Degrading Music | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 26, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 46.

Degrading Music.

Margaret Hubbard-Ayer not long ago, in a New York paper, said some most excellent things regarding the deterioration of music, of the rag-time songs, and the degrading popular airs which are sung by the boys and girls of the generation. She quotes a noted musician as saying, "The composer of a song hit makes a fortune, while he can barely make a living if he goes on writing really good music set to poetic words."

This musician, Mrs. Coffman, says, "I like light music, but I believe we are going too far when we allow vulgar parodies of sacred things."

She says: "The worst thing I have come across is the dance tune which is 'Nearer, My God, to Thee' set to rag-time. To me that is absolutely irreverent, but the young people think it is funny, and this dance is quite popular and treated as a good joke, tho all the dancers recognize the tune at once. A thing like this undermines reverence and respect for sacred things. We can have no traditions if everything is ridiculed and burlesqued, and a stern halt should be called before our young people go any further."

Another teaching in these songs is that marriage is held up to ridicule. That is one of the tendencies of the pleasures of the age,—to give an utterly false impression of true love and romance, and of morals and religion.