Posted on 03/24/2014 9:41:41 AM PDT by Kaslin
Growing up in the 60’s, my older brother, Wayne, made certain that I was properly schooled in the fine art of psychedelic rock. He was generous with his sophisticated collection of vinyl and kindly tolerated my tagging along to live concerts by The Who, Blues Magoos, and Fever Tree. We even saw Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs once.
My friends and I followed musicians like baseball card athletes as they migrated between The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Buffalo Springfield, and Blind Faith. I came to understand that Frank Zappa was equal parts profound & bananas and that the best version of Summertime Blues was recorded by Blue Cheer. In that explosively creative era, popular music evolved rapidly in the wake of the innovative leadership of the Beatles.
But as the decade was wrapping up, the Vietnam War was escalating. I remember how depressing CBS News sounded every evening, a nightly drumbeat of American casualty numbers accompanied by unsettling images from the front lines. The closest that my friends and I approached an understanding of the war was that it was morose, no end in sight, and that we were approaching draft age.
Even our favorite bands felt the impact. A local group known as The Moving Sidewalks lost their keyboard and bass players to the U.S. Army. The two remaining members added another talent and reorganized the band as ZZ Top.
In time, musicians began to unify the nation’s growing discontent with Washington by producing a list of “protest songs” initiated by Stephen Stills’ very civil For What It’s Worth. The cleverness of pop lyrics increasingly focused on poking Congress and President Nixon in the eye, leading up to the Woodstock music festival in August of 1969. The most undisguised slight came from Country Joe & The Fish singing their original rag with a chorus ending in, “Whoopee! We’re all going to die.”
Counterculture suddenly became serious business in 1970 when members of the Ohio National Guard overreacted to a student protest on the Kent State University campus. Skittish guardsmen fired 67 rounds into the crowd, killing four students and injuring nine others. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young immediately released a responsive song with the lyrics, “Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, We're finally on our own. This summer I hear the drumming,Four dead in Ohio.”
America matured immensely in the decade that followed. The war was brought to a terrifically awkward end, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, and the United States military transitioned into a respected volunteer profession. While much was gained in the transformation, the musical voice of antiestablishment was somehow lost.
Out of curiosity, I read the lyrics to all the songs on the current American Top 40 this week. Most are readily forgettable complaints about dysfunctional relationships. There are a few unique and thoughtful scripts, two brief and repetitive ditties, and one libretto with a contrived reference to Jeffrey Dahmer. I believe that we can surmise the reason that the weapons of sheet music have gone silent is that the worldview of Washington leadership is now in synch with the majority of traditions-rejecting songwriters. Nowadays Clancy can’t even sing a protest song.
It is often said that suffering emotes the most powerful music. And while there is certainly no shortage of performing talent in America, there is no Vietnam provoking their collective objection. Rather, there is a gradual social seduction being masterfully orchestrated directly from the White House. Even 70’s folk rocker James Taylor recently threw in all his chips with the surrendering statement, “we need to make some sacrifices to our freedoms.”
Dissent from younger, creative folks does exist. It is simply not concentrated in response to a single threat. When clever videographer Caleb Bonham recently interviewed college students at George Mason University, he received the following prioritization of political issues that are on the minds of students: (1) Benghazi?(2) Obama’s “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” promise?(3) DOJ spying on AP reporters?(4) The Fast and Furious gun-running scandal?(5) IRS targeting conservative groups?(6) The botched rollout of Healthcare.gov?(7) Obama bypassing Congress to delay elements of Obamacare, and?(8) NSA collection of citizens’ email and phone data. Encouraging.
Millions of American left brains have been exercising the OODA process for a long time; Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. It is time for a complementary renaissance from those whose gifts lie in the right brain. We need bigger music and meaningful words, someone who can call out the statists and sound a call to action for citizens. Where are those artists who will renew the soul of the nation in song? Where have all the flowers gone?
like the title of Elmer Keith’s book
“Hell, I Was There.”
Not going to apologize for my excesses back from ‘68 through the early 70s...but a lot of the music was GREAT.
in concert in those times saw Zeppelin, Cream, The Stones, Procol Harum, The Byrds, the Dead, The Who, Janis Joplin(with and without Big Brother), The Band, Jefferson Airplane, Alvin Lee and TYA, Ray Charles, Randy Newman, Sly and the family Stone, Mothers of Invention, Blood Sweat and Tears.
there are more I cant remember...
but much of the music was GREAT.(and like all eras, much was crap.)
I reformed my excesses way back when....but I still love much of the music....
The contemptuous Joe McDonald meant by “whoopee were all going to die” that we were all going to die in Vietnam.
So don’t go, don’t fight communisms is fine, America is bad etc.....
Good analysis.
Then the drugs came and these kids became degenerate.
Then the young hipsters became the record execs and music went downhill.
Zappa was right when he said they were better off with the old guys with cigars going, “Who knows what it is? Let’s give it a shot and see if it sells.”
Excepting Ray Charles (rather out of place for that list), Sly, Joplin — those artists were horrible, with exceptions for some good songs.
They were boring. They were well produced and sound good, but ultimately empty and dull and, metaphorically, non-nutritious.
Thinking this is somehow the best music, classic, or even all that good, is the mythology and ethos I am talking about.
It is commensurate and part and parcel of the liberal immoral ethos that has descended on our society.
It was a magic time. If you weren’t part of it, you will never understand. And I could care less. Enjoy your gaga.
I grew up in the 80s. Hair Metal ruled the day. Guys with bigger hair than the girls, and more lipstick and mascara, as well.
Thankfully, I grew up and got over it. A Committed Marriage, Job, Kids, House, etc etc etc do that to you. The author of the piece should do the same, rather than wistfully pining over selective memories of a long ago and best forgotten era. :-) How's that for cynical? :-) :-)
And, FWIW, "Kiss" and "Def Leppard" are coming out on tour soon. This weekend, Mrs WBill said "I know that you liked both those groups. Interested in tickets?"
"Nah."
Besides, I saw them back in the day, with their original lineups. Now, all they are is a lead singer, one other member, and a buncha guys who know how to play their hits.
“Mommies alright, daddies alright, they just seem a little weird ...”
Great song. And, one of my all time favorite albums (live that is). The studio version of the songs on the live album aren’t near as good.
As to the music scene today, it reflects society in general, as I believe it always has. From rock (at least that’s what they call it) to rap, in my opinion most of it is crap.
Career Opportunities
"The offered me the office, offered me the shop
They said I'd better take anything they'd got
Do you wanna make tea at the BBC?
Do you wanna be, do you really wanna be a cop?
Career opportunities are the ones that never knocked
Every job they offer you is to keep you out the dock...
What "dock" are they referring to? Was it the union controlled ports, or the welfare roles? It might be the first of these and the song may be refer to a stratified union economy and welfare state.
Rick Nielsen is a big-time conservative from what I hear.
My Dad graduated from college in the mid 60s. Not only did he never use drugs, he didn't even *know* anyone who had used them. (Beer, however, was a whole 'nother story.....)
Contrast that with his siblings who graduated in the late 60s and early 70s.
Or, with myself. Even counting myself as "One", I'd still have a hard time filling up one hand with the number of people I knew in college who *hadn't* tried something illicit.
What’s the saying, “If you remember the 60s, you weren’t there.”
Hair Metal was so much worse. ack.
Those guys were more my contemporaries.
I did not listen to it. I know the 60’s music, but not that. I find it disconcerting to hear songs from thus era, these bands on the oldies or jack format stations.
These are the first I’ve ever really heard the songs.
I see why it was popular. They recycled the best punk licks and riffs in a package that, for some reason was safe and comfortable to the American consumer.
Punk was not played on radio, not signed to major labels not commercial, not heard.
But these guys recycled it and in that manner it got heard, although not neatly as good as the original.
The "Dock" referred to is the court system, I think.
From dictionary.com....noun: place in a courtroom where a prisoner is placed during trial.
idiom: in the dock, being tried in a court, especially a criminal court; on trial.
Rick Nielsen is a big-time conservative from what I hear. “
I have heard that as well. And, he’s one hell of a guitar player.
Saw them in Towson, MD years ago. Great showmen, great show.
Yeah.
By the time I graduated HS in the late 70’s, dope smoking, coke etc... Were ubiquitous as was Led Zep and Pink Floyd worship.
It was the 70’s where the pioneers, that this writer looks back at nostalgically, had finally made their influence widespread and mainstream.
Most of us forget, as we walk down the 60’s memory lane, that the music was produced by liberals and against the decency of conservatism. It’s what led to today’s mentality of disgust, which many of us post about today.
One fine example is John Lennon’s song. “Imagine”.
Some of the lyrics say things like:
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
So, Lennon wants us to think that without religion, we can have decency and morality? Well, since everybody now has ‘’their own’’ morality, then stealing is OK, adultry is OK, blocking the god given right of people to exercise judeo/christianity is OK. He doesn’t want any consequences to be thought of in advance..it doesn’t matter what you do. Trust is gone, integrity is gone.
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace
There goes national soverignity, opening the door to a one world tyranny over all nations. Nothing to kill or die for also means that freedom is meaningless and not worth dying for. If there’s nothing to die for, then what is there to live for? This isn’t a life of peace, this is a life of apathy. Destruction of passion is followed by the dark ages of lack of creativity, and innovation.
If no doesn’t mean no, then what does your ‘yes’ mean?
So even though we enjoy the memory lane of music to a time when we were young and actually rather innocent, it was a time of ‘’ free love’’ and now we have AIDS.
Yes, our musicians appealed to a liberal perspective at the time, and the consequences are now here, and we find we don’t like them. It’s killing us. You can’t even go to the doctor on your own dollar anymore. That’s Peace??? six feet under maybe but that’s not life.
There are some who suggest that at the time of his death, Lennon was reconsidering his previous stances, and they’ve even gone so far to suggest that he was a fan of Reagan.
Pending mortality, indeed. As one who has had a stroke and whose wife recently had a heart attack, I’m keenly aware of my mortality. Of course, I was also aware of it when VC rockets were in-coming at 2 a.m.
I know it wasn’t the same for everybody but for me, growing up in the fifties and sixties as an average white kid whose dad was an auto mechanic and whose mom was a homemaker, life was pretty damn good. I wonder what things are in store for my sons, and now my grand children, with the clouds of fear and uncertainty hanging over their futures? If I had come home in 1968 to the U.S. I see today, I’d have thought the plane had taken a wrong turn into the Twilight Zone.
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