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Songs of the Right



I do believe that rykodisc may have put out a compilation of such songs of
the right, but not extreme far right.

My recommendation would be to try the pop culture archives at Bowling Green
and Michigan State.  While not "popular music" this kind of material is
often included in such places.  Ohio State U. had quite a collection on the
Klan, as I recall.

I would also check the Journal of American Culture and the Journal of
Popular Culture, people have written on this before.

While my knowledge of the medium is dulled by age and distance from my
studies, I recall that the songs of the far-right were often Christian songs
("Onward Christian Soldiers"), traditional American patriotic tunes ("God
Bless America"), co-optations of Reich tunes (I forget the name of the song,
but one was the song that is sung in film _Battle of the Bulge_ by the tank
corps), and eventually original somewhat popular songs of counter-dissent
("Okie from Muskogee"). The irony was that the most of the original
composers were Jewish, abolitionists, or lefties like Woody Guthrie.

It is also important to include the absence of music from these groups.
Many religious based movements saw music as evil, or put musics on a very
complicated sliding scale of good to evil (hymns = good, rhythm and blues -
performed by blacks = very evil, but rhythm and blues music with religious
lyrics - performed by blacks or whites = good!, etc.)

Of course it is very important to define your political spectrum when doing
any of these studies.  The "right," as well as the "left," were/are
remarkably diverse within their half of the spectrum. American Nazi's were
certainly different from the Young American's For Freedom and College
Republicans.

Are more difficult task if finding the musical tradition of the decidedly
moderate.
I guess the mommas and the poppas were called the Mugwumps at some point!

good luck!
c-

________________________________________

Chuck Piotrowski
Campus Records Manager
Chancellor's Office Administrative Records Supervisor
Office of the Chancellor
296 McHenry Library
University of California,  Santa Cruz
1156 High St.
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
831.459.2666
chuckp@cats.ucsc.edu
http://www2.ucsc.edu/iam
________________________________________


-----Original Message-----
From: Casey Greene [mailto:cgreene@ROSENBERG-LIBRARY.ORG]
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 10:43 AM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: 60s songs


Try the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Politial Movements at the
University of Kansas at Lawrence.  They carry all sorts of ephemera from
extremist groups of the 1960s.  I can only imagine how a "rock song" by
the Minutemen would have sounded...

Casey Edward Greene
Head of Special Collections
Rosenberg Library
2310 Sealy
Galveston, TX  77550

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