The Beatles Political Impact

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INTRODUCTION
Popular music was heavily impacted by the Cold War, and relationships between political and cultural events and features of the music can be found frequently. Ansari (2012) stated that the political impact of the Cold War ‘affected American music of all kinds’, and that certain singers, including Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, became ‘figureheads in the countercultural, anti-war movement that swept the nation during the 1960s’.

THE BEATLES
The Beatles were arguably the best known and loved band of the 1960s. They played a huge role in the Cold War, creating a relationship between their music and the events of the time. They are particularly remembered for beating communism and demeaning the Soviet Union.

Woodhead (2013a) stated that …show more content…

Some of these elements include the uptempo character, the depiction in McCartney’s lyrics of a good feeling after having returned to the USSR, and the lyric ‘You don’t know how lucky you are boy, back in the USSR’ (The Beatles 1968b). The lyric ‘Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out, they really leave the West behind’ (The Beatles 1968c) is one that sympathises with the idea that the Eastern countries were supportive of the boundary and wanted no relation to the Western …show more content…

‘Masters of War’ (Dylan 1963a) was written as a protest against the fuelling of the nuclear arms race.

The repeated riff in the song supports the idea of Dylan’s message repeating itself through various lyrics. The serious matter of the song also comes across in the repeated chord of E minor. Some of the songs lyrics, including ‘I just want you to know, I can see through your masks’ (Dylan 1963b) and ‘You play with my world, like it’s your little toy’ (Dylan 1963c) can be interpreted as Dylan’s way of protesting to weapon manufacturers that they were making the world a worse place, and they needed to stop encouraging further conflict through their actions.

Sanjana Ray described how much of an impact Bob Dylan’s music had on the world, and studied a few of his best works. One of these songs was ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ (Dylan 1964a). Ray (2017) stated that Dylan’s goal with the song was to encourage his audiences to ‘join the right side of the movement, the one that fights for equality and against ugly

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