Friday, March 11, 2011

Alien Song Lyrics And Xenophobia?

Do the songs and song lyrics connect with the concept of xenophobia? If so, how? Also, feel free to comment regarding other connections with science fiction. Please include some references to songs and song lyrics in your response. Please finish this blog response during clas today on March, 11th.

27 comments:

  1. The song lyrics represent soceitys fears off what we don't know, and if we aren't prepared to meet these things we will pay the consiquences. In Spaceman, we are afraid they will experiment on us like wild animals not like intelligent beings. We are afraid instead of us being the ruling species, someone, or thing will knock us off of the top. In the zombie song we are afraid of not being prepared for something, that could potentially wipe us out. We don't know how unknown things will interact with us, if they are hostile, or not. I think this is why world exploration took so long, because we had to conquer our fears, and be prepared for what the inkown might bring to us.

    DBrevig

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  2. Yes, they talk about what people are afraid of when it comes to aliens and the unknown. It says in Starman by the Killers "they ripped me from my bed and then they took my blood type" This is an example of why your supposed to be afraid of aliens and the unknown. These songs are trying to show you what people are afraid of when they say xenophobia and afraid of the unknown.

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  3. The songs relate slightly to xenophobia, regarding some of the song lyrics regarding pain. Such as "But when they cut me open, I guess I changed my mind." This is a fearful thought to most humans, and it is imaginably a quite painful experience, and not exactly pleasant. In this song, the cutting was done by aliens, not humans, showing our fear of the unknown through aliens cutting up people, not people cutting up people.

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  4. I think that songs do connect with the concept of xenophobia because I think a lot of songs are written about things that havent been expirienced and what people cant connect with for example songs about death. People are affraid of dieing because you dont know what comes next.

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  5. I do think that there is a connection with xenophobia that is shown in these songs, but I think that it is kind of the opposite of our idea of xenophobia. I feel like most of the lyrics and ideas of the songs are about how curious we are of the possibility of other living creatures in the universe, not about how we are afraid of them. Most of the ideas were the song writer's interest in these creatures such as in Zombie Ate My Neighbors by Single File, where he wants to go downtown and see what's going on. Also in Mr. Spacemen by the Byrds, they sing about how they want the aliens to take them along so they can see what it's like. Most peoples definition of xenophobia is fear of aliens, so I see this as a connected and similar idea, but also contradicting.

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  6. The texts of the songs are both for and against the concept of xenophobia. For example, in the last song it said "this is war" while in the first few songs it said "please take me with you Mr. Spaceman". Mostly, I believe these were purely for entertainment and for the audience to create a FUN, creative world they could enjoy as they listened to the songs. So, for the most part I believe they do not support the theory of xenophobia.

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  7. In the song "They’re Not Here, They’re Not Coming" xenophobia is very apparent, they mention the biggest alien "accident" and how maybe it was a cover up or maybe it wasn't. they bring the fear factor into it when they start talking about denying it, maybe this is because we are all so scared to find out if it is real that we do not want to look for ourself. In the song Spaceman by the Killers, he talks about being excited to go away with the aliens but then the cut him open and all of a sudden he is terrified and wants to go home. people are scared of what a alien is capable of because we have no idea what they are capable of or if they even exist.

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  8. the people in the song of zombies ate my neibors were oviously afraid of the zombies. This relates to the topic of xenopobia or fear of the unknown becuase of the fact that zombies are a terrible thing that we fear. AWESOME SONG FOR XENAPHOBIA PURPLE PEOPLE EATER

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  9. After hearing the songs and reading thier lyrics, I think that the songs connect with xenophobia and the stories we have read regarding xenophobia. For example, in the song They’re Not Here, They’re Not Coming,
    by Don Henley and Stan Lynch, the singer tells about an incident that happened in Arizona. The reference to this incident (Which was the Roswell incident) is that we have a clear and defined obsession with all things xenophobic and alien. This is supported by the song Mr. Spacemen by The Byrds. In the song, they talk about how they hope that the space man is ok; "Must be those strangers that come every night Whose saucers shaped light put people up tight Leave blue-green footprints that glow in the dark I hope they get home all right". These songs, mostly fictional and imanginative show the human extinct to be concerned, curious, and even afraid of all things alien.

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  10. They do connect with the concept of Xenophobia. The first song talked about an alien, but then said "Don't tell your poppa or he'll get us locked up in fright." This shows that the singers wanted the aliens but the "poppa" would be afraid of them. Other than that, a couple of the songs mentioned aliens, but the people weren't afraid of them. In a couple songs the singers actually wanted to join the spacemen in travels. The song by single file shows xenophobia through zombies because nobody wants to become a zombie

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  11. I think that they do all connect with the idea of xenophobia because they all make a reference to people that they don’t know but have expectations for. In the first song, Spaceman by David Bowie, he makes reference to a spaceman who wishes he could come see us but we are not ready as a species to accept his existence. I think he is trying to say that we are generally afraid of things that we are not comfortable with. We all live our lives in our "comfort zone" and try to stay in it because the idea of changes and risk frighten us; however, to be successful one needs to learn to become comfortable in an uncomfortable situation.

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  12. Xenophobia is the fear of strangers or different things. In the songs most of them dealt with the fact that we are afraid of dangerous or strange things/people. In "Zombies ate my neighbors" its about hiding in your house and keeping a sharp item with you to protect you from the the zombies. We all think "Yeah, of course since zombies eat you!"
    But, what about someone that is simply from Africa or China? The stereotypes of Chinese people would make us think "THE COMMUNISTS ARE COMING!!" So, does that mean we lock ourselves in our houses and keep knives with us to protect us from Chinese people?
    Xenophobia isn't just the fear of the unknown. Its also the fear of the known. We know that in China is the communist government, does that not strike a bit of fear for our democratic/republic way of life?

    So yes, these songs connect really well with the concept of Xenophobia.

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  13. In every single one of these songs xenophobia is used. in the song zombies ate my neighbors by single file, they use xenophobia to show that they are afraid of what is going on and chose to put up a fight rather than letting it take over "Don't take this the wrong way
    but I'd much rather choke and die than
    sit alone and fall without a fight". This proves that they are afraid of the unknown and want to fight for what they believe in.

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  14. I think that for the most part, all the songs have a connection to sceience fiction and to the idea of xenophobia because they all have to do with something about aliens which are foreign to us."Must be those strangers that come every night whose saucers shaped light put people uptight." This quote demonstrates how people associate fear with foreign ideas or objects. the unknown makes humans fearful

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  15. i do think that the connection to xenophobia was there, but i feel like it didn't apply to our working definition of it though. I felt like in most of the songs it wasn't a fear of the unknown monsters, it was more of a curious inquiry.

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  16. These song lyrics do connect with the concept of xenophobia. Songs like Zombies Ate my Neighbors and Spaceman help show the confusion or panic of another life form interacting with man kind. What we can also see from this is the chaos the xenophobia could bring forth and possibly make us rebel. Such as Zombies Ate my Neighbors repeating "THIS IS WAR". However if not necessarily a rebellion, these lyrics and xenophobia both equally demonstrate the fear of what we don't know or can't understand.

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  17. Yes, many of the themes of the song show how scared we are of aliens and the unknown. For example, in "They’re Not Here, They’re Not Coming," one of the lyrics is 'Carrying our highest hopes and our darkest fears'. It shows how scared we are of things we don't know about. Many of the songs are also written with stereotypical descriptions like, 'Little man with a great big head, Splattered down from heaven, Government conspiracy; cover-ups and lies'. It also depicts the artists personal views on their fear of strangers.

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  18. yes, but in different ways. some of them are afraid, some are welcoming.the entire concept of xenophobia or being afraid of what is different, spawns from the fear of not being in control and even the fear that everything people might perceive to be real is not.

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  19. The majority of the song lyrics do connect to xenophobia. Most of the songs talk about aliens coming to Earth and everybody freaking out. There was one song that didn't connect to xenophobia, and that was "They're not here, they're not coming" by Don Henley and Stan Lynch. Don and Stan sing about how the "alien UFO crash" in New Mexico was not real, and it was an accident.
    "They're not here, they're not coming
    Not in a million years
    Turn your weary eyes back homeward
    Stop your trembling, dry your tears
    You may see the heavens flashing
    You may hear the cosmos humming
    But I promise you, my brother
    They're not here, they're not coming" All the other songs talk about how aliens are coming to Earth or how "Zombies Ate my Neighbors". Single File sang "Zombies Ate my Neighbors" and how they need to get the neighbors kids to help fight off the zombies. Everybody has xenophobia. Either we are alone in the universe, or we aren't. Either way, its a scary thought.

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  20. All the songs except the last one gave reference to aliens coming to Earth and taking humans away. The people that were metioned in the songs were afraid of the aliens and most wanted to go home. So in some way there is a connection between the songs and the definition of xenophobia. Also a lot of the songs had to do with science fiction because they metioned aliens abducting people and zombies attacking people.

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  21. Xenophobia, or the fear of the unknown or strange, is even more prominent when you look at these songs as if there is no actual problem. Many of these songs do not quite describe the physical threat, or seem to offer any proof from the singer, leading me to believe that there is no threat. This may be an odd idea, but hear me out. Take, for example, the last song "Zombies Ate my Neighbors", by Single File. That reminded me of the War of the Worlds hoax, in which there was only a radio broadcast which led people to believe aliens invaded. This resulted in suicides and people doing generally crazy things. Xenophobia proves so present in our society, it sometimes reacts prematurely, or without reason.

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  22. Some of the songs do relate to xenophobia, but others do not express fear, more like curiosity. The Byrds Mr. Spacemen say “won't you please take me along” which means they are not afraid of the aliens. The song “They’re not here they’re not coming” also expresses a curiosity for aliens. The people have souvenirs. The Killers song expresses fear that aliens can control thoughts because the spaceman says “It’s all in your mind”. The song by Single File expresses fear because aliens could be violent and we would retaliate violently.

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  23. Xenophobia connects to the song, They’re Not Here, They’re Not Coming by Don Henley and Stan Lynch, by saying, "They swear there was an accident back in '47 Little man with a great big head." This connects because they don't really know if it really happened, the song later talks about it being just a government conspiracy. There are other songs I know that connect to xenophobia but I cannot think of one at the moment.

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  24. The songs do connect with the concept of xenophobia because in the songs they are referring to something that isn't certain and that could only be possible in their own minds because they fear that the things they are referring to aren't things that happen everyday.for example in the song Zombies ate my neighbors they say: I'm pretty sure they're headed straight for this part of town
    I can't be certain
    but I swear I hear ‘em just outside
    There's no way that this is real
    which shows fear and the fear of something unknown leads them to fight them.

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  25. Yes, the songs connect with the concept of xenophobia. The songs talk of strangers. Or a fear. Some don't connect though. Mr. Spacemen by The Byrds talks about having them take him with them. Xenophobia is defined as the fear of strangers or the unknown, so most of the songs demonstrate this but not all of them.

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  26. The songs definitely connect with the idea of xenophobia. This is especially apparent in Spaceman when David Bowie describes a "spaceman" that wants to come to Earth but he says that we are not ready for it. This is because we fear what we do not know and automatically charecterize these things as evil. This idea of xenophobia is portrayed perfectly in the movie District 9. In this movie, aliens come to earth because their ship is broken. when they arrive here they show no signs of violence at all but are automatically quarantined in a place call District 9 which very closely resembles the slums. The aliens are treated horribly. I think this is what David Bowie was talking about in Spaceman. We are not ready as a people to have our beliefs and our sense of reality tested.

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  27. These song lyrics relate to the ideas and concepts of xenophobia beacuse of fear from the unknown and strangers. Poeple in life never know what is going to happen next and that is why we are all so curious about things we are unfamiliar with or unassociated with. As life goes on, we gain more knowedge and our curiosity we once had is discovered. In this song it relates to xenophobia by the aliens. We don't know exactly what the aliens are or how they got where they are so that is what makes us curious and them unknown.

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