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?
That's been a claim by people trying to explain the shootings for a long time, but no substantive evidence of such a shooter or his location has ever been produced.
Then the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia, and left 2 million dead. Ironically it took the Communist Vietnamese to put a stop to it.
He’s another of the many whiners on FR that enjoy blaming everything wrong with the world on those old, liberal burned out Boomers. What none of these mental midgets get is that they have been sold a Hollywood view of Boomers. In fact most Boomers are just hard working people who went to work out of HS or attended college by working in the summer and taking out loans. Some sent to Nam, some didn’t come home, some that did were changed forever. We got married, most had kids, we worked our butts off to do the best we could to raise our now ungrateful children, who see us as nothing more than free babysitters or a free basement to live in because they dont want be job locked. Most of us never toked a doobie, dropped acid, or lived in a commune. I turned 18 in 1969 and didn’t even hear of Woodstock until the movie came out. As we group we couldn’t wait to get away from home, grow up and live our own live. Unlike the Xers and Millenials who don’t seem to ever want to leave home or grow up.
It gets tiring, but if it makes them feel good that’s fine. As the largest demographic generation in history we have blamed for everything good and bad that has happened for the last 60 years. I have heard from those in my own family. They can’t wait until we are all gone so they can fix the world. Thankfully I won’t be here to see the train wreck that will become.
Get over yourself.
You have so bought the Hollywood line you are hopeless.
Sorry.
I am serious in a large way, though with regard to the author at Town Hall and my original comment.
He’s harkening back to hippie protests against Vietnam.
And you don’t like Sam the Sham?
Me?
I think the contrary.
The entire point I was making is that the author has bought the liberal ethos.
Explain what you mean about my buying the Hollywood line. I will give you a fair listen. I’d appreciate it.
That’s interesting because I went to college in the early 70s and can count maybe on two hands the people who I knew who did drugs. Where did you go to school Berkeley?
I’m glad I’m not you.
Why?
Because I like different music than 60’s and 70’s commercial stuff?
You kind of prove my point about it.
You obviously take it personally when 60s hippies are criticized.
Why?
And I never even singled out baby boomers.
Technically I’m a baby boomer.
You seem sensitive to something you don’t need to be sensitive to.
No one is blaming you or people who shared your experiences for anything.
I don't think Lennon was ever the hard-core leftist he was portrayed to be.
"If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao,
You ain't going to make it with anyone, anyhow."
I think he was more libertarian and questioned the authority of large government institutions. I also think he was rather naive back in the 1960s. I can see that as he got older and had the chance to step back and reflect on things, he probably saw that he was operating under a number of...misconceptions...about the way the world works. Really, I think his belief structure was rather immature as a Beatle.
It's still a stretch to say he was a fan of Ronald Reagan, though.
“That’s interesting because I went to college in the early 70s and can count maybe on two hands the people who I knew who did drugs. Where did you go to school Berkeley?”
I grew up in Ca Bay Area, very near Berkeley Drugs were everywhere in by the mid 70’s.
I saw the disease start and have seen it spread out.
Now everywhere is like that.
Ricky Nielsen is long dead, as are Ozzie and Harriett!
In 40 years will Millenials be waxing nostalgic about the autotuned crap they are listening to right now? Probably.
You are just one of many who have posted some misguided image of Boomers. It is the Hollywood image of drug use, free sex, commune living far left ethos to use your term, when the facts couldn’t be further from the truth. The vast majority of Boomers were just middle class kids who grew up to be middle class adults. Some tried drugs though nowhere near the majority. And I can vouch for the fact that sex was not free. If you wanted sex the girl expected major commitment if not marriage, no hooking up. If you didnt go to college you probably got married out of HS, got a job and started your family. If you went to college you took out loans and worked every summer to pay for it. Not much time to be turn on/tune out hippies. Hollywood has spent at least a generation trying build a leftist counter culture image of the Boomers and for the most part they couldn’t be more wrong.
The country started its fall from grace during the 70’s at which time Boomers were just starting out in life and were definitely not in charge of anything. Yes we loved our music, but I don’t know many who were moved to take to the streets because of a song. For the facts I love 40’s and 80’s music too, so what does that say about me. You might also be interested to know that most Tea Party people are Boomers who have finally been able to slowdown from working and raising kids only to find the country they thought they knew has changed beyond belief. Now we are hoping we can use our educational and business expertise to try and turn the country back in the right direction. And we will do it while listening to our favorite 60’s songs on our iPhone.
That's what I believe...could be wrong, but at the time I was in the middle of the "Peace Movement", and when I saw a lot of bullshit communist propaganda, I quit the scene.
FMCDH(BITS)
There were a number of things that made the bands of the 60s and 70s good. First, many of the artists had a formal music education. Second, they were at their core dedicated musicians. They played the garage band/night club circuit because they loved their craft. Sure, it was nice to land the record label, but it was the love of the music that got them there. Finally, they had to be good. It was the marketplace at work. Yes, there was some crap and there always will be crap. But the real talented acts endured and stood out because they had talent.
It is my opinion that MTV killed this. After MTV, any ass**** with a video camera could, and did, get on TV with their crap video. Musical talent went from being a necessity to being optional. Also, the music video destroyed the concept of the Rock Band. If you were to take a poll of the posters on this thread, what do you think the number would be who could name all of the performers for The Who, The Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc...? It's probably pretty high.
MTV killed the Rock Band because it became all about the vocalist. The singer with the giant ego and little talent. The diva was born, the band died. Who plays bass for Mariah Carey? Who is the drummer for Britney Spears? The real musicians, the talented guys (and gals) who play for the love of the music have been shoved to the background. Now the singer rules, and incidentally, they really don't have to be good. They just have to be connected.
Dank als fur nichts, MTV.
They did actually meet once, accidentally, during a Monday Night Football broadcast, and Reagan spent a few minutes explaining to John the rules of American football.
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