8 Famous Songs That Legitimately Changed The World

April 24, 2018 Off By admin

Chuck Klosterman once said that music doesn’t move anyone — it only holds our hands and guides us as we move ourselves. The perfect chords or the perfect lyrics for the perfect point in your life have the power to fundamentally change you because they speak to some inarticulate emotion you’ve been grappling with long before you heard that song. And on occasion, music can tap into the same vein in thousands or even millions of people, and suddenly a three-minute pop song has the power to change the world. Here are a few examples …

#8. Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” Stopped Darryl McDaniels of Run-D.M.C. From Committing Suicide

These days, the heartbreaking lyrics and vocal styling of Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” are mainly used by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to make you feel bad for every square foot of your apartment that isn’t currently occupied by a rescue pet. But back in 1997, it was still in heavy radio rotation and helping to save the life of Run-D.M.C. member Darryl McDaniels.

At that point in time, McDaniels was in a really bad place. He was suffering from depression and fighting it with prescription drugs, which might have been OK, except he washed them down with lots and lots of alcohol. The group was falling apart, and he lost his creative drive. So one day, he decided he would end it all, despite having things to stick around for — like lots of money, a huge army of fans, an undoubtedly impressive collection of shell-toe Adidas, and his children. Maybe not in that order.

But then McDaniels turned on the radio, heard “Angel,” and suddenly life seemed amazing. Or as he put it, “That record saved my life. I heard Sarah McLachlan’s record and something that day said, ‘Life is good. It’s good to be alive.'”

“Also, I’m one of the few people who can wear this hat and not look like a tool. It’s the little things.”

He then went out and bought every album McLachlan ever released and listened to only her music for a year. What sound like the habits of an obsessed stalker happened to save McDaniels’ life. And when, three years later, he found out he was adopted, he knew he’d been saved from the brink so he could use his fame and money to help children in similar situations. He set up the Felix Organization to provide “inspiring opportunities and new experiences to enrich the lives of children who are growing up in the foster care system.” Each summer, more than 150 kids on each coast head to Camp Felix for days of swimming, rock climbing, and presumably learning the chords to “I Will Remember You” on the acoustic guitar.

#7. Van Halen’s “Panama” Forced Dictator Manuel Noriega To Surrender

You’d never guess it from the title, but “Panama” is not actually about the country, the canal, or the hat. David Lee Roth was angry that critics had accused him of only ever singing about sex, partying, and cars, when he had clearly never written a song about a car! In order to achieve the trifecta for which he was already famous, he composed a song about one he’d seen race in Las Vegas, called “Panama Express.” The song hit No. 13 on the Billboard Top 100 and became one of Van Halen’s most famous anthems.

That might have been it, but five years later, the U.S. decided to invade the actual country. This was one of those confusing invasions where we used to support the guy we were now trying to take down, General Manuel Noriega. The military called the invasion Operation Just Cause, in case there was any confusion over which side was morally justified. The plan to capture Noriega himself was called Operation Nifty Package, because even though you’re launching an invasion, it doesn’t mean you’re above silly words like “nifty.”

Operation Stridex clearly failed.

But Noriega wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of being taken prisoner, and sought sanctuary in the Vatican embassy. That’s when the military asked their soldiers to submit songs for the ultimate psychological warfare playlist. They set up speakers outside the embassy and started blasting music day and night. And of course the primary song on heavy rotation was the one that shared its name with the country they were invading, because if there is one thing soldiers love, it’s irony.

We’ll never know how long Noriega could have held out listening to 1980s glam rock, because it was the Vatican ambassador who broke first. After 10 days of deafening music, the papal nuncio told the dictator to pack his bags.

#6. David Hasselhoff’s “Looking For Freedom” Helped Bring Down The Berlin Wall

You can rarely say that David Hasselhoff was the reason behind anything’s success. He was decidedly everyone’s least-favorite part of Baywatch and the third-best thing in Knight Rider (after KITT and the evil version of himself). Still, by being in the right place at the right time, Hasselhoff, his ridiculous-even-for-the-1980s light-up leather jacket, and his music will forever be tied to directly helping bring down the Berlin Wall.

To be clear, Germans aren’t nearly as fanatic about the Hoff as pop culture has led you to believe. They know of the stereotype, and they hate it. But they can’t deny that for eight weeks in the summer of 1989, they made Hasselhoff’s anthem “Looking For Freedom” the No. 1 song in what was then West Germany.

People in Communist East Germany heard the song as well, and even though the lyrics are actually about a son getting out from under the shadow of his rich father, they took it as a rallying cry — or in the Hoff’s words, as their “song of hope.” A few months later, people started tearing down the wall with their bare hands. To thank him for his inspiring song, they invited Hasselhoff to sing there on New Year’s Eve. One piano-key scarf later, and the rest is history.

Or Hoffstory, if you will.

These days, Hoff is still involved in German culture, but now he’s trying to keep the wall standing as a memorial to the people who died attempting to cross the border. Only a few sections are left, and he lends his celebrity and association with it to save them from developers when necessary. He even still belts out “Looking For Freedom” if people ask him to.

#5. Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power” Encouraged People To Do Just That In Serbia

“Fight The Power” is pretty clearly meant to be an African American anthem. It was written specifically for Spike Lee’s film Do The Right Thing, and its lyrics make overt references to being black, specifically in America. Needless to say, it was a huge surprise when Eastern Europeans listened to the message at the heart of the song and said, “Yeah, us too.”

In the early 1990s, Yugoslavia was a mess. (Spoiler Alert: Things didn’t work, and even the name was split in the divorce.) The public was fed up with the rule of Slobodan Milosevic, president of the Serbian part, and his control over the state-run media. Since Milosevic came from the Soviet school of “Screw you, I’ll do what I want,” he wasn’t really concerned about how the public felt.

“Shut up or I’m changing the name to Miloslavia.”

A huge protest was planned for March 9, 1991 in Belgrade. The president figured his police could just kick some protester butt, everyone would go home, and that would be it. But far more people turned up than expected. Estimates of the numbers vary, because it’s hard to count into the tens of thousands while being tear-gassed, but they range from 70,000 to 150,000. Police efforts to disperse the crowd escalated until tanks were rolling onto the streets, and in the end, two people died, 203 were injured, and 636 were arrested.

Independent radio stations like B92 were ordered to stop broadcasting any news so that the public heard only the official, state-sanctioned version of events. So B92 did the only thing a radio station could in that situation: They looked through their catalog for every “damn the man” song they could find and started playing them. None was more perfect or repeated more often than “Fight The Power.” They got away with it because the regime thought that music was just music, while “the listeners understood the code,” according to the founder of B92. As codes go, it’s not exactly a subtle one.

The protests continued for five days, and while Milosevic stayed in power, the protesters got many of their other demands, all thanks to some motivation from Public Enemy.