Academic literature on the topic 'National songs Patriotic music Nationalism in music'

Americans commonly leveraged music to circulate narratives of partisan dominance in the early republic, and this chapter examines how Federalists in particular used music to articulate a powerful narrative of legitimacy based on the incessant presentation of Federalist heroes and Republican villains during the intensely partisan atmosphere of John Adams’s presidency. Following French attempts to bribe US diplomats, songwriters expressed a surge of federalism, nationalism, and militarism in support of Federalist projects through both ephemeral songs and “patriotic” hits like “Hail Columbia” and “Adams and Liberty.” Despite Federalists’ efforts to destroy domestic political “faction,” Republicans refused to be silenced. They used many of the same symbols, strategies, and tunes to promote different causes and inspire oppositional political action through music.

As persuasive tools for political campaigns, songs and music are integral features of electioneering in Africa. Since Ghana's return to multiparty democracy in 1992, election cycles in the country have been heralded and accentuated by campaign songs which extol the virtues of their sponsors and/or denigrate the achievements and their suitability for political office. This chapter examines the use of repetitions, testimonials, and biblical imagery in campaign songs of two major political parties in Ghana—the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC)—during the 2012 and 2016 elections. Eight campaign songs were analyzed. The findings show that the songs sought to communicate messages/themes of submissiveness/humility, divine choice/prophecy, achievers/achievement, and opponents as failures/deceivers about the political parties and their candidates.

Anton von Werner’s Im Etappenquartier vor Paris (In quarters before Paris) is based on a sketch done by the painter during the German military campaign against France in October 1870. German soldiers amuse themselves with songs at the piano in a requisitioned manor house near Paris (Brunoy). Attracted by the music, the French concierge and child appear in the doorway. Some mundane activities to further enhance the atmosphere are in progress: lamps are lighted and a fire is kindled in the fireplace. We even know the song that is performed: Schubert’s “Am Meer” (By the sea), with words by Heinrich Heine. Nothing yet anticipates the disillusioned statement of George Steiner that became characteristic of late-twentieth-century reflection on war and culture: “We know now that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day’s work at Auschwitz in the morning.” In Werner’s painting, war still seems to be an innocent affair that first of all produces mud-stained boots. These boots and the sphere of fraternization that even encompasses the French housekeeper were meant to evoke the impression of sincerity in German soldiers, according to a German art historian. Ultimately converted into a painting, the picture became really popular when it was sold on the German market as a small tapestry after 1895. As the German writer and critic Ludwig Pietsch wrote at the time, “[Such pictures show] the good-natured and sentimental nature of the national character [. . .] which even in the rough and wild times of war and in the midst of an irreconcilable enemy cannot be denied.” Not surprisingly, the French reading of this picture (once or twice on exhibition in Paris) is somewhat different: “The attitudes of the lumpish soldiers with their blusterous posture, their heavy mud-stained boots, are completely in contrast to the refinement of the furniture. The conquerors behave somewhat like vandals. At the right in the doorway, the maid, on whom an officer seems to have designs, watches the scene accompanied by her daughter, who is hardly able to hide her fear.”