The article, "Get Up Stand Up" details aspects of Bob Marley's life and the kind of message he created with his music. The title of the article is actually a song written by Marley and it is a good title to choose for this article because it is representative of Marley's music in a very important way. Marley saw music as more as entertainment. He recognized it as a way to raise awareness for particular issues and mobilize people into action. Governments, not only in America, but particularly so in third world countries feared the content of Marley's lyrics and censored many of his songs because uprisings in these areas could cause so much damage. Particularly in Jamaica and South Africa, where Marley had a great disdain for the oppression that took place there.
In the article, "Sing a Song of Drug Use..." the question addressed here is, "Does music influence society?" Most people may assume there is a correlation-causation effect here because young people most often listen to music, and young people are most prone to drug experimentation. The author goes through each type of drug, such as heroin, cocaine, and various hallucinogens, and gives basic information on how often each drug is used, and then goes on to talk about examples of drug use in songs and it gives specific lyrics to numerous different kinds of songs and the overall theme that the writers found was that most songs are negatively talking about drugs, even marijuana. The answer to the question is that society is not influenced by the music to do drugs, rather, its just a reflection of their experiences. Their study proved that songs do not influence society as what most would expect them to.
-Max Silva
Thanks for re-posting this with your name.
ReplyDeleteI read both of those articles and I really like the article "Get up, Stand up" because it tells you how Bob Marley represented music as more than entertainment.
ReplyDeleteThe article "sing a song" was great article too because it tells you that music doesn't influence society to use drugs.
Thank you for sharing these articles. I've always admired the message that Bob Marley stands for.
ReplyDeleteI find it amazing and disturbing how governments try to control ideas from people that have a strong voice just to protect themselves--Get Up Stand Up is a perfect example. As for Sing a Song of Drug Use, in some way I'm relieved that this article showed that society is not influenced by the music to do drugs. The reason is because I've heard many young people blaming music rather on themselves for these actions.
ReplyDeleteI know very little about Bob Marley. It was interesting to learn that his songs were to raise awareness for issues and to encourage people to do something about it. I had always kind of assumed that his songs were about feeling good and getting high. Reading what you had to say about this article gives me a different perspective about this man.
ReplyDeleteLayne Bersano
Interesting read. I think that it very sad that governments of countries would censor Bob Marley's lyrics to prevent uprising of people to come together and possibly fight for something that they believe in. As a fan of Bob Marley myself, I enjoy the positive messages that he has in his lyrics. As far as drug use and music is concerned, I agree that music itself does not cause people to use drugs, but I do believe that music can provide people with envoirnments and venues to use and experiment with drugs such as music festivals and concerts.
ReplyDeleteSarah Willems