[jenniferdurst]

Just an intro note, this essay was written for my Music304 class (history of rock and roll) and was supposed to be a short description of singer-songwriters today as compared to yesterday and then describe possible explanations so much of this is my opinion (but it must be pretty damn good if I got an A- on it). I thought I could at least make a contribution to legends since I've been so damn busy lately.

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Singer-songwriter music has changed quite a bit since it reared its head as a mainstream genre. This change was not only in the context of the lyrics, but also in their contextual format. These changes reflect society’s changing views and needs throughout the past few decades. This paper will discuss some contemporary singer-songwriters as well as briefly review some of the originals, and then explain how and why the genre has changed.

Tori Amos is a an American singer-songwriter who got her start in the early 90s. Her music covers a wide variety of subjects, but overall it widely deals with social issues and per personal tragedies. Her music challenges views of religion, sexuality, and patriarchy. Because of her liberal tendency, she has become an icon among the gay community as well as for many people worldwide. Amos is also one of the few stars to emerge as a major contemporary artist who uses the piano as her primary instrument. Her lyrics tend to be descriptions of situations or a thought rather than narratives.

Ani DiFranco is a prolific American singer-songwriter who started around the same time as Tori Amos, but has stayed underground throughout most of it. She has mainly emerged as a feminist icon. Her lyrics are cryptic and symbolic for the most part and are sometimes in the form of narratives, but mostly metaphors and sentences of wordplay strung together. DiFranco says that she is a folk artist not because she uses an acoustic guitar as her main instrument, but because folk music is “an awareness of one's heritage, and it's a community,” noting that the genre can also be found in rap, punk, and rock as well.

John Mayer has emerged more recently to the singer-songwriter genre. An excellent blues guitarist, his music reflects his personal experiences and the need for social change. He also writes of challenging authority, but on a smaller scale than governmental authority. He has achieved mainstream success on the pop circuit rather than developing a cult following like some of his singer-songwriter peers.

The singer-songwriters of yesterday had two main styles. First there were the narrative songs that told stories more for the sake of illustrating how much of a downer life could really be and then there were the songs that expressed dissatisfaction with the government. The narrative stories of Don McLean (such as “American Pie” and “Vincent”) were about int influential people who had problems like the average Joe, but who died tragic deaths while Billy Joel’s lyrics are reminiscent of his own struggle of depression. Artists like Bruce Springsteen also wrote about the struggles of daily life, but took it a step further to cast the blame without ever really pointing a finger. The song “Born in the USA” tells of a life of poverty where it’s hard to get by, but the solution is in the government letting you join the army to fight for their meaningless war (Vietnam) which essentially is the same cycle only now it’s someone else’s fault that your life isn’t going to well. “Born to Run” is similar in it is a love song written to a girl talking about how they need to get out of the place they are currently because they’re oppressed by the rich. A lot of this dissatisfaction with the government was economically based.

The change in lyrics of these singer-songwriters is a trend that shifts from economic to social. This could be for a number of reasons, although it may have something to do with the fact that the singer-songwriters of yesterday had hard lives, but today it’s easy to get a record contract. All you need is money, and if today’s singer-songwriters have the money to produce a record (since many have private labels and produce themselves), they’re likely not worried about economic issues so much. However, many of these people call for a social revolution. Tori Amos’s music that calls for equal rights for homosexuals and non-mainstream religions along with Ani DiFranco’s feminist views scream softly for change while John Mayer’s single “Waiting on the World to Change” pretty simply sums up our generation and how we actually react to the government and society. He states, “we just feel like we don't have the means to rise above and beat it, so we keep waiting...” Maybe that theme isn’t so different from the singer-songwriters of yesterday, but to me I can think of them and retrospectively see that they pulled a nation together during times like the Vietnam War.

So, why is the effect of singer-songwriter’s music so different today? It’s possibly because we can’t see the effect of what we’re doing now and our generation is focused on the present rather than the future or maybe it’s because our generation is more hedonistic than many before. While those are possible explanations, I think it’s more likely to be because of how diverse music is today. It definitely used to be much more difficult to acquire a record contract which means the music going out was more controlled and there was less of a choice, but in the age of the internet where you don’t even need more than a computer microphone to make your music heard, the music has become must less mainstream and about broad topics. It seems to cater to a target group rather than a general audience.

The musical change also shows a shift in our philosophical ideologies. Music that reflects economic issues is music speaking of survival, to put it at its simplest. Music that asks for social change shows that we now have time to think and time to make life better for everyone since there is now a life to live that includes free time. It shows that society as a whole has moved to the next step on Maslow’s hierarchy. I don’t know if either is any better or any worse, but we’re certainly not as rallied as it used to make us.

[DaveWB]

Excellent! I enjoyed this.

With regards to music in Maslow’s hierarchy - I wonder how far up music is, in my hierarchy. I sometimes think music is one of the most important things in my life. But then I am sitting here with a full belly in a warm house and little fear of my neighbours.

Cheers.