Publisher's Synopsis
During the past century recorded music has echoed from phonographs, jukeboxes, car radios, televisions, portable Walkmen, and contemporary digital devices. In addition to general listeners and record buyers, music scholars have taken interest in audio imagery and prominent themes in lyrics. This volume continues that academic tradition. However, it should be noted that rather than just naming isolated subjects in songs, this investigation probes for clusters of ideas that constitute important audio themes. This is the second of several volumes in the "Persistent Themes" Series being sponsored by The Paw Paw Press. Each volume examines a few highly important general themes by breaking them down into component topics and illustrating several recordings that constitute the framework for both the smaller topics and the over-arching themes. For example, the authors have identified "Military Conflicts" as an important lyrical theme. They have gathered hundreds of recordings that illustrate this theme and arranged these songs by topic, such as "Anti-War Songs", "Patriotic Anthems", "Peace Hymns", "Soldiers", "The Vietnam War, and so on. Thus the general theme is justified by the large number of recordings attributed to each of the related sub-topics. This combined thematic and topical approach to the lyrical content of popular recordings is extremely detailed. It requires several volumes to present a sufficiently diverse examination of theme patterns. Currently, the authors are pursuing 21 different themes. The discographic presentation required to illustrate the breadth and scope of these 21 themes will require the production of five volumes of "Persistent Theme" studies over the next five years. The anticipated timeline and thematic structures being pursued are listed below: PERSISTENT THEMES IN SOUND RECORDINGS -- Five Volumes Volume One (2016) -- Addictions, Christmas, Death, and Religion Volume Two (2016) -- Animals, Dance Styles, Halloween, and Military Conflicts Volume Three (2017) -- Communications, Marriage, Transportation, and Traveling Volume Four (2019) -- Education, Occupations, Physical Appearance, and Political Commentaries Volume Five (2020) -- Romantic Relationships, Technology, Time, Weather Conditions, and Youth Culture The structure throughout these volumes is alphabetical, with major themes, secondary support topics, and all individual recordings that illustrate the topics presented from A-thru-Z. Recordings constitute the heart of these studies. Each record citation consists of a full song title, the record label and number, the name of the recording artist, and the date of release. The authors acknowledge that no single research volume could capture all themes, all topics, or all recordings that have been circulated. This project is designed to be illustrative and representative rather than comprehensive.
