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?
"you talk bad about the USA, you're steppin on the fightin side of me"
Haggard! not Haddard
Two things.
1. This reads like some nostalgic liberal wrote this but it’s from Town Hall, a supposedly conservative source.
2. His little walk down memory lane well illustrates the emptiness of the baby boomer lives and indicates one reason we are in this mess.
I’ve been unhappy about this for quite awhile. From Dylan to Buffalo Springfield to the Clash, musicians used to be an angry bunch and I think that is not such a bad thing. But today, musicians just seem complacent and supportive of the establishment. They bore me.
So conservatives are not supposed to be fans of rock music? I guess I don’t get your point.
Exactly, even if The Clash were bigtime lefties, their lyrics were such that anyone with a streak of rebelliousness could relate to them, be it on the Left or Right.
The song “Working for the Clampdown” is a perfect example....
What are we gonna do now?
Taking off his turban, they said, is this man a Jew?
’Cos working for the clampdown
They put up a poster saying we earn more than you!
When we’re working for the clampdown
We will teach our twisted speech
To the young believers
We will train our blue-eyed men
To be young believers
The judge said five to ten but I say double that again
I’m not working for the clampdown
No man born with a living soul
Can be working for the clampdown
Kick over the wall ‘cause government’s to fall
How can you refuse it?
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power
D’you know that you can use it?
The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time, there’s nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don’t owe nothing, so boy get runnin’
It’s the best years of your life they want to steal
But, you grow up and you calm down and
You’re working for the clampdown
You start wearing the blue and brown and
You’re working for the clampdown
So you got someone to boss around
It makes you feel big now
You drift until you brutalize
You made your first kill now
In these days of evil presidentes
Working for the clampdown
But lately one or two has fully paid their due
For working for the clampdown
Ha! Gitalong! Gitalong!
Working for the clampdown
Ha! Gitalong! Gitalong!
Working for the clampdown
Yeah I’m working hard in Harrisburg
Working hard in Petersburg
Working for the clampdown
Working for the clampdown
Ha! Gitalong! Gitalong
Begging to be melted down
Gitalong, gitalong
Work
Work
And I give away no secrets – ha!
Work
More work
Work
Work
“Mommies alright, daddies alright, they just seem a little weird ...”
Very cool someone else saw the Who in the early days. I saw them perform at a small venue in Lake Geneva Wisconsin. They destroyed their guitars on stage at the end of the show.
Not bad rock music.
Sam Sham, of this he mentioned are legit.
But, it is not about being a fan of rock music or not. It’s about buying in to and accepting, still to this day, the liberal ethos that was generated at that time.
No one with a brain should worship at the altar of the 60’s hippie scene
The music wasn’t that good and the self mythologizing was and is over the top.
He’s an old man now and should give up his rosy eyed view of the 60s.
When I was young I liked rock more than I do now (I’m younger than the writer), but over time we grow up and find out there are so many things better.
“...His little walk down memory lane well illustrates the emptiness of the baby boomer lives and indicates one reason we are in this mess.”
Seriously? What do you know about baby boomer lives? Are you one? I’m guessing not.
Joe Strummer had passion. With passion, you can be misguided but you can’t be part of the sheeple. We have too many sheep now.
Clampdown is not one of their best songs.
Clash were great and their music holds up (not all songs).
Unlike the boring music mentioned in the article.
The worst music was from these hippies of the 60 s it was also pure statism fall in line with the groupthink.
Media still uses it to this day to pacify the populace.
And why, pray tell, was that??? Could it have possibly been the 'Rat Congress of 1974, which started the grand 'Rat tradition of backstabbing of American allies for politically expedient reasons?
The Vietnam War was essentially won when the Paris peace accords were signed: the South Vietnamese were promised continued military assistance following the withdrawal of US troops. Thanks to the 'Rats, that lifeline was pulled and in less than 2 years, the Communists marched into Saigon while American helicopters evacuated the US Embassy.
And the tradition continues to this day with the lack of a status-of-forces agreement before the Iraq withdrawal and a timetable for Afghanistan withdrawal that Taliban forces have penciled in on their calendars.
FUBO and FAD!
It’s always been one of my favorites by them.
You might also add the illustration of the realization of pending mortality for those of that generation. The vigor of one's lost youth versus the reality of the infirmities of today. Repeating the County Joe quote from earlier in the thread: "Whoopie, we're all going to die!"
Seriously.
That even a writer at a supposedly conservative site would spew such nostalgic emptiness means we are in bad shape and helps explains the spineless RINO phenomenon.
Garbage in garbage out and the ethos associated with “The 60’s” that he buys in to is garbage, empty at best, liberal leftist in longterm effect.
It’s not about the music, per se, but the ethos surrounding it.
He missed out on something important: where the music came from in the first place.
After WWII, there was enormous growth in suburbia, especially around the new western cities. Very family friendly places, they were also intensely boring. The few recreations were things like drive-in movie theaters. But they had one big thing.
Instruments and music. All public schools had music programs, and at least a basic introduction to music for anyone who wanted it. Musical instruments were relatively cheap enough for most families to afford, and so the logical outgrowth were garage bands.
There wasn’t much of a local music scene, so young people had to go to the coasts if they were to have a chance at success. And the competition was fierce. Successful groups had to practice all day and perform for much of the night, in any venue they could get, to make a name for themselves.
And if you weren’t practicing or performing, they were listening to other groups.
95% of them never went anywhere, and 3-4% of the rest were one hit wonders, with only 1-2% getting any degree of mid-term success.
There is an Internet free streaming audio website that plays a lot of the “also-rans” of the time, as well as some of the commercials aired back them, and it is fun to listen to.
http://www.beyondthebeatgeneration.com/
I believe his account of Kent State has been seriously challenged, if not discredited—as in the Guard Soldiers were fired upon and they returned fire.
I liked it when it came out. It seemed hard hitting. But musically I think it’s weak.
Now I more appreciate Brand New Cadillac (a cover) and Jimmy Jazz.
I think London Calling and Clampdown both share the same sort of weakness in that they aren’t all that melodic. Same with Koka Kola on another side.
Just my opinions, of course.
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