RE: Correction (long)

[Yoel Epstein <yoel...>]

This thread, which started off asking why the chassidic community has adopted 
this euro-rock style of popular music, has taken a really interesting turn.  
The question whether musical forms have intrinsic emotional content is a 
subject of endless debate by musicologists.  Would a Ubangi warrior listening 
to Beethoven's Ninth know he was hearing joyous music?

But I would like to bring the thread back to the original issue.  Regardless of 
how you answer the Ubangi question, I think that we can all agree that in 
modern Western culture, hard rock music like "Sunshine of My Love" is loaded 
with hedonistic, explicitly sexual musical symbolism.  The driving rhythms are 
the rhythms of the sexual act.  The constricted, breaking vocals are the voice 
of sexual tension and release.  The raucous accompaniment, played at dancehall 
volumes, causes a thrumming feeling in your chest; even when you play the music 
at normal volume you get that feeling.  There is also the element of drugs: the 
buzz-boxes, slides, and plunging chords all have a psychedelic effect, like a 
trip on LSD.

I think any typical American or European would recognize these elements in this 
music.  Changing the lyrics to "Sunshine of My Love" to talk about prayer and 
righteousness would, for these listeners, be simply ridiculous; or, worse, 
cynical.

So the question is, why has this music been adopted by the chassidic community? 
 Logically, there are only a few possibilities:

1.  They don't know.  They are so isolated from mainstream Western culture that 
they don't know that this music is loaded with hedonistic content.  So when 
they listen to it, it's just a nice melody with hamish words.

I find this hard to believe.  Certainly in Israel, the people who listen to 
Simcha music know the secular associations with this music.  They hear it on 
the radio, they even explicitly associate it with all the dissolute 
characteristics of secular Israeli society that they condemn.

2.  They know it, but they don't care.  This is possible, though, to my mind, 
it requires the insensitivity of a rhinoceros.  In a talk about this that I had 
with a Yeshiva student, he said he believed that Simcha music - which he called 
"Hassidic dance" - was better than its secular equivalent because it had 
"neshoma".  He thought that the singers put themselves into the music more 
because they were singing about matters of the spirit.  Hmmm.

3.  They know it, and they like it.  This seems to me to be the likeliest 
reason.  In a society that has strong sanctions against all the things that 
this music represents, listening to this music is an outlet.  Changing the 
words puts a thin veil of legitimacy over what is essentially a sink of 
iniquity.  This, incidentally, doesn't necessarily contradict the second 
explanation: this quest for an outlet could be completely subconscious.

In conclusion, I repeat what I said at the outset of this thread: I believe 
that a society's choice of music is an indicator of where it is and where it is 
going.  And the Chassidic community's choice of Simcha music says something, 
which, whatever it is, is revealing and surprising.

-------------------------------------------------------
Yoel Epstein, etses gibbers consultants
POB 8516
Moshav Magshimim 56910
Israel
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email:  yoel (at) netvision(dot)net(dot)il

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