Songs 14 and 15 ( Last Two!!)

The Hands That Built America by U2

This song was written in 2002. This song talks about all the different people that have built America. The song is unusually written because of all of the people that the song mentions in the building of America the way it's written it sounds like anyone of those people could have written it. In the songs chorus there is a person who whispers several different ethnicity's involvement in helping build America. (Polish, Irish, German, Italian, Russian, Sioux, Dutch, Hindu, Blacks, Chinese, Jews, Korean, Hispanic, Muslim, Indian. ) So, the ways the song is written it sounds like anyone one of these people could be singing it, but not only that- the songs' lyrics make it sound like it was written in the beginning of America. The first time I heard this song I just kind of overlooked it, but after listening to it a few more times I began to really enjoy it. It has a really cool sound to it, kind of simple. Before the versus start the beginning reminds me of a song of the Planet Earth soundtrack. This song made me look at America and realize that it literally did take all kinds of people to build America. It took a little bit of this and that from everywhere to come up with what we have now, and that's something that no other country has come close to. I can imagine that when some people hear this song they would become offended that so many different ethnicity's are mentioned when it was the Europeans who settled America, but without the influences of all the other nationalities we might not even exist in the same way we do today.

We Didn't Start The Fire by Billy Joel

This song was written in 1989. This song talks about all of the things that happened from the 1940's up until 1989. Highlighting things from Hula Hoops, Disneyland, and a major homicide case. There are so many things that this song covers that somebody could probable write a book on this song. This song is one of the weirdest songs as far as composition goes because in the versus it doesn't appear that anybody imparticular is talking, it's just somebody listing a bunch of stuff. However, in the chorus the writer uses the words "We" in which it is believed refers to the Baby Boomer generation. Well, the last song on the CD is definitely a hit on my list. Even though all of the things in this song happened before I was even born it's a really cool song. It has a really fun rhythm to it, and is incredibly fun to sing to. ( Even though you have to have the lyrics in front of you and even then I still mess up! :P) This song allows you to learn about so many things that happened in US history. I mean I could probable take a week and look up and learn about all of the instances Billy Joel refers to. However, when I was listening to it, while doing this post I though that it was interesting that he mention the Starkwheather homicide. Mainly because I figured that that most of been on heck an investigation for it to have been mentioned in a song like this. So, I looked it up and read that Charles Starkwheather had killed 11 people! So, that's what I learned about US history through this song.