The High Life
Music plays a huge role in the American culture. It surrounds people in their regular day to day lifestyles. I believe music has an enormous influence on how people view what is acceptable in society, for example, a lot of songs refer to the most luxurious way to live is living up the “high life”. When songs refer to the high or good way of living it encodes many different messages. It can be anything from just the way they think of the high life or a good lifestyle is, the way people can seem to be treated, especially the exploitation of women, sexual habits, alcohol, and drugs. What are these song teaching people and in particular the children? Do we really take the time to catch and comprehend all the words, phrases, and meanings that are being embedded into songs?
Living the good or high life is a tune to dance to for many Americans. It can be passed down from generation to generation; people have tried to stay true to its meaning by attempting to seek out what they think is the best in life. The saying indicates that once we get a taste and an idea of that certain type of style of living, people want to be dedicated to what they love and they will work hard to achieve only the very best lifestyles. We as Americans take risks and rise to whatever challenges are put in our way. So whether the saying is used as a comical saying or as an actual meaning of one’s wealth, living the good/high life is defiantly a top priority to Americans. This sometimes can come across to people as Americans being self absorbed or give other people from other countries a good reason view Americans as greedy. The main reason for this mind set we get for what is view as the comfortable way of life is because of influences in music that we hear and see. So over time we start getting the idea that you want and need all these different things to make your life so much better than someone else’s.
Americans feel the need to believe in the saying living the good or...