Disclaimer: This is transcribed using AI. Expect (funny) errors.
Mindy Peterson: [00:00:00] I’m Mindy Peterson, and this is Enhance Life with Music, where we explore all the ways that music can make our lives better. We are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States this year, and as we do that, we’re thinking a lot about the people, the ideas, the events that have shaped our country. While many of us recognize that music has the power to shape culture, we often don’t think about music shaping our politics. Turns out, music has done far more than provide the soundtrack to American history. Certain musical works have not only sparked political debates and influenced lawmakers, they’ve actually instigated changes in American legislation and policy. The stories behind some of these songs are told in the fascinating new book on the record, Music That Changed America, by Doctor Anna Harwell Celenza. Doctor Celenza is with me today. She is a musicologist and historian and professor at Johns Hopkins University, where she teaches creative writing and music history. Welcome to Enhance life with Music, Anna.
Anna Celenza: [00:01:13] Thank you so much, Mindy. It’s a real pleasure to be here.
Mindy Peterson: [00:01:16] So great to have you here. I loved your book. You’ve you’ve written a lot of books. Tell us what led you to write this latest book on the record? Was there a particular musical work or historical story that first sparked the idea?
Anna Celenza: [00:01:30] Well, I first got the idea for this book, actually, right after Hamilton sort of made its splash as a musical. I was teaching at Georgetown University. A lot of the students there are very interested in politics. You’re in Washington, D.C. they’re very engaged. And I had a number of students ask me, hey, you know, could you teach a class on music and politics? And I didn’t want to just teach a class that talked about how music reacts to politics. I thought, well, wouldn’t it be interesting, like to see if there, you know, to really talk about how music could maybe instigate change? And Hamilton was one, I was kind of seeing it happen live and I thought, okay, this would be this would be great. And I’ll be honest, when I first got the idea for the book, it was very optimistic of like, look how far we’ve come. And Obama is president and, you know, To Pimp a Butterfly just came out and like, there was, it was a very kind of this was going to be kind of like, look at that arc of justice we followed. Um, and then, uh, things changed. We had a different president. Uh, a lot of things changed. And at first I gave up on the, I thought, this is just, you know, I was, I was, you know, I don’t know, la la land or whatever. But then I realized it forced me to kind of really stop and go, okay, let’s look all the way back through history and see, you know, what pieces have really made a difference and, and, and why some music hasn’t made a difference. And so that’s kind of what instigated it. So took a few years. I, as I would write sometimes, you know, the ground would move underneath my feet. Like for example, the chapter about Strange Fruit I had to completely rewrite because happily, in 2022, legislation changed. So, but that was, um, that was kind of the, the instigation for it truly was from students who wanted to study about music and politics. And I kind of wanted to see if there was a new way to approach that topic.
Mindy Peterson: [00:03:24] Oh, interesting. Well, and as you mentioned with that chapter on Strange Fruit, there are some of these stories where there’s this very long germination process from the time that the seed is planted in a musical work until it continues. And I think Strange Fruit, that was one that was really interesting because you talk in the book about how Billie Holiday really brought fame to that song, and it was really, uh, impacted her career as well and her own trajectory. But then. Nina Simone had a version of it, and it was used in the series black ish fairly recently. So yeah, really, really interesting. And I do love how you point out that distinction in your book between music that was written in response to politics and music that actually instigated political change. You chose 12 compositions in each one is connected to a very specific piece of legislation, ranging from foreign policy to the environment, race relations, immigration policy. Of the 12 stories in the book, which one do you most enjoy telling people about, or which one do you personally find most surprising or impactful?
Anna Celenza: [00:04:39] Oh, that’s hard to say. There’s so many. I mean, and I will say too, sometimes it’s about one piece, and then sometimes it’s sort of two pieces in conversation. So, you know, like the first chapter, Star-Spangled banner and Lift every voice and sing. And that’s sort of how do we find the music that, you know, politicians trying to figure out what pieces represent us as a nation? And, um, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with Duke Ellington’s Symphony in Black and the kind of conversation they had musically with one another. But I would say the two chapters that maybe speak to me the most is one is the strange fruit, mainly because we do tend to go right to Billie Holiday. And I think the story of Abel Meeropol, who was, you know, a Jewish high school teacher, grew up in New York, child of immigrants, um, card carrying communist. And he really believed that communism in the 1930s was a way to get racial equality and economic equality and gender equality. And he also was witnessing these horrible lynchings that were happening all over the country after World War One in well into the 30s. And so he writes this song as a way of kind of drawing attention to the fact that these horrible, you know, racial violence is happening and used it politically at rallies and things. And then he sort of encountered Billie Holiday and went, wow, what a message this would send if she sang it, versus if me and my wife sing it at communist rallies. And so then the song kind of takes on, you know, it becomes a witnessing that chapter’s called witness for the prosecution. And so that one, I think is sort.
Mindy Peterson: [00:06:16] Of hesitant, if I recall correctly, she was because start singing it.
Anna Celenza: [00:06:22] That was that was dangerous things. You’re going to get up and kind of be in people’s face about racial violence. Um, so that that’s one, just because I think Abel Meeropol is, he’s an incredible figure. And, and he, and he, he wrote lots of other works as well. And he was just always an artist activist. The other one is Graceland. And I think it’s because I absolutely love the album. It’s Paul Simon wrote it in the mid 1980s. And I think sometimes academics tend to go, oh, well, he appropriated South African music and, you know, and even when it first came out, oh, it should be banned because he broke the, you know, United Nations boycott, you know, cultural boycott. And I really try to tell that story, um, from the view of what was it like to create the album and not just Paul Simon, but all these other musicians that were very active and what it meant to them to be a part of that. And then what Nelson Mandela did with that album and the power, he used that really as a political tool. So those two chapters really do stand out to me. And in some ways they’re almost like bookends. Um, they’re telling a similar story about racial equality in two different countries, but there’s, there’s a real link between them. And there’s a line in, um, in Paul Simon’s album that talks about the roots of rhythm remain. And there is that sense of there’s something about the essence of, you know, American jazz and South African music. There’s, there is a link there and there’s then we can’t forget that we’re all linked together. And music is one of the things that does that.
Mindy Peterson: [00:08:06] Yeah. One thing I recall from that chapter was how interesting it is, the different approaches that different musicians had to that boycott, and they both had very pure intentions with the different perspectives they brought to that. They had polar opposite views of it. And those views kind of changed throughout time, too. In retrospect, some of them changed their mind about how they felt about the boycott. So that was really fascinating too.
Anna Celenza: [00:08:38] Yeah, I’ve got to say, I don’t think I think economic boycotts can be very helpful. I don’t understand cultural boycotts because if we just cut ourselves off and pretend like the people don’t exist, we’re not listening to each other. We’re not having conversations. Um, that that’s just not going to solve a problem.
Mindy Peterson: [00:08:56] Sure. You write that your goal is to illustrate the effectiveness of music as an agent of political change. What did researching and writing this book teach you about why music can be so politically powerful?
Anna Celenza: [00:09:12] Well, I think music can be politically powerful just because it can also be powerful in and of itself. And so I do think music has a way of bringing different groups of people together. So you can have folks with very different political ideas and different sort of ethnic backgrounds and cultural backgrounds, yet they might come together around, um, a piece they enjoy or an album they enjoy. So there’s, and it’s anyone who’s ever been to a sporting event. You know, music kind of. We sing together or in a church service. So. So there’s this ritual behind not just performing music as groups, but also kind of listening. And now, especially on social media sharing music, I think it’s a good way of like opening conversations. Um, and so I think that’s kind of the power of it. Uh, the tricky part is, um, I think there are a lot of times there’s some of us that listen more closely to lyrics and others that listen more closely to the music itself. And if you are really drawn in to the music, you might not be paying attention to what the lyrics have to say. And so, you know, there can be music can be a force for good, but it can also, um, you know, create some stereotypes or biases in its lyrics that, you know, we might just take in because we’re so drawn into the music itself. So yeah. Um, so there’s a power there and I think we have to listen carefully.
Mindy Peterson: [00:10:38] Yeah, Definitely. Well, I like what you said at the beginning of answering that question about how music really does have this ability to transcend differences. And also, I know in the book, you really point out how music can give voice to people who might otherwise go unheard. And then what you are also talking about recently is how some people do tend to get caught up more in the melody versus the lyrics, or vice versa. And music has been called the sound of emotions. And sometimes I think music can reach people emotionally when words may not quite be enough, or they maybe haven’t consciously processed an argument intellectually. Do you think that emotional power is part of what gives music sort of a superpower and influencing political conversations?
Anna Celenza: [00:11:32] It does, because I think we, um, we identify with it. And so for example, I would say music versus sort of all, all the other art forms. Um, it’s rare that you maybe look at a painting or an artwork and get a chill, you know, up your spine or read something and do that there. Oftentimes if you hear a piece of music that can happen, you get that sort of. And it is, it’s just the way it’s, it’s sort of affecting our brains. So that emotional power, um, is, is really there and it has a huge impact on us. Um, the, the thing about it though, that I think is important to remember is it’s because of that it can also create sort of a false sense of kind of, oh, we got this. And by that, I’ll say, um, so we were talking about Strange Fruit and that was a protest song and that was incredibly powerful. And it truly did change politics. When I tell people I’m, I’ve worked on this book or I’ve written this book nine times out of ten, the first thing they say is, oh, you must have written about all the protest songs from the 1960s and 70s. Those had a huge impact. And what was fascinating to me was they had a huge impact on the general public. They did not have an impact on politicians. They didn’t really change anything. Strange fruit did in the 30s, in the 60s and 70s, these were powerful songs, you know, that it made people join together and in singing them together at events, they felt like, you know, we’re unified, we’re going to beat this.
Anna Celenza: [00:13:05] And, you know, um, but the problem is in the 60s and 70s protest music became commercialised. And so part of it was, yeah, we want to appeal to as many people as possible. We want everybody to feel like they’re on the same team and join hands. But in the end, if you really want to make political change as a group, singing a protest song together is not going to do it. It’s really getting politically engaged and moving forward. And so what I thought was interesting, that was it. Strange fruit was sent to politicians. They did really listen to it and it changed their mind about something. And, you know, as wonderful as blowin in the wind is as a song, it was so vague. And if you really listen to the lyrics, it’s a beautiful song. It’s a wonderful song. Bob Dylan’s Blowin in the wind, but it’s so vague it can mean anything to anybody. So everybody can go, yeah, we’re all unified. But actually we’re, you know, we’re either for or against a lot of different things. And the same can happen with Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. An amazing song, but it, it, it’s a feel good song and it’s just kind of naming things that are going on. Whereas Nina Simone’s Mississippi Goddam, uh, it is in your face, you know, with like, kind of like strange fruit is, but because she was in the 60s and 70s it, she really the commercial world was not thrilled with that song, and she it really hurt her career in a lot of ways.
Mindy Peterson: [00:14:36] Well, it’s interesting you mentioned the political protest music of the 60s and 70s and how that immediately comes up when people hear about the book that you’ve written. I totally think of the political protest music as something that’s kind of associated with the 60s and 70s. And I know reading your book helped me realize that we shouldn’t underestimate the political power of today’s music, just because it doesn’t necessarily look like the protest music of the past. Do you have any thoughts on this, and what else do you hope that readers and musicians will understand differently about the power and the responsibility of music?
Anna Celenza: [00:15:13] Well, I think I think the most power, the music that has, interestingly, the music that has had the biggest impact on politics. And here I’m talking about politics. I’m not talking about like general audiences or general audiences, but like politicians in Congress, in the Senate and the House. The. A lot of the music that’s had a huge impact on legislation was not written as protest music. It was written, as, you know, a composer being really moved by an idea or like the, you know, Verdi, Griffith’s Grand Canyon suite. It really made people rethink about how we should protect our environment. And but that wasn’t his goal in writing it or, um, you know, and even Hamilton, I think one of the things people go, oh, well, Hamilton, you know, he didn’t talk about slavery enough and that what his goal was not to like, change things. His goal was to kind of to, to he, he identified with this character that he’d read about in an academic book. And then he kind of created that story. And so it was, it was an art form. And I think sometimes, you know, we expect, well, the only real work that can get done is if we do it seriously in a documentary and a. And to be honest, a lot of the music and works and even written works that will most change the needle are ones where it’s about making great art, and it’s about having an idea or an emotional feeling or response, you know, even responding to something going on in the world and trying to make that connection.
Anna Celenza: [00:16:49] And I think sometimes when the when making a great artwork is the first connection, the power that’s in that will then, you know, kind of have a life of its own. Um, so if someone sets out in like, I’m going to write a protest song, okay, if it’s, oh my God, I can’t believe this just happened. I have to, I have to deal with this myself. Like I’m almost using creating a work as therapy. And a lot of the people I talk about are sort of doing that. Like they’re responding to like something in the world around them. Um, I think then other people can hear that and go, oh man, I’m feeling that too. Yeah. I’m not the only one There’s a connection to this. So so I think the music that really makes a change oftentimes isn’t like, let me write this protest song. And I would say that’s the case with Kendrick Lamar’s damn, uh, his, his To Pimp a Butterfly, uh, Beyoncé’s lemonade. I mean, these were, these weren’t let me just protest what’s going on? It was, you know, I’ve thought deeply about these issues and and I want to create something.
Mindy Peterson: [00:17:51] Mhm. So would you say that is the common thread or a common thread among all the musical works that successfully produce political changes? The impetus for that music, or are there more common threads that you noticed, whether it’s the music itself, the person or the group behind it, the historical moment? Any maybe a combination?
Anna Celenza: [00:18:14] Well, I think yeah, I mean, I think a common thread is that you’re putting the art form first. You’re not you’re not setting an agenda for what this piece of music has to do. Mhm. And even if we talk about the Star Spangled Banner, it was not like, let me write a national anthem. In fact, in throughout, you know, The Star Spangled Banner was written in 1814. It doesn’t become the national anthem until 1930. Sure. In between then, there were numerous times when either the government or some private entity said, we’re going to have a competition and have people write a national anthem and submit, and then we’ll pick the best one. And none of those worked because they were like, sure, you know, because that, you know. So anyway, there are plenty.
Mindy Peterson: [00:18:55] Of people who weren’t happy with the selection of this. True.
Anna Celenza: [00:18:59] Yeah, yeah.
Mindy Peterson: [00:19:01] Well, can you tell us a little bit before I wrap things up here, I want you to tell us a little bit about Music Policy Forum, because that work that you’re doing looks really amazing. I know you co-founded it, a nonprofit in 2016 to help local governments develop sustainable music ecosystems. Can you tell us a little bit more about that.
Anna Celenza: [00:19:22] Yeah. That that and that’s like taking place, right as I’m getting the idea for this book. Um, a lot of it has to do with, I think a lot of times when we think about, well, what can we do to like help music better? Like how can we help musicians? And, um, I think there are a lot of musicians who will go like, oh, I’m, you know, I’m not getting enough funding or there’s not enough education in the schools and we think we’ll give music more money. And yeah, that would be great. But, uh, the other thing that’s that I think we often lose sight of is there are decisions that are made not just on the federal level of like, how much money is the National Endowment for the Arts getting or, you know, is the Kennedy Center going to be fully funded or not? Um, but on the local level, there are decisions made all the time that I think if we don’t pay attention to, can really impact the music industry. Of course, education is one, you know, are they where are they making cuts, especially now. A lot of school districts are getting rid of some of their schools because there aren’t as many students. I mean, the population just isn’t as much. And so if those kind of cuts are happening, pay attention. Like, are they going to keep the arts or not? Um, but even more than that, something like public transportation.
Anna Celenza: [00:20:38] So if to save money, if the city is going to say, you know what, we’re going to shut down the buses and stuff after ten, 10 p.m.. So public transportation, you know, we’ll get you to work and we’ll get you home. But after 10 p.m., that’s going to hurt the local music industry because a lot of the clubs, you know, the way they make money is through alcohol. So if if you are suddenly not creating a way for people to get to those places safely and get home, uh, then that’s going to impact those clubs. You know, you’re going to have a drop of people that will go to those music industries. Or if there’s talk about, um, creating a new venue in the city, has there been an assessment of which ones already exist? And so, you know, a lot of times we talk about you want a ladder of venue sizes. So, you know, maybe one seats 50, then 200, then 500, then 1000. And that enables local musicians to actually develop for those bigger audiences in their hometown versus having to leave town. So, you know, so if we’re going to create new venue, let’s look at what we already have and make sure we’re filling a gap versus just replicating something and then competing. Sure. So those are, those are just a couple of examples. Yeah.
Mindy Peterson: [00:21:52] So Music Policy Forum works with musicians, policy makers, advocates. Yeah. Universities.
Anna Celenza: [00:22:01] Um city officials. So, uh, we, we have convenings where we bring in, you bring together mayors and the heads of nonprofits and working musicians. We do a lot of things, uh, or at least help support what we call a music census. That’s when you’ll go into it like we did. I did one for Baltimore a couple of years ago where we kind of go in. We have this survey. It’s completely anonymous. Musicians take it, you know, working musicians, and we get a sense of, well, what do they need? And what or, or because a lot of times we might assume that what musicians need is A, B or C, but then when you actually do a census, you realize now what most need is D, but the people who complain the most want A or B, and so there is a sense of the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And anytime you do this, it also just brings people together. They start to talk across, you know, across genres. Um, because maybe what one genre needs is very different from what a different genre needs.
Mindy Peterson: [00:23:00] Sure. Well, and I love that collaborative approach because we can all use more of that and learning from one another and we’re stronger together. So love that. I’ll definitely put a link in the show notes to Music Policy Forum. That sounds fantastic. You’ve written several other books beyond the one that we just talked about today. Your latest book for listeners who are discovering your work for the first time through on the record. Where would you suggest they go next and what threads connect your various books? I know you’ve written some children’s books.
Anna Celenza: [00:23:32] Yeah. So the on the record, um, is what we call a trade book. So general audiences and the hope with that is that people will, will start listening a little more closely. And by that, I mean, technology in the last few years really causes us to sort of put music in the background. A lot of times, you know, we listen when we do something else as opposed to just sitting and listening. And so for folks that aren’t in the music world, I want them to kind of listen more closely because music can tell us things and that, um, I would say in some ways that’s what all my children’s books do. So there are eight different children’s books or picture books for elementary school kids. The idea is they tell the story behind a famous composition and how it was created. Not just a but not a biography so much as as like the story of the piece, how it came to be and its structure. And so that you read that to a kid and they’re getting a story, but then they’ve actually been given a sense of how to listen to the piece. And then you put the music on, and suddenly there’s a much deeper hearing of the piece than there would have been if you just played the music.
Anna Celenza: [00:24:39] And so I’d say with all of my work, even with, um, I’ve done like I did the Cambridge Companion to Gershwin, that’s an academic, a scholarly, uh, collection. But even with that, in selecting the different essays and who would write, the goal was always to get us to listen deeper to music and then think about what is it telling us, or how is it connecting to the cultural context of the time that it was created? Um, I would say that is something that I’m really interested in and that’s what I try to do with on the record. I think, you know, each chapter kind of tells a story. And as you keep going through the chapters, they start to link together and you start to see what were some of the major cultural issues that really have influenced the music industry in America? Definitely race relations is one. Another is immigration. Um, another is the power of the music industry. So the power of the corporate world on, on sort of being a gatekeeper in music, those are kind of three themes that run through that book that I think really run through American music history.
Mindy Peterson: [00:25:46] Mhm. Well, a couple things that I loved about your book or that impacted me or caught my attention beyond what we’ve already talked about, is there is the whole chapter about America’s secret sonic weapon with jazz. And yeah, so that was really fascinating to read about how jazz was sort of used almost as this propaganda tool globally. And then also the whole story about how. West Side Story really sparked JFK’s interest in juvenile delinquency and inspired the legislation related to that. I had no idea that the. The Broadway musical and then the film were so influential in legislation on that topic. So that was really interesting. And then it may have been the last chapter, the sonic shift, when politics changed music. I didn’t realize how much that legislation, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, changed broadcast radio and just led to making it so much harder for independent and niche artists to reach new audiences, and the consolidation of all of the recording industry and all that. Like that was really interesting to read about.
Anna Celenza: [00:27:03] Thank you. Yeah, politics has a huge impact on our lives. And if we don’t pay attention, you know, stuff can happen that can really have negative effects. So that chapter didn’t mean to be like scary, but it was really trying to show like what politics and corporate world hand in hand, the impact they’ve had that we maybe haven’t been paying attention.
Mindy Peterson: [00:27:27] Sure. Well, and as I was reading that chapter, I was thinking to when I experienced watching Ken Burns documentary about country music and thinking about back in the 1920s with Johnny Cash listening to broadcast radio. And just. It gave me a fuller understanding. Reading your chapter about what I had seen in that documentary and just contrasting what was happening then with what we have now with iHeartMedia and Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group and these real consolidated companies that everything’s been consolidated. And so it made more sense to hearing more stories in the news recently about Taylor Swift trying to regain more control over her albums and her recording library and things like that. So it was very, um, informative and educational for me to read. So really recommend that chapter and the entire book. So I’m sure readers will want to get their listeners will want to get their hands on your book. Of course, I’ll have a link in the show notes to your book. As you know, I ask all my guests to close out our conversation with a musical ending, a coda, by sharing a musical tool that you wish more people knew about. This could be a book or a blog, an app, a therapeutic tool. Obviously, we’ve talked at length about your book. Is there any other tool that you’d like to tell us about today in closing?
Anna Celenza: [00:28:56] Well, I tool not so much, but maybe, um, a new habit that I hope people will form, especially as we’re getting into midterm elections and going forward. Um, and that is, I think we get very wrapped up in, you know, state politics and in federal politics. And for good reason. I would ask people to look really closely at your local politics, um, school boards, who is going to be heading up transportation? Who is going to be overseeing the arts, you know, like who’s the local mayor and what like really look to see what they’re about and don’t hesitate to ask them about the arts. I think a lot of times, um, local politicians will respond to what people tell them is important to them. And I think a tool we have is to speak up and just say, you know, it’s not just about me. I’ve got 200 friends here and we all play live music in this city, and it really is important to us. And we would like to sit down and have a conversation with you about how you think you can make the art stronger in this city or in this community. Just an asking like that can open the doors to really having a conversation about how you can make your local ecosystem not just stronger, but sustainable.
Mindy Peterson: [00:30:21] Really great tip there. Does Music Policy Forum have some more specific examples of questions like that? That would be good starter conversation starters.
Anna Celenza: [00:30:32] Yeah. In fact, we have a whole if you go to the website, there are links to. We have online policy conversations all the time. We interview people. So we’re constantly having these, these conversations, and they can access all of that online for free of questions and ideas and talking with people about what’s worked and what hasn’t worked.
Mindy Peterson: [00:30:53] And excellent, great tip and great timing for that tip.
Transcribed by Sonix.ai