I guess what I'm saying is that I'm dead inside?

Possibly obligatory.

Right, Dylan skipped Ed Sullivan-- his refusal to obediently comply got him more mainstream publicity and "cool cred" than a performance would have. The point is that he was already on enough of a career trajectory to get Ed Sullivan’s invite. Sullivan had a knack for anointing acts who were still cresting, most obviously Elvis and the Beatles. For many people, their first exposure to Dylan was at the March. It doesn’t mean that Dylan was unheard outside of the Cafe Wha?

Point taken, and well taken. Dylan's early years were formed by not just the civil rights movement, but by Woody Guthrie and earlier folk artists of an activist bent. His musical response to that was what got him invited onto Sullivan, but you can't argue with chronology, and though I hadn't previously known it, the Sullivan appearance preceded the MOW.

(And for that matter, for all I know it was the Sullivan appearance that got him invited to the March. Prior to that march, Dylan wasn't exactly a well-known quantity within the civil rights movement, but given his then-current repertory and his Sullivan exposure, it made perfect sense to have him be one of the warmup acts for the main speakers on the Mall.)

That said, if you weren't "there", you can at least get a partial understanding by hunting down video footage of actual mass meetings. Not clips of Bob Dylan or Joan Baez singing at Carnegie Hall, but documentary footage that's in first rate compilations such as the DVD release of King: From Montgomery to Memphis.

Or you can just youtube "March on Washington" and see most of it as the TV cameras showed it BITD.

In fact, I just listened to Joan Baez croon "We Shall Overcome." I've heard better.

I'm afraid you did "have to be there" to truly understand the impact not only of We Shall Overcome, but of the entire role of music in keeping hope alive in days when white supremacy was as embedded in the DNA of this country as salt is in Doritos.


If there are any universal truths out there, one of them is that this is the kind of thing people say when describing the music and events of the time they were young. The arguably closer connection between a small niche of popular music and political action during the Civil Rights Era doesn't change this timeless truth an iota.

If we’re talking about the confluence of the early 1960s, breakthrough musical performances, and live television news coverage, nobody tops this guy.

(Janelle Monae's The Archandroid) On my to get list, but somehow I never do.

Half of it is utterly brilliant (the other half are genre exercises that didn't really work for me).

Details are sketchy, but Elvis Costello stopped in the middle of a song on SNL in 1977-78 as some form of protest against censorship. Of course, it might have helped if the producers had run subtitles.

How many people do you think watched the speech live on TV?

With every network running it live, and with the late afternoon timing, I'd imagine it would have been quite a lot.

For me the irony is that although I'd been at the March beginning around 7:00 in the morning, by the time King got up to the podium I'd gotten on the bus and gone up to visit my parents. For many of the SNCC marchers the highlight of the day was to be John Lewis's highly edited speech, and when that was over, the fatigue started to set in. It wasn't one of my brighter decisions.

Costello started playing "Less Than Zero," cut the song off, and then launched into "Radio Radio" instead. NBC censors hadn't vetted the song, and Costello was banned from SNL for more than ten years as a result. Costello said he got the idea from Jimi Hendrix, who'd pulled a similar stunt on BBC Television in the late 1960s.

Details are sketchy, but Elvis Costello stopped in the middle of a song on SNL in 1977-78 as some form of protest against censorship. Of course, it might have helped if the producers had run subtitles.

Supposedly, NBC didn't want him to play "Radio Radio," so he stopped the band a few moments into "Less Than Zero" (which had no meaning for American audiences anyway, since it concerned the old British fascist leader Oswald Moseley) & played the former instead.

Edit: Beverage of Gonfalon's choice.

Well, you see, NBC didn't want EC to play "Radio Radio" so...
[Costello's peak is, for my preferences, the highest of any solo artist. Adore him.]

I'm afraid you did "have to be there" to truly understand the impact not only of We Shall Overcome, but of the entire role of music in keeping hope alive in days when white supremacy was as embedded in the DNA of this country as salt is in Doritos.

If there are any universal truths out there, one of them is that this is the kind of thing people say when describing the music and events of the time they were young. The arguably closer connection between a small niche of popular music and political action during the Civil Rights Era doesn't change this timeless truth an iota.

That kind of begs the question of the relative influence of various genres of music once you step outside of the realm of music. I doubt if many history mavens with encyclopedic knowledge of the role of We Shall Overcome, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Like A Rolling Stone, and the greatest hit of The Who in shaping the world as we know it today, would ever have any trouble stating that the first of those songs was far more "influential" than the other three.

stating that the first of those songs was far more "influential" than the other three.

Not snark, but how would one ever measure how influential a song was (assuming popularity did not figure into it too heavily)?

I have no idea how that could be argued one way or another. Unless we are talking musically influenctial, which I guess could be determined, but I am pretty sure that is not the influence we are talking.

Shhh, they're on a roll
(More seriously, I don't know either.)

C'mon, Andy was "there" at least at a 66% reason-rate simply to meet the loose, leftist chicks of the era. I refuse to be convinced otherwise. I'd have done the
same thing, back when I was 20 or whatever.

You guys are arguing impressions. One can't argue impressions. Andy's is that WSO was "influential." YMMV, its the nature of this kind of thing. It was a powerful
song I suppose.

Jim Crow was goin' down either way.

Not snark, but how would one ever measure how influential a song was (assuming popularity did not figure into it too heavily)?

Obviously it's not anything that can be measured quantitatively, but....

If you want to determine the most influential song (or singers) within the realm of music, you might ask as many musicians as you can who their major musical influences were, and then augment that by seeing if you can discover what past generations of musicians said. You may or may not get a final answer, and you'd have to take it by genre (Bach probably didn't have much direct influence on The Who), but at least that'd be one way of beginning.

And if you want to try to determine which song had the greatest influence on history beyond the realm of music, you might want to ask as many political historians as you could find who were acquainted with a broad range of music. One such historian who's very well versed in both social/political history and the history of 60's pop music would be Douglas Brinkley of Rice, who's written and talked extensively on both subjects for the last 25 years.

Beyond that, you'd want to talk to a broad cross section of people who participated in history changing movements and ask them. It'd require a lot of work, but it'd give you a much more coherent answer than just googling Billboard charts or Nielson ratings.

One such historian who's very well versed in both social/political history and the history of 60's pop music would be Douglas Brinkley of Rice, who's written and talked extensively on both subjects for the last 25 years.

Which reminds me of a different historian named Brinkley (David's son, in fact), Alan, & that I need to unearth my copy of his Voices of Protest. I don't believe I've read anything of Douglas'.

Still tricky, though.

For instance, the Velvet Underground's influence was far greater than their sales suggests - sure - but just becasue the people that bought their albums started bands doesn't mean that those same people weren't also influenced by, I dunno, bubblegum pop, in ways they didn't want to admit to (or were conscious of). A thing observed or asked of is a thing changed.

I don't mean to suggest that just because we're all black boxes means that analysis is impossible but I'm less confident in man's ability to suss these things out than I once was.

And if you want to try to determine which song had the greatest influence on history beyond the realm of music, you might want to ask as many political historians as you could find who were acquainted with a broad range of music. One such historian who's very well versed in both social/political history and the history of 60's pop music would be Douglas Brinkley of Rice, who's written and talked extensively on both subjects for the last 25 years.

Just to keep our eye on the ball, though, the claim that got me involved was that WSO was more influential on a "generation" than any work of the Beatles or the Who -- and, really, by implication anyone else. I would intrepret that to mean far more than merely politics, instead something like "the aesthetics, tastes, and souls."

WSO is just the same verse over and over again, there's no chorus. Kinda like Promised Land by Chuck Berry in that regard. AmIrite?

This seems like semantical shadow boxing. "We Shall Overcome" was influential mostly in that it influenced people to sing "We Shall Overcome." While it is now an undeniable aural shorthand for the civil rights movement as a whole, that movement wouldn't have missed a step had the song never existed. Whereas we can think of many songs, albums or artists whose absence would have delayed, diverted or derailed subsequent musical developments. Does that mean that Ramones-influenced songs are more important to America than our greater freedoms? Historically, does the mighty influence of "We Shall Overcome" pale in comparison to the even mightier influence of that musical masterpiece "Over There"? If Bob Dylan hadn't walked out on CBS, would it have inspired Ed Sullivan to go electric? Could Bull Connor do the Monkey? So many important questions.

It was an outcome, an expression, of the movement. It had a signifying usage. It helps make you feel and think the universe is kin and you have place in it. Yes, if it hadn't existed, something would have been found or created. Everyone has a song. The Salvation Army has a song. Both the Union and the Confederacy had songs. Harvard has a song. So do the Campfire Girls. The song We Shall Overcome created nothing except a good feeling of comradeship. This is a confusion of cause and effect. We Shall Overcome caused nothing.

Everyone has a song--even Monty Burns

Does that mean that Ramones-influenced songs are more important to America than our greater freedoms?

As in the first 4 Ramones albums? That's a no-brainer, man!

There is more than one Ramones song? Really?


(I kid, well a little)

Thanks for the soul suggestions, gents. I will check it out. I feel like the depth of quality soul music that came out in the 60's into the 70's gets really unappreciated sometimes.

There is more than one Ramones song? Really?


(I kid, well a little)

There is something -- well, a lot -- to that, but when you throw in "Bonzo Goes to Bitberg" & "You Don't Come Close" & "Questioningly," for starters ... man, those guys had some serious pop chops.

Questioningly

Ridiculously good song.

Joey Ramone used to come into Pauls's Lounge every so often in the EV when me and my friends would be watching the Knicks/Lakers or something kinda late--
because there was no cable in my building until about 1988 or so, I had to go out and drink to see games. Anyway, you had to do the too cool to drool bit,
and pretend you didn't notice a famous guy across the bar. It was required to avoid harsh mockery.

Just to keep our eye on the ball, though, the claim that got me involved was that WSO was more influential on a "generation" than any work of the Beatles or the Who -- and, really, by implication anyone else. I would interpret that to mean far more than merely politics, instead something like "the aesthetics, tastes, and souls."

I guess I'm not sure how a movement that managed to transform the United States from South Africa Lite to the rainbow nation we inhabit today can be pigeonholed into a category of "merely politics."

In terms of influences on "aesthetics, tastes, and souls," Whose aesthetics? Whose tastes? Whose souls? All popular music influences other popular music. Where would the Beatles have been without Chuck Berry? Where would Elvis have been without gospel music (both white and black) and R&B? If any particular Beatles song had never been written, what difference would that have really made? It's not as if they were one hit wonders, but it's also not as if they were really more influential (or was it more "famous"?) than Jesus.

OTOH while on a certain level "We Shall Overcome" was indeed "just one song among many", to those who were "there" (sorry, boys), it was far more than that. Morty's childish comparison to "campfire songs" misses the point entirely. There were countless cases of people being held without bail in hellhole jails, unspeakable conditions, who used that song as a symbol of defiance, and by singing it in the face of even more beatings they reinforced that defiance, and eventually wore down those walls. I'm terribly sorry that this can't be quantified, but it's every bit as real as the number of frat boys whose "consciousness" was transformed, or whose sense of "aesthetics" was altered, under the spell of the Sgt. Pepper album.

----------------------------------

WSO is just the same verse over and over again,

There were probably more verses sung to that song, both "official" and improvised, than any song you could ever name. One more demonstration that you have no idea what you're talking about.

----------------------------------

This seems like semantical shadow boxing. "We Shall Overcome" was influential mostly in that it influenced people to sing "We Shall Overcome."

The song We Shall Overcome created nothing except a good feeling of comradeship. This is a confusion of cause and effect. We Shall Overcome caused nothing.

I'll let the two of you mutually masturbate in your infinite knowledge of history, or at least in your indisputable knowledge of Ed Sullivan and The Simpsons. I'm only mildly surprised that you didn't summon up some mathematical formula to reinforce your cluelessness.

Just out of curiosity, how many songs have been the subjects of books? Completely off the top of my head, I can think of "Strange Fruit" & "Louie, Louie."

There were probably more verses sung to that song, both "official" and improvised, than any song you could ever name. One more demonstration that you have no idea what you're talking about.

I meant the melody. Not the lyrics. Time for you nap, it would seem.

It's definitely time for my nap, but I'm afraid my co-workers would object.

In terms of influences on "aesthetics, tastes, and souls," Whose aesthetics? Whose tastes? Whose souls?

The "generation" whose membership you insisted was far more influenced by WSO than the Beatles, the Who, and other musicians. Life is far more rich than mere politics (*), and politics is far more rich than protests and taking to the barricades.

(*) Though to repeat again, "political" music has been done far more skillfully and with far more sophistication than WSO. John Lennon himself composed "Give Peace a Chance," a far better song than WSO. I'm pretty sure somebody somewhere has sung it while the billy clubs were swinging.

I'll let the two of you mutually masturbate in your infinite knowledge of history, or at least in your indisputable knowledge of Ed Sullivan and The Simpsons. I'm only mildly surprised that you didn't summon up some mathematical formula to reinforce your cluelessness.

We shall overreact
We shall overreact
We shall overreact to-day.

Andy, in a hypothetical world with no "We Shall Overcome," you would've sung something else in solidarity and in defiance-- "We Shall Not Be Moved" or "Oh Freedom" or "George Wallace is a Scowling Doucheface"-- and that's the song that would have ended up carrying WSO's intense meaning for you and America. You're taking the song's accrued meaning, and saying it was the agent of that meaning. It's not masturbating all over your life experience to note that the song's influence and the movement's influence weren't literally synonymous. One caused the other, not vice versa, and how is that any kind of problem? "Which came first, the chicken or the parmigiana?"

Costello started playing "Less Than Zero," cut the song off, and then launched into "Radio Radio" instead. NBC censors hadn't vetted the song, and Costello was banned from SNL for more than ten years as a result. Costello said he got the idea from Jimi Hendrix, who'd pulled a similar stunt on BBC Television in the late 1960s.

Not to mention Nirvana playing Territorial Pissings on Jonathan Ross rather than the single they said they'd play!

What was wrong with "Radio Radio", to be honest it's really the only Costello song I know well, and I've always found it a jaunty tune to bop to.

There is more than one Ramones song? Really?

Don't make me come over there.

And if you want to try to determine which song had the greatest influence on history beyond the realm of music, you might want to ask as many political historians as you could find

Alastair Bellany argues that early 17th century libel poetry (which was a kind of genre of political satire verse, some of which were designed to be set to music), created a political culture in which the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham was both imaginable and desirable. Maybe one of those is in the running!

Andy, in a hypothetical world with no "We Shall Overcome," you would've sung something else in solidarity and in defiance-- "We Shall Not Be Moved" or "Oh Freedom" or "George Wallace is a Scowling Doucheface"-- and that's the song that would have ended up carrying WSO's intense meaning for you and America. You're taking the song's accrued meaning, and saying it was the agent of that meaning.

Having lived in music training and performance for decades, I don't think I can fully agree with this seemingly reasonable statement. It is a little like saying that if Beethoven had come up with a different four-note theme at the start of the 5th, it wouldn't have mattered at all, something else would have fit the bill somewhere. To be topical it's similar to saying the Johnson brothers' "Lift Ev'ry Voice" would have been replaced by something else and the effect on the community singing it would have been utterly negligible. I think it is more than a bit soulless to toss aside the tangible and even historical effect of one melody over another so cavalierly.

333: I've heard two reasons: 1) NBC and/or Columbia Records wanted him to play a more known hit - NBC was upset that they didn't vet RR; 2) Radio Radio is anti-corporate media.

Where would the Beatles have been without Chuck Berry?

Just as good. The Beatles had many, many influences, everything from Berry to Tinpan Alley to Ravi Shankar. Subtract one and you do not get a significant difference.

Not to mention rockabilly. Bill Haley and Buddy Holly were also influences. Not to mention Elvis, who the Blacks thought sang Cracker music and the Crackers thought sang Black music (see Marty Robbins and others on this). But, yes, English vaudeville and Big Band, too. I believe both Lennon and McCartney are on record as stating that their ambition in the beginning was to write a song for Sinatra. The Beatles were as eclectic in their influences as in their output. Check out the list of their covers. Check out who covers them.

Just out of curiosity, how many songs have been the subjects of books? Completely off the top of my head, I can think of "Strange Fruit" & "Louie, Louie."

Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing had a first rate festschrift of sorts on the occasion of its 100th anniversary, with 100 essays written in commemoration.

Oh, and surprise, surprise....

And Lassus, when ignorance wants to revel in itself, you can't stop it. Just let them revel in peace. Admittedly it's taken me a while to figure that out myself, but better late than never.

@328 - Iron Maiden has a song about Dune, and a song about the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

OH. I got it backwards.


I always wanted to host a gameshow "Name that Ramones Song". Sometimes it's just "Name that Metal Song".

I can name that Ramones song in 3 chords!

All this talk about influence and musical movements really makes me wonder what might have happened to the course of popular music had The Beach Boys' Smile been released as scheduled back in 1967. It's the only Great Lost Album that actually lives up to (maybe even exceeds) the hype, and it was not only light years away from anything The Beach Boys had done before, it was miles ahead of anything anyone was doing in rock. I find it sad and ironic that Brian Wilson apparently felt crushed when he heard Sgt. Pepper in June of 1967 (he apparently said "they got there first -- they beat me") because Smile is so much weirder, more avant-garde, and more musically sophisticated than anything on that album or most any other Beatles album for that matter. (And mind you I think the Beatles are objectively the greatest rock group of all time.) The hip musical world (especially in the UK) was dying to hear what The Beach Boys would follow Pet Sounds with...had this landed at the time, who knows what would have happened in response?

Part of me thinks it would have had a ripple effect (especially among 'tastemakers' i.e. musicians and those who would go on to become musicians) akin to that of The Velvet Underground in terms of lasting influence. Then again, I also sometimes think it would have stood alone for the simple reason that nobody else in rock was really capable of writing & arranging like Brian Wilson or singing such complex harmonies as the band.

What was wrong with "Radio Radio", to be honest it's really the only Costello song I know well, and I've always found it a jaunty tune to bop to.

Whaa? You don't know Allison or Pump It Up or Red Shoes or Watching the Detective or What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding? The only album I own of Costello's is Spike but I remember all those songs just by hearing them on the radio a few times.

Oh, and surprise, surprise...

Andy, an experienced bookseller like you shouldn’t be overimpressed by the subtitle used to hawk a book. But at least “We Shall Overcome” has reached the rarified world-changing status only granted to the elite of the elite, such as the banana, the color mauve, unless it’s indigo, Paris 1919, The Twist, 50 dresses, Leeds, England, 12 lesbians, cod, tea cosies, Simon Cowell, the electric guitar, the Atlantic Ocean, Gerald Ford’s Presidency, Starbucks, Lady Diana, the Excel spreadsheet, the dot, moms, Guinness beer, Vidal Sassoon, the Tommy Burns-Jack Johnson fight, Southwest Airlines, tartan, the container box, container ships, a bunny rabbit on Facebook, the 1960 Olympics, 50 Irish women, the Beatles’ 1964 and 1965 tours, among other gigs, the Beatles and U2, Nike sneakers, the Crocodile Hunter, and the U.S. Women’s Soccer team.

The guy I feel sorry for is poor Vice President Thomas Riley Marshall.

It's also reached the world of remainders, along with Ulysses, pretty much every book George Orwell wrote before Animal Farm, every book that William Faulkner ever wrote, period, and last and least, every Bill James Abstract, both Annual and Historical. It happens to the best of them.

But in any event it wasn't the subtitle that was the answer to the question that was asked. The question was simply "how many songs have been the subjects of books?", and "We Shall Overcome" is one of the answers.

OTOH that list of books about things that have "changed the world" could probably be expanded tenfold. And the books that are subtitled "The year that changed the world" is practically a list unto itself. There's probably at least one entry for every century going back to ancient Greece.

I read that book on mauve.

That Atlantic Ocean was really something back when it changed the world, but it's not that special anymore.

This is really not to disparage your song, but it serves this same purpose as the

the chant "I'm Going to move that toe" here

The Civil Rights Movement wasn't successful because it had the best song - it had a convincing case that equality under the law was the higher moral ground. That would have still been the case if We Shall Overcome had never been written. WSO may resonate with a lot of people because of its association with an important cause, but that doesn't make it musically significant beyond that association.