Originally Aired: July 3rd, 1976
Written by: Lynn Ahrens
Performed by: Grady Tate
Shel's Review
Music: 🎵🎵🎵
Animation: 📺📺📺📺
Pedagogy: 🎓🎓🎓🎓
Accuracy: 🎯🎯
Yikes Factor: 😬😬😬
Oh, Grady Tate is here with a wonderful palate cleanser. I mostly like this song. Some parts of it, especially early on, almost don't parse as music to me, but as it goes on it becomes a very catchy well-composed song. Good listening. Grady Tate, again, singing some of the better songs in the show. I also think the animation here is really nice and balanced, taking good advantage of strong style to stretch the budget. The only reason I'm not giving it a 5 is because I know we have some even better animation coming up later during Science Rock!
Pedagogically, I think this song is great at lodging facts into your brain so they stick. My only issue is that it doesn't cover as much about the events as would probably be on the test. Also... that a lot of what they cover is factually incorrect.
There were no fireworks on July 4th 1776. Philip Livingston was not on the committee to write the declaration of independence. His brother, Robert Livingston, was a member of the committee. This song mentions the "original 13 states" however the 13 colonies in 1776 did not align up with the first 13 states. These were the thirteen colonies
- Province of Massachusetts Bay
- Province of New Hampshire
- Connecticut Colony
- Colony of Rhode Island
- Delaware Colony
- Province of New York
- Province of New Jersey
- Province of Pennsylvania
- Colony of Virginia
- Province of Maryland
- Province of North Carolina
- Province of South Carolina
- Province of Georgia
You will notice the absence of Maine and Vermont. They only became separate states after the revolution. There were no states before the revolution. Fifteen of our current states participated in the revolution, but at the time, they were thirteen colonies.
Now for the yikes. Well, for one, there is the recurring motif of the "pursuit of happiness" being conflated with chasing a woman who clearly does not wish to be pursued for a man's "happiness." Also, I don't know, I mean, there's the deifying of our evil founding fathers, the framing of the establishment of the US as a good thing, and so forth... but mostly I just feel really weird about Grady Tate singing about how "we" were freed with the Declaration of Independence. Slavery is never mentioned in America Rock! not even once. Once again, slavery would not be abolished for a long time after the revolution, and these founding fathers who signed the letter all by and large owned slaves.
When they said "we" were free, they did not mean they were freeing their slaves. At the end they have this diverse group of children talk about "all men are created equal" but the founding fathers did not consider anyone but themselves to be included as "all men" given that they also considered Black people to be only 3/5ths of a person. They did not mean Grady Tate's ancestors. The propaganda here makes it seem like the declaration was some noble statement of universal equality when it was far from it. One of the grievances in the Declaration of Independence is about how the British Empire hasn't been doing enough genocide against indigenous nations, calling them "merciless Indian Savages." Racism is embedded in the founding document of the nation.
June's Review
Music 🎵🎵🎵
Animation 📺📺📺
Pedagogy 🎓🎓🎓🎓
Accuracy 🎯🎯🎯
Yikes 😬😬😬
Grady Tate your voice is like a breath of fresh air after the hell that was last week. Dear god. I have some complaints about the music here; mostly that I think the whole background singers yelling + random guys yelling in the background can get kind of annoying; although that might just be the bad sound quality. Still, there's some parts I love; the fireworks going off to a quick drum solo is a fantastic bit. A really solid mid-tier jazzy song.
The animation, likewise, is some really solid mid-tier schoolhouse rock stuff. The black and white drawings are never my favorite, but the bright colorful backgrounds fit the fireworks theme in a way that works. There's a lot of great little gags, and it does my absolute favorite schoolhouse rock thing of doing funny fonts in the speech bubbles. (Not as well as Interjections, but what song can compete with that?)
Pedagogically I think this song is kind of genius? Unlike a lot of schoolhouse rock songs, this isn't trying to teach kids a bunch of stats and numbers (although it does reinforce some dates). Instead, I think it's trying to create associations. There's a lot of ideas in the song that it draws together, such as:
- Fireworks
- The Fourth of July
- Guns/Fighting
- The American Flag
- Celebrations
- Freedom
- Life, Liberty, And the Pursuit of You Know What
The song isn't about teaching exactly when the declaration of independence was signed, but rather teaching kids that it's a Thing to Celebrate. It's a song you put on to teach kids what the Fourth of July is about. On this level, it works really well! I'm giving it an extra point for accuracy simply because I think the song is more about myth-making then about specific accurate points, and I think the myths it wants to make are... very in line with what the bicentennial wanted kids to believe.
...Of course, this does just make it more effective propaganda. I'm not exactly the biggest fan of America right now, and as always it boils down the revolution to nothing more then a Beastie Boys song. And not one of their later tracks, we're talking about License to Ill era "You Gotta Fight for your Right to Chase Around A Hot Lady Around Like In Pirates Of The Caribbean!".
Which, brings us to the strangest choice in this. Like, you're making a song for kids, you could be representing the Pursuit of Happiness as anything. Why not a girl chasing her dog excitedly? Why not some guys chasing a football excitedly? Why did you go with Guy Who Wants Woman Hubba Hubba Wow? It's more confusing then it is yikes, but it's still pretty damn yikes.
Overall though, it's hard to get mad at this song after watching elbow room recently. Sure, it's myth making, but like, it's not fucking Nazi shit at least. And we've only got one left till I personally get to shoot off fireworks and yell that I'm free of this terrible, terrible bicentennial nightmare. Let's get it over with.
Up Next: Finally, it's time to do a Marxist analysis of a Schoolhouse Rock! song.