"I Should Be Proud" is a 1970 protest song by Motown girl group Martha and the Vandellas. Though not a big hit (peaking at #80 pop and #45 R&B), the song was noted for being the first released Motown protest song (released in February of the year) just months before the releases of Edwin Starr's "War" and The Temptations' "Ball of Confusion". The song had the narrator talk of how she was devastated on hearing the news that her loved one, who was fighting in the Vietnam War, was shot and killed in action. Instead of being proud that her loved one "fought for her" as the narrator suggested people around her was claiming, all she wanted was him and not his honors for fighting the war exclaiming that the man, disguised as "Private Johnny C. Miller" was "fightin' for the evils of society".
1968
Single
I Promise to Wait My Love / Forget Me Not
Composed by Sylvia Moy and Richard Morris (also the producer) - both of whom worked as song-writers and producers with Motown over a long period. In 1970, Martha and the Vandellas released the Vietnam single I Should Be Proud, which leaned towards the anti-war side of the debate and displayed an interesting change in opinion on the war from 1968-1970.
Scritta da Marvin Gaye, William "Mickey" Stevenson e Ivy Jo Hunter.
Possibile che quella che sembrava un'innocente party song danzereccia venga considerata un inno del movimento dei diritti civili e un appello a scendere in piazza e ribellarsi? Sì se la canzone, un vero e proprio classico della produzione della Motown, ha tra gli autori un giovane Marvin Gaye ed è interpretata da un trascinante gruppo femminile capitanato dalla grande Martha Reeves.
La canzone nasce dalla collaborazione tra Marvin Gaye, Ivy Jo Hunter e William (Mickey) Stevenson, tre songwriters di punta dell'etichetta Motown di Detroit, che giocò negli anni '60 un ruolo fondamentale nella diffusione della musica nera, creando un'originale combinazione di soul e pop, capace di rompere le barriere razziali rendendo popolare un genere afroamericano anche tra i giovani bianchi. L'ispirazione arriva un caldo giorno... (continuer)
“Dancing In the Street was released to a country bubbling over with racial tension. Seven weeks before it hit the charts, LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act into law; also in July, there were race riots in Harlem and Rochester, New York, and Martin Luther King was jailed along with seventeen others for trying to integrate a Florida restaurant. On August 4, the bodies of three murdered civil rights workers were found in Mississippi...
Suzanne Smith’s “Dancing In the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit” opens with an account of a July afternoon in 1967 when Martha and the Vandellas performed as the final act of the “Swinging Time Revue" at Detroit’s Fox Theater, and after singing their trademark song were informed that rioting had broken out in the city’s streets following a police raid, and the concert had to conclude for everyone to return to safety. A British reporter later... (continuer)
[1986]
Parole e musica di Billy Bragg
Il primo singolo estratto dall’album “Talking with the Taxman about Poetry”
Il titolo fa riferimento a Levi Stubbs (1936-2008), baritono del celebre gruppo vocale The Four Tops, gli interpreti di brani memorabili come "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)", "Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever" e "Reach Out I'll Be There".
Si legga al proposito A love letter to the lyrics of Levi Stubbs’ Tears by Billy Bragg, un bell’omaggio a qusta canzone firmato da Phil Adams.
L’inizio della canzone è anche l’esito del racconto.
Storia di una donna abusata e quasi uccisa dal marito stupido e violento, sposato da ragazzina.
Traumatizzata, rimasta sola contro un mondo di irresponsabili, con i quattro soldi ricevuti come risarcimento per una vita distrutta, la protagonista acquista un camper per andarsene via, finalmente sola, finalmente libera, con l’unico... (continuer)
With the money from her accident she bought herself a mobile home (continuer)
Scritta da Henry Cosby
"I Should Be Proud" is a 1970 protest song by Motown girl group Martha and the Vandellas. Though not a big hit (peaking at #80 pop and #45 R&B), the song was noted for being the first released Motown protest song (released in February of the year) just months before the releases of Edwin Starr's "War" and The Temptations' "Ball of Confusion". The song had the narrator talk of how she was devastated on hearing the news that her loved one, who was fighting in the Vietnam War, was shot and killed in action. Instead of being proud that her loved one "fought for her" as the narrator suggested people around her was claiming, all she wanted was him and not his honors for fighting the war exclaiming that the man, disguised as "Private Johnny C. Miller" was "fightin' for the evils of society".
Wikipedia