Copenhagen Game Collective

Happy Independence Day from overseas!

As the token American on the team, I feel like it’s my duty to mark the occasion somehow. So, here’s a very special Weekly Music Tip – two iconic “American” songs that come with my highest recommendations.

Song #1

First, Aaron’s Copland’s Appalachian Spring, from 1944 – an absolute classic:

It doesn’t get more American this, folks – wildly optimistic, over-the-top, loaded with sentimental pastoral and frontier imagery, all in a folksy vernacular style. I love it. I’m not a particularly patriotic person (to say the least), but I have to admit, it’s always very inspiring to hear those stirring arpeggios from the Allegro section, or Copland’s re-working of the famous Shaker melody, “Simple Gifts.”

The title of the piece apparently comes from a stanza from a Hart Crane poem:

O Appalachian Spring! I gained the ledge;

Steep, inaccessible smile that eastward bends

And northward reaches in that violet wedge

Of Adirondacks!—wisped of azure wands,

Folksy frontier imagery aside, it should be noted that Copland was, in fact, a gay Jew from Brooklyn, with communist political sympathies to boot! So, yes, the piece reflects a self-consciously romantic view of America. But it’s fitting, because it’s precisely this stubborn optimism – a celebration of the common man, of the spirit of revolution – that’s such an important component of the American psyche (for better or worse). And I think it speaks to the appeal of this idealism that even someone like Copland could so enthusiastically buy into it.

It wasn’t easy finding a decent recording of this piece online. In the video above, the ensemble plays Copland’s original version, composed for thirteen-member chamber orchestra. But Copland also scored a symphonic version, which is considerably more dramatic. If you’re looking for a good symphonic recording, my favorite is this version by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Song #2

As much as I love Copland, I feel like it’s important to counterbalance this dose of American optimism with something very different, something more contemporary. So for my second recommendation, here’s something grittier – Black Star’s “Respiration” (1998), featuring Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Common:

Massive! Without a doubt, one of the best hip hop tracks ever, straight outta New York City.

(Bonus link: also make sure to check out the Pete Rock remix)

Written from a racially, politically, and socioeconomically marginalized point of view, the song is unabashedly critical of American society. But the song also expresses a set of emotions more ambiguous, more complex. The lyricists seem to take a certain pride in the city (“so some days I take the bus home / just to touch home”), and even suggest that New York has a certain intoxicating appeal. For me, the most poignant line:

I can feel the city breathin’,
chest heavin’,
against the flesh of the evening

There’s an irreconcilable contradiction at play here. Despite all its shortcomings, the city is still their home; it’s where they’re from. Their indictment of American society is also, simultaneously, a defiant celebration of their place within it, in spite of it. The fact that the MCs seem to care so much betrays a sense of hope and stubborn optimism.

Maybe Copland and Black Star aren’t really so different after all.