Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 103

July 6, 2022: 4th of July Contexts: Fireworks

[In honor of the 4th of July, a series highlighting various historical and cultural contexts for this uniquely American holiday. Leading up to a special weekend post on patriotism in 2022!]

On the history, symbolism, and limitations of an American tradition.

As detailed in this Slate article, the intersection of fireworks and the 4th of July literally goes back to the first, 1777 celebrations of the holiday (the first because in 1776 July 4th was the date of the Declaration’s actual dissemination and readings, rather than a holiday commemorating that occasion). I had more to say about the John Adams letter referenced in that piece in yesterday’s post, so here I’ll keep this paragraph short and say that you should certainly check out that Slate piece by senior editor Forrest Wickman for a clear, concise depiction of the longstanding histories (both American and international) of fireworks.

While fireworks might have been present from those earliest Independence Day celebrations on, however, I would argue that their July 4thsymbolism really took hold after the War of 1812, and more exactly after Francis Scott Key wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the aftermath of the siege of Baltimore’s Fort McHenry during that conflict. After all, the central image of our national anthem is a contrasting visual one, of seeing the flag through the darkness—eventually “by the dawn’s early light,” but even more importantly by the glow of “the bombs bursting in air” that “gave proof through the night.” It’s a compelling and powerful image, the idea of a light in the darkness that allows us to keep an eye on our national ideals. And whether fireworks actually create a flag of fiery lights (as they often do for the 4th) or simply burst in the night sky for our collective vision and inspiration, they capture this defining national image in a visceral and affecting way.

Visceral and affecting as fireworks might be, however, what they are not is thought-provoking; indeed, as with many spectacular entertainments, they require us not to think at all in order to get the most pleasure from their spectacle. To be clear, as a fan of Star Wars and the James Bond films, among many other spectacles, I don’t have any problem with such entertainments being part of our culture and society. But as a commemoration of our nation’s independence day, such a spectacle does seem to represent another example of what I’ve elsewhere described as the celebratory, easy form of patriotism, the kind that asks nothing more of us than our awed appreciation. So while such awe can and perhaps should be a part of our July 4th celebrations, I’d love if there were space as well for more reflective engagement with our history and community. Am I arguing for Frederick Douglass-shaped fireworks? Maybe not—but I could definitely get behind a brief reading from “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” before every July 4thfireworks ceremony. Give it a couple years and it’d be just as much a part of the tradition as those fiery bombs bursting in air.

Next July 4th context tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other 4th of July histories or contexts you’d highlight?

July 5, 2022: 4th of July Contexts: The Adams Letters

[In honor of the 4th of July, a series highlighting various historical and cultural contexts for this uniquely American holiday. Leading up to a special weekend post on patriotism in 2022!]

On the myths, and the realities, revealed about the Revolution and its leaders in the Adams letters.

Writing to his wife Abigail on July 3rd, 1776 (she was back at home in Braintree managing the family farm and raising their children), the day after the Continental Congress had drafted the Declaration of Independence, John Adams argued that “the Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epoch, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

On one level, the letter reveals just how much myth-making is inherent in any national celebration—we celebrate independence on July 4th because the Declaration was signed, dated, and sent out to the American public for the first time on that day; but Adams’ emphasis makes clear that the date was and is an arbitrary one, and of course that Revolutionary acts, like all historical moments, develop over time. On another level, however, Adams’ letter reveals quite impressively how aware the Congress was of the significance of what was happening: not only in his quite thorough prediction of the celebrations that would come to commemorate the event; but also in his recognition of all that would follow the Declaration. “You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not,” he wrote. “I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means.”

Reading the Adams’ correspondence offers even more Revolutionary realities than those. For one thing, it deeply humanizes the second President (and by extension all the framers); I defy anyone to read John’s heartfelt July 20th, 1776 letter of concern for both his ailing family and his own separation from them and not feel differently about the man and moment. For another, the letters provide a visceral and compelling argument for the Revolutionary era’s hugely impressive community of American women—Abigail was not as publicly minded as peers such as Judith Sargent Murray and Annis Boudinot Stockton, but she makes a thoroughly convincing case for what Murray called the equality of the sexes: in her overt arguments for such equality, but just as much in her intelligence, her eloquence, and her strength in supporting both the family and its business and her husband and the nation’s. Many of my posts in this space, like much of my writing and work everywhere, have sought to complicate our idealizing national myths, but the Adams letters remind us that some of our realities have been just as ideal.

Next July 4th context tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other 4th of July histories or contexts you’d highlight?

July 4, 2022: 4th of July Contexts: Slavery and the Declaration

[In honor of the 4th of July, a series highlighting various historical and cultural contexts for this uniquely American holiday. Leading up to a special weekend post on patriotism in 2022!]

On important historical contexts for a frustrating founding text, and why the frustrations remain nonetheless.

In this July 4th, 2015 piece for Talking Points Memo, my second most-viewed piece in my year and a half of contributing bi-monthly columns to TPM, I highlighted and analyzed the cut paragraph on slavery and King George from Thomas Jefferson’s draft version of the Declaration of Independence. Rather than repeat what I said there, I’d ask you to take a look at that piece (or at least the opening half of it, as the second half focuses on other histories and figures) and then come back here for a couple important follow-ups.

Welcome back! As a couple commenters on that post noted (and as I tried to discuss further in my responses to their good comments), I didn’t engage in the piece with a definitely relevant historical context: that the English Royal Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, had in November 1775 issued (from on board a warship anchored just off the Virginia coast) a prominent Proclamation both condemning Virginian and American revolutionaries, declaring martial law in the colony, and offering the prospect of freedom to any African American enslaved people who left their owners and joined the English forces opposing them. A number of enslaved people apparently took Dunmore up on the offer, and so when Jefferson writes that “he [King George] is now exciting these very people to rise in arms among us,” he might have been attributing the idea to the wrong Englishman but was generally accurate about those English efforts. Yet of course Jefferson’s misattribution is no small error, as it turns a wartime decision by one English leader (and a somewhat unofficial one at that, as it’s not at all clear to me that Dunmore had the authority to make such an offer nor that the Crown would necessarily or consistently have upheld it) into a defining feature of the relationship between England and the colonies.

There are significantly bigger problems with Jefferson’s paragraph than that misattribution, however. And to my mind, by far the biggest is his definition of African American enslaved people as a foreign, “distant people,” not simply in their African origins (and of course many late 18th century enslaved people had been born in the colonies) but in their continued identity here in America. Moreover, Jefferson describes this distant people as having been “obtruded” upon the colonists, an obscure word that means “to impose or force on someone in an intrusive way.” And moreover moreover, Jefferson then directly contrasts the enslaved people’s desire for liberty with the colonists’ Revolutionary efforts (and thus their desire for liberty), a philosophical opposition that excludes these Americans from the moment and its histories just as fully as his definitions and descriptions exclude them from the developing American community. As I’ve highlighted in many different pieces over the years, a number of prominent enslaved people—from Crispus Attucks and Phillis Wheatley to Elizabeth Freeman and Quock Walker—had already proved and would continue to prove Jefferson quite wrong. But for as smart and thoughtful a person as TJ, it shouldn’t have required such individuals to help him see how much African American enslaved people were an integral, inclusive part of Revolutionary Virginia and America.

Next July 4th context tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other 4th of July histories or contexts you’d highlight?

July 2-3, 2022: June 2022 Recap

[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

May 28-29: Sydney Kruszka’s Guest Post: Why We Should All Read Maus: I was beyond excited to share another Guest Post from Robin Field’s students at King’s College, this one on Maus!

May 30: Remembering Memorial Day: Starting my annual Memorial Day series with a post on how and why we should remember the holiday’s multiple layers.

May 31: Decoration Day Histories: Frederick Douglass: A Decoration Day series kicks off with Douglass’ vital 1871 speech.

June 1: Decoration Day Histories: Roger Pryor: The series continues with the 1876 speech that signaled two significant shifts in American attitudes.

June 2: Decoration Day Histories: “Rodman the Keeper”: The short story which reminds us of a community for whom the holiday’s meanings didn’t change, as the series rolls on.

June 3: Decoration Day Histories: So What?: The series concludes with three ways to argue for better remembering Decoration Day alongside Memorial Day.

June 4-5: A Memorial Day Tribute: A special weekend post on the holiday’s profound AmericanStudies meanings.

June 6: Judy Garland Studying: The Wizard of Oz: A series for Garland’s 100thbirthday kicks off with two ways to analyze Garland’s most iconic performance.

June 7: Judy Garland Studying: Meet Me in St. Louis: The series continues with three ways to analyze Garland’s next blockbuster after Wizard.

June 8: Judy Garland Studying: A Star is Born: Two ways Garland’s profound talents are revealed by her version of a much-remade classic, as the series sings on.

June 9: Judy Garland Studying: Judgment at Nuremberg: A few thoughts on Garland’s most powerful scene in the acclaimed historical film.

June 10: Judy Garland Studying: The Judy Garland Show: The series concludes with power moves behind the scenes and even more powerful presences on the screen.

June 11-12: LGBTQ Icons: A special weekend post on AmericanStudies takeaways from how Garland and four other artists became LGTBQ icons.

June 13: Revisiting Beach Reads: Tony Hillerman: A series revisiting beach reads from my youth kicks off with Hillerman’s Southwestern mysteries in time for the new TV show Dark Winds.

June 14: Revisiting Beach Reads: Tom Clancy: The series continues with learning from authors and books who (eventually) make us cringe.

June 15: Revisiting Beach Reads: Tad Williams: Why you should read an epic four-volume sci fi series on the beach this summer, as the series reads on.

June 16: Revisiting Beach Reads: Tana French: Two ways to AmericanStudy the amazing Irish mystery novelist.

June 17: Revisiting Beach Reads: Foer and Krauss: The series concludes with why you should read two Holocaust novels on the beach this summer.

June 18-19: Crowd-sourced Beach Reads: One of my favorite crowd-sourced posts of the year didn’t disappoint!

June 20: Las Vegas Studying: Bugsy Siegel: A series for the 75th of Siegel’s murder kicks off with how his earlier cities contributed to his Las Vegas.

June 21: Las Vegas Studying: The Godfather and Casino: The series continues with important differences in how the two iconic gangster films portray the city.

June 22: Las Vegas Studying: Sin City: A necessary challenge to our Puritanical roots and how it can go too far, as the series rolls (the dice) on.

June 23: Las Vegas Studying: Vegas Films: What we can learn about the city from a handful of feature films.

June 24: Las Vegas Studying: Andre Agassi: The series concludes with the tennis great who has embodied both sides of the city.

June 25-26: Las Vegas Studying: Vegas in Song: A special weekend post on five great tunes to win (or, yes, lose) it all to.

June 27: Summer Camp Contexts: Camp Virginia: With my sons at sleepover camp, my annual CampStudying series kicks off with the camp without which there’d be no AmericanStudier.

June 28: Summer Camp Contexts: Hello Muddah: The series continues with the very American afterlife of a classic camp song.

June 29: Summer Camp Contexts: Jewish Summer Camps: Ethnicity, community, and the preservation and revision of tradition, as the series camps on.

June 30: Summer Camp Contexts: Playing Indian: The camp tradition that exemplifies a troubling American trend, and how to challenge it.

July 1: Summer Camp Contexts: My Camp Anti-Racists: Couldn’t conclude the series without sharing the story of my sons’ antiracism at last year’s sleepover camp.

July 4thseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Topics you’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!

July 1, 2022: Summer Camp Contexts: My Camp Anti-Racists

[This week my sons return to their favorite sleepaway camp, this time with my older son as a Counselor-in-Training! As ever that gives me serious empty nest syndrome, but more relevantly it also gives us an opportunity for some Summer CampStudying.]

I couldn’t share a Summer CampStudying series without highlighting the incredibly fraught moment my sons experienced at camp last summer—and the even more impressive way that they responded to it. I wrote about both in this Saturday Evening Post Considering History column not long after it happened, and will ask you to check out that column in lieu of a new post here today. Thanks, and enjoy!

June Recap this weekend,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Summer camp stories you’d share or histories you’d highlight?

June 30, 2022: Summer Camp Contexts: Playing Indian

[This summer my sons return (after a frustrating Covid hiatus last year) to their favorite sleepaway camp. As ever that gives me serious empty nest syndrome, but more relevantly it also gives us an opportunity for some Summer CampStudying! Leading up to a crowd-sourced weekend post on the summer camp experiences, stories, and perspectives of fellow AmericanStudiers.]

On the camp tradition that embodies a troubling American trend, and what we can do about it.

I’ve tried from time to time, mostly in the posts collected under the category “Scholarly Reviews,” to cite works of AmericanStudies scholarship that have been particularly significant and inspiring to me. But it’s fair to say that I’ve only scratched the surface, and I’ll keep trying to find ways to highlight other such works as the blog moves forward into its second (!) decade. One such work is Philip Deloria’s Playing Indian (1998), a book which moves from the Boston Tea Party and Tammany Hall to late 20th century hobbyists and New Age believers (among many other subjects) to trace the enduring American fascination with dressing up as and performing exaggerated “Indian” identities in order to construct and engage with individual, communal, and national identity. In one of his later chapters, Deloria considers Cold War-era practices of “playing Indian” through which children’s social experiences and burgeoning American identities were often delineated—and right alongside the Boy Scouts and “cowboys and Indians” play, Deloria locates and analyzes summer camps.

In the example cited in that last hyperlink, Missouri’s Camp Lake of the Woods held an annual “Indian powwow” for its campers—the tradition dates back at least to the 1940s, and apparently continued well into the late 20th century. (I’m assuming it no longer occurs, although I haven’t found evidence one way or another.) By all accounts, including Deloria’s research and analysis, such summer camp uses of “Indian” images and performances were widespread, if not even ubiquitous, as camps rose to their height of national prominence in the 1950s and 60s. Even if we leave aside the long and troubling history that Deloria traces and in which these particular performances are unquestionably located, the individual choice remains, to my mind, equally troubling: this is childhood fun created out of the use of exaggerated ethnic stereotypes, community-building through blatant “othering” of fellow Americans, and a particularly oppressed and vulnerable community at that; to paraphrase what I said in my post on the racist “Red Man” scene in Disney’s Peter Pan (1953), I can’t imagine these camps asking their campers to “play” any other ethnic or racial group. The performances were obviously not intended to be hurtful, but it’s difficult, especially in light of Deloria’s contextualizing, to read them in any other way.

So what, you might ask? Well for one thing, we could far better remember these histories—both the specific histories of playing Indian in summer camps, and the broader arc of playing Indian as a foundational element in the construction of American identity and community across the centuries; Deloria’s book would help us better remember on both levels. For another thing, it would be worth considering what it means that so many American children experienced and took part in these performances, how that might impact their perspectives on not only Native Americans, but ethnic and cultural “others” more generally. And for a third thing, it would also be worth examining our contemporary summer camps and other childhood communities—certainly the most overt such racism has been almost entirely eliminated from those space; but what stereotypes and images, performances and “others,” remain? Summer camps are fun and games, but they’re also as constitutive of identities as any influential places and material cultures can be—as Deloria reminds us, play is also dead serious, and demands our attention and anaylsis.

Last camp context tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Summer camp stories you’d share or histories you’d highlight?

June 29, 2022: Summer Camp Contexts: Jewish Summer Camps

[This week my sons return to their favorite sleepaway camp, this time with my older son as a Counselor-in-Training! As ever that gives me serious empty nest syndrome, but more relevantly it also gives us an opportunity for some Summer CampStudying.]

On ethnicity, community, and the preservation and revision of tradition.

In the nine first-year writing courses I taught as an adjunct at both Boston University and UMass Boston, I focused on one aspect or another of immigration and American identity; as a result, I found that the conversations and work in those courses circled around again and again to some key topics and themes. Many were what you would expect: the old and new worlds; assimilation and acculturation; hyphens and hybridity; multi-generational continuities and changes. But nearly as frequent were our discussions of ethnic communities and neighborhoods in the U.S., the areas early scholars of immigration dubbed ethnic enclaves—we talked a good deal about the limitations and strengths of such enclaves, the ways in which they can on the one hand foster isolation and separation (and even ghetto-ization), sub-standard living conditions and inequal schools, prejudice and ignorance toward immigrant groups, and other issues; but at the same time can preserve specific cultural identities and customs and languages, build community and support across generations, become potent new world homes for immigrant communities.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, following the era’s sizeable waves of Jewish immigration to the United States, many of those arrivals settled in such ethnic enclaves, most famously in the tenements of the Lower East Side of Manhattan (as described at great length in early 20th century literary works such as Abraham Cahan’s The Rise of David Levinsky [1917] and Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers [1925]). While some of those neighborhoods and communities persist to a lesser degree, they have mostly dissipated over the subsequent century, as Jewish Americans have spread out across the country. Yet like members of most ethnic and cultural, as well as most religious, communities, many Jewish Americans have worked for continuity despite these historical and social changes, particularly by passing along customs and beliefs, traditions and ideals, to their younger generations. Education and activities, schools and community and cultural centers, have provided vehicles for such preservation of culture—but another, complex, and I believe more easily overlooked, such vehicle has been the Jewish summer camp.

For well more than half a century, Jewish schoolchildren (and of course some non-Jewish schoolchildren) have spent portions of their summers at sites such as Wisconsin’s Camp Ramah, Camp Woodmere in New York’s Adirondack Mountains, and New Hampshire’s Camp Tevya, among many others. In many ways these camps have facilitated and continue to facilitate a preservation of Jewish culture and community across the generations: with Hebrew and Talmud instruction, historical and social lessons, and other communal activities and connections. Yet at the same time, if we parallel such camps with those attended by American schoolchildren from all cultures and communities (and it seems clear that these camps have also featured all of the stereotypical camp activities: boating and hiking, capture the flag and campfires, and so on), we could argue the opposite: that they have offered another avenue through which Jewish American kids have connected to a broader, non-denominational American society and experience, one shared by all their peers. A tension between ethnicity and acculturation, tradition and revision, the Talmud and campfire sing-alongs—what could be more American than such dualities?

Next camp context tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Summer camp stories you’d share or histories you’d highlight?

June 28, 2022: Summer Camp Contexts: Hello Muddah

[This week my sons return to their favorite sleepaway camp, this time with my older son as a Counselor-in-Training! As ever that gives me serious empty nest syndrome, but more relevantly it also gives us an opportunity for some Summer CampStudying.]

On the very American afterlife of a classic camp (sorry) song.

In 1963, comedy writer and TV producer Allan Sherman wrote (along with musician and songwriter Lou Busch) the comic novelty song “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh (A Letter from Camp).” The hyperbolic lyrics were based on the less-than-ideal experiences of Sherman’s son Robert at New York’s Camp Champlain (Robert had such a miserable camp experience that he was eventually expelled!), and captured pitch-perfectly both the exaggerations and extremes (and vicissitudes) of a young person’s perspective and the mythic presence of summer camp in our childhood and national imagination. The song was such a hit (occupying the #2 spot on the Billboard singles list for three August weeks) that Sherman wrote and performed a sequel on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson less than a year later, cementing the song’s status as the nation’s unofficial summer camp anthem.

It was in 1965, however, that the multi-faceted American story of “Hello Muddah” began to unfold in full. In that year Milton Bradley released a Camp Granada board game, advertised by a TV commercial featuring yet another version of the song performed by Sherman himself. Moreover, the 1965-66 TV schedule featured the first and only season of Camp Runamuck, an NBC sitcom based on the song (including character names and plot details drawn from the lyrics). Those cultural and material extensions of the song have been amplified, in the decades since, by a children’s book, an acclaimed Off-Broadway musical revue, and numerous pop culture allusions and references. Indeed, while the original version of the song continues to exist (even in the pre-YouTube days of my childhood I remember hearing it somewhere), it’s fair to say that “Hello Muddah” has become in many ways more of a brand than a text, revised and reframed and made new for all these distinct cultural and commercial purposes.

That process, by which an individual and isolated artistic work gets adopted into the multi-faceted, multi-media mélange that is American popular culture and society, is anything but new, as my Dad’s pioneering website Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Culture makes clear. But as that website itself illustrates, this kind of American cultural evolution has become significantly more visible, and more exactly recordable and traceable, in our 21st century digital moment. I won’t lie, I didn’t know anything about the “Hello Muddah” board game and TV show until I started researching this post—but now they, like the many permutations of the song itself (which I have a dim memory of singing during my own, thankfully far less extreme and far more positive, experience at Virginia’s overnight Camp Friendship as a middle schooler in the late 1980s), have become part of my own evolving American perspective and identity.

Next camp context tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Summer camp stories you’d share or histories you’d highlight?

June 27, 2022: Summer Camp Contexts: Camp Virginia

[This week my sons return to their favorite sleepaway camp, this time with my older son as a Counselor-in-Training! As ever that gives me serious empty nest syndrome, but more relevantly it also gives us an opportunity for some Summer CampStudying!]

On the unique summer camp without which there’d be no AmericanStudier.

The van was, to the best of my recollection, entirely ordinary. Just a van. The movies that we watched while driving in that van were, although I can only remember one specific title (the forgotten ‘80s classic Space Camp[1986]), nothing earth-shattering either. Just mediocre kids’ entertainment. The lunches that we ate at our various destinations, likewise. The counselor to camper ratio was, while probably well within state requirements, nothing special; I think there were around 12 of us at a time, and just the one counselor. As summer camps go, these basic details might make this one sound pretty average at best. But Camp Virginia most definitely changed my life.

Over the years a number of folks have asked me what inspired my dual passions for American literature and American history, and in my answer I often focus on a couple core elements of my childhood: being raised by two parents who cared deeply about reading and writing; and growing up in Virginia, surrounded by all that history (especially, at least in what was highlighted during my childhood, of the Revolutionary and Civil War eras). But when it comes to the latter influence, of course many tens of thousands of kids grew up in Virginia during the same period as I, and I doubt that many of them were similarly inspired by its treasure troves of historical goodness. And while my parents without question would have introduced me to those troves, the most foundational introductions were those provided by Mr. Kirby. Ronald Kirby was my fourth-grade teacher at Charlottesville’s Johnson Elementary School, and I’m sure he did a great job in that role, but for me he’ll always be the founder, sole counselor, chauffeur, lunch maker, movie selector and starter, 7-11 bathroom demander (a long and funny story that I can’t possibly replicate here, but it’s a good one, trust me), and above all guide and teacher and historian and mentor, of Camp Virginia.

Every summer (well, I did it for two straight summers, but I think he ran it every summer for many years before and after that as well), Mr. Kirby would offer week-long camps, each one focused on a different historical topic (mainly the Revolution and the Civil War, but I imagine there were variations and other topics too). Each day we’d drive to a couple of historical sites, and while I do still (kinda) remember the van and the movies and the lunches, it’s those visits and sites that really stand out for me. But not even the sites, many of which I’ve been to numerous other times as well. It’s the aura that stands out for me, the ambience, the ways that Mr. Kirby could, with a well-chosen anecdote or detail, with attention to a particular spot or artifact or story, with his very enthusiasm and passion and interest, undimmed after however many years and visits and campers, make the history come alive for me and, in so doing, make me come more fully alive as a student, a historian, a Virginian, an American. It’s no exaggeration to say that at the end of those weeks I was hooked, was destined for a life (in whatever profession or discipline) in which history would always be a major destination.

Next camp context tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Summer camp stories you’d share or histories you’d highlight?

June 25-26, 2022: Las Vegas Studying: Vegas in Song

[On June 20th, 1947, mobster Bugsy Siegel was killed in Beverly Hills. So for the 75thanniversary of that murder, I’ve AmericanStudied Siegel’s role in the development of Las Vegas and a handful of other contexts for that tellingly American city. Leading up to this weekend post on Vegas in song!]

On five great tunes to win (or, yeah, lose) it all to.

1)      Elvis Presley, “Viva Las Vegas” (1964): I wrote about the illustrative film on Thursday, but the lyrics to Presley’s song capture the city’s allure and realities alike quite vividly as well. Perhaps never more so than in this couplet from the final verse: “If it costs me my very last dime/If I wind up broke, oh well I’ll always remember that I had a swingin’ time.”

2)      Gram Parsons, “Ooh Las Vegas” (1973): Released posthumously after Parsons’ tragic death at the age of 26 from drug and alcohol abuse at the age, “Ooh” would thus always have been tinged by the sadder side of its titular city. But in case that weren’t enough, the first verse goes: “Ooh Las Vegas, ain’t no place for a poor boy like me/ Ooh Las Vegas, ain’t no place for a poor boy like me/Every time I hit your crystal city/You know you’re gonna make a wreck out of me.”

3)      Sheryl Crow, “Leaving Las Vegas” (1993): Both Presley and Parsons’ songs are from the perspective of a visitor to Vegas; but as I wrote on Friday, the city is truly defined by those who work there (both in and out of the tourist trade). Crow’s anthem, one of many stellar tracks on her debut album, captures that working world perfectly in lines like “I quit my job as a dancer at the Lido des Girls/Dealing blackjack until one or two/Such a muddy line between the things you want/And the things you have to do.”

4)      Sara Bareilles, “Vegas” (2007): A track from her own, equally stellar debut album, Bareilles’ “Vegas” isn’t just a return to the visitor pursuing dreams theme—it’s one where “Vegas” is used even more overtly as a symbolic stand-in for anywhere “where dreams would be” (the song also namechecks New York/Broadway, Mexico, and “sail[ing] the ocean” as other such dream-destinations). But it’s even more interesting as a reflection that nobody can get there alone, with the chorus’ oft-repeated question, “Can you get me to Vegas?”

5)      Brandon Flowers, “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” (2010): The Killers’ lead singer is (like Friday’s subject Andre Agassi) a famous native son of Vegas, and as a result a number of the band’s songs have at least implicitly referenced the city. But it was with the opening track of his solo debut record that Flowers really turned his attention fully to his hometown (attention that most of the album would continue), quoting the famous sign in the process. The song is an interesting mixture of the ideals and the realities, the glitzy dreams and the painful truths, a defining duality never more clearly captured than in Flowers’ chorus: “Las Vegas/Give us your dreamers, your harlots, and your sins/Las Vegas/Didn’t nobody tell you the house will always win?”

Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Las Vegas songs, contexts, histories, or stories you’d highlight?