Document Based Question
To what extent and in what ways has contemporary music impacted American society
1950-1980?
Document A
Executive Secretary of the Alabama White Citizens Council, Mr. Carter,
"the obscenity and vulgarity of the rock and roll music is obviously a means by which the white man and his children could be driven to the level of the negroes. We consider this being a plot of the ideologists of the one world race, the one world economy and the one world government. If we choose to call that the communist ideology, I think we hit it fairly on the head.
Document B
Barry McGuire Eve of destruction 1965
The Eastern world, it is explodin',
Violence flarin', bullets loadin'.
You're old enough to kill, but not for votin',
You don't believe in war -- but what's that gun you're totin'?
An' even the Jordan river has bodies floatin'.
But you tell me, over and over and over again, my friend,
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.
Don't you understand what I'm tryin' to say,
An' can't you feel the fears I'm feelin' today?
If the button is pushed, there's no runnin' away,
There'll be no one to save, will the world in a grave.
Take a look around you, boy, it's bound to scare you, boy.
An' you tell me, over and over and over again, my friend,
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.
Yeak, my blood's so mad feels like coagulatin',
I'm sittin' here just contemplatin'.
I can't twist the truth, it knows no regulation,
Handful of senators don't pass legislation,
An' marches alone can't bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin',
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin'.
An' you tell me, over and over and over again, my friend,
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.
Think of all the hate there is in Red China,
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama.
Ah, you may leave here for four days in space,
But when you return it's the same ol' place,
The poundin' of the drums, the pride an' disgrace.
You can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace.
Hate your next-door neighbor, but don't forget to say grace,
An' tell me, over and over and over again, my friend,
You don't believe we're on the eve of destruction,
No, no, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

Document C
BLOWIN' IN THE WIND Bob Dylan 1962
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
Document D
Credence Clearwater Revival
“Some folks are born, silver spoon in hand
Lord, don’t they help themself’
But when the tax man comes to the door
Lord, the house look like a rummage sale.”

Document E
Ronald Reagan, campaign speech, 1966
. . . . as a matter of fact I have right here a copy of a report of the District Attorneys off of Alameda County. It concerns a dance that was sponsored by the Vietnam Day
Committee, sanctioned by the University as a student activity, and held in the men’s gymnasium at the University of California.The incidences are so bad, so contrary to our standards of human behavior that I could not possible recite them to you here from this platform in detail. But there is true evidence that there are things that shouldn’t be permitted on a university campus. Let me just read a few excerpts, the total crowd was in excess of 3000 including the number of less than college age juveniles. Three rock n’ roll bands were in the center of the Gymnasium playing simultaneously all during the dance, and all through the dance there were movies shown on two screens at opposite ends of the gymnasium, these movies were the only lights in the gym proper. They consisted of color sequences that gave the appearance of different color liquid spreading across the screen, followed by shots of men and women on occasion, shots where the men and women nude torso’s on occasion and persons twisted and gyrated in provocative and sensual fashion . . . .
Document F
We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
Chorus:
Oh deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome some day

Document G
Louis Armstrong
Document H

Document I
1969
In September, the local Roman Catholic Diocese runs a two-page ad spread in the Seattle Post Intelligencer calling for the criminal prosecution of rock musicians and for bans against "rock festivals and their drug-sex-rocksqualor culture."
Record company officials delay the release of Volunteers by Jefferson
Airplane over concerns with the album's lyrical themes.
In July, one-half of the country's Top 40 stations refuse to play "The Ballad of John and Yoko" because they feel that the lyrics are blasphemous. The song's lyrics contain references to Christ and crucifixion.
1972
In January, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee issues a report on
John Lennon and Yoko Ono, advocating the termination of Lennon's visa to live in the U.S. The report calls the couple "strong advocates of the program to 'dump Nixon'."
1975
Radio stations across the country refuse to play Loretta Lynn's "The Pill" because of its references to birth control.
1977
The Reverend Jesse Jackson calls for bans against disco music, insisting the music promotes promiscuity and drug use.
Document J
Sixty Minute Man – The Dominoes - 1951
There'll be fifteen minutes of kissin'
Then you'll holler "Please don't stop" (Don't stop!)
There'll be fifteen minutes of teasin'
Fifteen minutes of squeezin'
And fifteen minutes of blowin' my top

Document K
HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND
TRANSPORTATION UNITED STATES SENATE
FIRST SESSION ON CONTENTS OF MUSIC AND THE LYRICS OF
RECORDS SEPTEMBER 19, 1985
Dr. Paul King (child and adolescent psychiatrist)
We know some other things about the way music interacts with people. We know that music is an aid to verbal retention. Any verbal message that you receive, you are more likely to remember if it is in a musical context.
We also know that repetition increases our preference for that which is repeated.
The more we hear things, the more likely we are to internalize it and like it.
We also know that coordinated multisensory input reinforces music's message. The more senses that can be evolved in receiving a coordinated message, the more likely that message is to impact upon our conscious and subconscious.
With the aid of sophisticated marketing techniques, entertainers are elevated to the role of deities, to be worshipped by youth as if they are gods. Long hours are spent listening to heavy metal rock music, with some performers portraying themselves as charismatic leaders. The young person may then identify with the words of the song,
"You've given me a new belief." "Belief" has religious connotations, "And soon the world will love you sweet leaf." Sweet Leaf, by Black Sabbath, Warner Brothers
Records. Adolescents tell me sweet leaf refers to marijuana.
Verbal overtures are extremely philosophical. Let me give you a few examples. "The
Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden, which is Zomba Enterprises, and it goes "Woe to you, oh earth and sea./ For the Devil sends the beast with wrath,/because he knows the time is short./Let him who has understanding reckon/the number of the beast,/for it is a human number./His number is 666." The 666 refers to the Beast from Revelations.
Heavy metal is presented to kids as a religion. The adolescents are vulnerable because their sense of identity has not been formed. Their sense of meaning and purpose in life is missing. They sense in themselves a need to rebel. The topics are sex, violence, and the power of evil. The emotional hunger in these young people is met in the form of music, chemical use, and promiscuous sexual behavior, the crazier, the better. The term "partying" refers to being under the influence of drugs and listening to the heavy metal music and lyrics. Drug dependent teenagers often party alone, soaking in the lyrics and allowing it to influence their attitudes.
In heavy metal evil acts are glorified to new heights in concerts. Gunpowder is lit, people are hung and placed in coffins, demonic figures are produced, and property is destroyed. There are many stories about portrayal of evil acts on the stage, and the crowd goes wild