Browse Items (23 total)

“Strange Fruit” describes the picturesque agricultural landscape of the South and contrasts this beauty and bounty with the horrific violence - lynchings in particular - that occurred in that setting.

Officially written by a Northerner, this song was rewritten by Southerners and Northerners to support varied agendas. “Dixie” is symbolic of the Lost Cause of the Old South and Southern resistance to the Civil Rights Movement.

This minstrel song can be used to teach about minstrelsy and antebellum Southern attitudes towards slavery. It was such a popular genre that it effectively was a type of pop music. In the song, the enslaved are mourning the loss of a deceased slave…

Sung from the perspective of a flood victim in Nashville, this song discusses floods, a common occurrence in Southern life and a common theme found in blues music. The song's release coincided with the notorious Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.

The song could be used as an example of the loose narrative and supernatural references and/or folk beliefs often found in the blues genre. Though the song lacks a linear narrative, the collection of somewhat unrelated vignettes which included…

This song could be used to introduce students to the gradual shift away from the pastoral way of rural southern life that once dominated the region and the New Deal. The south had traditionally been more agrarian than the north and the songwriter Bob…

"Ode to Billie Joe" is an account of how each of the members of a Mississippi family take the news of Billie Joe McAllister's suicide. A number of ambiguous details in the narrative, which emphasizes loss and was released in 1967, lend itself to a…

This song can be used to introduce students to the influence that Appalachian music had on modern country music. Many early country songs were based on British ballads and were combined with musical influences from African-American musical traditions…

This rap provides a space for expression about various topics such as race, the Confederates' legacy, amongst other things amidst the generally, more conservative South. The key characteristics of the subgenres of Southern Rap and "Dirty South Rap"…

While the topics of race and the civil rights movement were both key aspects of the region's history and what many perceived as part of the South's identity, the 1970s saw the rise of idea of the South as a home for "traditional values" and one that…