Browse Items (23 total)
- Tags: U.S. South
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Carry Me Back to Old Virginny [Hayden Quartet]
This song can be used to discuss "Old South" or the "Antebellum South" nostalgia, which became a part of U.S. Southern culture. The song presents the story of an ex-slave who is longing to return back to their day on a plantation. The ideas expressed…
Carry Me Back to Old Virginia [Rick Pickren]
This song can be used to discuss "Old South" or the "Antebellum South" nostalgia, which became a part of U.S. Southern culture. The song presents the story of an ex-slave who is longing to return back to their day on a plantation. The ideas expressed…
Mississippi Goddam
Written in direct response to the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama Church bombing which killed 4 African American girls, this song can be used to instruct students on the shifting attitudes surrounding the conversation on race relations and the Civil Rights…
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" was written by a Canadian - with assistance from his Arkansas-born bandmate, Levon Helm - who spent an extended period of time in the U.S. South. The song depicts the story of a poor white Southerner and former…
Crossroad Blues
This song introduces the common Blues music themes of crossroads and collective suffering. Crossroads, high traffic vehicular roads, feature prominently as landmarks in the Mississippi Delta area that Johnson called home. In the song, Johnson tries…
Tags: devil, genre: blues, U.S. South, United States
Come on in My Kitchen
The song could be used as an example of the loose narrative and references to the supernatural and/or folk beliefs often found within the blues genre. Though the song lacks a linear narrative, the collection of somewhat unrelated vignettes which…
A Change is Gonna Come
This song can be used to introduce students to Civil Rights songs, many of which spoke to the movement's optimism. However, this song was unique in comparison to other songs such as "We Shall Overcome" for not being as optimistic. Like many other…
Another Man Done Gone
"Another Man Done Gone" centers around the American South's early 20th century penal farm system, whose conditions were notoriously terrible. Like many institutions of the post-reconstruction era, they were heavily racialized with a disproportionate…
Tags: genre: blues, genre: folk, prison, U.S. South
John Henry [Bell]
This song can be used to teach about the Reconstruction-era South racism and the dangerous working conditions found in the building of U.S. railroads. John Henry is an African-American folk hero from Virginia who, according to legend, was victorious…
Wade in the Water
Spirituals are a Christian genre intimately tied to the southern's history with slavery. According to legend, Harriet Tubman used this song to instruct slaves on how to avoid detection when escaping slave owners and/or bounty hunters. Though the year…
Tags: genre: spirituals, slavery, U.S. South