时间:2019-01-02 作者:英语课 分类:名人轶事


英语课

Country and Western Singer Hank Williams Wrote Songs About Love and Heartbreak


(THEME)




VOICE ONE:




PEOPLE IN AMERICA -- a program in Special English by the Voice of America.




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Every week at this time, we tell you a story about people who played a part in the history of the United 1 States. I'm Tony Riggs. Today, Larry West and I tell the story of country and western singer and songwriter, Hank Williams.




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VOICE TWO:




That was the record Hank Williams made when he first tried to interest recording 2 companies in his music. None of the companies liked it at the time. But a few years later, the high sharp voice of Hank Williams would cut like a knife through the music world. When he sang his songs, people listened. They are still listening, long after his death.




VOICE ONE:




Hank Williams was born in nineteen twenty-three on a small farm near Mount 3 Olive 4, Alabama. Like most people at that time in the southern United States, the Williams family was poor. Hank's father could not work. He had been injured 5 in World War One. He spent many years in a hospital when Hank was a boy.




The Williams family did not own many things. But it always had music. Hank sang in church. When he was eight years old, he got an old guitar and taught himself to play. From then on, music would be the most important thing in his life.




VOICE TWO:




By the time Hank was fourteen, he had already put together his own group of musicians. They played at dances and parties. They also played at a small local radio station. They were known 6 as "Hank Williams and his Drifting 7 Cowboys 8."




For more than ten years, Hank remained popular locally, but wasunknown nationally. Then, in nineteen forty-nine, he recorded his first major hit record. The song was "Lovesick Blues 9."




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Hank Williams and his group performed "Lovesick Blues" on the stage of the Grand 10 Ole Opry house in Nashville, Tennessee. People in the theater would not let him stop singing. They made him sing the song six times. After years of hard work, Hank Williams had become a star.




VOICE ONE:




Hank wrote many songs in the years that followed. Singers are still recording them today. They may sing the songs in the country and western style -- the way Hank wrote them. Or they may sing them in other popular styles. Either way, the songs will always be his.




Hank Williams wrote both happy songs and sad songs. But the sad songs are remembered best.




Hank Williams    




When Hank sang a sad song, those who listened knew it was about something that had happened to him. Somehow, he was able to share his feelings in his music. One of the most famous of these sad songs is "Your Cheatin' Heart."  One music expert said: "Your Cheatin' Heart" is so sad, it sounds like a judge sentencing somebody to a punishment worse than death itself.”




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"Your Cheatin' Heart" was written in the early nineteen fifties. It has been recorded by more than fifty singers and groups in almost every style of popular music.




VOICE TWO:




Many years after Hank Williams' death, new fans of his music have asked why he could put so much of his life into his songs. There is no easy answer to that question.




Hank Williams had many problems during his life. He and his wife Audrey did not have a happy marriage. Many of his songs seemed to ask: “Why can't we make this marriage work?”  Many people knew that when Hank sang this song, "Cold Cold Heart", he was singing about his wife and their problems. Those who had similar problems felt that Hank was singing about them, too.




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VOICE ONE:




Hank Williams drank too much alcohol 11. Those who knew Hank Williams say he did not have the emotional 12 strength to deal with his problems. They say he often felt he had no control over his life.




Everything seemed to be moving too fast. He could not stop. And he could not escape. He had money and fame. But they did not cure his loneliness, his drinking, or his marriage problems.




Hank was always surrounded by people, especially after he became famous. None, however, could break through the terrible sadness that seemed to follow him everywhere. One song, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry", expresses his feelings of loneliness.




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VOICE TWO:




When Hank Williams began to record his songs, country and western music was not popular with most Americans. It was the music of the poor farming 13 areas of the South. However, because Hank's songs told of real-life troubles with such great emotion, something unusual began to happen to his music.




Radio stations that had never played country and western music began to play Hank Williams' songs. Famous recording stars who never sang country and western music began recording songs written by Hank Williams. He had created a collection of music that stretched far past himself and his times.




Hank Williams' life and career were brief. He died on New Year's Day, nineteen fifty-three. He was twenty-nine years old.




(MUSIC)




VOICE ONE:




You have been listening to PEOPLE IN AMERICA, a program in Special English by the Voice of America. Your narrators 14 were Larry West and Tony Riggs. PEOPLE IN AMERICA was written by Paul Thompson

 



adj.和谐的;团结的;联合的,统一的
  • The whole nation is closely united.全国人民紧密团结。
  • The two men were united by community of interests.共同的利益使两个人结合在一起。
n.录音,记录
  • How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间?
  • I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。
n.山峰,乘用马,框,衬纸;vi.增长,骑上(马);vt.提升,爬上,装备
  • Their debts continued to mount up.他们的债务不断增加。
  • She is the first woman who steps on the top of Mount Jolmo Lungma.她是第一个登上珠穆朗玛峰的女人。
n.橄榄,橄榄树,橄榄色;adj.黄绿色的,黄褐色的,橄榄色的
  • Have you eaten a kind of fruit called olive?你吃过橄榄这种水果吗?
  • She likes olive because It'symbolizes peace.她喜欢橄榄色因为它象征着和平。
adj.受伤的
  • Our best defender is injured and won't be able to play today.我们最佳的防守员受伤了,今天不能参加比赛。
  • The injured men have been dug out of the snow.受伤人员从雪中被挖了出来。
adj.大家知道的;知名的,已知的
  • He is a known artist.他是一个知名的艺术家。
  • He is known both as a painter and as a statesman.他是知名的画家及政治家。
a.弥漫的
  • Some people enjoy that kind of life, drifting from pillar to post. 有些人喜欢这种生活,到处漂泊游荡。
  • The ship was found after drifting on the ocean for six months. 那条船在海上漂流了6个月后找到了。
n.牧牛工( cowboy的名词复数 );牛仔;冒失鬼;(尤指无能的)缺德的商人
  • children playing a game of cowboys and Indians 玩美国西部牛仔与印第安人游戏的孩子们
  • There are too many cowboys in the business these days. 近来商界中,瞎吵胡闹的家伙太多。 来自《简明英汉词典》
n.抑郁,沮丧;布鲁斯音乐
  • She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
  • He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。
adj.豪华的,宏伟的,壮丽的,主要的,重大的;n.(美俚)一千美元
  • The pianist played several pieces of music on a grand piano.钢琴家在一架大钢琴上弹了几首乐曲。
  • Come on,I'll give you the grand tour of the backyard.跟我来,我带你去后院来一次盛大的旅游。
n.酒精,乙醇;含酒精的饮料
  • The law forbids shops to sell alcohol to minors.法律禁止商店向未成年者出售含酒精的饮料。
  • The alcohol is industrial.这些酒精是供工业用的。
adj.令人动情的;易动感情的;感情(上)的
  • Emotional people don't stop to calculate.感情容易冲动的人做事往往不加考虑。
  • This is an emotional scene in the play.这是剧中动人的一幕。
n.农事;耕作
  • He lives by farming.他靠务农过活。
  • He is farming in Africa.他在非洲经营农场。
(故事的)讲述者,(戏剧、电影等的)解说员( narrator的名词复数 )
  • The narrators have a mordant contempt for everyone and everything, including themselves. 叙述者们都尖酸刻薄地蔑视一切人和事,包括他们自己。
  • Germany Pavilion's virtual narrators Jens and Yan Yan will guide visitors to tour the pavilion. 德国馆的虚拟解说员“严思”和“燕燕”将会带领游客参观展馆。
学英语单词
abjoule
aescine
airs cryogenic aerosol processor
ala of central lobule
amangkurat
ambulator
anomala loi
arietate
auger electron emission
becking
bendalloy
blunders into
bullbeggar
chain data address
CIE-C
committed effective dose equivalent
critical layer
cross colour
cylindrical chart
debit system
diffusion theory approximation
dunno.
end control
excelsior wrapper
falkow
flat tin
flower-piece
geake
Gemmatimonadetes
GM_nouns-and-prepositions
gymnosperm
hemalyke
heteroheptamers
hitchment
hoyt
indecent assault
intrasite communications
joachann
know how many beans make five
Koninckophyllum
kordell
La Trobe R.
Lauesymmetry
liquid mirror telescope
Lynenol
Marburg hemorrhagic fever
martyrs
masking tape
mating rate of virgin female meths
MCL level
meerbeke
mesodermic
minsk mazowiecki
mitochondrional
monargentic
Montreal River
municipally-owned
n.t.
operating hazard analysis
organorubidium
overall external dimension
paper wasp
pcoes
PCSA
pectinid
Pelham, Henry
physically impaired
picture demodulator
polianthes tuberosas
polycotyleden
pubococcygeal
quashed
radial-thrust force
reception facilities
recyclists
resource data subsystem
robert capa
sadi carnots
septate fiber tracheid
single-bed converter
soap bubble
Southeyville
spermatio-
spinal vein
sporidesmium magnibrachypus
squatting speed
St-Antonin
state contables
strainer vines
straw pick-up loader
subheads
suppressed output
surface-grinding
tatoin
time-line
transfer survey inmining district
troostites
V. I.
ventora
water line corrosion
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