This essay, which may turn out to be a series (the optimistic I. in the title), was stimulated by a several recent posts here at the Café.   One of them questioned why the news media never seem to picture "real workers".  Others have lambasted the Washington Village for being out of touch with the "real America".  The media has lost touch with Middle America-the Main Stream, claim others.   Right, right, and right: yet I'd like to cast the net a little wider.  The news is not the only popular media which influences, directs, and reflects popular opinion.  Looking over what I know about the arts, both high and popular, I'm asking what has the left lost, what has progressivism lost, in the last generation or so.  There was a time when ordinary people had a place in the spotlight.  Why not now?

I've looked to see if there are rules regarding the number of visuals one can post, and I haven't seen any such.  If I'm messing with TPM policy I apologize and I'll re-format the following into smaller bits and bytes.  But here goes.

Thesis, Part the first.  Beginning in the Great Depression and continuing to the end of the nineteen fifties, classical music and musical comedy alike lauded the story of America's "common" men and women.  This has largely ceased, save for revivals in high schools and Universities.  Some of this was a simple nostalgia for the vanishing Jeffersonian yeoman, but not all.  I wanted to present as the first example of my thesis a scene or two from "Pins and Needles" the musical review presented by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union at the close of the 'thirties, but among the millions of videos posted online, I couldn't find one.  This in a way proves my point.  It is easy for us to read about this labor generated satirical evening, but much more difficult for us to see it.  Searching for an hour or more, I couldn't locate a clip of Gershwin's "Of thee I sing" which could probably stand a revival for its political satire, but the synopsis gives a pretty good idea of what's going on.    But I shouldn't waste space grousing about what is not available, but proceed to what is available, and what I think it proves.

The first time I heard Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man I was overwhelmed: it was all nobility, no bluster.  Play that for me, and keep ruffles and flourishes and Hail to the Chief.  Copland seems out of fashion these days, relegated to summer pops concerts and the like. The twentieth anniversary of his death next year may stimulate a revival: I hope so.  Sometimes I compare him to John Williams-perhaps unfairly.  Copland gives us fanfares for "Everyman," Williams gives us music by which JEDI Knights and Princesses can restore a monarchy locked in warfare with an Evil Empire.  I like Williams.  I prefer Copland for the ennoblement of the Common Man in the name of the common man.

Copland also gave us Appalachian Spring.  The part I like best explores the many facets of simplicity-the simple gifts of freedom and winding up in the "place just right".  No purchasing of Antiguan titles of nobility here.  How empty a person must be to find pleasure in that sort of thing.  

He also gave us A Lincoln Portrait.  Our great commoner-rail-splitter-self-educated lawyer, and Barack Obama's favorite President.  I can't imagine anyone composing a piece with "And this is what he said-this is what Rush Limbaugh said" as the refrain.  To thank you, shade of Aaron Copland.  And thank you too, protégé and lover, Leonard Bernstein.  

Bernstein found the Common Man on the streets of New York City and gave him a voice through West Side Story.

More Common Sense on the subject of Immigration is found in America than in anything Lou Dobbs ever wrote.  (Nobody is going to compose music with the refrain "And this is what he said-this is what Lou Dobbs said,") either.  

I think I'll create a part two on Musical Theatre and the sentiments of the progressive left, rather than take a chance that I've angered the TPM gods by including too many videos.   There is more to say about West Side Story, but I want to include that with some praise for Carol Burnett as someone who punctured the pretense of the wealthy and lauded, in her own way, the Common People.  Thanks for reading.