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J. Martin Daughtry's Listening To War

1295 Words6 Pages

J. Martin Daughtry makes various claims about music and sound in the context of US military involvement in Iraq in his book Listening to War. Throughout the book he details the how troops receives specialized training on interpreting sounds, and gives vital incite into how soldiers use music in their daily activities. Despite never serving, Daughtry preserves authenticity with numerous first hand accounts and testimonials. Most of his stronger claims have this support: like his exploration into music as a tool for soldiers to adopt a mindset appropriate for the task at hand and as a psychological and physical defense mechanism. Many of Daughtry’s ideas are well illustrated through Orlando Caholo’s music video titled “IRAQ (EYE OF THE TIGER)”. …show more content…

The iconic opening riff of the song is coordinated with shots of an Iraqi village, then moving to generic soldiers posing with guns and in their armored vehicles, typical identifiers of hypermasculinity detailed by Daughtry. The video functions as a slide show, showing photos and clips of soldiers doing various things, most of all just having fun, goofing off. Although Daughtry mentions music as a normalizer, it is easy for people to forget that our troops still are people enjoy some fun as shown in the video, soldiers sliding their humvees through mud, laughing and posing with wide grins and guns pointed high. A more serious part of the video is two clips of exploding IEDs, timed perfectly with the beat of the song. Followed by more shots of a shoddy Iraqi town, and of course the iconic lyrics “Risin' up, straight to the top, Had the guts, got the glory, Went the distance, now I'm not gonna stop, Just a man and his will to survive.” in comparison to Daughtry, the choice to align the exploding of the IED with the beat in the song may reflect the power behind the sound as well as the memory of it. Also, the overall choice of song is consistent with Daughtry; the classic 80s rock, semi-ironic but truthfully the lyrics are rather compelling. As the video closes out we see parallels between Daughtry and Caholo, with shots of boots and helmets resting on erect rifles at a memorial service, followed by a sign showing names of the fallen soldiers. Whether or not Caholo was a serviceman, he too uses music to commemorate and celebrate the heroism and sacrifice of US

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