Music Culture of American Southern Rock and Irish Music

Music cultures from around the world can connect people socially. It has a powerful effect over a humans emotional, mental, and physical health. Music can help you mourn or celebrate, and it can relax or hype you up. It can also help you understand current and historical events told through lyrics. Music can tell a love story or break your heart. One thing every single culture has in common is music. Each culture might sound different, but we all feel the same feelings when we hear it. There are thousands of music cultures, but two of types I enjoy the most are American southern rock and Irish music culture.

A piece of American culture that is my favorite is Southern Rock music. Ian McCann wrote in 2018 “Rock’n’roll is from the Southern states of the US of A. And whenever it wants to go back to its roots, it pays homage to the sounds that were created down there. Rock is Southern at heart.” Southern rock originated in the 50’s and was mainstreamed in the 70’ s, it was mainstreamed. It is a combination of blues, rock, and country. Southern rock is heavy electric guitar, dual guitars, and steel and slide guitars. The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet, and 38 Special are all from my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. As I was growing up, Southern Rock was directed toward the under classed. We were called names like white trash, hillbilly, and redneck. We were rowdy and less civilized. Southern Rock is full of ballads, drama, and anthems sung about their home, freedom, and women. They played at Woodstock and Antigovernment and antiwar movements. But one of the most important things to most southern rockers is the drugs and alcohol. In an article by Kieron Tyler, R.E.M. Mike Mills once commented that “Lynyrd Skynyrd didn’t care about making a better world, they just wanted to party.” Southern rock has evolved over time. The Kings of Leon are a great representation that southern rock is not dead. There is a lot of symbolism from old southern literature in their lyrics. This part of my culture is important to me because a lot of southern rock is confederate flag flying “God, guns, and grits” bumper sticker having bullies, but it is more than that. It is rebelling at its finest, but it is also storytelling and romantic.

Irish music is over 2000 years old. Most of it even still today is only learned by ear. Irish musical instruments include bagpipes, fiddles, and tin whistles. Fiddle player in a pub playing while the patrons dance a jig or a man in a kilt playing bagpipes in the street is a popular scene in movies. After living through traumas all day of oppression, hard labor, and being at your capacity mentally and emotionally, there is nothing better than letting loose and washing your worries away with good ole folk music. The Irish have conflicted with Britain for hundreds of years. Northern Ireland people were pushed from their land because they wouldn’t convert religions and then killed by the potato famine brought to them by Scottish settlers. There is still hostility to this day. Irish music culture is all over America presently with their sounds coming from The Avett Brothers and Bob Dylan. Starting in Appalachia, where a lot of Irish emigrated to flee the British.  In the 80’s to 90’s bands like U2, The Cranberries, and Sinead O’Conner were topping charts in the U.S. These musicians sang about bombs and famine and government oppression. NPR writer Jason King calls Sinead O’Conner Irelands freedom singer. He is quoted saying “she was a headliner at Peace ’93 and for a 1997 Princess Diana memorial. She was a feral feminist and anti-racist and sang about Britain’s mistreatment of Ireland and outraged over the domination and exploitation that resulted from systems of oppression.” U2 have much controversy as well. Sunday Bloody Sunday, a song about the conflict in Northern Ireland, and their stance on abortion made it unsafe for some time for them to return to Ireland. Their philanthropist efforts were wide ranging from Live 8, Hurricane Katerina, HIV/AIDS, and much more. Marion Garmel states The Irish are known for their drinking, Brawling, storytelling, and incredibly moving folk songs. We have a lot to thank them for.

Southern rock and Irish music are similar because they are both proud of their region. Southern rock and Irish folk are both popular to play in bars and pubs and directed toward the lower-class communities. They are both storytellers, singing about their passions and come from heavily religious areas. I believe both genres struggle with being a sinner and wanting to rebel. J. Michael Butler states in Up Beat Down South that drug use, violent brawling, distance from family members, and sleeping with every female possible are not characteristics usually associated with strong religious values. They both have many different styles that range from heavy and violent to gentle and poetic. Southern rock and some Irish folks have a country feel with some having homemade instruments and share some professionally made instruments like the fiddle, harmonica, mandolin, and the banjo. The two cultures are different because the oppression of freedoms that were in Ireland are in their lyrics, and southern rock is a lot of songs about being free. One was derived from blues and country; one was derived from Egyptian harp players. Irish music cultures dates over a thousand years before southern rock. They are from two different continents.

The bluegrass and folk music that came out of the Appalachian area have joined the south and Ireland. Millions of Americans today are descendants of Ireland from their potato farmer immigration to the Appalachian Mountains. New age folk bands like Avett Brothers, Green Sky Bluegrass, and Billy Strings, and many of the psychedelic rock bands that derived from The Grateful Dead, like Phish and Moe have influence of Irish folk in their sound. Irish and American music culture in this era is so intertwined you might not hear the difference. Music will always be one the thing to remind me I am a live human being with feelings, and not an empty shell going through the right steps in life that the government pushes the media to deem a societal norm. When my body hurts and my mind isn’t working correctly, I can listen to music and heal. If I start to feel like nobody understands me or is going through the same hard life as me, I can listen to music, and when I am feeling rude and rebellious, nobody can take my music away from me. “I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.” Tom Waits

Works Cited

MCCANN, IAN. (2018, Apr 4). Ramblin’ On: The Birth, Life and Rebirth of Southern Rock.

https://www.udiscovermusic.com/in-depth-features/ramblin-on-the-birth-life-and-rebirth-  of-southern-rock/

TYLER, KIERON. (2012, APR 14). Sweet Home Alabama: The Southern Rock Saga BBC Four Surface Skimming Look at the Late Sixties and Seventies music of the US Southern States https://www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/sweet-home-alabama-southern-rock-saga-bbc-four

KING, JASON. NPR music Sinéad O’Connor was our freedom singer, our keener and our feminist killjoy (2023, Aug 2). https://www.npr.org/2023/08/02/1191257525/sinead-oconnor-freedom-singer BUTLER, J. MICHAEL. “‘Lord, Have Mercy on My Soul’: Sin, Salvation, and Southern Rock.” Southern Cultures, vol. 9, no. 4, 2003, pp. 73–87. JSTOR,   http://www.jstor.org/stable/44376576. Accessed 14 Feb. 2024.

GARMEL, M. (1998, Jan 24). Eire on the air: PBS’ three-part series ‘The Irish in America’ takes a look at the history and struggle of Irish immigrants to settle in America. Indianapolis Star Retrieved from http://168.156.198.98:2048/login?url=https:www.proquest.com/newspapers/eire-on-            air/docview/240243676/se-2.

KENNEDY, LIAM. (2015). Unhappy the Land the Most Oppressed People Ever, the Irish? Merrion.