We Ain't Goin' Away!
An Ambitious Goal
Preserving our American Way of Life and Identity Through Song
According to Social-Anthropologist William H. Westermeyer's 2019 book, "Back to America: Identity, Political Culture and the Tea Party Movement" (pg. 127), in which he highlights our song, "We Ain't Goin' Away", as well as Lee Greenwood's song, "God Bless the USA", he emphasizes solidarity within the movement through the use of these songs.
Furthermore, he states, "Both songs helped constitute a collective 'we' through statements of belief and the effect triggered by the song's images." More-over, he states that singing is a kind of teaching tool and quotes T.V. Reed in this regard, "...the halfway house to commitment."
He wraps it up by stating, "Unlike all but the most rousing of speeches, songs are remembered and more successfully imprint messages of a 'social or political' (emphasis ours) movement on the memory".
Politicians would be wise to heed this advice: Music, through meter and rhyme, will be remembered long after the last words of 'even the most rousing of speeches' have been spoken.
Our concern, (along with Westermeyer's): will the current movement survive beyond the next 4 years of the Trump presidency?
Click on the Image Above to See Video "We Ain't Goin' Away" by Bruce Bellott
“America marches to a different drummer. Its uniqueness is explained by any or all of a variety of reasons: history, size, geography, political institutions, and culture. Explanations of the growth of government in Europe are not expected to fit American experience, and vice versa.” - Richard Rose