us_ch11_webquest

=**A Steel Guitar Rocks the Iron Curtain**=

The Berlin Wall was built by the Soviet Union in 1961 to keep people in the Communist East Berlin sector from gong to the free/capitalist West Berlin. The Wall became a chief Cold War symbol dividing the Free World and the Communist Bloc. The Berlin Wall came down in November of 1989 as Communism was crumbling in Eastern Europe. The collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe would be largely due to 8 years of economic and military pressure applied by the Reagan Administration (discussed in a later chapter) with support from British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II. However, many people don't realize that rock 'n' roll played a role over 25 years before.


 * 1. What was the purpose of the Berlin Wall and why would it be a symbol of the Cold War?**

Rock 'n' roll began in the U.S. and grew from the U.S. However, it was a British group that would revive rock music and would be responsible for a major event in 1964 that would be energized and re-Americanized rock 'n' roll and would spread throughout the world. This group would be the Beatles. This group triggered fan frenzy and would have the largest fan base, which altogether was called Beatlemania.


 * 2. What was Beatlemania?**

In the mid-1960s, anti-war radicals seeking the overthrow of western capitalism (we discussed radical protest groups inside the U.S.) were hoping to use rock 'n' roll to reel in the youth, since many musicians in the 1960s wrote songs that were anti-war or against the "establishment." However, the major rock musicians would not do so. Anti-capitalists wanted and believed rock music would help bring down capitalism and establish socialism by appealing to the youth in America that change was needed. Ironically, two decades of rock as a musical form and cultural movement would contribute to eroding the foundation of Communism. Rock 'n' roll by nature is both entertainment as well as social criticism. However, it is also sympathetic to the very liberties that fill the American capitalist and political system. Artists who sang and complained about "the man" and sang "takin' it to the streets" enthusiastically took and mostly keep the large checks from their performances. Earning money through work (which artists did) is the very essence of capitalism, even though many artists sang about the negatives of capitalism!


 * 3. Why did anti-capitalist groups think rock musicians would help their cause?**

A new instrument helped the Beatles transform American rock with its new sound. Leo Fender's new electric guitar had a distinct sound and would energize the largest generation of Americans. The Beatles added a little R&B. Their fashionable suits, bowl-shaped hair cuts, and always smiling gave them an aura of rebellious youth in America. Their image (and music) sold.


 * 4. What was the influence of Leo Fender?**

American society had already been changed due to the rising car culture. People were no longer confined geographically for work or entertainment. As people moved from state to state there was a demand for familiar music (like Kroc made McDonald's familiar everywhere and Wilson with Holiday Inn). Berry Gordy developed a mass national music market forming Motown Records. He built up his business and polished R&B acts and by the end of the 1960s, Motown songs constantly made top 10 hits.


 * 5. How did Berry Gordy impact the music industry?**

The Beatles came in with a new sound and looks. They also benefitted from LPs (long play). Beatlemania was ready for America. The Beatles were booked on Ed Sullivan February 9, 1964 and more than 70 million viewers tuned in to watch. Other artists would emerge from the music of the Beatles and rock music expanded. The Beatles weren't without their negatives as they got involved in drugs, which unfortunately made it more acceptable to the middle class. They would be the first celebrities to make reference to drug use in their lyrics and public comments.


 * 6. Why do you think the Beatles singing and talking about drug use (not in a negative way) would damage American society?**

The Beatles (and other British groups) also discovered taxes. Britain wasn't a socialist nation, but was very progressive having very high taxes and numerous entitlements. The Beatles' song //Taxman// was the group's first song with political criticism. Many British artists moved to France, Switzerland, or the U.S. to escape Britain's very high taxes while still championing the welfare programs that high taxes paid for. Musicians often wrote about politics, but very few allowed themselves to be drawn into radical movements. Some criticized the government but didn't necessarily believe what they were writing. An example was Jimi Hendrix, who was arrested for riding around in stolen cars and was given the option of jail or the army. He enlisted in the 101st Airborne in Kentucky. In 1962 Hendrix was quoted as saying "I'm in the best division: the 101st Airborne. That's the sharpest outfit in the world." Hendrix sang at Woodstock (an anti-war drug filled protest festival), but when asked to comment on Vietnam, he compared it to D-Day saying "Did you send the Americans away when they landed in Normandy?...No, but then that was concerning your own skin. The Americans are fighting in Vietnam for the complete free world..." Numerous musicians wrote about social issues, but when they actually interacted with leftist Marxists in person, Marxism lost. There were no anti-war hits in 1965. The //Ballad of the Green Beret// was the one of the nation's top songs. There wouldn't be anti-war hits until public opinion turned against the war in 1969 with John Lennon's //Give Peace a Chance// and CCR's //Fortunate Son//."

Woodstock was suppose to "set a new stage in the psychic evolution of the world, a mass celebration of what the 1960s was all about." However, moochers and freeloaders broke down chain link fences and scrambled in for a free concert and turned the festival into "an undeclared disaster area." Not long after Woodstock, Hendrix died of a self-induced drug overdose, followed by Janis Joplin a month later and Jim Morrison a year later. Instead of sparking a revolution, Woodstock was the petering out of a movement.


 * 7. How did Woodstock fail to meet the goals of anti-war and/or anti-capitalist radicals?**

Going into the 1970s, Rock was still powerful, but was being topped by a new phenomena - Disco. When John Travolta took to the dance floor for the Bee Gees, the message was clear - forget protesting: just dance.


 * 8. How did music and the anti-war/anti-capitalist movement change in the 1970s?**

The Beatles had done their job revitalizing an American institution, rock 'n' roll, which then went off in different directions (divided into substreams of punk, soul, metal, pop...). The power of western music headed for the Iron Curtain. Western rock music got into the hands of youth in Communist nations. Following the student-led Hungarian revolt in 1956 (an anti-Communism push that was put down), the new government (Janos Kadar) looked to neutralize the simmering revolution by allowing hundreds of jukeboxes in. Rock music had entered the Communist Bloc - NATO strategists saw that obsession with rock 'n' roll took attention away from supporting the theories of Marx and Lenin in Communist Bloc nations.


 * 9. How was rock 'n' roll helping to crack the Communist Bloc (opinion)?**

When American folk/protest singer Pete Seeger toured the Iron Curtain countries, the Soviets looked to use him in their revolutionary cause since many of his songs highlighted problems he perceived in American capitalism. However, the nature of revolutionary music is always positioned against "the establishment." In the USSR, Soviet listeners could only see Communism as what was their "establishment." Beatlemania crossed the Iron Curtain as young people sported moptop hair cuts and had Beatles buttons sent to them by relatives in the West. People flocked to see rock concerts in the Communist Bloc nations. Protest songs in Communist nations gained popularity and Communist nations were starting to see that rock 'n' roll couldn't be ignored in their societies. Guitar shops began to open in the USSR. The Soviet government tried to censor lyrics and have "state" run rock groups, which showed the oppression associated with Communist governments. However, Communist governments were unable to stop the growing social criticism in rock songs.


 * 10. When rock music got into the Communist Bloc and artists looked to perform and write rock songs, how did the Soviet government show its oppression?**

In the West, artists earned the money from concerts in which they performed. In the Communist Bloc, however, the government got the money. Communist "state" bands received instruments from the state, were permitted by the state to play concerts and clubs, but had to protect the "red rose of Marxism."


 * 11. Communist "state" bands were ones approved by the Communist government(s). What do you think is meant that artists approved to be "state" bands had to protect the "red rose of Marxism?"**

These "state" bands had to submit their lyrics to censors months ahead of performances.


 * 12. Submitting lyrics to censors...how would this increase rock artists to be against Communism (even though many supported Communism)?**

The Plastic People of the Universe dropped out as a "state" sanctioned band and held their own festivals, which attracted large crowds as well as police and in 1976 band members were arrested and given 8- to 12-month sentences for disturbing the peace plus the Communist government harassed the band and fans for the rest of the decade.

There would be a concert across the Berlin Wall performed by Phil Collins, David Bowie, and the Eurythmics in June 1987, which featured loud speakers aimed eastward. When security forces tried to disperse the thousands that crowded the Wall, they pressed against the Wall on the eastern side to listen to the music. Violence then erupted.


 * 13. How were Communist governments showing their oppressive style in terms of rock 'n' roll?**

The Communists concluded if you can't beat them, join them. In June of 1988, Pink Floyd and Michael Jackson were scheduled on the western side so East Berlin got Bryan Adams, the Wailers, and Big Country. This showed that the West was winning...the Communists saw censorship and oppression wasn't stopping rock 'n' roll from gaining popularity in the Communist Bloc.

The Communists invited Bruce Springsteen believing his song //Born in the U.S.A.//, which in reality was an anti-Vietnam War song that criticized his nation would push an anti-West sentiment in the Communist Bloc. The Communist leadership knew the lyrics and their meaning, but the thousands of young people didn't know this as they waved American flags and sang the chorus as if it were a Patriotic song (which many even in America today think it is). Soviet attempts to control rock by co-opting it through state-sponsored VIAs (Vocal Instrumental Ensembles) were unsuccessful.


 * 14. How was the West "winning" in terms of the Cold War with rock 'n' roll?**

Communism made an enemy of the Pope too. Communism was now aligned against God and rock 'n' roll. Virtually every rock event in the USSR included some tip of the hat to one of the most popular 1970s musicals //Jesus Christ Superstar//. God and rock 'n' roll would become a combination that would ultimately destroy Communism. When Mikhail Gorbachev (Communist leader of the USSR in the 1980s) put in Glasnost allowing more openness and freedoms, it just made official what rock 'n' roll already had started. The essential, unique character of Western free societies was on display within the music industry - the freedom to stand out. The Founders wanted to keep government out of the arts, speech, and business aware that with money came strings attached, which would also mean political agenda. With censorship came political control. The Founders never imagined there'd be control of the arts (or diets and discussed last chapter). The Founders' vision of keeping speech and the arts free of government control has largely been abandoned. In the Depression, the federal government paid artists and writers to complete projects positively portraying the New Deal. Though the Founders would have been horrified by the "devil music" of rockers, they also would not have backed legislation to stop it. When Christian rock group, the Elms, in 2006 sang "Who puts rock and roll in your blood?" they clearly answered "God." The Founders would answer the question slightly differently: "Who puts rock and roll in your blood?" Not the government!


 * 15. How did Rock 'n' Roll infiltrate the Communist Bloc and help lead to the fall of Communism?**

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