29 April 2015 (Wednesday)

Today 8 students came to share songs on the subject of "Protest Songs" (inspired by May 1st at the end of the week and how each in Seattle there are "anti-capitalist" protests on May 1st).

Before getting into protest songs we followed up something from the previous weekend: Taiwanese band Magic Power (info) had played a free concert at the UW as part of a Taiwanese cultural festival. I had gone to see some of the show and it was a very interesting cultural experience for me. I asked one of the students who went to the concert which is her favorite song by Magic Power and she said "Who Am I" (video with lyrics). 

Also before starting class an announcement about a musical event, the Global Gala (info) at the UW on Saturday 9 May from 8pm - midnight was made. Here's the description of the event from the website: "Global Gala is the FIUTS Student Board's farewell party for all students leaving or graduating at the end of the academic year. It is a chance to come together and celebrate one more time with all the friends, facilitators and staff you've met at UW."

I suggested to the class that we go see the documentary about Kurt Cobain, "Montage Of Heck" (trailer) this coming weekend. We decided to go to the movie Sunday evening.

[Report after the movie: 5 students joined me to see the movie and it seems like everyone had a good time, especially seeing the documentary about this cultural icon in his hometown of Seattle. BTW, a very good documentary about the whole early Seattle music scene is "Hype!" (info, trailer).]

 

We had one more topic before protest songs: The previous day the lineup for this year's Bumbershoot Festival (5, 6, 7 September) was announced. The general consensus among the group, including me, is that it's a weak lineup this year. 

Ok, now we finally listened to our first protest song: "Radio-Activity (live in Japan 2012" (video, lyrics, song info) by Kraftwerk (info). You can see from the video how strongly the Japanese audience reacts to this song since Fukushima disaster. The student who picked this song had seen Kraftwerk perform it live and he said it was very powerful. It is notable that this song is not a typical "loud" protest song; it is quiet and that makes it more scary.

The next song was "Island's Sunrise" (video with lyrics, song info) by Fire Ex (info). This song is from Taiwan and was a protest about the Taiwanese government passing legislation to change business rules with mainland China in just 30 seconds, without a public debate. 

However, the subject of relations between mainland China and Taiwan is very emotional for both sides and it was clear that some of the Chinese students did not agree with this song. I have learned from teaching this class to generally stay away from China-Taiwan political discussions because it often leads to arguments.

So we moved on to another protest song. This time it was "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (video, lyrics, song info) by U2 (info). Interestingly the student who choose this song about UK vs Ireland relations back in the 70's and 80's is from France. He had very interesting interpretations of the song, about how it mixes peaceful and militaristic actions/protests, including the militaristic drumbeat and carrying out a white flag while doing a militaristic march, without actually saying one is right and one is wrong.

Speaking of US protest history, I played a little bit of "Ohio" (video, lyrics, song info) by Neil Young (info). This song is about when 4 students at Kent State University were shot dead by the American National Guard while protesting against the Vietnam War. It is a deep scar in American society that this happened.

The next song was similar: "2 de Octubre" (video, lyrics) by Banda Bostik (info in Spanish) is about the Mexican government killing many students during a 1968 protest.

The next song was a very intelligent pick for protest songs: "Born In The USA" (video, lyrics, song info) by Bruce Springsteen (info). I have talked about this song often in class, but in short, most Americans only listen to the chorus "Born in the USA" and think of it as patriotic, but if you read the lyrics it's a protest song against how hard life can be for some people in the USA and how the guy in the song gets sent off to Vietnam just because he's not rich enough to get out of it, which mirrors the reality at that time: many men of fighting age during the Vietnam War did everything they could to avoid going there to fight and it was the poor ones who had less ways/opportunities to find ways to avoid service.

The last song of the day was not a protest song. I asked one of the new students to share a song she likes so we could get a sense of her taste in music. She chose "Cosa Siamo" (video with Italian lyrics in notes) by Tatiana Sporzon. This student said lyrics are very important to her when listening to music and she discovered this song by watching a video that had the lyrics translated into Chinese and she was touched by the lyrics. I like this song but can't find any more information about the artist or the song! :-(


With that class was over for the week. In English we say "April showers bring May flowers" so my suggested theme for next week's class is "flowers". But of course, any song the students want to share with the class are welcome!