American Music through the Belief Lens

By Cody Fuda

Everyone has their own beliefs, some may have more than others. But what matters to a person, even something like an opinion, is a belief. According to the Black’s Law dictionary, a belief is defined as: “A conviction of the truth of a proposition, existing subjectively in the mind, and induced by argument, persuasion, or proof addressed to the judgment.” (9) So unlike values, beliefs can be changed overtime or with thought.

Let’s start the journey of American Music in the 1940’s. Frank Sinatra, a name almost no American in unfamiliar with (at least not in any Italian home like my own), started campaigning for civil rights. This started as he witnessed a young Jewish boy being chased by ten other boys after a recording session. This is where he, on his own, had accepted that all Americans are equal. He became friends with almost all large Black jazz and blues artists at the time such as Billy Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald and requested an integrated backing orchestra for performances. At the time, Las Vegas’s strip would not allow any colored performances and thus forced them down the way in a less glamorous area. Frank caught word of this happening and would refuse to play at any club if they did not allow the audience to be for all races and for them to allow a colored performer later on. By the time the 60’s started, Sinatra would march
with Martin Luther King Jr. in civil rights marches after Sinatra would financially back the movement. He won a lifetime award from the NAACP for these actions. (1)

“A friend to me has no race, no class and belongs to no minority. My friendships are formed out of affection, mutual respect and a feeling of having something in common. These are eternal values that cannot be classified,”

Frank Sinatra, Ebony Magazine 1958

The powers Frank had at the time were huge with how big his genre of music was, how popular he was with the American people, and how he had the music to back him up. His value was to challenge the existing conditions in which many Black Americans had to suffer. Through this power, he was able to change the beliefs of other Americans that Blacks and other minorities are not as equal into values of the opposite.

Speaking of power, in 1970 on May 4th, college students had gathered at Kent State University in Ohio to protest the bombing of Cambodia and the involvement of the USA in the Vietnam War. The Ohio governor at the time, Jim Rhodes, had ordered National Guardsmen to observe the protest. After multiple attempts to disperse the crowd, the regimen moved over what is known as Blanket Hill. There are accounts that it is there that many of the men turned back to the crowd and started firing into it. The men later had reports that they feared for their own lives. However, the aftermath of the event had left four dead and wounded nine, one of those wounded was fully paralyzed. Two of those dead were not participating in the rally and simply walking to their next class. (2)

A song was later composed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young dubbed “Ohio” released in June 1970. The main focus of the song was to showcase the events of the Kent State shootings and bring forth the beliefs of the population against the Vietnam War. Some of the lines to inflict the horror and outrage of the populous include, “Four dead in Ohio,” “Tin soldiers and Nixon coming.” The line including Nixon was not an accident as Neil Young purposefully was aiming at the President of the United States at the time as he was being brave and calling out more than just the troops that fired onto the crowd. The counterculture group of the time took hold of the song and promoted the four men who wrote it as leaders and spokesmen for the rest of the decade. The song later was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2009. (3) The song can be found here.

The American Dream is something most immigrants will talk about when asked the reasoning behind moving to America. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the American Dream as “a happy way of living
that is thought of by many Americans as something that can be achieved by anyone in the U.S. especially by working hard and becoming successful.” Although a belief by many, it has turned into a value to seek the American Dream by others.

Patriotism is something that is often seen to go hand in hand with the American Dream. There are many songs that can induce patriotism into almost any American like the Star Spangled Banner, and a favorite of mine, God Bless America by Lee Greenwood. First written in 1983, on the 20th anniversary in 2003, online voters named this song “the most recognizable patriotic song” in the nation. (4) However, what’s become of this belief in patriotism is often regarded as ignorance. There is now a belief that patriotism is seen as foolish and the opposite in not believing.

To add to the layer of this issue, it is also a problem that many who do firmly call themselves a patriot also believe in gun rights. Unfortunately for many young people of the current generation of America, there is a fear of going into public places like schools or malls in the instance there is a mass shooting. Nearly every other day, there is a mass shooting somewhere in America. According to Gun Violence Archive.org, a mass shooting is classified as four people or more involved being injured and or killed. (5) Gun control is a hot topic in American because of these events. There is a stubborn stance in guns being revoked and becoming illegal as well as all guns being legal and there should not be a difficult way to obtain one. The most common argument in the matter is the second amendment. The second amendment refers to the rights to bear arms and militia.

There was a hearing in New York city as of January 22nd, 2019 for the abuse of current gun laws within the city. The current laws regulated the use of firearms to outside the city and that any firearms should not be carried in public at all. The court itself deemed guns for self defense in the home. Although the hearing will be to allow a more liberal carrying measure, the court seems to disfavor the idea. Many officials of the city say that the possession of guns should be kept at a low to reduce gun violence. (6)

A current example of music being involved in the issue is This is America by Childish Gambino. A music video starring the vocalist of Childish Gambino, Donald Glover, covers a range of topics revolving around gun control and the current state of America as well as touching on racism and how it is to live as a black person in America. The video has a lot of symbolism laid in it to further show how deep the message goes. The video starts with Glover shooting the guitarist in the head as the song transitions into a trap song. The gun is then carried away in a red velvet cloth while the body is ignored. The background dancers are all wearing school uniforms as well showing someone commit suicide wearing all white clothing. This is to show how a big population of those affected by gun violence are children and that the perpetrator usually is sentenced to death or kills themselves before receiving punishment. Glover then later shoots a choir of black gospel singers with a much larger gun and this one too is taken away in a velvet cloth. The cars shown in the background are all old and worn down to show the state of the lower class and what is often called the ghetto. As Glover runs away in the ending scene, you can see many people chasing him in reference to how many black people had to live on the run before civil rights. (7) Take a watch here:

All in all, the power of music and art can change how people see the world around them. As Postman has said many times in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, the written word is perceived very highly but the power of oral word can entrance people into ideas they may have never heard or cared about before. (8) Humans have always enjoyed music and used it to capture an idea and tell it to many others. Music is powerful if you believe in it. Thank you for reading.

Work Cited

(1) Crowley, Lean. “#Sinatra100: Frank Sinatra, Civil Rights Champion.” JAZZIZ Magazine, 11 Dec. 2015, https://www.jazziz.com/sinatra100-frank-sinatra-civil-rights-champion/.

(2) “Kent State Shootings.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Feb. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings.

(3) “Ohio (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Song).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Feb. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_(Crosby,_Stills,_Nash_%26_Young_song).

(4) Great American Country. “Top 20 Patriotic Songs.” GAC, Great American Country, 26 Apr. 2017, www.greatamericancountry.com/living/lifestyles/top-20-patriotic-songs.

(5) “Mass Shootings in 2019.” Gun Violence Archive, 2019, www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting.

(6) Wolf, Richard. “Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Gun Rights Case after Nearly a Decade of Inaction on Second Amendment.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 22 Jan. 2019, www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/22/supreme-court-will-hear-gun-rights-case/2482910002/.

(7) Gajanan, Mahita. “Childish Gambino’s ‘This Is America’: Breaking Down Symbols.” Time, Time, 7 May 2018, time.com/5267890/childish-gambino-this-is-america-meaning/.

(8) Postman, N. (2006). Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business (20th anniversary ed.). New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Penguin Books.

Takaki, R. (2008). A different mirror a history of multicultural America. New York, NY: Back Bay Books.

(9) “What Is BELIEF? Definition of BELIEF (Black’s Law Dictionary).” The Law Dictionary, 4 Nov. 2011, thelawdictionary.org/belief/.