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It's much bigger than 'Southern Man'" (1). As he told biographer Jimmy McDonough, "It's not 'Southern Man'-it's 'White Man'. (For advanced studies, play the Drive-By Truckers' " Ronnie and Neil" (2001), a song that adds further historical context to the Young-Skynyrd "feud.") Young later admitted that he erred when defining racism as a distinctly southern trait. Following "Southern Man" with Lynyrd Skynyrd's defensive rejoinder " Sweet Home Alabama" (1974) ("Well, I hope Neil Young will remember / A southern man don't need him around anyhow") promises to familiarize students with historical (and historiographical) debates about the changing landscape of the post–World War II South and the fierce resurgence of white southern masculine pride in the 1970s.
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Once students recognize that Young's (monolithic) South bears more resemblance to 1870 than to 1970, they can consider why this anachronistic version of the South remained culturally relevant in the late twentieth century.Ĭoupling the song with short excerpts-both critical and positive-from underground and mainstream publications can lend additional texture to the discussion. "Southern Man" offers students an avenue for investigating how the region has been represented in popular culture, particularly during the civil rights era. This is a gothic South: a degraded, backward place. Driven by a lacerating electric guitar, the piece features images of burning crosses, "bullwhips crackin'," "tall white mansions and little shacks," and religious hypocrisy. "Southern Man" is Young's damning portrait of the American South and its culture of white supremacy and racial violence. The three songs from Young's extensive catalog that I have found to be especially useful in the classroom span the 1970s, when the artist was at his most inspired creatively: " Southern Man" (1970), " Cortez the Killer" (1975), and " Pocahontas" (1979). Moreover, his music can provide students insight into the centrality of perception in shaping popular memories of historical events. In addition, Young's tunes, with their frequent mid-song shifts in time and perspective, are particularly unique resources for acquainting students with historical inquiry, in part, as a conversation between the past and the present. It's a "fun" way to introduce students to historical material and to talk about the responsibility, if any, that cultural producers have to accurately interpret the past. Still, playing and discussing his music in the classroom has many payoffs. Young is not a historian, and his works are rife with historical inaccuracies. Take, for example, the affecting 1970 song " Ohio" (about the shootings at Kent State), 1974's " Revolution Blues" (on the atmosphere of paranoia created by Charles Manson and his deranged followers), 1972's " The Needle and the Damage Done" and much of the 1975 album Tonight's the Night (both reflecting on the casualties of the drug culture), and " Campaigner" (1977), which features the memorable line, "Even Richard Nixon has got soul." But Young's interest in the distant (and usually American) past makes his work exceptionally beneficial for teaching students about the nature of historical interpretation.
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Like many other artists' work, much of the Canadian-born Young's music, especially from the 1960s and 1970s, serves as a time capsule of American history. So why Young? I have found that Young's historical-minded music can prompt engagement and discussion from students in my history, American studies, and Latin American Studies classes. Musically, he follows his muse wherever it leads him, without regard for genre loyalty he has produced sounds ranging from the loud, lumbering hard rock of his work with backing band Crazy Horse, to the laid-back folk- and country-rock of his chart-topping Harvest LP (1972), to incomprehensible experiments like 2014's heavily orchestrated Storytone album.Ĭertainly, there is no shortage of artists whose music can help to illuminate their respective times: Stephen Foster, Billie Holiday, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Odetta, Marvin Gaye, and Sam Cooke are just a handful. Young is arguably one of the greatest singer-songwriters of his generation. Lechnerįor teachers who wish to enrich their students' engagement with the American past, allow me to recommend the catalog of Neil Young (b. Journey through the Past: In the History Classroom with Neil Young Zachary J.