Singer-Songwriters and Social Activists

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Recommended: The effect of music on society

Have you ever thought what the world would be like without music? In my opinion, simply boring. Now imagine a movie in a dramatic scene without that instrumental song that makes us want to know what’s going to happen. It wouldn’t be the same. The reality is that we have the privilege to incorporate music into our lives and make our days happier by listening to the music we love. There’s also been important artists who involved social issues to their songs or even racism issues and for me that’s amazing how they had the courage to express their opinions and feelings towards those issues with music. Artists such as Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday, John Lennon, Frank Sinatra and Pete Seeger.

The first artist I am going to talk about is Mr.Bob Dylan, who was born on May 24,1941. He was a folk singer and songwriter, his full name is Robert Allen Zimmerman but with time he took the name of Bob Dylan when performing folk and country songs.According to Pbs.org, his influences towards music were Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard. When his singer career started, some of his early songs like “Blowin in the wind” and “The Times They Are A Changin” became anthems for the U.S civil rights and the Anti-War movements. The lyrics he used to be about politics, social issues, philosophy and literary influences. Dylan’s songs often included real life stories on them, like in the song, “Only a Pawn on their game”, describing the brutal murder of a civil rights worker Medgar Evers. Another issue Dylan argued about was the breakdown of farming and mining communities, which was followed by two songs he made due to this political issue, “Boots of Spanish leather and “One too many mornings”. Later on, in the year 1963, Dylan felt controlled ...

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...fluences in the wars and his political views.

Bibliography
Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 07 May 2014. .

Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 07 May 2014. .

"Explore PBS." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 05 May 2014.
.

"Frank Sinatra." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 05 July 2014. Web. 07 May 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_sinatra "John Lennon." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 05 July 2014. Web. 07 May 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_lennon Richards, Chris. "For Pete Seeger, Music and Politics Were Inextricable." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 28 Jan. 2014. Web. 07 May 2014.
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