Interpreting the Source: This magazine article (Life magazine, April 18, 1955, page 168) titled “A Question of Questionable Meanings” appeared in 1955. As you read about the new music craze, think about why it alarmed many adults. After you read the following excerpt, answer the following question in a well-constructed paragraph of at least four to five sentences. Compare the two opinions about rock ‘n roll that are mentioned in the article. Is there any comparison that shows this problem still occurs between today’s youth and the older generation?
The heavy-beat and honking-melody tunes of today’s rock ‘n roll have a clearly defined ancestry in U.S. jazz going back to Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith of 30 years ago. Once called “race” records, and later “rhythm and blues,” the music was first performed by [African Americans] and sold mostly in [African American] communities. During the past years as the big record companies concentrated on mambos and ballads, the country’s teen-agers found themselves without snappy dance tunes to their taste. A few disk jockeys filled the void with songs like Ko Ko Mo, Tweedlee Dee, Hearts of Stone, Earth Angel, Flip, Flop, and Fly, Shake, Rattle, and Roll, and the name rock ’n roll took over. On a list of 10 top juke box best-selling records last week, six were “r ‘n r.” But parents and police were startled by other rock ‘n roll records’words, which were frequently suggestive and occasionally lewd. Variety, the show business weekly, cranked out indignant [angry] stories about “leerics” in the rock ‘n roll or rhythm and blues songs. Cash Box, the juke box trade journal, countered that much of the suggestiveness was read into the songs by low-minded listeners and challenged anybody to find smut in the top rock ‘n roll numbers. By this time, however, the music had gained such an exaggerated reputation that the worst meanings could be found in the most innocent phrases. Radio, TV, and record censors listened not only to rock ‘n roll but also—with good reason—to the lyrics of pop records. But hardly a teen-ager afoot had time to listen. They all seemed to be busily and blithely [merrily] rockin’ and rollin’ around.
