America's Mixtape |
For this project I explored the question: How has music served as a social and political medium in US history? To do this I was given the task of choosing a famous song that address a social/political issue to explore and create a historical fiction about the songs issue as well as a remix of the song with evidence about it. I then created a phone powered projector that projected the audio of my song as well as slideshow. I showed all of this at an exhibition at the Logan Height Library.
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Song |
The song that I choose for this project was Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival. The song addresses the Vietnam War and how class inequality was evident during the draft. The band experienced the draft first-hand when their lead singer, John Fogerty was drafted. He ended up joining the Army Reserves for two years and when he returned the band released a new album which ended up being a hit. The album included the song Fortunate Son which revealed the bands beliefs that the lower classes were the main ones fighting over in Vietnam due to the higher classes resources to ways to escape such as deferments, even when the war was seen as the "rich man's" war and that the higher classes were the main supporters. Many others agreed with the band's lyrics, a man reason as to why it became such a hit. The son Fortunate Son is seen on the right.
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HIstorical Fiction
For my historical fiction piece I wrote a fictional piece that addressed the same issues as my song, class inequality and the draft during the Vietnam War. To do this I decided to mostly put the issues in the eyes of a young child, naive towards the unfairness of society. The piece starts in the perspective of the older brother as he reveals his emotions of being drafted and gives an insight to his understanding of the world around him. It then shifts to the younger brother as he figures out that his brother has been drafted. To him, this is not a big deal as many of his friends brothers have been drafted. However, when he overhears two higher class boys talking about ways to "escape" the war he takes the opportunity to learn and share the information with his brother. It is then that his brother tells him that some people have better opportunities in life due to their social class and that he has to go to war for the benefits. At the end of the piece the young brother is now an adult with a son of his own and he sits down to watch the news to see that they're covering the US invasion of Iraq. Another war the fortunate people have dragged unfortunate souls into. The Iraq war is a contemporary event of these issues even though it lacked a draft due to the fact that it mainly attracted the lower classes. This is due to the fact that the war offered benefits, ones that the lower classes needed and the higher classes already had.
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SOng Remix
For my song remix I wanted to include evidence towards my artist's message:__, as well as my own message:__ do this I started my piece making it very clear that class inequality was a main issue at the time, mainly due to the government and the draft. I then switched my piece to focus more towards the start of the war on poverty, which was started in 1964 by President Johnson, and how that has carried over to today. I did this by adding clips from discussions of the issue of the lower classes making up a majority of Iraq's soldiers, as well as news clips of people discussing facts that show there needs to be more of a change to make the war on poverty effective. You can hear my remix as well as watch my slideshow video that I created to play through my projector on the right.
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Projector
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