Looking Back On How Music Has Reflected Difficult Times
Adam Koplan of Flying Carpet Theatre Company talked with “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes about music written after the Spanish flu pandemic.
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Music often reflects the world in which it was created.
This was very much the case back when the world went through another health crisis, the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. The ramifications can be seen in musical genres such as the blues.
Director Adam Koplan of Flying Carpet Theatre Company joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom to explore music written after the Spanish flu pandemic and songs that reflected difficult times.
Koplan says of music at the time and following: “The first half of the 20th century was defined by these really traumatic events, Spanish flu, World War I and II, the Great Depression. And then in the ’40s and ’50s, they see an America ascendant. It gave them a sense that the world keeps on spinning forward.”
Some of the songs they talked about include:
- George Gershwin’s “Swanee”
- Ace Johnson’s “Influenza”
- Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust”
- Irving Berlin’s “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning”
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