The Black Eyed Peas song, “Where is the Love” is the first song that came to my mind when thinking of William Apess. In An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man, Apess writing is a form of protest writing against racism. His Enlightenment views really stand out in his writings about equality, which really intermix with this song. He starts out from the beginning asking his readers, “has degradation not been heaped long enough upon the Indians”(Apess). He is constantly wondering how is that God made so many non-white skinned individuals, if they were to not be treated fairly. The Black Eyed Peas and Apess would have a lot of things in common when it comes to this topic. The title of the song, “Where is the Love” just shows the openness and love for humanity, coming from the Black Eyed Peas. The first two lines of “Where is the Love” says it all, “What’s wrong with the world, mama/People livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas”(ll. 1-2). Apess would have agreed completely to this statement, except he might have changed the word “mamas” to “gods.” He probably kept wondering that exact same thing when he was seeing his own people getting murdered, and the Black Eyed Pease were trying to send out the same message. Even though we do not have this type of slavery going on anymore in our country that Apess talks about, different types of terrorism is still going on, that we might not necessarily see first hand. The Black Eyed Peas with this song were trying to express this, and I feel Apess would have truly liked to jam out to this song. 

     The second song that I can see being on Apess’s most listened to songs on his Ipod is “Gone” by Jack Johnson and Ben Harper. This song would have fit right into the Enlightenment era with Apess. Jack Johnson here is trying to show that it is more about the beauty of the human race, than about the tangible things in life. He sings, “Bling, bling, because those are only removable things/What about your mind? Does it shine”(ll. 6-7). Apess would have changed the idea of tangible things, with color of skin, since that was the issue back then. He also believed in the beauty of the human race, more what was in their mind and beliefs, then their skin tone. He asks the reader, “have you the folly to think that the white man, being one in fifteen or sixteen, are the only beloved images of God”(Apess). He makes a very good point at saying if white was really the superior race, then God only loves everyone one in fifteen people, which could not be the case. From how I interpret Apess writing, he is trying to show that the color of race is not what matters, because otherwise, the creator of everything would not have made so many different colors. Jack Johnson is doing the same things, but with the issues we have in our society today.  

After reading Edgar Allan Poe’s writings he reminded me of one of my favorite artists/directors, Tim Burton. If Poe were alive, I feel like Burton and Poe would be doing a lot of work together. Given that, the first song that came to my mind when thinking of Poe, was “The Nightmare Before Christmas Theme Song.” This song is a very gothic, dark song based on Halloween, which Poe would have considered to be very similar to his poem, “The Raven.” In both the song and poem there is this supernatural thing happening with the story. In “The Nightmare Before Christmas Theme Song,” it says, “I am the who when you call, who’s there/I am the wind blowing through your hair”(ll. 34-35). Here, it is being referred to some sort of ghost, supernatural being in nature, trying to get the attentions of someone; taking that gothic feel. Poe’s poem, “The Raven,” also has this gothic, dark, unnatural feeling. Someone is knocking on this man’s door, but when he goes to open it, “that I scarce was sure I heard you – here I opened wide the door/Darkness there, and nothing more”(ll. 23-24). He builds you up to create this creepy feeling of someone being around, and you end up finding out it is a black raven who can speak. Alex Larson explains this poem in a very easy way to understand. He says that, "the description of the rave that Poe offers is both imaginative and seems eery"(Larson, "Romanticism in Kirkland or Poe"). Both of these stories have this gothic feel to them, because they are set in the night, and something supernatural is happening, which causes this eerie feeling. The song “The Nightmare Before Christmas Theme Song” also has a poetic feel to it; it rhymes and flows together nicely. I feel Poe would have really liked this song given that it has some of the same gothic characteristics as some of his writings do, and the song is more like a poem with a melody attached to it.    

Another song that I could see Poe having on his IPod is called “Breathe No More” by Evanescence. This song also has a very gothic feel to it. It is about a girl who has 2 different sides to her; herself and what she sees in the mirror, and she can’t decide which one she is. In the first two lines she sings this, “I’ve been looking in the mirror for so song/That I’ve come to believe my soul’s on the other side”(ll. 1-2). She trying to figure out who she is, by looking in the mirror because she has lost herself. This song is very similar to Poe’s short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher.” In this story, Rodick Usher ends up going crazy, and locking his wife/sister alive in a coffin. At a point when he cannot take it anymore he says, “We have put her living in the tomb”(Poe 45). He seems to have these 2 sides to himself, and he is trying to burry the other one away. Both of these stories are about 2 sides of a single persons personality that go crazy. These stories end up in a tragic way, they both die. Harrison Hammond puts it in a good way, “Although it is not a visual characteristic of being gothic, the underlying message in this story is very eerie, which fits the description”(Hammond, “Poe/Romanticism/Gothicism”). This song has some characteristics of Gothicism, and I feel like Poe would have really liked it.

William Apess and Edgar Allan Poe were two very different men, and liked very different things, as you can tell from the playlists. Edgar Allan Poe was more about the supernatural, loved the dark eerie feel of things, and really enjoyed things that were out this world, unimaginable ideas. He seems like he lived more in a world that didn’t really exist in his stories. William Apess, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. He wrote about how real discrimination feels, and how injustice the world was to him, and all his people. He wrote about the pain and suffering he went through and saw other people go through. Both of these guys were magnificent writers, but in 2 completely different styles, who helped revolutionize American literature.