Document Type
Class Paper
Publication Date
4-2-2015
Abstract
Today’s music tends to have the main goal of entertaining instead of spreading a message; the music created, performed, and shared during the 1970s carried with it ideas and new ways of thinking. People could not only “jam” to the beats created by singers such as Jimmi Hendrix, The Beatles, and Janis Joplin, but they could also connect and identify with the words that they sang; Songs such as “Let It Be” by the Beatles is a prime example of this type of music. The 1970s brought a decade of national malaise in the United States, as well as a young adult backlash to the teachings of their parents. Young Americans were not only consumed with their own life in high school but also with protesting against the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, and rejecting the lifestyles that their parents had imbedded in them since birth. Through the music of Joplin and the works of Joplin’s contemporaries an idea came about that the young adults who lived during the counter-culture era were fighting to find meaning in their everyday lives. The counter-culture has the reputation for being large amounts of rebellious kids who held crazy parties, were drunks and drug users, wasting away their lives; while these items were used by young Americans involved in the counter-culture movement, it was not their main goal. The young people in the 1970s rebelled in order to find the real meaning of life and to fight for what they believed was right. The real movement behind the façade of the counter-culture of the 1960s and 70s was expressed through the mode of music, more expressly, through Janis Joplin’s songs.
Recommended Citation
Hess, Chelsey, "The 1970's Counter-Culture through the Lyrics of Janis Joplin" (2015). History Class Publications. 28.
https://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/history/28
Comments
Research Seminar