No Language Like Song

Bellows, Amanda Brickell. "No Language Like Song". nytimes.com. Posted 16 Sept 2011. The New York Times Company 2011. Web. 20 Sept 2011. >http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/16/no-language-like-song/>.


Summary
Bellows compares American slaves in 1860 to Russian serfs in 1860. She talks about their different song selections and says that American slaves sang work, sacred, narrative, and dance songs where Russian serfs' songs mostly, with a few exceptions, related to the current season or were familial. Both sang songs that mirrored their work and kept pace with the rhythm of their job. One of the only significant differences is that American slaves often sang of freedom as well. Many songs dealt with a hope to run away in search of freedom in the Northern states. 
Author's Intent and Intended Audience
 Amanda Bellows was so intrigued by the relation of American slaves and Russian serfs that she felt the need to share it with all of New York. 
Evidence/Supports
Bellows quotes "Go Down, Moses" and "Steal Away", "No more shall they in bondage toil,/Let my people go;/let them come out with Egypt's spoil,/Let my people go." and "I hain't got long to stay here./Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus." Bellows says these songs were written by those in hopes of running away to freedom. These song lyrics are from slaves in teh Southern states of America and provide an insight to their hopes of freedom.
Fallacies/ Biases
 Bellows clearly sympathizes with the Russian serfs because it is easy to see how much more hopeful American slaves were simply because freedom was near. She is also completely captivated by how hope inspired each group's songs in different ways.
Response
It is apparent that Amanda Bellows enjoys music as well as history, the fact that she was able to tie them together made her article even more interesting. However, the article didn't present much of anything else. She never branched off in any different direction, she just continued to talk about the different songs that each category sang.
Good Topic For Me?
I feel that perhaps researching more into relating songs to actual occurrences could be an intriguing topic to continue more on. However, this particular article is too narrow, I would have to do some more digging and connect this article with a few others.
Good Topic For Others?
I know that some of my classmates are really in to music, maybe if those people are also interested in history this could be a really cool topic to build off.