From The Rolling Stones to Elton John: The Music of History

There are no less than three types of historical thought: Traditional, mainstream, and constructional. For traditional historians, history is the practice of reconstructing the past to build a fuller historical narrative. Mainstream history is the common knowledge that the average person carries. Constructional history is a philosophical view that the past is not a single narrative, but several interconnected ones. A central problematic with such constructs of history is that it places limits on understandings of the past, by compartmentalizing and ordering events, thereby introducing biases that interrupt. One possible way to deconstruct such limitations is decentering narratives of history by making interdisciplinary connections. I argue that viewing traditional history through musical expression offers a way to gain a historical understanding with fewer limits. Unlike other disciplines, the making and appreciation of music is not limited to any one socio-economic or cultural group. Anyone, from slave to president seeks expression through sound and lyric, making the music coming from a particular period a commentary on the events of it. Lyrics, for one, can serve as a unique perspective of the past from the view of the previously unheard. Furthermore, traditional and mainstream history has a music of its own by its tempo, cadence, and vibrato. My project studies one particular period in history\u27s music (1962-1972) in which socio-political turmoil coincides with the birth of rock and roll. It is from here that I suggest a view of the music of history so as to re-assess an academic history without limits