Les élèves de 1ère ont mené tout un travail de recherche et de réflexion avec leurs enseignant.e.s d’anglais sur la thématique “Power of Music”. Voici le lien pour découvrir l’ensemble de leurs créations: https://padlet.com/stephaneschmitt/8l9igvnx8ndopfy1

The Power of Music, by Komi Potter, March 15, 2022
Music can have a great power over our feelings and our thoughts, hence protest songs during political
and social events are not something you can take lightly. Especially today, when the threat of a nuclear war no longer belongs to history books, we can wonder how this tool was used during past wars and revolutions.
To begin with, a lot of songs have been created in order to motivate and convince people to revolt against an authoritarian regime, or to fight for their country.
As a song of rebellion we have “bella ciao” dating from the 20th century: a song from our Italian friends! Even today, there are covers of this music by Gims, Vitaa, Dadju and Slimane or in the casa de papel. This song is a hymn to the resistance of Mussolini’s dictatorship. It appeared in 1943 during the Italian Civil War and most of the resistance fighters would have sung it.
In 1943 the war of the “partigiani” raged in Italy: the country was cut in two with the North ruled by Mussolini and the South ruled by royalty. The lyrics take up a popular song “Fior Di Tomba” and tell the story of a partisan who will fight the invader and asks his beloved to lay a flower on his grave, before claiming that he died for freedom.
As another example, we have “Hasta siempre” written in 1965 by Carlos Puebla, a Cuban, is an ode to Ernesto che guevara. He was the icon of the Cuban revolution but he died two years after the release of the song . It is a song of hope and nostalgia for Cubans.
However, songs can also celebrate peace. For example, “ Le déserteur “ is a song written by Boris Vian, a french writer and got released in February 1954. Boris Vian sang this open letter to the President to announce his upcoming desertion despite the war spreading in Algeria. Censored until 1962, this antimilitarist song is an act of resistance of the writer, intentionally provocative: since the beginning, it has created a scandal. Therefore, the original version of the song has been changed into a more “ light “ version: at the beginning, the deserter which was about to shout against the police become more pacifist with the following lyrics : “If you pursue me / Warn your gendarmes, / That I won’t have any weapons, / And that they can shoot.”
Then, “ El derecho de vivir en paz “ means in English “ the right to live in peace “. It is an album written by Victor Jara and got released in 1971. Indeed, Victor Jara, which was coming from Chile, deals in this music with the Vietnamese people’s situation.
In Chile, the appealing voice of Victor Jara raise with conviction and claims the right for Vietnamese to live in peace, as the United States were waging war in Vietnam.
After the Pinochet regime took power in Chile, Victor Jara was subsequently tortured and murdered, but his song survived to him: it was sung by a lot of people during the 2019 Chilean protests. Thus, thanks to his attachment to Chilean people, he gave hope to a thousand of demonstrators.
Last but not least, “ Imagine “ is a song written by John Lennon which got released on October 11, 1971. It was his most successful single and perhaps the best song in music history for its strong and timeless message. Indeed, he wrote this song during the Vietnam War as an anti- war song: at this time in history, peace movements were popular because of all the wars happening that involved the country and its people. “ Whenever the song exists, it’s because the world needed it. “ he said.
Thus, it is important to bear in mind that the power that music can convey has strongly consequences. The idealistic utopia of John Lennon is still at that time unrealized, but in the other hand the message of peace under the lyrics is still listened.
Therefore, music can encourage people to revolt and fight for a better life, or show the beauty of the peace: these subjects resonate with current events and a lot of other songs may appear. To conclude, if politicians listened to more music, perhaps our world would be better: if you want to save the world, use music!

What does Bob Geldof think about his own festival?

The live Aid concert was a music charity concert. It took place at Wembley stadium in London in England. 72 000 people came for the world’s biggest rock festival. This festival was organized on Saturday 13th July 1985. Moreover, it was broadcast in countries around the world and it gathered over 1 billion people. The Live Aid concert was created by Bob Geldof, a famous singer of Boomtown Rats.

Today, we get the chance to interview him:

Journalist: “Hello Bob, you are the organizer of the Live Aid concert so we have some questions for you. What is the aim of this festival?”

Bob said “The goal of this festival is to raise money to fight against famine in Africa and help the poor people in this continent. Famine in Africa is very important so it is a cause to support!”

Journalist: “How much money have you raised with this Festival?”

Bob answered “We raised £40m, three times more than the £10m expected”

Journalist: “Interestin ! And how did you invest this money to help people in Africa?”

Bob replied “With this money, we bought some food and the other half on long term development.”

Journalist: “Thank you Bob! Bye!”

An exclusive interview of Bob Geldof, organizer of the biggest concert of the century

Jason Walter, 20th of July 1985, Mojo

A week ago, the most amazing concert of all time took place at the same time in the Wembley Stadium in London and in the Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia. Its purpose was to raise money to stop famine in Africa which caused a huge number of deaths this year. It was a real hit because it gathered £40m and was broadcast to 1,5 bn people. Therefore, we decided to interview the co- organizer of this event, Bob Geldof, who is also a singer. Let’s listen to him!

«Hello Mr Geldof, we are really happy that you accepted to talk to us. We have a lot of questions for you, but firstly, how do you feel after the huge success of this project? »

« I’m overjoyed even if I don’t realize what « 1,5bn people » means, that’s so giant! You know, I never thought it would become such a hit! The money gathered will allow us to help a lot of people, that’s fantastic. »

« Sure! Then, why did you choose to organize a concert rather than another event? »

« to begin with, I am a singer above all, therefore, music is my life, and if you can add a big musical event to an important cause, you can save lives, and I think that’s very important. People donate their money more easily when it is associated to something they can enjoy, such as a concert. »

« Okay, and how did you manage to organize such a gigantic event? »

« It required a great deal of effort to coordinate all the artists, lights, settings of the audio, but we were really motivated and teams we worked with were fantastic and very efficient. »

« Thanks for your answers, and once again congratulations for this festival! »

A committed gig

By John Smith, Mojo magazine, 10 July 1986

The Live Aid concert took place in London and Philadelphia. It began on 13 July 1985. This concert was a charity. It was described as the Woodstock Festival of the eighties; it was a concert of rock music. It lured a lot of people. Indeed, there was a crowd of 72 000 people and 1,5 billion people in 160 countries watched this concert on television. It was produced by Bob Geldof who is a committed Irish musician. We have interviewed him:

“What is the goal of the Live Aid concert?”

“This concert allowed us to raise funds to reduce the starving in Africa, but it was also for a cure against AIDS at the beginning. We motivated people by showing there were people dying because of this disease.”

“Was the concert successful?”

“Yes, it was. We raised three times more money than expected. We collected around 40 million pounds. Half of the money was spent on food and the other half on long-term development.”

“Finally, were there a lot of celebrities who sang?”

“The Live Aid concert gathered a lot of singers and bands; for example, Queen, U2, David Bowie, Phil Collins and Elton John sang. They lured people.”

Nowadays, music is present everywhere in our lives. We can hear music at home, in our car, outside. It’s relaxing and entertaining. It can bring us hope, joy or, on the contrary, make us feel sad or pessimistic. Over the years, singers have used music to write protest songs to defend a cause or again to convey a message of peace, as a consequence we may wonder how powerful music can be ?

On the one hand, music is listened to by a lot of persons and a protest song sung by a famous singer, rapper can be heard by millions of listeners who will hear committed lyrics and it will probably help them understand better some of the problems our world is confronted with. For example « With God on our side » is a protest song by Bob Dylan in which he criticizes the fact that a lot of Americans refer to God when they do something. After hearing this song Americans will maybe become more self aware about this problem and try to stop this habit.

Moreover, music can help the world from an economic point of view and organize charity events and charities in order to try and give a helping hand to the needy. Indeed, in 1965, in the Wembley Stadium, Bob Geldof, an Irish singer organized a charity concert watched by more than one billion persons to fight against starvation in Africa, called « Live Aid » and raised £40 millions to help the Africans.

On the other hand, music is not a governmental decision, so it’s an unofficial help with limited solutions. Music is lyrics and melodies, it’s not a law. For instance, in his song « Man in the mirror », Michael Jackson denounces famine, war, racism, segregation and poverty. However, people are not forced to help the needy, the poor, if they don’t want to, and people, country will not stop fighting just because they listened to this song.

To conclude music can improve or at least ease things in the world by arousing emotions and encouraging listeners to demonstrate to defend a cause like peace, racism. However, to me, music remains an art, a means of expressing oneself and I believe far more in the power of politics.

There is no denying that music is a universal language. Indeed, everybody is fond of at least one type of music (rock, rap…) that gathers them in festivals or concerts. Music can also extend itself and have a more powerful meaning thanks to music. This raises the question of : does music contain a sort of power ?

To begin with, music can save people’s lives only with concerts or festivals whose unique conditions for the people who pay is to have fun by listening to their favorite artists. As a matter of fact, concerts can be turned into charity events which will collect money for a noble cause. This raises the example of Live Aid, a charity event which happened in the eighties organized by Bob Geldof whose goal was to raise money for the population starving in Africa. This concert raised millions of dollars and was showed on live all around the globe. It was in fact, the most watched in the world with no more than one billion people who attended it.

Although music can also be used by artists to make protest songs which will denounce issues (such as war, hunger, dictatorship), it doesn’t always fully convey their message. Let’s raise the example of the song written by Micheal Jackson « Man in the Mirror ». In his video clip, he shows homeless people, people who are starving, war, environment degradation and dictatorship and in his chorus he says « If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change ». Unfortunately, his song wasn’t enough for people to truly act, and not a lot of things have really changed since.

To conclude, I do believe in the power of music since it helps millions of people in their daily life, wherever they come from, whatever they background. However, its power contains limits and the making of « protest songs » in order to convey a message isn’t enough for the population and government to act on social issues.