How 1940s American pop songs framed the world beyond the United States as exotic playgrounds or lands of folly and belittled non-Europeans. The songs discussed: “Civilization (Bongo, Bongo, Bongo),” “The Coffee Song,” “The Maharajah of Madagor,” “Managua, Nicaragua,” and “Rum and Coca Cola.”
Categories: ZiR • Tags: colonialism, Donald Trump, international relations, neo-colonialism, popular music, songs
By William Eaton This appreciation of one of Bob Dylan’s love songs, “Ramona,” leverages its lyrics to make three basic observations about poetry and to call attention, to include in the endnotes, to several poems by other writers. While not all of these comments are positive, in general this short essay is watered with a love of poetry. 1 your magnetic movements still capture the minutes I’m in Many, many poems can be valued for the fact that—in the […]
Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: Bob Dylan, empathy, love, mortality, poetry, popular music
By Oriana Schällibaum and Marcel Grissmer As I went out one morning may strike the casual listener as one of the more insipid songs Bob Dylan ever wrote. Recorded for the 1967 John Wesley Harding album it has never been very important to Dylan; he recorded the song in only five takes and, to date, has performed it in concert only once (in 1974).[1] Yet, “As I went out one morning”—apart from being a joy to listen to—is worth a […]
Categories: ZiLL • Tags: Bob Dylan, celebrity, literary theory, popular music, The Bible
You may be an ambassador to England or France You may like to gamble, you might like to dance You may be the heavyweight champion of the world You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed You’re gonna have to serve somebody Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody — Bob Dylan, “Gotta Serve Somebody,” 1979 […]
Categories: ZiLL • Tags: Bob Dylan, Christianity, Jesus, popular music, The Bible
Le monde s’étire s’allonge et se retire comme un accordéon qu’une main sadique tourmente The earth stretches elongated and snaps back like an accordion tortured by a sadic hand Dans les déchirures du ciel, les locomotives en furie In the rips in the sky insane locomotives S’enfuient Take flight Et dans les trous, In the gaps Les roues vertigineuses les bouches les voix Whirling wheels mouths voices Et les chiens du malheur qui aboient à nos trousses And the dogs […]
Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: Blaise Cendrars, Bob Dylan, Clintons, French, John Donne, Paris, poetics, poetry, popular music, songs, translation
Mock Yiddish and Ethnic Parody in the Vaudeville Melting-Pot While weary critiques of Blackface, Yellowface and Redface have become almost a Halloween tradition in their own right, “Jewface” in popular music has largely been forgotten.[1]). However, this past spring, the Center for Jewish History in New York City hosted an exhibit by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research: “Jewface: ‘Yiddish’ Dialect Songs of Tin Pan Alley.” I quote from the exhibition’s website: With his fake beard, putty nose, […]
Categories: ZiLL • Tags: comedy, Irving Berlin, Jews, popular music, stereotypes, vaudeville
Or, Dying, “What does it feel like?” First approach Torvald Helmer: Oh, you think and talk like a heedless child. Nora, his wife: Maybe. But you neither think nor talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over—and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you—when the whole thing was past, as far as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all […]
Categories: William Eaton, ZiLL • Tags: Adorno, aporia, art, Belgium, Berlinde De Bruyckere, death, dying, Gatsby, Ibsen, Jean-François Lyotard, juxtaposition, Paul Simon, popular music, reverie, sculpture
By Emily Tobey Ever since the word feminism first appeared in public discourse in the late 1800’s, it has stimulated debate and disagreement about its meaning and purpose. The basic definition of feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality with men. The fundamental tenor of this definition frequently gets lost, however, amidst conflicting views, myths and misconceptions. Nonetheless, from the suffrage movement through the fight for equal pay and reproductive […]
Categories: Article • Tags: African-Americans, Beyonce, celebrity, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, feminism, gender, Jay-Z, Ms. Magazine, music, popular music, women
I have long wanted to write in praise of the Bob Dylan song “Love is Just a Four-Letter Word,” a song that Dylan has apparently never recorded, but that Joan Baez has been performing since 1965. In a documentary about Dylan, Baez is shown saying that she was with Dylan when he first heard her recording of the song on the radio. She says that he said, “Hey, that’s a great song!”, apparently having forgotten that he had written it. […]
Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: Bob Dylan, dialogue, isolation, love, Martin Scorsese, narrative, philosophy of language, poetry, popular music, relationships, songs
