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?
also saw Joplin at Woodstock...she was ‘ok’ there with her new band. saw her a year earlier in a small venue with Big Brother and she was GREAT. I was right up at the stage...incredible.
The Cleanest music performed was The Band.
and the blues of ‘Cream’ at the Spectrum in Philly in '68 was phenomenal...
Saw the Stones 3 times 69, 89 and 99 and each time was better than the last.
forgot Billy Joel....he puts on a great show.
It is commensurate and part and parcel of the liberal immoral ethos that has descended on our society.
Back in the day, I was wild and did what I pleased.
haven't since the early-mid 70s.....still love much of the music....and I am not going to apologize for any of it, to you or anyone else.
While the anger of late 60s/ early 70s music did make for a lot of great music it didn’t make for any societal change. There was one of those Ken Burns-esque documentaries on the history of rock where PJ O’Rourke chided a generation of musician that ignored the fact that no one with their job had ever remade society before apparently thinking that because their instruments plugged in things would go differently. So it’s not really a surprise that most people in music by the 80s and beyond have given up on that whole “changing the world” thing, they now know it’s a job, they make entertainment, and while they can occasionally get something off their chest the rabble shall not be roused.
Excellent post!!!
Band were pretty good.
They were always called rock, but I hear them and they were country.
“...still love much of the music....and I am not going to apologize for any of it, to you or anyone else.”
You’re a rebel, Johnny. When are you ever going to be tamed...?
No. The dock they're referring to is the defendant's dock in court. They're saying that society offers dead end jobs to keep people from becoming criminals.
I've always thought the Clash's best conservative line was "If you find an Afghan rebel that the Moscow bullets missed, ask him what he thinks of voting Communist. Ask the Dalai Lama in the hills of Tibet, how many monks did the Chinese get?"
The great music from the 60’s and early 70’s was great because it was alright to join a band and create music. Thus, there were thousands of bands and many were quite good. Nowadays you seldom hear of kids forming a band and trying to make a go out of it wo thus with little supply there are less decent bands.
-— While the anger of late 60s/ early 70s music did make for a lot of great music it didn’t make for any societal change -—
I couldn’t disagree more. The sixties represented a fundamental transformation of moral norms. Music played an enormous role in desensitization to and normalization of libertinism.
Exactly, it was a BIG industry.
Well....all I know is “there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues.” Now I got to get my “mudshark dancing lesson”. I was there in the 60’s, and yes I do remember...at least most of it. The 60s and early 70s, best rock ever recorded. “Rockin’ the Filmore”, Johhny Winter And Live”, “Full House”, and on and on. I still have all the vinyl. Kick out the jams mother......
The Band was for years Dylans backup band.
they did Country Rock....in the Woodstock pamphlet they were called were Rock a Billy.
I call Elvis, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, Everly Brothers Rock-a-Billy. The Band was its own unique brand.
The hippies got it wrong.
No the music at best provided a soundtrack. Owing to the time it takes (especially back then) to record and distribute music it’s generally a trailing indicator. A movement starts, musicians decide they like it, they make music that supports it, people hop on the bandwagon, a second wave of musicians chase the money that bandwagons leak, it become passe, the movement ends, people go back to their regular lives before the movement.
Things you may not know.
The young were the most supportive of the Vietnam war. Nixon easily won the under 30 vote, almost everyone that you think was a hippie figure of the 60s, or 60s musician or band, was not a boomer.
If you look at the destruction of the 60s and early 70s, it was Senators, Presidents, Supreme Court Judges, College Presidents, Mayors, Congressmen the ACLU, NAACP, the founders of NOW (1965), teacher's unions, Generals, Colonels, Governors, Hollywood moguls and studios, 50 and 60 year old TV execs, media and news figures, etc, not 8 year olds and 20 year old kids.
Yes, Haggard, not Haddard and not even Harrard.
Better than this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE_MpQhgtQ8
I remember when the beer soaked rednecks used to wear out the jukebox playing it over and over and “dancing” like drunken bears. Somehow I just never participated. I play the tune now and then on Youtube just to recall the old days.
Yeah.
Hadacol Haddie.
Coming from one who never tried drugs, I never really saw the point. My friends would get high, then just sit around talking about how high they were....whereas I wanted to get up and get moving and go places and see people and do things.
I did, however, manage to drink enough beer in college to float several battleships. Did my best to keep the local distributors in business, that's for sure.
To each their own, I suppose.
I like how this about sums it all up;
“The Rolling Stones used to sing for social change, now they sing for Budweiser.”
- Dennis Miller referring to the Stones’ Steel Wheels Tour sponsored by Budweiser ( 1989 )
I wish I could find the description of the birth of the feminist movement. It was mostly men running things. Most of the women working for the movement were relegated to roles like making coffee and cooking.
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