The Avid Listener: "You'll Tic Tic All Day Long"

Some wars are good. Most are bad. Some are just plain weird. The Cold War was definitely weird, and one of the best ways to grasp its weirdness is to listen to Cold War novelty songs from the 1940s to the 1960s.

Joanna: Over these past weeks, Tim developed essays for the public musicology site extraordinaire, The Avid Listener.  The essays on The Avid Listener hit a rare sweet spot: in-depth musical and historical analysis written without jargon or overly specialized language. They give any interested reader the chance to explore ways that music frames and shapes culture. 
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Tim's essay gives a sneak peek into the writings for our forthcoming book on popular music and the Cold War. I really appreciate the way that Tim can blend wacky humor with critical analysis, using the novelty song genre as a distinctive window in the the political climate of the Cold War. 

Go over there and read his essay “You’ll Tic Tic All Day Long”: The Cold War, Geiger Counters, and Doris Day. Then spend some time perusing some of the other wonderful essays on the site--you won't be disappointed.