While every song tells a story, I believe that the quality of the story being told has really sunk within music being produced in today's society. There seems to be a cookie-cutter template within popular music in general as to what stories musical artists tell in their songs nowadays. This blog will focus less on popular music and shift towards older music and independent artists. The stories within the songs I will be discussing will be focusing on masculinity on different levels.
The first
song I would love to discuss first is the song "Carolina Drama" performed by The Raconteurs (which is ironic because a raconteur is defined as being a travelling storyteller). This is a fascinating, literal story about a young man who lives with his little brother, his mother, and his mother's alcoholic boyfriend. The young man wakes up to see that his mother's boyfriend is beating up a preacher while is mother is huddled over, crying and distraught. The young man then realizes that this preacher is the father he never met, and decides to end the life of the boyfriend who has beat the man's father within an inch of his life. It turns out that even though this man's father was never physically in his life, he supported the young man and his family by helping to pay all of the bills for their household.
This songs tells the story of a young man who sticks up for the father he never knew. At the end of the song it is never revealed on whether or not the young man's father lived through the attack inflicted by the drunk boyfriend. That is left up to the listener to decide on what happens to the young man and his family. I would like to believe that the preacher decided to have a physical appearance within the young man's life after the incident of this song. Society would prefer an outcome such as this.
Jimmy Bufett's song "Pencil Thin Mustache" illustrates Jimmy Buffett's perception of what
the image of being a man was for him while growing up. Throughout the song Jimmy Buffett talks about how wished that he had a pencil-thin mustache, dressed like Ricky Ricardo, and solved mysteries. Instead he was an awkward-looking boy who was forced to go to school, but only cared about being with women. His ideas of masculinity seem to be greatly influenced by the media he grew up around. A pencil-thin mustache showed an image that demanded respect and held power. If he dressed and looked sharply and lived dangerously, in the young Jimmy Buffett's mind, he would present the image of being a man in society. What bothers me about this song though is his perpetuation that boys only care about being cool and wanting nothing but sex. I'd like to believe though that Jimmy Buffett painted this picture to show what society has done to the boys and men of the United States and the world over.
While these two songs displayed stories about manhood and its struggles, my next blog entry will carry on with storytelling dealing with masculinity and sexulality.
The first
song I would love to discuss first is the song "Carolina Drama" performed by The Raconteurs (which is ironic because a raconteur is defined as being a travelling storyteller). This is a fascinating, literal story about a young man who lives with his little brother, his mother, and his mother's alcoholic boyfriend. The young man wakes up to see that his mother's boyfriend is beating up a preacher while is mother is huddled over, crying and distraught. The young man then realizes that this preacher is the father he never met, and decides to end the life of the boyfriend who has beat the man's father within an inch of his life. It turns out that even though this man's father was never physically in his life, he supported the young man and his family by helping to pay all of the bills for their household.This songs tells the story of a young man who sticks up for the father he never knew. At the end of the song it is never revealed on whether or not the young man's father lived through the attack inflicted by the drunk boyfriend. That is left up to the listener to decide on what happens to the young man and his family. I would like to believe that the preacher decided to have a physical appearance within the young man's life after the incident of this song. Society would prefer an outcome such as this.
Jimmy Bufett's song "Pencil Thin Mustache" illustrates Jimmy Buffett's perception of what
the image of being a man was for him while growing up. Throughout the song Jimmy Buffett talks about how wished that he had a pencil-thin mustache, dressed like Ricky Ricardo, and solved mysteries. Instead he was an awkward-looking boy who was forced to go to school, but only cared about being with women. His ideas of masculinity seem to be greatly influenced by the media he grew up around. A pencil-thin mustache showed an image that demanded respect and held power. If he dressed and looked sharply and lived dangerously, in the young Jimmy Buffett's mind, he would present the image of being a man in society. What bothers me about this song though is his perpetuation that boys only care about being cool and wanting nothing but sex. I'd like to believe though that Jimmy Buffett painted this picture to show what society has done to the boys and men of the United States and the world over.While these two songs displayed stories about manhood and its struggles, my next blog entry will carry on with storytelling dealing with masculinity and sexulality.
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