Telling the story: Music’s unparalleled power to narrate the American experiment

Column

24. Januar 2025

Lesezeit: 5 Minute(n)

In 1964, the great singer, songwriter, and pianist Nina Simone lashed out against white supremacist violence after a church bombing killed four young Black girls in Birmingham, Alabama, the previous year. Her song “Mississippi Goddam” was a gut-punch: “Hound dogs on my trail, school children sitting in jail, black cat cross my path, I think every day’s gonna be my last.”
Text: Ryan Heinsius

It was a U.S. presidential election year in a contentious time, and the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing with artists like Simone, Harry Belafonte, Mahalia Jackson, Sam Cooke and many others providing the stirring soundtrack for social change. For me, this era represents the most powerful illustration of American music’s inherent political and socially conscious nature and its unparalleled power to tell stories using universal themes to spread human understanding.

The jazz genius of Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and others was the perfect vehicle for reshaping the social order. The roving, dusty storytelling of Woody Guthrie and the progressive humanism of Pete Seeger channeled the stories of the downtrodden and overlooked. CSNY’s 1970 broadside “Ohio” lambasted the Kent State University shootings, and Merle Haggard’s much-debated “Okie from Muskogee” told another story of an America that wasn’t protesting the Vietnam War and didn’t “take no trips on LSD.”

But it was Detroit’s MC5 that provided the scorched-earth soundtrack to the Chicago police’s crackdown on protestors at the 1968 Democratic National Convention—a moment that reflected the tensions of that heated presidential election year.

___STEADY_PAYWALL___

“It no longer feels like there’s middle ground.”

And now, 56 years later, another presidential election awaits us here in the U.S., and I’m wondering what role music is playing in the national conversation of a deeply divided country. All of the aforementioned artists, regardless of their viewpoints, have become important parts of the American musical canon. But now, in an era of “alternative facts”, can music still provide the potent political statements like it once did while also serving as a bridge between people of different backgrounds?

Nowadays, artists who stay politically neutral run the risk of appearing timid. And those who do express an opinion could alienate half of their audience. It’s a tough moment to navigate, especially for local musicians. I, for one, am deeply puzzled.

This bewilderment has prompted recent conversations with friends—working musicians with unique perspectives from the trenches of live music in the U.S. One of my closest friends and musical partner for two decades is Flagstaff, Arizona, based drummer Andrew Lauher. He’s a professional’s professional, having played virtually every style of music in nearly every dive bar, club, theater and honky-tonk in the Southwestern U.S. and beyond. Andrew once even found himself performing for a local chapter of the Hells Angels. He’s seen a lot, and lately he’s noticed an unmistakable wedge that’s been driven through the live music scene. “It no longer feels like there’s middle ground,” he says.

Previously, according to Andrew, it wouldn’t have been uncommon to see folks wearing cowboy hats and boots hanging at the hippie bar in town, or jam-band fans out for a night at a local country music club. Now, he says, everyone seems to have retreated to their corners, sticking with their own. It’s a trend he’s picked up on since the January 6th, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. “The music that you listen to, the vehicle you drive, how you fly your flag, these have all become polarizing things and music is absolutely right up there,” he says.

According to Andrew, when he ventures out into potentially inhospitable territory for a gig, he does his best not to be provocative, mostly keeping his head down to do his job as a musician. But a nervous uncertainty still hovers over some live shows. “I don’t want tension as part of creativity,” he says. “Creativity flows, and it can’t flow if I’m feeling resistance. And that resistance is people looking at me like, ‘Who’d you vote for?’ … I play music so that I can get into that flow state and be creative and, honestly, spread joy. And how do you spread joy with what’s going on?”

Andrew is certainly not the only musician who’s seeing the deepening divisions in American culture. Phoenix, Arizona, based singer-songwriter Nolan McKelvey feels it too. “Right now, all the histrionics and all the things that are happening and the polarization of everybody is seeming more prevalent than it’s been during my lifetime,” he says. Nolan is an old friend and a keen observer of American society and politics. He’s written highly topical songs, most recently about the deaths of Eric Garner, George Floyd, and other African Americans at the hands of police. “For me as a writer, I’m observing what’s around me and then reflecting on it and writing what I’m thinking and feeling about it,” he says. “And so, it’s unavoidable that a presidential election, particularly this one, impacts how you’re creating, what you’re thinking about and what you’re presenting to the world.”

Nolan plays with a wide variety of other musicians in the Phoenix bluegrass and folk scene. In his experience, most players just avoid talking about politics all together. It’s something that he says is a blessing of sorts, allowing music to act as a sanctuary. “We need to learn how to make beautiful music together,” he says with a chuckle, acknowledging the seeming naïveté of the sentiment.

But maybe it really is just that simple. Perhaps America just needs to wait for its partisan fever to break before people from across the political spectrum can start coming back together to see each other as fellow human beings again. And if there ever was a perfect vehicle for bridging seemingly impossible divides, music is it. I’m personally betting on it. But let’s talk again after November 5.

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Aufmacher:
Ryan Heinsius am Set der Tiny Desk Concerts bei NPR

Foto: Ryan Heinsius

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