Friday, February 21, 2014

Alien Song Lyrics And Xenophobia? Extrapolation?

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 class today.

26 comments:

  1. These songs and song lyrics intertwine with the idea of xenophobia through the idea of communicating with outside life. We wonder and are uncertain of the possibilities behind space and other lifeforms. The combination of curiosity and fear add to this xenophobic idea. In the song Starman, the line "He'd like to come and meet us, but he thinks he'd blow our minds" reminds me of the short story the Puppet Show because there is technology and intelligence far more advanced than ours that humans as a society don't know how to react or behave in the presence of it. Regardless, a sense of debt or need for approval seems to be portrayed by these songs. It is as though we want to please this extraterrestrial life. For example, in one song, they plea for a ride and they "won't do anything wrong". Overall, the idea of science fiction is illuminated by theses songs as the reveal our reluctant excitement towards the vast unknown.

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  2. Several of the songs had stereotypical science fiction ideas of alien abductions such as being taken from your bed in the middle of the night, and having experiments done on them. The songs had somewhat negative connotations in terms of what the aliens were doing but it seemed as though there was also a curiosity about aliens and the situations they sang about. Some of the songs have the opposite of a xenophobic reaction, "hey Mr. space man won't you take me along?" Music has always been a space were people are free to express themselves in a way they cannot not do purely through the spoken word so the fact that people have created music addressing aliens allows them to express their deepest fears and feelings, especially the xenophobic ones about the unknown realm of aliens.

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  3. When listening to these songs in class something I've noticed is that these artist were talking in first-person. As in all these different experiences happen to them and only them. I also noticed a lot of xenophobia, where they didn't know what was going to happen and they started acting differently upon the unknown they were experiencing. We got curious nut we were afraid of what was going to happen.

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  4. I think a good majority of the songs were pretty accepting of the idea of alien life forms visiting Earth save for the last one which several times declares war. The other song lyrics seem borderline mystified with the concept, one even asking to be taken along with the spaceman. One suggests they're not necessarily evil life forms, saying they won't visit until we lay aside our own evilness, hatred and fear

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  5. In my opinion, it depends on the song that we listened too in order to decide whether people were xenophobic or not. In some songs, they wanted to be taken away and showed no fear at all. In fact, one song was about getting abducted but was rightfully scared when they started cutting him open. In some cases, like "Starman" by David Bowie, it seems like the aliens are scared of what might happen if they interact with humans instead. Xenophobia could be from any perspective. In the exact same song, the spaceman extrapolated that bad things would happen if he came down, just like other song writers extrapolated the aliens would take them on an adventure (not just dissect them).

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  6. a lot of the songs talked about strange sounds and lights. It was also a common theme that this happened in the middle of the night or in a place where there weren't many people to be seen. Such as a desert or a country farm. I believe that most of these songs connect with the fact that the people who wrote them don't know what to expect and they make their songs based on the things that they imagined would happened. The fear of not knowing what a foreign species is like or anything really about them causes us to make them in a way that we see fit, which changes with every person.

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  7. The concept of xenophobia, the fear of the unknown, is quite obvious throughout the songs and the song lyrics. One theme that I noticed was that all of the artists seem paranoid about getting abducted or have heard stories about alien abduction. A majority of the songs are not very intense, they're laid back and catchy. Spaceman by The Killers is the only song where they are writing about an extraterrestrial being, but in the end they are just voices in his head.

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  8. Within all of these songs, it seems like only the singer is ready to take on everything. All the other people seem to be afraid of everything. That is until "Rocket Man" by Elton John, where he seems to be just a man in a rocket man stuck in his rocket man, burning out of fuel up there alone.

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  9. These songs show xenophobia in many different ways. Most people are afraid of what they don't know and these songs portray that very well. Many of the lyrics express that there is fear in the writers heart. These songs also show that people are very curious and want to know about everything

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  11. Yes the songs do connect with the concept of xenophobia because in David Bowie's "Starman" he mentions how they should tell anyone because it'll just get them locked up due to their fears of alien like beings. "Don't tell your poppa or he'll get us locked up in fright". Single file's song wasn't entirely toward an alien aspect, but it does show xenophobia because when he said "This isn't funny any more," it's as though he began thinking it was a joke and that everyone was lying basically until he saw the zombies for himself. most of these songs are about how the aliens or abnormal creatures just showed up and now everyone needs to be scared. They are all fearful of these beings because they don't know what they are.

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  12. It seems that the songs are all afraid of the alien races and such. All of the songs however do have some very obvious interest with the alien races and are once again, fearful, yet some are very interested in coming with the "spaceman."

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  13. These songs do connect to xenophobia because they both have the same idea about the unknown and the fear of knowing about it would be best explained through song. For instance, the song E.T. by Katy Perry also explains xenophobia in a way because others are afraid of the unknown but she's trying to explain that she's not afraid of the unknown.

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  14. I think that the lyrics to the song do connect with the concept of xenophobia because the lyrics talk about the fear and hatred towards strange things

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  15. All of the songs have to do with aliens and how they have the possibility or are actually hurting us. They connect with xenophobia because the singers are all taking about the dangers of the aliens and how the are scared of them.

    But he thinks he'd blow our minds- Starman by David Bowie

    But when they cut me open,
    I guess I changed my mind. - Spaceman by The Killers

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  16. The song by the killers has a great example of the idea of xenophobia, because he writes about how they took him from his home and proceeded to draw his blood, and then cut him open. This I thought was a good example because that is what we think of when we think of aliens. We think of abductions, and experimentation. But we don’t actually know that would happen because as far as we know it hasn’t happened, but we are already fearful for it.

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  17. These songs kind-of connect to xenophobia but they also don't. They do because in every song they don't know what the spacemen look like. And in others they are scared that they might be abducted. They also don't because in others they are just listening to the spaceman's funky and groovy jive. "that was hazy cosmic jive" from Starman. Shows how he enjoyed that groovy jive, and also he wasn't scared of the Starman's funk.

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  18. They do connect with the concept of xenophobia, Some examples of this are when the space man didn't want to meet the humans! That is some reverse Xenophobia right there! Except the space man didn't want to meet us for our own good. Some of the never songs talked about being invaded and having to call up the neighbor kids as back up. If that's not Xenophobia I don't know what is. Not to many extrapolation examples because they were talking directly about their alien friends.

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  19. These songs definitely connect with the concept of xenophobia because most of them shared a common thread of fear of unknown aliens that are coming or have come already. The common theme of the songs were aggression/fear towards the alien invasion. In the song "They're Not Here, They're Not Coming, some of the first lyrics included "anxious eyes turned upward" and"[the dark sky] carrying their darkest fears". This illustrates how fearful these people are about this so-called "alien attack" which has neither happened nor is going to happen. The humans in this situation did not even know if the aliens were wanting mass destruction. This ties into the short story "Muse" because like the people of the lyrics, the father in the story had no reason to fear the alien except for his prejudices that had no substance.

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  20. These songs defiantly connect to xenophobia because of the songs worrying about the unknown from space. The common theme of all the songs were aggression/fear towards the unknown from space.. "Their'e not here, they're not coming"

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  21. I think that some but not all of the songs connect to xenophobia some songs say that the alien just comes out and is not afraid to be seen by the humans and we aren’t scared of it. Others say that the aliens or us are scared because we don’t know what the thing is and we have the idea that it could harm us.

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  22. Yes, these songs connect to xenophobia. The song "Starman" by David Bowie especially connects to this concept in science fiction. The line "But he thinks he'd blow our minds" explains how the since some humans have a fear of the unknown that learning about something, like the existence of aliens, would simply be too much. Also, the lines 'Anxious eyes turned upward, 
Clutching souvenirs, 
Carrying our highest hopes and our darkest fears" from "They're Not Here, They're not Coming" demonstrate people's views on an alien attack and how it's hard to decide whether we want aliens or not. The title depicts how irrational xenophobia is.

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    Replies
    1. Absent the original date of this activity^^^

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  23. No, because in most of the songs the artist is inviting the aliens to come down but xenophobia is all about the fear of aliens and the unkown so the songs should be more about inviting the aliens to stay away.

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  24. I agree with John because xenophobia is the fear of the unknown and that and the song was talking about aliens coming down and that is not the fear of the un known that's just the fear of aliens so I totally agree with John Galloway

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