Song lyrics replicate in unsystematic, segmented fashions a variety of facts and values.
Within contemporary American society they constitute an audio collage that reveals persistent ideas, themes, and patterns. Between 1950 and 1990, United States culture has been depicted orally by innumerable itinerant tunesmiths and displayed in audio galleries across this continent and throughout the world. Popular Music Perspectives is an illustrative study rather than a philosophical inquiry. The author probes the vast field of recorded commentary and assembles thirteen distinctive essays that depict the breadth of research evidence available in popular music. Social change, human interaction, technology, and intellectual development are the general points of departure for specific examinations of public education, railroads, death, automobiles, and rebels.