Unit 11 Country music

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The Pop Music Festival 流行音乐节

　　Thousands of young people visiting the lsle of Wight for the Pop Music Festival are finding that they have themselves become a tourist attraction. Family men driving past the festival site in family cars stop to let the children “see the hippies”.
　　In their views, anybody with a rucksack and long hair is a hippy. One can almost imagine the children being ordered not to open the doors.
　　At Yarmouth an elderly woman is supposed to have jumped into a stranger's car and asked for a lift because she was afraid of the hairy youngsters. It would not be fair to say that the whole island regards all the young people attending the festival as creatures from another world, but there is ample evidence of a gap between the pop culture which this week's event represents and the attitude of many of the island's usual visitors.
　　Yet on the 200- acre festival site, the show is being put together efficiently. Supplies of food are being brought in ahead of time to cope with the numbers of hungry people who are expected to arrive. A huge tent has been erected to store tons of tinned food, fruit and vegetables. Trucks loaded with country productions give part of the site the appearance of a vegetable market.
　　In case of trouble, extra police are being called in from the mainland. Hundreds of tents have been put up, and some temporary huts are made out of straw and plastic materials. Behind the site, the East Afton Hills rise pleasantly before dropping to the sea. The hills belong to the National Trust and have been fenced off to prevent too many visitors from camping on the National Trust's property and, incidentally, getting a free seat for the concerts.
The “White Panther” revolutionary movement, which has attacked the festival as “an obvious example of capitalist interests seeking to exploit the people's music”, has pointed out that the concerts can be listened to from the hills. But most people seem happy enough to pay to go in.
　　They have to do so only on the third day. As a gesture of good-will, the organisers have decided not to charge for admission on the first and second days. Less well-known groups and artists will perform during this warming-up period.
　　But obviously the promoters who have spent ￡ 500,000 on the open-air festival hope to make a profit; and with about 40,000 fans already present, and perhaps another 200,000 on the way, no doubt they will, unless the weather lets them down.

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COUNTRY MUSIC

　　COUNTRY MUSIC is a type of music derived primarily from the traditional folk idioms of the white rural Southeastern United States, where it has been a part of the American musical heritage since the early 19th century. Written and performed mostly by the local singers and instrumentalists, country music, with such various names as bluegrass, rural blues, and delta white soul, was long a stepchild on the national cultural scent. However, in the late 1960 s it began to take its place with folk and rock as a major American popular musical type, and such stars as Merle Haggard, Eddy Arnold, Charley Pride, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Buck Owens, Kitty Wells, and Roger Miller became famous both in the United States and abroad. The more comprehensive term “Country and Western” reflects, notably after World War II , the influence on the original country material of music of the American West － a blend resulting, in part at least, from the increased mobility of Americans after the war.
　　Style and Content: Instruments used in the country and western music include the electric guitar, steel guitar, banjo, drums, and fiddle. The music itself covers a wide scope, ranging from the unamplified, twangy string sound of bluegrass ( the term for traditional country music ) to the amplified big-beat rhythms of works influenced by rock and other kinds of popular music. The former style was perfected by such artists as Bill Monroe and the team of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. The latter, widely known as the Western Swing, was popularized by such performers as Buck Owens and Rose Maddox. Despite its wide range of styles and instrumentation, country music has certain common features that give it its own special character. Tuneful, lyrical, and often sentimental, it has an earthy, bouncy vitality that reveals its rural origins. The verses, straightforward and realistic, follow the normal speech patterns and deal with the concerns of everyday life － the dilemmas and joys of love, the saving grace of religion, the frustrations of grinding poverty, and the problems of the railroad men and the truckers who spend much time away from home. Humor and self-deprecation are also found in country music, notably in the work of Roy dark and the team of Homer and Jethro. Perennial country favorites include Mule Skinner Blues, Foggy Mountain Top, Your Cheatin’ Heart, Peanut Vendor, the Tennessee Waltz, and Trunk Driving Man.
　　Background: Growing out of the Scottish, Irish, and English folk traditions of the early Appalachian settlers, country music reflects the influence of many styles absorbed over the years, among them Negro Hues, jazz, popular ballads, western －style music, and rock. The commercial potential of country music was first recognized in the 1920' s, when recording companies successfully promoted such artists as Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family. In 1925, Grand Ole Opry, the perennially popular country music show, broadcast its first program from Nashville, Term. －the unofficial capital of country music.
　　The influence of radio in the succeeding years and the emergences of televisions in the 1950 s familiarized more and more people with the country music stars, including Ernest Tubb, Merle Travis, Roy Acuff, Chet Atkins, and Hank Williams. A country and western boom, starting in the early 1970's, was reflected by many radio stations in the United States that broadcast only country music

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Yesterday Once More

When I was young
I'd listen to the radio
Waitin' for my favorite songs
When they played I'd sing along
It made me smile.

Those were such happy times
And not so long ago
How I wondered where they'd gone
But they're back again
Just like a long lost friend
All the songs I loved so well.

Every Sha-la-la-la
Every Wo-o-wo-o
Still shines
Every shing-a-ling-a-ling
That they're startin' to sing's
So fine.

When they get to the part
Where he's breakin' her heart
It can really make me cry
Just like before
It's yesterday once more.

Lookin' back on how it was
In years gone by
And the good times that I had
Makes today seem rather sad
So much has changed.

It was songs of love that
I would sing to then
And I'd memorize each word
Those old melodies
Still sound so good to me
As they melt the years away.

Every Sha-la-la-la
Every Wo-o-wo-o
Still shines
Every shing-a-ling-a-ling
That they're startin' to sing's
So fine.

All my best memories
Come back clearly to me
Some can even make me cry.

Just like before
It's yesterday once more.

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Take me Home, Country Roads

Almost heaven West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River
Life is old there, older than the
tree, younger than the mountains, blowin’ like a
breeze.
Country roads take me home,
to the place I belong,
West Virginia, mountain mama,
take me home, country roads,
All my roads. I hear her
voice in the morning hour as she calls me, the radio reminds
me of my home far away; And driving down the
road I get a feeling that I should have been home
yesterday, yesterday. Country
roads take me home, to the
place I belong, West Virginia,
mountain mama, take me
home, country roads, take me
home, country roads.

(All my) memories gather round her,
modest lady stranger to flue water
Dark and dusty, painted on the
sky, misty taste of moonshine, teardrops in
my eye.
Country roads take me home,
Country roads take me home,
to the place I belong,
West Virginia, mountain mama,
take me home, country roads,
All my roads. I hear her
voice in the morning hour as she calls me, the radio reminds
me of my home far away; And driving down the
road I get a feeling that I should have been home
yesterday, yesterday. Country
roads take me home, to the
place I belong, West Virginia,
mountain mama, take me
home, country roads, take me
home, country roads.

歌词译文：

（1）乡村路带我回家

天堂般的西弗吉尼亚州，
高高的蓝岭山脉，
滚滚流淌的谢南多阿河。
生命古老尤如森林，
比群山年轻，
尤如吹来的一阵清风。
乡村路带我回家吧，
到我生长的地方。
西弗吉尼亚，大山妈妈，
带我回家吧，乡村的路。

我所有的思念，
都萦绕着她，
矿山女人，久别了故乡的河川。
黑雾浓云，
抹在空中，
月色暗淡，
两眼饱含泪水。

早晨我听见她的声音，
在呼唤着我。
收音机让我想起家乡在遥远的地方，
沿着公路急驶，
我有一个感觉，
就像昨天刚刚回家里一样。

注释：
①West Virginia 西弗吉尼亚州（One of the 50 states in the USA. The state became the 35th state in 1863.）
②dusty adj. 有灰尘的 covered with dust 满是灰尘的
③misty adj. 有薄雾的（with mist）

歌曲背景：
　　约翰·丹佛（John Denver）演唱的歌曲大部分都是自己创作的，大部分歌曲都是乡村歌曲与摇滚相结合的典范。《乡村路带我回家》一般人都会认为是一首思乡的歌，但歌曲主题其实是一首环保公益歌曲。于1971年创作，并使他一跃成为著名的乡村歌星。