I chose two women authors from our past readings to devise Ipod playlists for. The choice was odd because the majority of music that I listen to is from male artists so I don’t know why I chose to focus on women authors. Since I listen to a lot of hip hop and guitar based rock, it was very hard for me to find songs that expressed the same viewpoints that these women were expressing; but I managed to do it. So here they are!

     We’ll begin with a smattering of love songs that would keep the poet Anne Bradstreet warm at night when her husband was away. They all tie into her poem “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment”. The first song on the list is Crazy for You by Adele. Throughout her poem, Bradstreet expresses a deep love for her husband. She writes “My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay, more” (l. 1). Here she says that her husband is more than the important elements of her body. It isn’t these other things that make her who she is. It is his love that makes her who she is. As we can tell by the title, Adele is singing to someone who she is crazy for. She sings “Tell me to run and I’ll race,/ If you want me to stop I’ll freeze,/ And if you want me gone, I’ll leave,/ Just hold me closer, baby, (ll. 12-15). She is expressing the depth of her devotion by telling her lover that she will do anything that he tells her to.

     Next, I chose Billie Holiday’s “You’re My Thrill”. In her poem, Bradstreet describes her husband as “my joy, my magazine of earthly store” (l. 2). The metaphor she is using compares her husband to a magazine. Not the magazines you subscribe to, but a place to hold things, more like a gun’s magazine but I don’t think she wanted to draw any violent connections here. Her husband is the place where she keeps everything that is important to her on this earth. Billie Holiday also expresses this kind of deep love towards the subject of her song when she sings “You do something to me/ You send chills right through me/ When I look at you/ ‘Cause you’re my thrill” (ll. 2-5). The jazzy, romantic feel of the song also keeps in tune with the love that Bradstreet is expressing in her poem.

     Finally, it’s not an easy task to find a rap song about love and devotion but “You Got Me” by The Roots featuring Erykah Badu fits this poem perfectly. Bradstreet is writing about how much she misses her husband because he’s away in another town doing business. She writes “O strange effect! Now thou art southward gone,/ I weary grow the tedious day so long;/ But when though northward to me shalt return” (ll. 17-19). Her entire demeanor and life change because her husband is away from her. This theme of long distance relationships is mimicked in the Roots song. Guest vocalist Eve raps “Another lonely night/ seems like I’m on the side you only loving your mic” (ll. 33-34). Although Eve takes a much stronger stance than Bradstreet, the sentiment it still the same.  The chorus of the song goes “If you were worried ‘bout where/ I been or who I saw or/ what club I went to with my homies/ baby don’t worry you know that you got me” (ll.1-4). In both of these pieces of writing, the author is saying that they will be waiting for their other half when they return from doing business.

     For the second author, I chose to use Sarah Willis Parton, more commonly known as Fanny Fern. I loved the sense of humor and the message of female independence present in her essay “A Law More Nice Than Just”. The first song that I chose was “If I Were a Boy” by Beyonce. To open the song, Beyonce sings “If I were a boy/ even just for a day/ I’d roll out of the bed in the morning/ and throw on what I wanted and go” (ll. 1-4). This fits in perfectly with Fanny Fern’s essay because she is writing about her personal protest when she put on her husband’s clothing and walked around outside dressed like a man. “But oh the delicious freedom of that walk, after we were started! No skirts to hold up, ,or to draggle their wet fold against my ankles” (Parton, 1858). Both women are commenting on the apparent freedom that males get to enjoy when it comes to choosing their clothing. These freedoms are withheld from women. It makes me wonder how Parton would react to the fact that women are still singing about how it would be nice to live as carefree as men.

     In her essay, Parton is criticizing the law that forbids women to wear pants in public. Although it may seem like a petty argument, it was a first step in the fight for women’s rights. She writes “I won’t- I positively declare I won’t. I shall begin evenings when that suit is made, and take private walking lessons with Mr. Fern” (1858). The emphasis that she puts on the words “evenings” and “that” as well as the pauses and repetition in the first statement allow the reader to grab hold of her revolutionary anger. I thought Parton would like the song “You Don’t Own Me” by Lesley Gore. She sings “I’m young and I love to be young/ I’m free and I love to be free/ To live my life the way I want/ To say and do whatever I please” (ll. 13-16). Although this song’s melody and the way she pronounces the words while she sings seems a little sweet, the message is clear. Both Parton and Gore acknowledge the fact that men would rule their lives if they let them but they refuse to allow that to happen.

     Finally, I chose to use “The Pill” by Loretta Lynn. I’m sure Parton would get a kick out of it. The song is about a woman taking her sexual identity back into her own hands. She is able to do this because of birth control. Lynn sings “But all I’ve seen of this old world is a bed and a doctor bill/ I’m tearing down your brooder house ‘cause now I’ve got the pill” (ll. 3-4). Lynn tells a story of a woman who has been kept barefoot and pregnant by her husband but now that she has access to birth control, she is taking back authority over her reproductive organs. As well as the message of female empowerment, the song has a touch of humor to it that Parton would definitely appreciate. As classmate Anne Brady commented "Fern's use of humor cloaks her formidable intellect " (Fanny Fern to Michael Moore). Perhaps the same is true of Lynn.

     Anne Bradstreet and Sarah Willis Parton were women of greatly different times in the childhood of America. However, the pro-woman messages that they expressed are still relevant to today’s culture. Classmate Matthew Scroggins commented on Bradstreet’s writing; “she concludes that poetry truly is a means of overcoming the struggles of women, and finding a way to have their voice heard” (“The Greek”).  Bradstreet’s fight for women was a little more subtle than Parton’s but she used the means available to her (as a woman) at the time.