The Lyrics of Civility: Biblical Images & Popular Music Lyrics in American CultureThis book is the first comprehensive scholarly study of religious images in popular music. Examining bestsellers from 1906 to 1971, the work explores the role religious images have in the secularization of American culture. Popular music lyrics that express an adherence to a sacred order are couched in inoffensive, content-less language. These lyrics of civility reflect and shape the increasing secularization of American culture in the twentieth century. The analysis focuses primarily on the way these lyrics reduce the meaning of the terms and theology of the Biblical faith. The aesthetic of civility carries over into theology, the narratives, and the accompanying instrumental arrangements of songs that adhere to the Biblical sacred order. On the other hand, lyrics that reject the Biblical tradition use content-filled, offensive language. The result is that displaced adherents withdraw from the Biblical tradition and turn to alternative cultural religions, or idols of attraction, including popular music, that offer meaning to fill a void in the individual. The secularization of American society, therefore, is not a withdrawal from the idea of religion itself. The analysis focuses on the two dominant themes in songs that include religious images: prayer and heaven. The author explores the songs of the two world wars, the hit parade era, the rhythm and blues and doo-wop of the 1950s, the new folk singer movement, soul music and rock music of the 1960s, and the revival rock of the early 1970s. The work demonstrates the capacity of one form of popular culture to separate adherents from a subculture through diluting the meaning of the language of the subculture's elemental thought. (Ph.D. dissertation, Bowling Green State University, 1994; revised with new preface, bibliography, and index) |
Contents
Biblical Images in Popular Music 19001945 | 3 |
PostWorld War II Popular Music 19481966 | 15 |
Images of Supplication in Popular Music | 39 |
Images of Heaven in Popular Music | 59 |
Rejection of the Biblical Sacred Order in Popular Music Lyrics | 75 |
Spiritual Seekers in the 1970s | 91 |
Other editions - View all
The Lyrics of Civility: Biblical Images and Popular Music Lyrics in American ... Kenneth Bielen No preview available - 2015 |
Common terms and phrases
African-American album angels asks band Beach Boys Beatles believe bestseller Bible Biblical images Biblical sacred order Biblical tradition Billboard Blessed chapel character chorus Christian sacred order church Columbia composition contemporary contemporary Christian music content-filled country and western debut deity divine Dylan earthly embrace the Biblical faith Father focus gonna gospel Heart in Motion heaven Holy humanity hymn idea inoffensive Jesus Christ label Lauryn Hill Lennon liner notes listener Lord lyricist lyrics of civility mainstream audience mainstream market meaning meaningful narrator sings narrator's offensive opens overwhelmingly peace petition phrase popular music lyrics popular songs pray prayer songs promised land recording artists reference release religion religious images revival rock rhythm and blues rock and roll rock music romantic love scripture second verse secular Simon singer Slow Train Coming solo someone song's soul specific spiritual suggests theme theology title track vague Wonder words