Community Chat

[SANNA]

Very touching performance! Thank you, Oznell!

[violann]

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@Ms tyrion2 wrote:

I will agree some of these songwriters are wonderful, but they probably speak more to an older audience.

The songwriters who resonate with me are people like Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Carol King, and Ray Charles. 

I'm keeping it at Americans only since that was the thread subject, but going abroad, Lennon and McCartney take first place for me.

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Contemporary music may “speak more” to a younger audience, but I’m not a bit sure that’s a good thing.

Interesting point, though.

[Ms tyrion2]

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@violann wrote:

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@Ms tyrion2 wrote:

I will agree some of these songwriters are wonderful, but they probably speak more to an older audience.

The songwriters who resonate with me are people like Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Carol King, and Ray Charles. 

I'm keeping it at Americans only since that was the thread subject, but going abroad, Lennon and McCartney take first place for me.

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Contemporary music may “speak more” to a younger audience, but I’m not a bit sure that’s a good thing.

Interesting point, though.

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That's a curious statement.  Why would music speaking to a younger demographic not be a good thing?

I'm kind of tickled too. Who woulda thought over 50 year old music was contemporary? 

[Cakers3]

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@Oznell wrote:

Yes, "timeless" is the word, Cakers.  Like great books, art, films--  the art from every era can speak to us with the eternal truths about love, heartbreak, ambition, disappointment, loneliness, jubilance.    Human nature doesn't change, really.

I do have a personal preference for the art production as well as the pop culture of eras earlier than my own, and that includes the truly astonishing musical output of Tin Pan Alley...

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@OznellSo true.   Plus the social times that influence so many things.

Truly, to understand many themes of the arts is to understand what was the atmosphere during each generation.

Now "White Christmas" just triggered a memory of my middle sister-it was the only song she could play on the piano by heart.  LOL

[golding76]

Thank you for the video, Oznell.  I noticed that the year of the performance was the very strife-ridden 1968.    A couple decades ago, I pronounced it the worst year for the U.S. and me, personally.  (All pre-2001.)   I've always hated 1968.  Then Time magazine came out with an edition that cited 1968 as a most wretched year.  So I wasn't alone...  

My thought is that having Irving Berlin sing "God Bless America" at that time was a healing moment for our divided country.  The Vietnam war had divided the land into two conflicting cultures: Traditional Middle America and the new hippie counter-culture saw life from two different perspectives.