Songlines: How Songs Travel Through History

Songs have lives. They travel across generations, cross cultural boundaries, and take on new meanings with every artist who performs them and every audience who hears them.

This is a “listen-in” Discourse. We’ll listen to three iconic songs as the legendary Eric Weisbard, former music editor for the Village Voice & The Oxford Encyclopedia of Pop Music, traces the remarkable journeys each has taken through American musical history. Come listen, talk, and explore how songs shape genres, define communities, and become cultural touchstones whose meanings continue to evolve long after they're first recorded.

We'll follow "In the Pines," from Lead Belly to Bill Monroe to Nirvana; "Hound Dog," from Big Mama Thornton to Elvis Presley; and "Top Billin'," from Audio Two to generations of hip-hop artists who continue to sample, quote, and reinvent it.

Eric Weisbard is professor of American Studies at University of Alabama and the author or editor of nine books, from the Spin Alternative Record Guide to Top…