Aretha Under Fire

 

I try not to get too topical in my topics. (I’ve always wanted to write that sentence!)

First, I am not a political commentator. Our mission here at Professor Carol revolves around the teaching of history and culture through the lens of the Arts. This work keeps me plenty busy without treading on hot buttons. Beyond that, a surprisingly wide range of people read this website and use our courses (bless you all). Inevitably, things that make me boiling mad may not make you boiling mad. I strive, therefore, to keep things in balance as I put my shoulder to the plow.

Still, sometimes a pot does boil over. So here we go.

aretha-franklin

Aretha Franklin (1968).

A group of social activists in Norway is pushing Apple Music and Spotify to ban the marvelous song You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman—a song composed by Carole King with words by Gerry Goffin. Anyone could sing this song, of course, and many people have, but the iconic and indisputable master-performance came from the voice of the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin (1942-2018). And that’s primarily the one under attack (as well as the others, we can presume).

If you were jumping around in 1967 or soon thereafter, this song and the glorious diva Aretha Franklin need no introduction.

If you are younger or otherwise missed that era, two remedies suggest themselves. First, there are plenty of clips of Ms. Franklin bringing this song to worldwide notice. But if you want to wrap yourself in a crystalline moment of music history, watch this regal woman in 2015 as she glides onto the stage of the Kennedy Center, clad in a spectacular mink, takes her place on the piano bench (her proper throne), and begins to sing. Watch the face and response of Carole King who was given one of the prized Kennedy Awards that evening.

I’ve watched this performance countless times. It never fails to bring a tear to my eye (as it did to the eyes of half the audience, including President Obama’s). It also cements the fact that this song belongs in our Great American Songbook—the ever-expanding collection of songs that have defined our national history and character.

In fact, if this song lacked such esteemed status, it would not be targeted. Who goes after long-forgotten arias from turn-of-the-1900s musicals–sentimental tunes that, in their day, flew off the shelf via sheet music and piano rolls? Perhaps 100 years from now, You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman will have lost some of its impact and be seen as solely a relic, representational of its era. But I kind of doubt it. If anything, its power grows stronger with every passing decade.

And that is precisely why You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman has found itself in the crosshairs of the ultra politically correct weaponry.

Often people ask me about popular music: do I even like it? (Yes, but let’s first define it.) Do I follow it? (Depends on the era and the national school of popular music—yes, there are national schools—but yes, I do.) Do I consider it important in music history (absolutely)! In fact, let me take that out of my beloved parenthesis and say: absolutely!

The Era of Soul, the influence of Motown, the career of artists like Aretha Franklin, these things are pure gold in the annals of music history. In considering how to frame this essay, I wanted to remind you that Aretha Franklin herself had a very difficult life. Not only were the vicious realities of institutional segregation stacked against her, but her personal background was hard. Very hard. Her losses and distresses in childhood and young adulthood were many! Hers is a tough biography to read.

Plus, once she did begin to record commercially, it took time and certain heartbreak before she was able to push aside those who wanted to shape her prodigious talents in unfruitful directions. She recorded Respect: R-E-S-P-E-C-T . . . that’s all it took to put a worldwide audience at her feet. Then came You Make me Feel Like a Natural Woman. The rest, as they say, is history.

I would like to live long enough to be able to look back on the tidal wave of damage wreaked by cancel culture. The scholar in me wishes I could live long enough to see the slews of dissertations and cultural commentaries that will be written (some already are in publication). This aggressive mess will be analyzed much as the retrospective on any dictatorship, be it from ancient times or our own. But we have a way to go before that desperately needed perspective can emerge.

Of course, the attacks on the Great American Songbook have extended far beyond You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman, resulting in the elimination of significant American classics (starting with essential works by Stephen Foster). These attacks cast shadows over high-profile performers who perform such classics, and now must eliminate them from recitals and recordings or mumble apologies for music that has shaped our American historical culture.

The ideological attacks don’t stop at music. How dismaying it is to be confronted in museums by apologetic new placards placed next to masterworks of art. Painful to read, these placards are sometimes larger than the tags that identify and explain the works.

These new postings, regardless of how worded, tend to send this message:

I bet you thought this was a fine work, right? And maybe it is. It’s still important and valuable enough to hang on these walls (perhaps not for long). Meanwhile, step back and realize what you see here: rather than a masterpiece of art, this is a flawed statement, filled with ideological mistakes that possibly do damage to those who don’t know better . . . but you know better now, because you have read this tag!

Really?

asselijn-swan

Jan Asselijn: The Threatened Swan (c. 1650).

I’m waiting to find a new placard placed in the Rijksmuseum next to Jan Asselijn’s magnificent The Threatened Swan (c. 1650) detailing the aggressive nature of swans. Therefore, seeing this painting may cause discomfort to sensitive viewers. I wish I were joking.

One has to hope that this latest “cause” against Natural Woman will fall flat. More likely, in today’s climate, Spotify will come up with a warning label for the song. In that case, four fifths of the Sixties classics will need one too. And the pop music of the 1950s also. Wait a minute, songs from the 1940s, 1930s too . . . oops, it’s getting worse. We’d better go back and take on those sultry opera arias of the 19th century. And that won’t be the end of it, will it?

Meanwhile, if this latest tiff brings new honor to Carole King, Gerry Goffin, and Maestra Aretha Franklin, then some good will have come out of it. And if my writing about it sends you to this historically important, touching performance at the Kennedy Center in 2015, then all the better. On that evening, Ms. Franklin had less than three years to live, but true to her soul, she used every possible minute of that time to make music. And just thinking about that brings a tear to my eye.

[*Update:  Some news reports are indicating that the activist group posting about the song now claims it was parody, after denying it was parody. They inserted a “parody/satire” tag on their Twitter profile, but, interestingly, have now deleted that tag. (Will it return?) Whether the post was parody or not seems to depend entirely on their subjective intent. Maybe the joke is on me, but the real attacks on great works of art, music, and literature are pervasive and not remotely funny.]

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  1. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    The call for a ban on the song was started by a parody trans account. They wanted to see if anyone would take it seriously. Apparently no news source checked with the account before running with the story.  

    • #1
  2. Dotorimuk Coolidge
    Dotorimuk
    @Dotorimuk

    Great post!

    • #2
  3. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Those placards, once the province of the driest facts of a piece of art, are no longer informational but rather they are art blurbs, which, like those on books, exist to beg the potential buyer to care. “Look, you’ve gone to all this trouble to engage with this, you came in the door, you looked at the cover, and we are begging you to care! Look, there are colors, colors, and this art fits into an important historical context. And, um, it upset people when it was new! Luncheon on the Grass had a naked woman in publicccccc! Those people were wigged out about it. Stupid prudes. Not like us. We’re very hip…you don’t care about that? Don’t want to learn about…ok, fine. FINE. You know nothing and you’ve seen it all, is that it? Well, guess what. This art is

    Racist!!!

    Yeah, now you care [unless you want to get canceled]. That’s right, it’s problematic and everyone who used to look at it and not see that it’s racist are bad people. Not like you and me.”

    • #3
  4. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    Speaking of Stephen Foster, one of his most famous songs starts out:

    “The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home,

    Tis Summer, the darkies are gay,”

    • #4
  5. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Gave me chills when she sat on her throne and began singing. Thanks Professor Carol. 

    • #5
  6. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Followed immediately on YouTube by the Queen’s performance of Think in the Blues Brothers movie. I’m dancing in my kitchen getting ready for work.

    • #6
  7. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    I’m tired of the left taking every beautiful thing we have and declaring it racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.

    • #7
  8. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    The call for a ban on the song was started by a parody trans account. They wanted to see if anyone would take it seriously. Apparently no news source checked with the account before running with the story.

    It gets hard to tell.  There have been complaints before about songs that I was certain were in jest, but it turned out the activists were serious. 

    • #8
  9. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Your post reminds me that I had a CD of Aretha songs and I was facilitating an unconventional workshop about making changes in city government. Before each session, I played Respect, without any commentary, hoping people would follow her words.

    • #9
  10. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    Wonder what those people think of The Spencer Davis group with Steve Winwood on vocals singing I’m A Man. 

    • #10
  11. Painter Jean Moderator
    Painter Jean
    @PainterJean

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    The call for a ban on the song was started by a parody trans account. They wanted to see if anyone would take it seriously. Apparently no news source checked with the account before running with the story.

    This is what I heard. But it is indicative of the irrationality of the times we live in that it is perfectly believeable, parody or not.

    • #11
  12. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    For communists and other totalitarians of the modern age, it’s important that their proscriptions are very stupid and recognized as stupid. When they force us to conform to what they demand, in spite of everyone knowing it is stupid, then they make us realize that we are not in charge.

    • #12
  13. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    Why of course there are no “natural women” because that would mean that we would have to restrict the gender of “women” to natural born women. We just can’t have that!  OMG!

    It is funny  though that no one is talking about “natural born men”. They can have babies too ya know, so there is no difference. The Ministry of Truth told me so – so it must be true. 

    • #13
  14. Southern Pessimist Member
    Southern Pessimist
    @SouthernPessimist

    The Woke censors have already tried to cancel “Baby, It’s cold outside”. The cancelation has not had much effect that I can see, but it does put a stain on a delightful spoof of courtship which used to be a serious part of Western civilization and American life. Is there any form of courtship which will ever be acceptable to the terminally woke?

    Courtship was part of a tradition that spanned countless centuries. What are we going to be left with when the brain-dead woke scolds are through with their attempt to destroy everything that binds people together?

    • #14
  15. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Fabulous troll!!!

    Here’s their twitter:

    It’s sliiiightly disturbing that a fringe group somewhere could plausibly exist and tweet this demand seriously – but there have always been fringe groups saying nutty things.

    Perhaps more disturbing is that people were so quick to believe that it was a real tweet and that it had any weight in the world.  It’s kind of a pavlovian response – who and what trained us, and to what end?

    • #15
  16. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Fabulous troll!!!

    Here’s their twitter:

    It’s sliiiightly disturbing that a fringe group somewhere could plausibly exist and tweet this demand seriously – but there have always been fringe groups saying nutty things.

    Perhaps more disturbing is that people were so quick to believe that it was a real tweet and that it had any weight in the world. It’s kind of a pavlovian response – who and what trained us, and to what end?

    The good news is that “trans” people are so dysfunctional and so perverted that, except for the ones with borderline personality disorder, they’re too nutty to follow through.

    • #16
  17. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Skyler (View Comment):
    The good news is that “trans” people are so dysfunctional and so perverted that, except for the ones with borderline personality disorder, they’re to nutty to follow through.

    The trans community is so small they can be ignored. J. K. Rowling has been showing that. The only power they have is what you let them have.  

    • #17
  18. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):
    The good news is that “trans” people are so dysfunctional and so perverted that, except for the ones with borderline personality disorder, they’re to nutty to follow through.

    The trans community is so small they can be ignored.

    So why do they get so much attention from conservatives?

    J. K. Rowling has been showing that. The only power they have is what you let them have.

    Why are trans people and trans issues framed as such a core part of the culture wars?

    Imo: because that is convenient for both sides of politics.

    Do you want to talk about DQSH or do you want to talk about the national debt?  I know which one I’d pick if I was responsible for dealing with the latter.

    My question is: why do you automatically go along with that?

     

    • #18
  19. Dotorimuk Coolidge
    Dotorimuk
    @Dotorimuk

    And just what is a man? Muddy Waters spells it out:

    • #19
  20. Charles Mark Member
    Charles Mark
    @CharlesMark

    Farrakhan got to rub shoulders with Bill  Clinton in pride of place at her funeral. I presume that was a reflection of her wishes.  I don’t listen to her music anymore and I don’t care if she’s cancelled. 

    • #20
  21. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):
    The good news is that “trans” people are so dysfunctional and so perverted that, except for the ones with borderline personality disorder, they’re to nutty to follow through.

    The trans community is so small they can be ignored. J. K. Rowling has been showing that. The only power they have is what you let them have.

    They are the fiery multi-car pile up in the middle of the intersectionality. 

    • #21
  22. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Isn’t it great?!

    • #22
  23. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Isn’t it great?!

    More wisdom in that song than the whole of feminism. Why do men advance civilization?? Because women. Women can love and respect men for that or become pretend-men and be miserable. Aka feminists.

    • #23
  24. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Isn’t it great?!

    More wisdom in that song than the whole of feminism. Why do men advance civilization?? Because women. Women can love and respect men for that or become pretend-men and be miserable. Aka feminists.

    Yeah, it’s a great song.  And it isn’t a rejoicing song, that it’s a man’s world.  The haunting, sad chord progression seems to play to the one line which I think is the essence of the song: “But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing, without a woman or a girl.”  Male and female created he them.

    • #24
  25. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Isn’t it great?!

    More wisdom in that song than the whole of feminism. Why do men advance civilization?? Because women. Women can love and respect men for that or become pretend-men and be miserable. Aka feminists.

    Yeah, it’s a great song. And it isn’t a rejoicing song, that it’s a man’s world. The haunting, sad chord progression seems to play to the one line which I think is the essence of the song: “But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing, without a woman or a girl.” Male and female created he them.

    Yep, we’re here for each other.

    • #25
  26. CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill
    @CarolJoy

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    The call for a ban on the song was started by a parody trans account. They wanted to see if anyone would take it seriously. Apparently no news source checked with the account before running with the story.

    In our society, which chastised a black guy for racism when after developing his own pancake batter and marketing it, but used his own photo of himself on the front of the box, there is very little that the radicals won’t do. (Apparently being a quite  dark skinned person, he was not cafe au lait enough or something.)

    • #26
  27. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    The call for a ban on the song was started by a parody trans account. They wanted to see if anyone would take it seriously. Apparently no news source checked with the account before running with the story.

    In our society, which chastised a black guy for racism when after developing his own pancake batter and marketing it, but used his own photo of himself on the front of the box, there is very little that the radicals won’t do. (Apparently being a quite dark skinned person, he was not cafe au lait enough or something.)

    Mort Sahl said decades ago that it’s hard to be a satirist because you have to compete with daily headlines. 

    • #27
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