Music In America

For this week five listening blog, I chose to listen to "Mambo Italiano" by Rosemary Clooney. When I first started listening to this song, I did not think it would turn into the classic "Mambo Italiano". The beginning seems to start out slow and then after a few lines switches up and speeds it up. This song has been redone and remade many times but the original was not what I was expecting at all. The song mentioning going back to Napoli because the girl missed the sea. I listened to the song multiple times and I still don't really know what she is saying throughout the entire song but I feel like she is singing about being Italian, the food, but also dancing. So all in all it is about Italian Pride in my opinion. When she is singing she says something about no more mozzarella and to try an enchilada or something of that nature so that is what makes me think it is more about the Italian Culture and being Italian. The translation of Mambo Italiano is just Italian...

For week 4 listening blog I chose to listen to "In the Mood" by Glenn Miller. I really enjoyed this song. The song felt very happy and warm. I can see why they chose to name it, "in the mood". I liked the constant melody but then toward the end of the song he changes it up a little bit. He adds more belting of the instruments but also goes from slower to faster as well. The entire song feels like it was made to be a happy song that everyone can jam out and dance to. The time frame I get from listening to this was definitely back in the 60s. I can imagine this being played by a band at a horse race or at a summer party in Georgia. I tend to try and get submerged by the music and let it take me back to the time where it was created. I think to fully understand a song, or any music for that matter, you have to let yourself get lost in the time it was created. For more popular music in today's culture I think that is harder to do because there isnt as much passion a...

     For this listening blog, I chose to listen to Blue Yodel No. 2 by Jimmie Rodgers. The first time I listened to this song, my first thoughts were that he was singing about losing his girlfriend or wife and was forced to do some jail time at the Birmingham jail for something that she did. I think in the time when he wrote this song, his target audience was the working man and the man who wanted to have a good time. Mentioning he would not settle down or get married and would keep going until the police shot him down. I think that could be a metaphor for just wanting to go crazy and be rebellious without having a woman tie him down. On the other hand, it could be quite literal for this was the 1920's and I'm sure things were not the most civil. Depending on the crime, he could be serving a long sentence, but it seems that he will be getting out at some point. The guitar has a steady rhythm and his the yodeling he does seems like a form of crooning. It flows nicely with ...

Barbary Allen by Jean Ritchie (1960) Listened to and Analyzed by Zachary Northcutt      After listening to this ballad three times, I think it tells a very similar story as Romeo and Juliet. A common love story that has been told and told again in different forms. For example, the movie "10 things I hate About You" starring Heath Ledger and Julia styles, was a modern remake of the love story. In this song, the artists' voice sounds very sympathetic and almost yearning for the man on his death bed. She sings with remorse for the fact that she broke his heart and he has died without being able to have her [Barbary Allen]. As mentioned by Mr. Bradshaw, her country accent plays a nice part in making the ballad feel genuine and heart felt. Some of the words pronounced with her accent shows a little more pain in my opinion. This reminds me of when I would listen to Folk songs and Irish songs at the renaissance fair. Jean Ritchie makes the ballad sound like a folk song ...