Blog #1

“Mind on a permanent vacation, The Ocean is my only medication, Wishing my condition ain’t ever gonna go away.”  This quote is apart of one of my favorite songs, which is “Knee Deep” by Zac Brown Band.  The other songs I decided to analyze along with this song are “Chicken Fried” and “Free.” I chose these songs because they are some of my favorites and I’m going to a Zac Brown Band concert next month so I thought it would interesting to see what I could learn about this band.  Music is an important part of a person’s culture.  For example, when I get stressed music is my outlet to get away from it all.   I analyzed these songs from the interpretive perspective and the critical perspective.

            When looking at the interpretive perspective, I found that Zac Brown Band portrays themselves as a laid back group of people that like to talk about the people they love, getting away from the worries of the world, and having a good time.  In other words this is their avowal  (Martin & Nakayama, 2012).   I think that most of this is taught from their parents and other people in the South so this goes along with the interpretive perspective.  When looking at the critical perspective, I think that people could misunderstand Zac Brown Band because they come from the South so they have a very different culture from people that aren’t from the South. For example, in “Chicken Fried” it talks about drinking beer, fried chicken, the sunrise, and things that people from the South might find more important than other people.

            A pattern that I have found in these songs is that they don’t care about things in life that some people find important.  For example, in “Chicken Fried” they say “And its funny how it’s the simple things in life that mean the most, Not where you live, what you drive, or the price tag on your clothes. There’ no dollar sign on a piece of mind this I’ve come to know.”  Another pattern I found in these songs is that in each of them they talk about spending time with the people they love.  I think the reason I connect to these songs is because I love spending time with my family and I care most about the little things in life rather than money and things such as that. 

            I think that cultural ethnography more accurately describes the connection between culture and communication.  I believe this because this analyzes verbal and nonverbal communication that is significant to the people apart of that culture in order to understand the patterns of that cultural group so it’s more about the culture as a group rather than as culture as contested zones  (Martin & Nakayama, 2012).   

Works Cited:

Martin, J., & Nakayama, T. (2012). Intercultural communication in contexts. (6th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Zac Brown Band. (2011, June 29). World premiere video: "knee deep" feat. jimmy buffett. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n5G0qFBsHM

Zac Brown Band. (2008, November 6). Zac brown band-chicken fried. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4ujS1er1r0