What follows is long and boring but has nothing parisan and political to
offend anyone.
For the thread about young people, "those gosh-darn kids" and the state
of music today and such things:
I think that the musical question, "What's the matter with kids today"
was first asked forty years ago by Dick Van Dyke on Broadway referring
to Conrad Birdie, in the play "Bye Bye Birdie."
I have to admit that my tastes in music are probably very pedestrian as
opposed to most of those in the JMDL. My latest cd purchases include
Matchbox 20's newest one and the Baha Men with "Who Let the Dogs Out."
There are a lot of discussions in the JMDL about artists who I have
never heard of, let alone heard; to this day I have no idea who Jonatha
Brooke actually is, just that I've seen her name a lot. However, I can
sing all the words to Britney Spears' "Opps I did it again."
So my musical opinions are questionable.
However: today I got my DVD version, the director's cut, of
"Woodstock." The additional footage includes Janis Joplin singing "Work
Me Lord" and that alone to me was worth the price of the DVD.
My twenty-something neighbors who live above me in this apartment
building probably have been bored listening to "Woodstock" through my
ceiling/their floor. But who cares...
And it has been a wonderful afternoon listening to/watching the DVD.
Brings back a lot of memories, not of Woodstock per se for me because at
the last minute I decided not to talk my best friend into driving to New
York from Chicago because I was 17, the age of majority was 21, and I
figured my parents would have called the state police to have my best
friend arrested. And I am still sure that they would have. Those were
very different days back then.
But I do have memories of our tribal, generational; gatherings in the
movie theaters to see "Woodstock" the movie, the weekends in Lincoln
Park ("Saturdays, in the park, everyday the 4th of July" or however the
group 'Chicago' phrased it) with all the street scenes, music in the
park, free street theater, Old Town, the counter-culture, all that good
stuff. To be young then was almost a political statement. And we were
political. Marching against the war and for civil rights, draft
resistance, boycotting grapes to support the farm workers, the first
Earth Day, whatever it was, there was always a sense that we were a part
of something bigger than ourselves. We had a sense of being part of
something "half a million strong" and more.
I feel sorry that today's young people have nothing like a Woodstock,
nothing that can be a single, identifiable event that defines a
generation. Our touchstones were many. The Beatles alone gave us that
first appearance on Ed Sullivan, the release of Sgt. Pepper's, the
release of the White Album... we had Motown, rock opera Tommy, Jesus
Christ Superstar, tie-dye, bells (bell bottom jeans, which were cool to
wear!), grass, the moon landing, all kinds of things that we all shared.
Music was much more exciting then, I think, certainly much less racially
inhibited than today. Woodstock the movie, I like to point out, opens
with first performer Richie Havens, big middle is Sly and the Family
Stone, ends with Jimi Hendrix. Could a Lalapalooza or Lilith Fair - and
I think both have died - opened, middled, and closed, with African
American artists and still get all the white kids? Other than rap,
music today is quite segregated (which may be one reason that I like
rap). But is it the music, or is it the culture?
I sure would not want to go back to those days, though. The late 60s
and early 70s were bad times. For a generation that was impacted by the
assassination of JFK, our touchstones the assassinations of Martin
Luther King, of Bobby Kennedy, the murder of the civil rights workers in
Philadelphia, Mississippi, the shooting of Medger Evers, the blowing up
of the five girls in Sunday School in Birmingham, Alabama...
the war in Viet Nam, the invasion of Cambodia, the protest of that which
resulted in Kent State... 58,000 American dead, 3,000,000 estimated
Vietnamese deaths...
ours were not the good old days. Not every day was a song and a
celebration. That is why we did dream of the bombers riding shotgun in
the skies turning into butterflies above our nation.
And we did not live in the good old days of music, either. For all the
knocking of Britney Spears (Leslie Gore was what exactly, high art?),
N'Sync and boy bands (and what, please, were the Monkees if not the
first boy band marketed for teen age girls?) ... knocking Ricky Martin
(meanwhile, Ricky Nelson was only on tv for high art reasons, not a
commercial ploy to get ratings for a situation comedy) ... in our days
were songs like "Gimme that ding" which made the top ten in 1970, a
major artistic statement as opposed to Top 40 music today.
Music in any day always has its mix of good and bad, high and low, art
and camp. What exactly is wrong with a Britney Spears who turns out
nothing more than good pop? She makes great songs to do aerobics to,
that I know. Is she bad compared to Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day, Diana
Ross, Dionne Warwick (with and without the "e" at the end of her name),
Donna Summers, and any other female pop stars of their days? Are
Backstreet Boys somehow worse than Jan and Dean? Paul Simon and Art
Garfunkel gave us both "The Boxer" - great art - and "59th Street
Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy)" - a nauseating song. How heavy are the
Lovin' Spoonful compared to 98 Degrees? Are you one of those people
whose taste today is oh so refined and sophisticated while you deny that
your first musical fave was Bobby Sherman or David Cassidy?
In every generation there is both good and bad, pop and art, at the same
time. All the lines that we draw are artificial. It is only a matter
of our perspective that blinds us and defines us. I remember watching
Joe Cocker when "Woodstock" was first released in 1970 and thinking how
old and wasted he looked. Today watching the movie, I look at him and
think, hey, I used to be that young! Were any of us ever as young as
Arlo Guthrie looks in that movie? (and I thought he was an older, mature
role model then!) Stills and Crosby each weighed less than a stage
amplifier then!
Life has changed. Country Joe doing the "Fish Cheer" (gimme an F!
gimme a U! gimme a C! gimme a K!) was the use of an obscene word to
describe an obscene war. Abbie Hoffman got beaten and arrested for
writing that word on his forehead and it was justified by the Chicago
police because, what if our mothers actually saw that word, all that was
pure and holy would collapse. It was shockingly freeing to say that
word in those contexts. Now the word is everywhere. Which is better?
I know that 30 years from now, my DVD will be obsolete technology and if
I am not dead - and I for one still hope I die before I get old - my
generation will all be in the elderly hostels and will we sky be kissing
the sky? The 18 year olds of today will be my age looking back and
fondly remembering how much better music was in 2001 than in 2031, how
much better it was then than now. And a generation yet to come will be
18 then and look at today's 18 year olds and think how old and passe
they have become.
I wish that the hopes we had in Woodstock did come true, as much as I
wish that the Age of Aquarius had actually dawned when we hair, long
beautiful hair. I wish that love and peace and music, and nothing love
and peace and music, had come out of our generation. Janis and Jimi
were dead within 14 months of Woodstock from drug overdoses, Crosby did
time, Joan Baez and David got divorced, Arlo is in a religious
community, Country Joe has a website where he talks of his old days with
Janis, and I'd sure like to know what happened to all those kids in the
documentary. All old like Country Joe and me and talking about old
times on the internet?
Woodstock the movie brings a reminder of the cycles of life. First
there was rock and roll, all hip and cool and rebellious, then there was
Sha Na Na, a hip and cool and funny look back at the good old days, and
then there was a syndicated tv show and it all became mainstream and
meaningless. In a few years some bands will be doing the Sha Na Na
thing except it will celebrate Christine Aguilera and boy bands... and a
lot of people will think that is fun and enjoy it.
And for Eminem, maybe the anger in his songs is something we should try
to understand, which frankly I still don't, although I recognize an
Amadeus quality there, which is how can someone be so musically gifted
and yet be fill his music with such hostility? It is cuter to think of
Amadeus as Tom Hulce playing Mozart and making classical music, but the
Eminem to Amadeus parallel does apply at some levels, I think. The guy
has got pure and intense talent and yet he is personally objectionable.
Why did God give musical talent to someone like him and not to a nice
guy like me? Eminem's music deserves all those Grammy nominations,
although I find his lyrics very disturbing and distasteful. But instead
of blanket condemnations, I am trying to figure out what is the cause of
all that anger... because to dismiss Eminem as hateful and refuse to
listen to what he has to say is wrong. We may not like what he says,
but what has our society done to produce lyrics like those? Although
maybe his music has no meaning, maybe Eminem has achieved ultimate rock
and roll bliss. After all, the primary purpose of rock and roll is to
upset your parents. Eminem has upset us, and maybe that is all he is
about, which is why he signed a contract to sell his posters at the
Wal-Mart with the same company that sells Britney Spears posters.
However, when a teen ager tells me that Eminem says it all for him, as I
hear frequently, it does raise some very real issues: have we become so
self-indulged as a culture that we have neglected our children, instead
of teaching our children that their hell will slowly go by? Did we feed
them on the wrong dream? Were we too busy doing our own thing and doing
our own drugs that we have a generation of Marshall Mathers or Slim
Shadys coming along? Can anyone who takes seriously David Crosby
singing "It's Been a Long Time Coming" not take the time to listen to
listen to what is being said by music whose revolutionary nature
disturbs us?
I don't know the answers to those questions.
But I do know this: every time we condemn the kids and knock the music
of today as opposed to the better music of our youth, we are saying the
same things that our parents said about us, and it was/is wrong both
times. When we think about the kids today, maybe we shouldn't
criticize what we don't understand. Maybe we have gotten old and do
need a weatherman to tell us which way the wind is blowing. Times,
they are a'changin', and if we stopped turning our good old days into
what we think are hip memories, but really just our version of Lawrence
Welk music to take us into our old age, we might notice that the kids
today, the kids are alright.
(the Rev) Vince, who is watching Woodstock again, and who always heeded
the advice to not do the brown acid but who will never discuss coming
into Los Angeles bringing in a couple of keys, don't touch my bags if
you please, Mr. Customs man... and who also got today "The Pajama Game"
with John Raitt, Bonnie's father, in the lead...
