From the Mountains to the Gutter
I am currently working on a Beyond Today script titled, "Whatever Happened to Sin?” In researching the topic I found an old article from Newsweek of the same title. The article was written in 1995 and gives me some good ideas. It will have to be updated with more research since a lot has changed in the past 18 years.
Wednesday night my wife and I were watching a PBS program about the contributions of Jewish musical composers to the American theater. It was fascinating to see the many talented men who composed such well-known songs as "If I Were a Rich Man" and "Oklahoma". The 1930s to the 1950s was a rich time for musical theater. It was when so many songs about life in America were composed. These songs entered our culture and defined a large part of life at the time.
Watching the progression of composers through the years was instructive. You could see the culture changing, and the music reflected the changes. Not all of it was good. Irving Berlin was featured signing his trademark song, "God Bless America". He wrote it as a love song for his nation, and there was a time it almost supplanted "The Star Spangled Banner" as the national anthem. One of the most recent images with this song was when members of Congress stood on the steps of the Capitol in Washington the evening of 9/11 and sung the song. It was very moving.
Toward the end of the program the music of another musical, La Cage au Folles was featured. This musical deals quite sympathetically with homosexuality. One of the songs was a show-stopper at the end of act 1 called “I Am What I Am.” The song unabashedly revels in being gay, with no apologies. What a progression, I thought, from "God Bless America" to "I Am What I Am." How our culture has changed in such a short time.
It is said that one of the loudest harbingers of a nation's decline is art. Watch what is happening with art and you can see where the culture is going. With a very sharp focus, art defines the contours of a society's morals.
From "God Bless America" to "I Am What I Am". What's next? Do we really want to know?
