01x08 - The Music and Heroes of America

[bunniefuu]

Boy, Schroeder,
Snoopy was pretty upset

when he heard that you didn't
want him to be part of the band.

But Charlie Brown,
every time I let him play with us,

he goes wild.

I know.

And this time,
we're going to perform

in front of the whole class.

I just can't take a chance,
Charlie Brown.

Well, I understand.

But I've never seen him so upset.

Well, how upset can he be?

That upset.

Well, I do feel sorry
for him, Charlie Brown.

But I just can't take the risk.

It's important that I get a
good grade on this report.

Well, maybe if you give
him one more chance.

This is Schroeder's concert in
front of the whole class, Snoopy.

If he were to consider
giving you one more chance,

you'd have to promise to be good

and not to do anything crazy.

Well, okay.

I'll let him play with us.

I just hope I don't regret it.

Hey!

What do you think you're doing?

Don't sweat it, sweetie.

We're here to help
you with your concert.

I don't need any help.

Look, you're giving a report on the
history of American music, right?

Yes, but I...

Well, my report is
on American heroes.

So we can just do the
two reports together.

That's the craziest
thing I've ever heard.

Lighten up, sweetie.

We've brought lots of props
to dress up your act.

Lucy, if you don't get out of here...

Yes, ma'am?

Well, yes, ma'am.

I guess we can give
our reports together.

Yes, ma'am.

I understand that it's his concert.

Okay, sweetie.

The floor is yours.

I am not your sweetie.

Sorry, ma'am.

Yes, I'll get started.

Of all the contributions made
by Americans to world culture,

one has been taken to heart
by people all around the world.

And that is American popular music.

Beginning in 1847,

America's first famous composer
to be known around the world

was Stephen Foster.

His songs, like this one,

I Dream of Jeannie with
the Light Brown Hair,

became famous around the world.

He grew up in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania.

He was influenced by the music he heard
in black churches and minstrel shows.

Excuse me, please.

Stephen Foster's first
big hit was O Susanna.

They didn't call them
hits in 1847, Lucy.

Whatever.

Anyway, his first hit
song was O Susanna.

In 1848, when gold was
discovered in California,

thousands of people came
from all over the world

to the California gold country.

And the theme song for
these 49ers became,

you guessed it, folks,

O Susanna.

Cut! Cut!

Now what?

During that same year that gold
was discovered in California, 1848,

a few women got together
in Seneca Falls, New York.

This was the first ever meeting
to start a campaign

to get American woman
the right to vote.

And this is Susan B. Anthony.

She spent her entire adult life
speaking out for women's rights,

especially the right to vote.

You know something, Chuck?

Huh?

It took women 72 years
from 1848 to 1920

before they won the right to vote.



And now I can strike you
out with just three pitches.

And in passing,
we'd also like to tip our hat

to some other great
women in American history.

I don't believe this!

Clara Barton became famous
as a nurse on the battlefields

of the Civil w*r.

She eventually became the founder
of the American Red Cross.

Wow!

Well, Helen Keller overcame her
all in handicaps to show the world

the great potential for blind people.

Amelia Earhart became the world's most
famous woman aviator in the 1930s

and led the cause of feminism.

Now let me tell you about
the great anthropologist,

Margaret Mead.

She went to the South Seas to...

Oh, yes, ma'am!

Your turn, sweetie.

Break a leg.

Thanks a lot.

Songs about America itself
go back to the 1700s.

During the w*r of Independence,

fife songs were sung and
played on the b*ttlefield.

Yankee Doodle Dandy
was such a fife song.

In 1895,

an American professor,
Catherine Lee Bates,

paid a visit to Pikes Peak
in Colorado.

She was so moved by the grandeur,

she wrote a poem that began,

Oh, beautiful for spacious skies,

for amber waves of grain.

Eventually, the words were joined
with a melody by Samuel Ward.

And America the Beautiful

became one of our
most treasured songs.

Excuse me!

Now what is it?

Are you going to mention
John Philip Sousa?

Of course I'm going to mention him.

Good. He's on my list.

John Philip Sousa became
famous around the world

as the March King of America.

Of the many marches he wrote,

the most famous was
Stars and Stripes Forever.

Unfortunately, our small band here

will not be able to
play Stars and Stripes,

because it takes a huge
brass section and...

Hold it, hold it.

We knew you might need
a little help with this one.

Trust me.

Give us the downbeat, maestro.

This is the most ridiculous
thing I've ever seen.

If it's all right with you, Lucy,

I'd like to talk about
George M. Cohan.

That's fine with me.

But please, let me set the stage.

By 1904, the United States
had emerged as a world power,

whether the people liked it or not.

A very popular president,
Theodore Roosevelt,

brought excitement and
change to the entire nation.

Inventions like the telephone,

the electric light,

the automobile, the airplane,

made Americans believe
that nothing was impossible.

Everything from symphonies
to vaudeville,

from operas to silent movies were
entertainment to the whole nation.

And now, sweetie,

we can hear about
Mr. George M. Cohan.

Many people believe
that George M. Cohan

was the father of the
musical comedy.

His songs, such as
Your Grand Old Flag

and Give My Regards to Broadway,

caught the spirit of the
new century in America.

One of his songs written in 1904,

would symbolize the nothing can stop
us now attitude of the American people.

He would...

Now what?

What are you doing?

Snoopy, I warned you.

Yes, ma'am.
I apologize for the beagle.

I'll send him right home.

Oh, you liked it a lot?

Do I have anything else for Snoopy?

Well, let's see.

Yes, here we have it.

Ever since the end of the Civil w*r,

people from all over the
world look to America

as the land of freedom
and opportunity.

Millions and millions of immigrants
poured into the United States,

especially from Europe.

On the one hand, many immigrants,
once they arrived,

suffered terrible working
and living conditions,

until laws and labor unions
eventually came to their rescue.

Many immigrants brought excitement
and creativity to their new land

and became worldwide celebrities.

One of those immigrants
was born in Russia in 1888.

Four years later, he and
his family came to America

where they lived in extreme poverty.

But he would go on to become
America's most famous composer,

writing over 1,500 songs,
including God Bless America.

His first big hit,
which made him a national celebrity,

had its foundation in the
black music of ragtime.

His name was Irving Berlin, and his
song which captivated the nation,

was Alexander's Ragtime Band.

♪ Come on and hear!

♪ Come on and hear!

♪ Alexander's Ragtime Band!

♪ Come on and hear!

♪ Come on and hear!

♪ It's the best band in the land

♪ They can play a bugle call
like you never heard before

♪ So natural that you
want to go to w*r

♪ That's just the bestest
band what am, honey lamb

♪ Come on along
Come on along

♪ Let me take you by the hand

♪ Up to the man
Up to the man

♪ Who's the leader of the band

♪ And if you want to hear the
Swanee River played in ragtime

♪ Come on and hear!
Come on and hear!

♪ Alexander's ragtime band

Thank you, ma'am.

Yes, he is a good dancer.

Yes, ma'am.

I'd like to take a little break.

This has been a lot more
than I planned on.

Hey, what about the blues
and jazz and rock and roll?

I've still got a lot of
stuff to cover here.

That's next.

That's Franklin's part
of the presentation.

Franklin, I think you and
I need to talk this over.

Okay, Lucy, what do you have in mind?

Well, now, here's how
we ought to tell this.

I can't stand it.
I just can't stand it.

Although my report is also
about American music,

it has a very serious side to it.

And the girls have
offered to assist me.

Although Schroeder brought
us up to the early 1900s,

we have to go back in time to
the Civil w*r for just a moment.

sl*very, where people
were owned like property,

had lasted for 245 years in America,

ever since the first sl*ves had been
brought to Jamestown, Virginia in 1620.

When sl*very was abolished
in America in 1865,

there were approximately
four million sl*ves.

Throughout most of those years,

the sl*ves sang songs called spirituals
as they worked in the fields.

The sl*ves sang spirituals to help
themselves to simply survive each day

or to pray for a better
life in the hereafter.

♪ Nobody knows the trouble I see

♪ Nobody knows my sorrows

♪ Nobody knows the trouble I see

♪ Glory, Hallelujah!

These spirituals, both before
and after the Civil w*r,

also became the musical foundation

of the black churches
and black preachers

that would spread across the nation.

Black leaders will also emerge,
just to name a few.

Booker T. Washington,
who headed Tuskegee Institute,

was the advisor to two presidents.

This is scientist George
Washington Carver.

He caused a revolution in
agriculture in the South.

He changed and improved the
growing patterns of everything

from cotton to sweet
potatoes to peanuts.

This is W. E. B. Du Bois.

He founded the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People

in 1909.

As the United States passed from
the 19th century to the 20th century,

segregation had replaced sl*very
as a new crisis to Blacks in America.

Black communities needed to create
an even stronger sense of community.

And once again, just as the spirituals
had been a binding force during sl*very,

music would again be
a major contributor

to a sense of community
for black citizens.

The spiritual would now give
way to something called gospel.

Work songs would slowly become
something called the blues.

Black parade music of New Orleans

would slowly become
something called jazz.

And the dances and walk-
arounds of the plantation

would end up as
something called ragtime.

In 1899, Scott Joplin's
Maple Leaf Rag

would sell an astounding one
million copies of sheet music.

Sometimes when a person is sad,
or depressed, or unhappy,

he is said to have the blues.

And the blues also became one of
America's most famous musical forms.

A person had to
sing about the blues,

or play about the blues,
to try to get rid of the blues.

A black band leader, W. C. Handy,

was one of the first great
composers of the blues.

In 1914 and 1915,

his Memphis Blues
and St. Louis Blues

soon had the whole
country singing the blues.

♪ I hate to see the
evening sun go down

♪ I hate to see the
evening sun go down

♪ Cause my baby she
gone left this town

♪ I got the same little dream
come true as I can be

♪ That girl's got a heart
like a rock cast in the sea

And that brings us to
the music called jazz.

The funeral and parade
music of New Orleans

at the turn of the century

turned into one of America's
most popular musical styles,

jazz.

♪ Oh, when the saints
go marching in

♪ Oh, when the saints
go marching in

♪ Oh, how I want to
be in their numbers

♪ When the saints
go marching in

♪ Oh, when the saints
go marching in

♪ Now, when the saints
go marching in

♪ Oh, how I want to
be in their numbers

♪ When the saints
go marching in

♪ Oh, when the saints
go marching in

From these early roots of gospel,
blues, ragtime, and jazz,

some of America's greatest
composers, white and black,

would be heard from in
the 1920s and the 1930s.

George Gershwin, Jerome Kern,
Fats Waller, and Duke Ellington.

Eventually, music would bring
black and white artists together

on the same stage at the same time.

This would prove to be an
example for later generations

when blacks and whites
would share classrooms,

work together, compete together,
and march together.

A lot of this happened in the 1950s.

The president in the 1950s
was Dwight Eisenhower,

the man who also led the Allied
troops to victory in World w*r II.

In the mid-1950s, Dr. Jonas
Salk created the Salk vaccine,

which was the beginning of the end
of the dreaded disease known as polio.

At the same time, a young pastor
named Martin Luther King

would launch the civil rights
movement against segregation.

But the 1960s in America

would prove to be one of the most
turbulent decades in American history.

The 1960s started out with hope
and inspiration from its leaders.

But by the mid-1960s,

the United States was
in the Vietnam w*r,

and President Kennedy and
Martin Luther King were gone.

♪ Where have all the flowers gone?

♪ Long time passing

♪ Where have all the flowers gone?

♪ Long time ago

♪ Where have all the flowers gone?

♪ Young girls pick them every one

♪ When will they ever learn?

♪ Oh, when will they ever learn?

But one of America's greatest assets

has been its ability to fight back
from personal and national tragedy.

And a national sense of humor
and a national love for music

has always helped us recover.

♪ Yankee Doodle went to town,
riding on his pony

♪ Strapped a feather in his
hat and called it macaroni

♪ Yankee Doodle, keep it up

♪ Yankee Doodle, dandy

♪ Mind the music and the steps

♪ And with the girls be handy

♪ Father and I went down to camp,
along with Captain Goody

♪ There were all the men and boys
as thick as hasty pudding.

♪ Yankee Doodle, keep it up

♪ Yankee Doodle, dandy

♪ Mind the music and the steps

♪ And with the girls be handy

I thought those were
great reports you gave.

I wish we could have had more time.

Me too.

You can't cover a whole
lot in 20 minutes.

What's the matter with him?

He's upset that you didn't
play his favorite music.

- What's that?
- Rock and roll.

♪ You ain't nothin' but a hound dog

♪ Cryin' all the time

♪ You ain't nothin' but a hound dog

♪ Cryin' all the time

♪ Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit
and you ain't no friend of mine

What's your favorite song,
Charlie Brown?

Well, let me think.

I didn't think you had a
favorite song, Charlie Brown.

Well, there's one.

And I think it was also
written in the 1960s.

I think it was some of that jazz
that Franklin was talking about.

Do you know who wrote it?

Or even the name, Charlie Brown?

Well, I believe the composer was a
man by the name of Vince Guaraldi.

And I think it was called Linus
and Lucy, by coincidence.

Well, how does it go?

Well, I think it goes like this.