Summary and Response of " Killing Women: A Pop-Music Tradition" by John Hamerlinck

Summary:
Popular music has a vein of killing woman, according to john Hamerlinck, it leads to lots of domestic violences. Although this kind of violence sometimes reflected in movies and novels, the violence toward woman is most common shown in pop musics. This genre of woman- killing song didn't only show in recent years, in fact, it had already shown in an old type song called” murder balled”. This type of song is often blue, telling about their women are doing wrong with them, and how men get even with their women. For example, in 1920s, a song called” Careless Love” sang by Lonnie Johnson, Said” he promises to shoot his lover numerous time and then stand over her until she is finished dying”. This kind of song often belies a message of killing and retribution.
Because those type of songs are often smooth, and people can remember the song easily, influenced by the music, the physical violence become a way for some people to express their emotional pain. Other famous song like“ Run for Your Life” and “ Every Breath You Take” also sending a message of premeditation, stalking, and threats to their target. Another famous song called” Hey Joe” is also in this vein, which sang almost by all garage- band in that time. It had a lyric saying” where you goin' with that gun in your hand?”
The MTV generation also has a vein of woman- killing, such as” man in black” a murder song sang by Johnny Cash. This kind of MTV show like man digging a grave for his victim or even the odds by arming victim. Though there is a female covered the song” Run for Your Life” and sang “little boy” instead of “little girl”, the victim of violence are often women. This phenomena lead the public think it is common to” crimes of passion” and it is reasonable. But the author tell us this is not about love it is about power and control.

Response:
I was astonished that some popular music can lead to such a big trouble. By curiosity, I searched for some of these musics that mention in this article and listened them. Before I listen to those songs I though it was frightening and gloomy, but it turns out that the music was quite relaxed and catchy. It was surprised me that this kind of music can do such a big effort on our society, and mislead some people to do violence actions. But is this the really reason lead the man to act domestic violence? My answer is NO.
Men are often consider the master of a home and the leader in our society, so they can't bear to be treat by others. This may also make sense why those so-called” murder balled” songs often written or sang by men. Maybe it is not because of those music but because of man's nature action. I am not denying that music can't influence human's emotion, in fact, music sometime does lead our feeling. Sing a song is one of a way for human to express their feeling, sometimes it touch the emotion deep inside of our hart. The singer might act strange in their MTV, doing some crazy things, but audience need to separate right from wrong, not just follow the video.