Mi, 13.12.2006

Rock around the Dream – Alex Callaghan from Exeter University (UK) delivers a lecture on „The American Dream in Rock ’n’ Roll Music“

The American Dream – discussed and supposedly dreamt many times in year 12th English-lessons. Theories on “Rags to Riches” evoke tremendous delight with the reading-matter of novels such as “Death of a Salesman” or Fitzgerald’s “Great Gatsby”. Sounds excessively exciting and very amusing, doesn’t it?Mr. Alex Callaghan from Exeter University (UK) should therefore be our rescuer of the moment on 14th December, coming up with a workshop on “The American Dream in Rock ’n’ Roll Music”.

So, the following hour was dominated by catchy beats of well-known tunes like “Born in the U. S. A.” and “Born to run” by Bruce Springsteen, “Keep on rocking in the free world” or even Grandmaster Flash’s famous rap “The Message”.All the mentioned songs have a very critical view on the American Dream in common: Either the extreme focus on money (“cause it’s all about money, ain’t a damn thing funny”) or the overstated symbolism (“I’m sick to my guts of the American Ruse! / Phony stars, oh no! Crummy cars, oh no!”) evoke negative and doubtful reactions of the singers.

“In fact, nobody of them really believes that the Dream can ever be reached”, explained Callaghan and led us to a discussion about the impact of these critical opinions on American society and policy. In that context we learned for example that surprisingly Ronald Reagan had used the song “Born in the U. S. A.” for his election campaign in 1984, not noticing that the lyrics were not patriotic or jingoistic at all.

There were many things unknown to us, but at the same time the speaker told us even more astonishing anecdotes. Hence, we could build up a new opinion on the American Dream, respecting also its negative aspects described in the music that the Exeter-student had brought with him.

All the mentioned songs have a very critical view on the American Dream in common: Either the extreme focus on money (“cause it’s all about money, ain’t a damn thing funny”) or the overstated symbolism (“I’m sick to my guts of the American Ruse! / Phony stars, oh no! Crummy cars, oh no!”) evoke negative and doubtful reactions of the singers.

So it can be said nothing but ‘thank you for the music’, Mr Callaghan, as well as we could profit a lot from talking to a native speaker. We’re looking forward to meeting you again, but “till then tramps like us / baby we were born to run”.-