Music During Wartime

The music that was written during wartime has reflected the general feeling about war in general. This can be seen for the last 300 years. During the Baroque period in Europe, symphonies were written about the glories of countries and their conquests during wars, and being a soldier was considered an honorable thing by most Europeans. During the American civil war, there was an even mixture of both sad songs of Americans fighting their Southern kinsmen and songs about the enduring glory and might of America. During WWI, war songs reflected a general consensus that America should aid France, and that the war was generally a positive thing. Music during WWII seemed to only serve as a reminder of American values and to raise troop morale and get through the war, but not that the war was of great interest for American involvement, paralleled in American resistance to join WWII. Vietnam saw a majority of it's anti-war activism through music and the attitudes of Americans after the advent of televised war. This set the precedent for the war music of the coming decades but the strong activism petered down until it became the general apathy that consists of many people's feelings towards the current war that some people forget that we're currently in. On reflection I realize how boring this post is, but it's just an interesting trend I noticed about how the public opinion is reflected in the music of the time, or at least how the public opinion is observed by those who were not a part of the events.