高级英语 第一课

2013-8-4
高级英语 I - 01
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Language Points 1 It was mid-June, 1972, the Chicago Amphitheater was packed, sweltering, rocking. Onstage, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones was singing “Midnight Rambler”. Critic Don Heckman was there when the song ended. “Jagger,” he said, “grabs a half-gallon jug of water and runs along the front platform, sprinkling its contents over the first few rows of sweltering listeners. They surge to follow him, eager to be touched by a few baptismal drops.”
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Language Points 7 Between Elvis and Alice, rock critics say, a number of rock stars have helped our society define its beliefs and attitudes. Bob Dylan touched a nerve of disaffection. He spoke of civil rights, nuclear fallout, and loneliness. He spoke of change and of the bewilderment of an older generation. “Something‟s happening here,” he sang. “You don‟t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?” 8 Others entered the debate. The Beatles, Horowitz said, urged peace and piety, with humor and maybe a little help from drugs. The Rolling Stones, arrogant street-fighting men, demanded revolution. The Jefferson Airplane‟s “We Can Be Together” and “Volunteers (Got a Revolution)” were two further statements of radical you英语》（上)
Rock Superstars:
What Do They Tell Us
About Ourselves and Our Society
2013-8-4
高级英语 I - 01
1
Language Points
Rock is the music of teenage rebellion. --- John Rockwell, rock music critic By a man‟s heroes ye shall know him. ---Robert Penn Warren, novelist
2013-8-4 高级英语 I - 01
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Language Points
9 But politics wasn‟t the only subject debated in the hard rock of the sixties. Feelings, always a part of any musical statement, were a major subject. Janis Joplin sang of her sadness. The Beatles showed there were a range of emotions between love and hate. Then came The Band, mixing the more traditional ideas of country and western music into the more radical “city” ideas of the hard rock. This country element, Horowitz feels, helped its audience express an urge to “get away from it all,” to “go back to the old days.” One of the best current examples of what Horowitz is talking about is John Denver. His most notable songs --- “Sunshine on My Shoulders”, “Rocky Mountain High”, and “Country Road” --- combine the musical drive and power of folk rock, while the lyrics celebrate the simple joys of “the good old days.”
2013-8-4
高级英语 I - 01
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Language Points 2 It was late December, 1973. Some 14,000 screaming fans were crunching up to the front of the stage at Capital Center, outside Washington, D. C. Alice Cooper, America‟s singing ghoul, was ending his act. He ends it by pretending to end his life --- with a guillotine. [0110:33] His “head” drops into a straw basket. “Ooh,” gasped a girl dressed in black. “Oh, isn‟t that marvelous?” Fourteen-year-old Mike Perlie was there too, but his parents weren‟t. “They think he‟s sick, sick, sick.” Mike said. “They say to me, „How can you stand that stuff?‟”
2013-8-4 高级英语 I - 01
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5 These aren‟t idle question. Some sociologists say that your answers to them could explain a lot about what you are thinking and about what your society is thinking --- in other words, about where you and your society are. “Music expresses its times.” says sociologist, Irving Horowitz. Horowitz sees the rock music arena as a sort of debating forum, a place where ideas clash and crash. He sees it as a place where American society struggles to define and redefine its feelings and beliefs. [0901:25] “The redefinition,” Horowitz says, “is a task uniquely performed by the young. It is they alone who combine invention and exaggeration, reason and motion, word and sound, music and politics.”
2013-8-4
高级英语 I - 01
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Language Points 3 It was late January, 1974. Inside the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, Bob Dylan and The Band were tuning for a concert. Outside, in the pouring rain, fan Chris Singer was waiting to get in. “This is pilgrimage,” Chris said. “I ought to be crawling on my knees.” 4 How do you feel about all this adulation and hero worship? When Mick Jagger‟s fans look at him as a high priest or a god, are you with them or against them? Do you share Chris Singer‟s almost religious reverence for Bob Dylan? Do you think he --- or Dylan --- is misguided? Do you reject Alice Cooper as sick? Or are you drawn somehow to this strange clown, perhaps because he acts out your wildest fantasies?
2013-8-4 高级英语 I - 01
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Language Points
6 Todd Rundgren, the composer and singer, agrees. “Rock music,” he says, “is really a sociological expression rather than a musical force. Even Elvis Presley wasn‟t really a great musical force. It‟s just that Elvis managed to embody the frustrated teenage spirit of the 1950s.” Of course Presley horrified adult America. Newspapers editorialized against him, and TV networks banned him. But Elvis may have proved what Horowitz and Rundgren believe. When he appeared on the Ed. Sullivan Sunday night variety show in front of millions, a kind of “debate” took place. Most of the older viewers frowned, while most of the younger viewers applauded.