Biography of A song

Original artist (or artists): 1. Give a brief overview of why you think this song is worth the kind of close scrutiny you are giving it. What kind of controversy (or at least interesting cultural conversation) grew around it? Why did your song become an object of attention—positive or negative—when it first circulated? 2. Who are the major "stakeholders" in the story of this song becoming an important historical text? Who got involved in discussions surrounding this song? Explain why these various constituencies seemed to care so much about this song. 3. What are the major political or cultural paths along which the song created discussion? Were the attendant conversations mostly about sexuality? Or racial identity? Gender role or class status? Work or leisure? Morals or proper behavior? Language use? Explain how the context surrounding your song's cultural life was defined by some of these categories and how it came to have so much social presence. 4. If you had to boil its legacy down to one sentence, what would you say about it? 5. Think about Mark Kurlansky's claims for how "Dancing in the Street" came to have cultural meanings beyond the most obvious reading of the song. What happened in the world around your song to cause it to take on more cultural weight than it might have had otherwise? 6. Has your song continued to "live? Are there important cover versions we should know about? Has it appeared in video games or movie soundtracks or television shows?