¶ … social problem of using and selling drugs is portrayed in music. I'm interested in studying this because music has at once been accused of glorifying drug culture and also as being one of the few means of allowing users to vent on the realities of drug culture. Clearly, the relationship between drugs and music is a complex one. This paper will seek to shed light on the motivations for artists to incorporate drug culture in their songs and what they presumably gain from it, and what society presumably gains from it as well.
The first song that this paper will examine when it comes to the treatment of drugs as subject matter for songs is in the work of 2 Pac in his famous song, "Changes." This song is so remarkable in that it addresses a tremendous amount of social injustice in that is still alive and well in the world today. The treatment of drugs is often intertwined with the issue of racism and the fact that African-Americans in the world today are put at a severe disadvantage socioeconomically. Consider the first line that 2 Pac uses in reference to drugs: "Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares / One less hungry mouth on the welfare / First ship 'em dope and let 'em deal the brothers / Give 'em guns step back watch 'em kill each other" (lyrics.com). One notable aspect of 2 Pac's mention of drugs is that he refers to crack, a drug which is often found in low income neighborhoods. At the time of the composition of the song, there 1992 was a severe crack epidemic in particular parts of America at the time. Tupac's reference to crack is also a reference to the economic disadvantage from which he comes and the manner in which he first mentions it in his song is extremely revelatory: his remark about giving crack to kids because it will mean there will be less hungry children living in families on welfare demonstrates the sense of despair in the black community -- a sense of despair and helplessness. Tupac's remark encapsulates the apathy which pervades a great deal of white society in regards to disadvantaged blacks and implies that this apathy begins to creep into black society as well. It's this implied apathy that Tupac mentions again in the lyrics: "Take the evil out the people they'll be acting right / 'Cause both black and white is smokin' crack tonight" (lyrics.com). In this sense, the reference to crack is used metaphorically, in that both white and black people are treating one another badly, and are in a sense, smoking crack. However, Tupac makes a final reference to crack in this song when he refers to the business of selling drugs which is generally used as an underground economy to support low-income African-Americans. This is loosely referenced in the lines "the penitentiary's packed and its filled with blacks" which easily refers to America's "war on drugs" and how many experts have accused this particular "war" as being nothing more than a new manifestation of racism and just a more indirect means of finding a way to lock up black people. The underground economy of drugs is indeed mentioned in this song in that it a young man mentions in the song, "I made a G. today" to which Tupac replies, "But you made it in a sleazy way / Sellin' crack to the kid " to which the young man replies, "I gotta get paid" and Tupac answers, "Well hey, well that's the way it is" (lyrics.com). These sentiments encapsulate the crisis that was at war with the black community as a whole: the underground economy of drugs was one which caused members of the black community to even turn on one another, selling crack to their own children.
The band Spoon is a more contemporary band which at once glamorizes drug culture in the song "The Way We Get By" yet at the same time exposes the realities of drug addiction. The song opens with the lines: "We get high in back seats of cars/We break into mobile homes/We go to sleep to shake appeal/Never wake up on our own" (genius.com). These lyrics clearly demonstrate the realities of drug addiction: the petty thievery necessary to keep that addiction alive. Drug culture is not glamorous in that the lyrics describe the tendency to get high in cars and wake up among strangers. However, the chorus, which simply proclaims, "And that's the way we get by/Way we get by" over and over again seems to cheer at...
Drug Music is an art form that addresses many social issues, even in popular music otherwise designed for entertainment. I am interested in this topic because drug use is one of those many different issues. Most forms of music will address drug use at some point, and it is important to consider not only how music addresses drugs but how the way in which it has done so has changed, if
Music or Musical Theatre Like the Rising Sun Although in conventional times and among younger people jazz music is disparaged as boring 'elevator music', true jazz music is anything but. I reached this conclusion after listening to some excellent concert jazz albums of live music. The work of jazz that I am largely basing the aforementioned thesis on is Charles Lloyd's Forest Flower, which was released in 1966 when jazz music was
Drug Culture Midterm Prior to this course, I had a very narrow interpretation of drug culture in regards to film. The films I was most familiar with were those that focused on marijuana such as Cheech and Chong films, Pineapple Express, Half-Baked, and the Harold and Kumar trilogy among others. Additionally, the only other heroin-centric film I was aware of was Trainspotting, and the only other cocaine-centric film that had made
Music & Personality Music has been acknowledged to be a universal form of communication. Even with the barriers of language, music allows the sharing of feelings, thoughts, and meanings. Research is finding that it can be an invaluable tool of communication, education and therapy for those with special needs or disorders. Music is recognized to be able to evoke profound emotions, but modern technology is only just discovering how many of
The two aspects that were least convincing were: one, the highly technical passages (241) that explained in esoteric narrative how the brain functions (e.g., it didn't offer coherence to the study at hand to learn that "…the general neurobiological centers for sensory pain are the sensory cortex and the thalamus"); and two, explaining that because only 52% used music to both relax and distract themselves from the pain it
Music Analysis The social problem that I am examining in music is drugs, which are a fairly frequent topic in many types of music, but they can be both glorified and vilified. This is an interesting subject specifically because of this dichotomy. Some subjects are treated in a fairly uniform manner -- there are probably a few pro-war songs, but not many. Popular music has an interesting time with drugs, however,
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now