Simpson Article

In an agreement with Rachel, I do believe that music is very powerful to the point where it can move mountains and in this case has the ability to represent a national identity. While reading this section, I was particularly captivated by the phrase that describes censorship by “attempts to impose ballroom-like dance… to keep the young people from doing the twist failed” (239). I believe that this idea of censorship is not only ridiculous, but is an attempt to stop a society from culturally evolving, which it will inevitably do despite an outer force. This particular demonstration reminds me of an example of music censorship in the United States during the 1950s, dealing with race. I once watched a documentary on Little Richard, a rock and roll artist of the 50s. In this documentary it showed (if I am correct) whites on a particular radio station trying to sing Little Richards songs on the radio instead of him singing his own songs because they were prejudice against African Americans. In any case, when it comes to important issues such as social change I believe that if the views of an issue are strong enough censorship has no effect because there are many other ways to put a point across. Music, nonetheless, is a very powerful too because people can be easily persuaded by emotion along with the logic that the lyrics may bring.