Date of Award

2006

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

History

Abstract

Through a detailed focus on these five groups and their music, with an added emphasis on their lyrics, this thesis attempts to create a meaningful tie between Slotkin' s study of American myth-making and story creation with a key area of popular culture - music - that he did not focus on. The thesis itself is separated into three key chapters - the first reveals how nature and landscape are presented in these songs and how they viewed modern twentieth century America with idealized notions of a rural past. The second discusses their presentations of heroes and anti-heroes as musical expressions of populist sentiment. The third demonstrates how these songs incorporated images of death and destruction to tie into a folk and blues tradition and reinforce a populist connection. Finally, a short conclusion wraps up the importance of these artists and their songs and presents how this musical tradition is still being utilized to express populist sentiment today.

Included in

History Commons

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