END OF THE WORLD WEEK! – Last Night Was the End of the World

12/21/12 • -1 min

Hello out there. I, uh, don’t know where everyone is...It’s Friday, December 21^st, and you’re on the Sound Beat. I’m, uh...I tell you what, I’m just going to have a quick look for the crew...you have a listen to the Victor Military Band with...

“Last Night Was the End of the World”.

“Last Night Was the End of the World”.

Previous Episode

END OF THE WORLD WEEK! – Judgement Day

Reverend J.M. Gates was a fiery southern preacher, and a popular one. Of all preaching recordings made in the 1920s, and there were hundreds, approximately a quarter were made by Gates. The sermons were rife with promises of an angry God’s retribution upon mankind. We’re talking titles like Death’s Black Train is Coming and, for the kiddies, Will the Coffin Be Your Santa Claus? How popular was he? His 1945 funeral was the largest in Atlanta’s history at the time...and was only surpassed by Martin Luther King’s.

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Next Episode

OZ WEEK – Over the Rainbow

Good thing they left it...”Over The Rainbow” won an Oscar that year, and would of course live on as one of the most popular songs in film history.

Whether you loved the film from your first viewing, or were emotionally-scarred by the witch and her flying monkeys, you probably didn’t look at the film as political commentary. But lyricist Yip Harburg pointed the songs, and this one in particular, in support of FDR’s New Deal.

Later, as Dorothy and her crew approach the Emerald City, (sorry, spoiler alert) we hear “You’re out of the woods, You’re out of the dark, You’re out of the night, Step into the sun, Step into the light.” According to Yarburg,”it heralds not only the four principals’ escape from the woods and an evil spell but, on another level, the end of the Depression”

Sound Beat is produced at the Belfer Audio Archive, Syracuse University Library.

I’m Brett Barry.