this led to such slogans as “Communism is the Americanism of the 20th Century.” On a political level this meant that the Roosevelt New Deal wouldn’t be portrayed as capitalists pushing insufficient reforms to stave off the inevitable revolution, and that actual “card-carrying Communists” would be mixing more generally with socialists, liberals and centrists. Communist Party decided to switch tactics from a more purist “only the Communist Party is the solution” stance to a popular front position, where anyone to the left of the then rising Fascist forces were considered valid allies.** national, the Soviet Union-dominated international Comintern and the U. For political reasons both international and U. Then, in the mid-1930s, a decision was made, outside of music and poetry-a political decision-that eventually changed the course of popular music lyrics. Lively arts and all, some notice was taken.* With the music inspired by Jazz, the cultural force of the music could not be denied, even if the words that came along with it might be condescended to. Poets and literary critics occasionally paid a little bit of attention to that work in their time. Lyricists came from a wide range of backgrounds-some were middle class, even college educated, but many were immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants for whom English was a fresh language.Īs with any mass art or market, much of what they produced was forgettable, a job of work, their ears may have sometimes bent to the muse, but their hands were looking for a paycheck. Barriers to entry were low in this business, but rewards for popular success were high.

Composers and lyricists churned out uncountable numbers-and first by sheet music and then by recordings, film, and broadcasts, these productions could be distributed widely. Popular songwriting had become industrialized. Today let’s start in the 20 th Century in America and follow the songwriter’s side of things. Widespread literacy and the printing press, and by the Modernist era, a desire to include complex allusions and layers of ambiguity all helped this progression along. I traveled fast, and simplified much, but it wouldn’t be out of line to say this is a progression from poetry that was expected to be performed with music to a poetry that wasn’t. Last post I rapidly traced poetry from the era of Homer and Sappho and the Confucian Odes, jumped to English language poetry and finally ended with early 20 th century Americans.

Pure music ggravitation force