Rock and Roll Video Review

I was excited to get into this video. I am a big rock and roll fan so I was ready to dig into this video to see what Schweikart had to say about it. At first I totally got the same vibe about him being an annoying Uncle figuratively speaking; but if this was a conversation I would’ve dug into it.

The first thing that I liked hearing was how rock and roll; unlike many music genres was written by children who basically wanted their voices heard through music. It shows rebellion, and it speaks out very loudly. It puts the first amendment into full effect. It exercises the right of free speech and religion through the lyrics and the noise from the drums and the guitar helps it speak loudly to the public that is willing to listen. In a simple word from Schweikart, rock and roll is “freedom”. That is what it is. You write lyrics up and no one can tell you otherwise what you put into those. It comes out as a genre of complete rebellion, but it really is freedom. My favorite band is Rush who is a Canadian rock group and one thing many might find interesting is how two of the members; Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson are children of holocaust survivalists. That to me makes them more interesting because they are doing what they love as well as making a statement. They actually wrote one song called Red Sector A which is all about surviving the Holocaust. Lyrics like “All that we can do is just survive”, and “for my father and my brother, it is too late but I should help my mother stand up straight” really speaks on how devastating that point of history was. Rock and roll really is the genre of freedom because of the fact that you can express in any way you want. You can go heavy to let out emotion such as anger, celebration, or pride and you can even go quiet slow to express peace or sadness.

This topic definitely opened me up to Schweikart. I still have full respect for Howard Zinn but if I had to put points of connecting with others, I would have to put Schweikart for that one. This video was a prime example of him showing he has hobbies and interests just like I do and he isn’t ashamed to put something he loves into his history lessons. I definitely have to respect him for that. Hopefully I will get to see more examples of this later in this course. Howard Zinn still gets points of scholarly and humility so far. I appreciate him leaning more to the underdog part of humanity, but who do I respect more right now? I cannot really say because they are neck and neck but for different reasons.