The 60’s and 70’s Still Rock On
Looking back at the 1960’s and 70’s, the era when I grew up, much of it is unrecognizable today. There were no cell phones, electric cars, internet or even computers that any of us knew about (though Mr. Jobs had just invented his first Apple in his family’s garage). The big inventions of my day were the pocket calculator, the Betamax video and the Sony walkman!
There was also no Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Apple TV or other media outlets to provide constant new streams of news and entertainment – only NBC, CBS and ABC; PBS for the little kids; and something we called “reading the newspaper.” If you wanted to follow your favorite pro sports team, other than on a Sunday, you listened to the game on the radio.
Pot was illegal everywhere (you had to buy it from a “dealer” rather than a “cannabus sales representative”) as was gambling (you had to go to a “bookie” rather than a nearby casino). Kids went about their business in the neighborhood from the end of the school day (and sometimes before) until dinner time and no one seemed to care where they were or worry about them being abducted.
But one cultural aspect of my youth has managed to survive: the music. The greatest collection of bands and songwriters to ever grace the stage (and resplendent record covers) began their careers during this time, and their music is still well-known and widely played – five decades later! Indeed, many of these aging rock and rollers, now in their seventies, are still jamming – the Stones have been at it since 1962! And people are still interested in seeing them play despite their worn faces, limited mobility and diminished singing voices. Were John and George still alive to join Paul and Ringo for a reunion it would undoubtedly be the biggest musical moment of this decade.
What attracts most people to a song, and releases the dopamine scientists have identified when listening to music, is mostly the melody and rhythm. Indeed, I suspect that you could substitute gibberish for the words of many great songs without impairing their popularity. But as someone who appreciates words, it’s the lyrics that grab me – the poetry, creativity and literary juxtaposition, and the express and more subtle meaning that gives songs their character.
So here’s my list of 50 of the most clever and insightful words from the greatest musicians of my childhood era. Fifty years later they still cause folks to smile, appreciate, vent, contemplate, call for change and strive to get better at this complicated game of living.
Friendship:
Carol King (Tapestry): “When my soul was in the lost and found, you came along to claim it.”
Simon and Garfunkel (Old Friends): “Old Friends. Sat on their park bench like bookends.”
Marvin Gaye (Aint No Mountain High Enough): “If you’re ever in trouble; I’ll be there on the double.”
James Taylor (Fire and Rain) (upon suicide of a young friend): “I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain. I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end. I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend. But I always thought that I’d see you again.”
Queen (You’re My Best Friend): “Ooh, you make me live. Whenever this world is cruel to me. I got you to help me forgive.”
Love and relationships:
Harry Chapin (Taxi): “It was somewhere in a fairy tale. I used to drive her home in my car. We learned about love in the back of a Dodge, a lesson that had gone too far. You see, she was going to be an actress. And I was going to learn to fly. She took off to find the footlights. And I took off to find the sky.”
Joni Mitchell (Help Me): “Help me, I think I’m falling in love with you. Are you going to let me go there by myself?That’s such a lonely thing to do.”
Stevie Wonder (As): “Just as time knew to move on since the beginning, and the seasons know exactly when to change. Just as kindness knows no shame, know through all your joy and pain, that I’ll be loving you always.”
John Denver (Annie’s Song): “You fill up my senses like a night in a forest, like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain, like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean. You fill up my senses. Come fill me again.”
Billy Joel (She’s always a Woman to Me): “She’ll promise you more than the Garden of Eden. Then she’ll carelessly cut you and laugh while you’re bleeding. But she’ll bring out the best and the worst you can be. Blame it all on yourself ’cause she’s always a woman to me.”
Marvin Gaye (Heard it through the Grapevine): “I know a man ain’t supposed to cry. But these tears I can’t hold inside. Losin’ you would end my life you see. ‘Cause you mean that much to me.”
Inequity, political activism and social justice:
Bob Dylan (Blowing in the Wind): “How many years must a mountain exist before it is washed to the sea? How many years can some people exist before they’re allowed to be free? How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see? The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.”
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (Ohio): “Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming. We’re finally on our own. This summer I hear the drumming. Four dead in Ohio.”
John Lennon (Imagine): “Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion too.”
Bob Marley (Revolution): “It takes a revolution to make a solution. Too much confusion, so much frustration, eh!
I don’t wanna live in the park; can’t trust no shadows after dark, yeah-eh! So, my friend, I wish that you could see, like a bird in the tree, the prisoners must be free, yeah!”
Neil Young (Southern Man): “I saw cotton and I saw black. Tall white mansions and little shacks.
Southern man, when will you pay them back? I heard screamin’ and bullwhips cracking.
How long? How long? Southern man, better keep your head. Don’t forget what your good book said.
Southern change gonna come at last. Now your crosses are burning fast.”
Reflection/Inspiration:
The Beatles (Blackbird): “Blackbird singing in the dead of night. Take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life. You were only waiting for this moment to arise.”
Tom Petty (Time to Move on)): “What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing. But under my feet, baby, grass is growing. It’s time to move on, it’s time to get going.”
The Rolling Stones (You Can’t Always Get What You Want): “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you’ll find you get what you need.”
Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here); “We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl. Year after year, running over the same old ground. What have we found?”
Cat Stevens ( Father and Son): “Take your time, think a lot. Why, think of everything you’ve got. For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.”
Bob Dylan (Forever Young): “May you grow up to be righteous. May you grow up to be true. May you always know the truth, and see the light surrounding you. May you always be courageous, stand upright and be strong. May you stay forever young.”
Lynyrd Skynyrd (Free Bird): “If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me? For I must be traveling on now.
‘Cause there’s too many places I’ve got to see.”
Philosophy:
Joni Mitchell (Both Sides Now): “I’ve looked at life from both sides now. From win and lose, and still somehow, it’s life’s illusions I recall. I really don’t know life at all.”
Lynyrd Skynyrd (Simple Man): “Forget your lust for the rich man’s gold. All that you need is in your soul.
And you can do this oh babe if you try. All that I want for you my son is to be satisfied.”
Grateful Dead (Scarlet Begonias): “Once in a while, you get shown the light. In the strangest of places if you look at it right.”
The Beach Boys (In My Room): “There’s a world where I can go and tell my secrets to. In my room, in my room.
In this world I lock out all my worries and my fears. In my room, in my room.”
Bruce Springsteen (Badlands): “Spend your life waiting, for a moment that just don’t come. Well, don’t waste your time waiting.”
Aerosmith (Dream On): “Sing with me, sing for a year. Sing for the laughter, and sing the tear. Sing with me, if it’s just for today. Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away.”
Led Zeppelin (Stairway to Heaven): “Yes, there are two paths you can go by. But in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on.”
Alcohol/Drugs:
Billy Joel (Piano Man): “And the waitress is practicing politics as the businessman slowly gets stoned. Yes, they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it’s better than drinking alone.”
Joni Mitchell (Talk to Me): “I didn’t know I drank such a lot. Till I pissed a tequila anaconda. The full length of the parking lot!”
Jimi Hendrix (Purple Haze): “Purple haze all in my eyes. Don’t know if it’s day or night. You got me blowing, blowing my mind. Is it tomorrow or just the end of time?”
Billy Joel (Captain Jack): “Captain Jack will get you high tonight. And take you to your special island. Captain Jack will get you by tonight. Just a little push, and you’ll be smilin’.”
Bob Dylan (Rainy Day Women #12 & 35): “But I would not feel so all alone. Everybody must get stoned.”
Silliness and Humor (no doubt influenced by those drugs):
Frank Zappa (Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow): “Watch out where the huskies go, and don’t you eat that yellow snow.”
Warren Zevon (Werewolves of London): “I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand. Walking through the streets of SoHo in the rain. He was looking for the place called Lee Ho Fooks. For to get a big dish of beef chow mein.”
Harry Chapin (30,000 Pounds of Bananas) (based on true story following an accident involving a truck containing well..) “Yes, we have no bananas. We have no bananas today. Yes, we have no bananas. Bananas in Scranton, PA.”
The Beatles (Yellow Submarine): “In the town where I was born, lived a man who sailed to sea. And he told us of his life, in the land of submarines. … We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine.”
Queen (Bohemian Rhapsody): “I see a little silhouetto of a man, Scaramouch, Scaramouch, will you do the Fandango? Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening me. Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Figaro – magnificoo. I’m just a poor boy nobody loves me. He’s just a poor boy from a poor family. Spare him his life from this monstrosity. Easy come, easy go, will you let me go? Bismillah! No, we will not let you go.”
Aging:
Billy Joel (Piano Man): “Son can you play me a memory? I’m not really sure how it goes. But it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete when I wore a younger man’s clothes.”
The Beatles (When I’m 64): “Send me a postcard, drop me a line, stating point of view. Indicate precisely what you mean to say. Yours sincerely, wasting away.”
Eagles (After the Thrill is Gone): “Time passes and you must move on. Half the distance takes you twice as long.
So you keep on singing for the sake of the song. After the thrill is gone.”
Elton John (Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me): “Don’t let the sun go down on me. Although I search myself, it’s always someone else I see. I’d just allow a fragrant of your life to wander free. But losing everything is like the sun going down on me.”
Pink Floyd (Time): “So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking. Racing around to come up behind you again.The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older. Shorter of breath one day closer to death.”
Death and one’s legacy:
Queen (The Show Must Go On): “My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies. Fairy tales of yesterday will grow but never die. I can fly my friends. Ooh, I’ll top the bill, I’ll overkill. I have to find the will to carry on.”
Eric Clapton (Tears from Heaven): “Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven? Would it be the same if I saw you in heaven?”
The Who ( My Generation): “I hope I die before I get old.”
Jim Croce (Time in a Bottle): “If I could make days last forever. If words could make wishes come true. I’d save every day like a treasure and again, I would spend them with you.”
The Beatles (The End): “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
Brilliant inspiring stuff that I expect folks will still be singing 50 years from now!
