Posted on 07/31/2017 11:34:18 AM PDT by Twotone
Exactly half a century ago - July 29th 1967 - this song hit Number One on the Billboard Hot One Hundred. This essay is adapted from Mark's book A Song For The Season:
It was 50 years ago today-ish that Sgt Pepper was going on about how it was 20 years ago today. That's to say, the "Summer of Love" is half a century old: It's longer ago today than the summer of flappers and charlestons and bootleg gin was back in 1967. But, boomers being the most self-absorbed generation in history, we're going to be living with boomer pop culture until the very last one keels over at the age of 130 singing "Give Peace A Chance". So we might as well get used to it. And, to be honest, there's one aspect of the Summer of Love I'm quite partial to. What was America's Number One song in that bright new hazy psychedelic dawn? Oh, come on, baby...
Come on, baby, Light My Fire Come on, baby, Light My Fire Try to set the night on fire...
It set the summer on fire five decades back. The single was edited down to under three minutes, but the disk jockeys played the original seven-minute album track anyway, from the Doors' eponymous album The Doors.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
I’m 63 and in complete agreement with you. I’ve also been in a LOT of classic rock bands. The doors is one of those bands that made it because they were the right thing at the right time. It was not the music, but what went with it that made them popular.
Not long ago, I heard some high school students casually singing Bob & Earl's Harlem Shuffle. That would be like high school students in 1964 singing Silver Bell by the "That Girl" Quartet.
What If Department:
What if Brian Wilson had not pulled release of SMiLE in January of 1967, recorded many months before SGT. Pepper’s?
What if Brian Wilson had not withdrawn The Beach Boys as the headlining act of The Monterey Pop Festival in 1967?
Certainly rock history would look different, and that group would not have been effectively banned from FM radio, and hence, from classic rock stations.
A joke which is ‘ancient’ itself:
“Wanna feel old? Today my daughter
asked me if it was true that Paul
McCartney was in a band before “Wings.”
Get serious, man!
The 60’s was...far and away...the best decade in human history for music.
In my estimation, Sinatra is one of the most over-rated vocalists ever, especially after he hit middle age. His voice lost the clarity it had when he was younger. I think only My Way showcased Sinatra in a superior way during the latter part of his career.
I used to love The Doors but today I find that their stuff hasn't aged well.Early Beatles,early Stones,early Who...still amazing stuff.Doors? Not so much.
“It was not the music, but what went with it...”
I don’t know - Ray Manzarek was incredibly talented on that keyboard. Anything from rock to classical music.
He loved the song at first, when they needed to edit it to fit on a 45 he couldn’t say to cut anything, finally leaving it to the band. A few years of having to play it every night makes just about EVERYBODY hate their hit single.
I do always wonder what it must have been like for the teenie-boppers brought to The Doors by Robbie’s cheesy love songs to go to those concert and find the Lizard King. There really were 2 very different versions of the band.
True. Kinda like Entwhistle and Moon of The Who on their instruments. In a world where any new music is “cool”, that’s all it takes to become a music icon.
It’s a little more challenging nowadays. ;-)
This thread makes me feel OLD, like no other thread ever has. Just sayin’
Gotta love Mark Steyn...
Gotta love Mark Steyn...
Great song, great band. Morrison should have been more careful with his various recreational activities.
Very true, there’s this nostalgia for the summer of love and all that among some people. But not everyone was listening to that music then. Just as, not everyone was listening to disco in the late ‘70s; not everyone was into Elvis Presley and rock and roll in the ‘50s. In fact, speaking of the ‘50s, some crooners such as Perry Como in the ‘50s, were as big as Elvis at the time.
Yeah, like about a thousand worse bands. To be fair, something happened that cut the band’s career a little short. Seemed serious at the time.
My favorite of those, hands down, is Stairway to Heaven (1960)--a true rock classic.
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