By Caitlin McCain
Lyrics ranging from “I ain”t marching anymore” to “Love me, I”m a liberal,” echoed through the Spencer W. Kimball Tower Tuesday.
BYU College Democrats Club members listened as Michael Hicks, a professor in the school of music, played his guitar and sang 60s songs to represent a cultural critique.
Hicks said he chose the songs to “bring back some of the flavor” of the era he grew up in.
Hicks grew up San Francisco Bay Area where he said the songs were regularly played on the radio.
“The word ”liberal” in Utah County is kind of a hush-hush term,” he said. “In San Francisco it was for us, too, because we thought liberal was too far right.”
Hicks said the songs he chose share common themes of anti-war, civil rights and compassion.
Many of the songs were satires on the Vietnam War, one of which Hicks sang in an audition for an 8th grade talent show he was “disqualified” from.
Hicks and his group members watched as their names were erased off the black board and said, “It was as if we didn”t even perform.”
Rebecca Ricks, a sophomore from Scarsdale, N.Y., said Hicks” songs reminded her of why she is a Democrat.
“The songs shared a message of love and peace that resonates with youth even though they are decades old,” she said.
Randal Serr, a senior majoring in political science and president of the BYU College Democrats Club, compared the important issues in the songs to issues in the upcoming election and said BYU Democrats have a big opportunity this Tuesday.
“We are the progressive voice on campus and I hope we continue to be a loud and proud voice,” he said.
Hicks closed with a song he said he learned in church titled “All my trials, Lord,” and added “The great liberal and civil rights causes have always been connected with faith and the gospels of Christ.”
