Coffee and Music: a Match Made in Coffee Houses

As students, coffee and music are the key combination to being productive and enjoying our busy schedules. From watching live music at CoGro, to listening to music while waiting at a giant Starbucks line in mitchell hall, to finishing a paper due that night at stauffer where you can listen to music in the silence and keep yourself awake with coffee; coffee and music are often a power duo in the life of students more than we notice. The pair are so intertwined, there’s even a correlation that dates all the way back to 18th Century composers like Mozart and Vivaldi’s huge repertoire and the introduction of coffee to Europe. As a Barista, I’ve had the opportunity to observe first hand the ways that coffee shops create a cozy atmosphere for people to settle down and work or catch up with friends. The two major ways coffee shop goers do this is through the obvious, caffeine, but also music. Through curated cafe soundtracks, a fitting music selection helps people focus on their work or spark conversation.

Looking further into this duo, the coffee house concept comes with a long history. It all began in the 15th century Ottoman Empire when alcohol was banned in the east as a result of Muslim beliefs. Instead of pubs and taverns, they started opening coffeehouses for people to socialize. Sober gathering spaces allowed for deeper conversation without alcohol’s rowdy influence. The expansion of coffee bean imports spread coffee houses to Europe, beginning in Venice, Italy who traded a lot with the East. Coffee made it to Rome where Priests gathered to think it was the “drink of the devil” till the end of the 16th Century when the Pope tried it and liked it so much, he blessed it. Coffee came to the rest of the Western world through a combination of travelling and trade, replacing alcohol as a Breakfast beverage and becoming the drink of independence to America. With the growing love of coffee, coffee houses were opened just like in the East, they became a place for conceptual conversations. Coffee houses even challenged common conceptions of class, as it was so affordable that the houses created the intermingling of people in different social statuses. So much so, that during the age of Enlightenment, coffee houses became locally known as “penny universities,” where people of a lower class would have the opportunity to be part of intellectual discussion and debate. In the present day, the communal quality of coffee can also help us find new music. Vast ranges of individuals with varying tastes are able to share what they are listening to at coffee shops on aux or through a live performance and all have the ability to access it. People would have to go to the opera or buy sheet music and play it themselves to listen to music in earlier ages where now we can search it up on Youtube or Spotify. Since working at a cafe, I believe the amount of different artists and music I listen too have drastically increased. From hearing the Beaches playing to being shown Tops after I recommended Peach Pit. A constant exposure to soundtracks in the background at work causes us to get creative. As a customer, I once heard Halsey in a song I’d never heard before, I carefully listened to the lyrics and typed them into Google to find out it was “I walk the Line” from Badlands (which I’m not as familiar with). Nevertheless, coffee houses began as accessible spaces, not only financially and intellectually but because of the incorporation of live performance, also musically.

It wasn’t until after World War II when Italians immigrated to America that Italian style coffee houses were opened with espresso machines and live performing folk musicians around the 1950s. Folk music is derived from Old English’s “folc,” meaning “common people.” The genre was meant to label “uncultured” people in comparison to the consumers of elite classical music, as it was acoustic and discussed issues of the common people. It began as simple storytelling and grew into a genre for political anthems by artists like Woody Gutherie, whose guitar states, “this machine kills fascists” as he sings “This Land is your Land.”

The trend of folk artists performing at coffee houses gave rise to a lot of musicians who prioritized spreading important messages, in the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell. One of my favourite folk artists who emerged and participated in the activist coffeehouse scene of the 1960s was Indigenous-Canadian, Buffy-Sainte Marie. Marie is self-taught and known for her alternate tunings and passionate lyrics about issues such as decolonization and war. When discussing the coffee house scene in her authorized biography Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography (2018), she states, “Coffee houses offered an atmosphere for young people to be together and have a safe place to go and hear music that was actually about themselves and their peers - that was us, the songwriters… they’re thinking, not boozing. They’re sharing political perspectives and artistic perspectives, and it was quite beautiful.” Ultimately, the sale of alcohol in bars was much more profitable for musicians to perform in. As well, lots of folk artists fell into the commodification of resistance, getting big time managers and making music to be popular rather than provoking. All this led to the loss of the folk-coffee house movement.

“Coffee houses offered an atmosphere for young people to be together and have a safe place to go and hear music that was actually about themselves and their peers - that was us, the songwriters… they’re thinking, not boozing. They’re sharing political perspectives and artistic perspectives, and it was quite beautiful.”

— Buffy Sainte-Marie

While we could never have a folk artist performing the entire time at a coffee house, presently, cafes do have the ability to always have music playing in the background. With services like Spotify and Apple Music barista’s can save playlists that greatly accompany the vibe of the space and customers. Sometimes it’s fun to ask what customers are currently loving and play that. It is also fun to play niche music that customers will ask about or have to shazam. While it’s nice to hear familiar songs you love at a coffee spot, it’s also really nice to hear something you really like to find out what it is, giving you more than just a cup of coffee from that cafe! The music played in the space through a speaker gives great contrast to live local artists playing in the space. The performer is either likely to not be well known, or very well known by a close friend or fan. Either way the live musician has the ability to be immersed with the audience in small spaces like cafes. Connection is even further provoked with the ability to chat after or between performances amongst each other, which is exactly what Sainte-Marie pointed out she loved. It’s an experience you won’t get in larger concert venues or listening to a live recording through headphones.

After being stuck at home during the beginning of covid, people have become eager to get out and about. Lucky for us, lots of opportunities are emerging to perform and watch coffeehouse acts live. The way in which economic and political climates are functioning also creates an environment that is accessible financially and a platform to think and discuss social issues. So where around town can you partake?! Here’s a list of my favourite cafes to get caffeinated and woke with friends.