Tyranny and Music

Tyranny and Music is an edited collection of essays that explore how musical artists respond to cruel or oppressive governments and ruling regimes. Its primary strength and unique quality lies in its diversity, presenting a postmodern collage of scholarship that reaches across the divides of classical, popular and traditional musics just as it connects musical resistance of the past with the present and the near (Western) with the far (non-Western). Contemporary topics include Chosan's analysis of blood diamonds in the Sierra Leonean Civil War, and collective memory in the Persian Gulf War songs. Historical topics include the image of John Wilkes Booth in the popular imagination, censorship in the Soviet Union, Victor Ullman's song setting at Terezín, artistic restrictions in Maoist China, anti-inquisition propaganda in the outbreak of the Dutch revolt, Revolutionary Era Anthems in the United States and much more. These essays, while remarkable in their scholarly erudition, also provide intimate glimpses of the resiliency of the individual artist. From Cherine Amr's Heavy Metal resistance to the Muslim Brotherhood to Hanns Eisler's battle with the United States House on Un-American Activities Committee, stories of human struggle and perseverance arise from each of these narratives.

Joseph E. Morgan is assistant professor of musicology at Middle Tennessee State University.
Gregory Reish is director of the Center for Popular Music and professor of music history at Middle Tennessee State University

Introduction
Resisting Tyranny with Song: Hanns Eisler's "Nightmare"James Parsons
Memory as Resistance: Viktor Ullmann's Terezin Settings of Friedrich HölderlinBrent Wetters
"The Desert Ain't Vietnam": Collective Memory in Persian Gulf War SongsJessica Loranger
Anti-Inquisition Propaganda at the Outbreak of the Dutch Revolt: Noé Faignient's Chansons, madrigals et motetz Sienna M. Wood
Scriptural Exegesis in the Music of William Billings: The Politics of the AnthemMolly Williams
Vilification or Problematization? John Wilkes Booth in Popular Songs and MusicalsThomas J. Kernan
"I Am the Wife of Mao Tse-Tung" an Analysis of the Representation of Tyranny in John Adam's Nixon in China (Act II, Scene 2)Max Noubel
Battling the Typhoon - Weathering Political Storms in Maoist ChinaMei Han
Memories Don't Burn: Soviet Censorship and the Turkic BardAnna Oldfield
Minhibbuk ya Batta - Musical References to Bashar al-Asad on Syrian Radio during the Civil WarBeau Bothwell
Heavy Metal as Global ResistanceDaniel Guberman
"You Can Take Our Diamonds, But You Can Never Take Our Spirit": Chosan's Analysis of Blood Diamonds and the Sierra Leonean Civil War"Abimbola Cole Kai-Lewis
Popular Music and the Impending Tyranny of Donald Trump Joseph E. Morgan