isn’t mentioned by name and it’s only inferred that this song is about that. This song also doesn’t talk about the violence that led to the Grunge Movement.

1981-1990: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeMFqkcPYcg

The song was written by the singing duo, Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart, from Britain. The two are known as the Eurythmics when performing. The 1980’s were the age of music that was fast-paced and fun to dance to. Many songs also had random words that were purely thrown together just to rhyme, much like music that was released later in the Beatles’ career. This piece was created to be a single for the Eurythmics album.

When you take a look at the lyrics, the song is talking about life as it is, saying that here we are in our existence, trying to make sense of our lives and to survive. The words say that some people who come into your life won’t be good to you and don’t have good intentions. It continues on to say that overcoming obstacles is just part of life.

This song expresses the time period by being one of the most famous songs from the 1980’s known for its dance-y beat and intriguing lyrics.

This song doesn’t tell us any particular story of one person or emotion. It’s a blanket song in that it was made and written to appeal to everybody who liked to dance. This song also doesn’t tell us about any cultural things that were happening at the time.

1971-1980: Imagine

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwUGSYDKUxU

     “Imagine” by John Lennon is a very simple, slow song that came out in 1971. It originated when John Lennon wrote it. At the time, he felt more at liberty to say he’d gotten the idea himself and took the credit for the creativity of the song. However, later he admitted that many of the ideas and even some of the lyrics came from a book Grapefruit by Yoko Ono, published in 1964. When Lennon began writing the piece, he was in his bedroom in England and playing the piano. Lennon and Ono ended up co-producing the song.

     This song was built upon ideas from the past because it was a time when our country was still at war in Vietnam and the younger generation that had been the hippies were now growing up. Drugs were also becoming a force in Lennon’s life and he’s said to have quite powerful, philosophical hallucinations when he was under the influence.

     Why was the piece created? The piece was created when Lennon wanted to express his views on how an ideal world looks to him. He described the perfect communist/socialist community with no borders of countries. He describes a world free of religion, reason to kill; with only peace between people.

     With this song, John Lennon uses his lyrics to describe a peaceful, loving, and harmonious world of people who can coexist and get along together. This song expresses out the time period well for the people who were done with the Vietnam War and just wanted things to be peaceful again.

     This song, while talks about how things could be better, doesn’t say anything about what’s actually wrong. The song also gives no explanation to what types of problems the changes are trying to solve.

1961-1970: Let It Be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajCYQL8ouqw

This piece of music is a song named “Let It Be”. How did it originate? John Lennon and Paul McCartney, both members of the Beatles, wrote the song together. McCartney says he got the song idea after he had a dream about his mom who had died from cancer when he was fourteen years old. Although the song was originally written for McCartney’s mother, it could have a double meaning regarding the Vietnam War. At this time, many young people were resisting the movement to draft young men to go fight in the war that they didn’t necessarily believe in.

During my research I found explicit points saying that “Mother Mary” was not a biblical reference. However, with that I also found that there are several lyrics based on verses from the Bible. The song is about leaving things to be what they are and not getting upset. It also leaves an overall message of waiting for the answer that will inevitably come.

This song expresses the time period well because it has a very 60’s feel to it that brings listeners back to the Hippie days. It’s got a very flow-y sound and is very much immersed in its time.

     What can this item not tell us about the time period?  From this song you cannot gather any information about how the Vietnam War was going or what was the cause of it. You also don’t truly get an explanation of what the context of the song is, as I found that from research rather than lyrics.