Welcome!

Disclaimer: I am no music aficionado. I am just a lover of music. I am also a lover of music that has a message.


The first time I realized the power of music, as far as how it personally affected me, was Fiona Apple's album Tidal. I suppose I can paint a semi-clichéd image of a Fiona Apple fan: I was in my early 20's, sitting in my tiny bedroom in a third-floor apartment I shared with my sister, trying to uncover the reasons for this new flare of panic attacks. I found Apple, and I wrote out her lyrics as if they were from my diary and drew images of myself with vacant, melancholic looks to match. I sang to myself and somehow, her words gave me power, or what felt like control over my thoughts and my sadness. I won't go into the details, but the trajectory of my life changed after that. This is not hyperbole. Music changed my life.


My relationship to music has changed since then. My taste in music has as well.  I like to think that I am constantly evolving and as my life and perspectives change, so do my tastes and appreciations of music change. In regards to the evolution of this course, I first taught a class about women in music because I wanted to give women's voices the space they needed. However, I also knew that I was excluding a lot of important voices and music; artists that used their voices to underscore injustices; music that highlighted the importance of protest; voices that helped lead movements for change. In short, musicians that used their voices to speak truth to power. From my own experience, I had Public Enemy and Rage Against the Machine. There was 2Pac. There was Pat Benatar and Joan Jett and John Cash. And then came the moment, when creating this class, that I learned there was so much more out there for me to learn. Neil Young. Bob Marley. Jimi Hendrix. Bikini Kill. Pussy Riot. Creedance Clearwater Revival. Bob Dylan. And many, many more that I will never have enough time to teach my students about.


I never grew up politically involved, but I always had an awareness for social and racial and economic issues. I guess my tastes in music grew along with that awareness and eventual knowledge of said issues. For this course, I needed to incorporate the skills the students would need to analyze, critique, and to write about specific opinions and issues. But I also wanted to expand their perspectives to not only specific genres of music and musicians but to the issues they each address and confront.


I want to end with one other influence of mine that has eventually, through hindsight, has led me to teach such a course. When I was a junior in high school, I watched, with a couple of close friends, the movie Juice, starring the upcoming movie and music star Tupac Shakur. I was instantly struck by Shakur's intensity, charisma, and damn those eyes and smile. Soon after, I ran to the music store (this was back in the day when we had them) and bought his first two C.D's, 2pacalypsenow and Strictly 4 my N.I.G.G.A.Z. I always feel to add the disclaimer that, as a white young teenage girl, I couldn't relate to the specific themes and issues, but somehow, I could relate to the anger he conveyed and most importantly, I listened to the stories he told about injustice and racism. He was my first revolutionary in that regard, and I continued to closely follow his career (bordering on obsession, really) and I learned so much about issues of race, police brutality, and most importantly, how important it was to use your voice to speak truth to power. 2Pac was never afraid to speak his mind and I truly admired him for that. I still do. I always will and I am grateful for his influence.


I hope that through this course, my students will find some inspiration that might match that, but at least to learn more than they came in, to have a greater appreciation for the role music can play, and I do hope they have a good time as well!


Sincerely,


Professor Melissa Santos