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| From | Michael Myers <mmyers1446@yahoo.com> |
| Subject | Re: ____ are my Beatles -- am I missing something here? |
| Date | Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:18:17 -0700 (PDT) |
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I gave your thoughtful reply some more thought today, Gregory, and here's a couple more thoughts in reply....
For me, the key word in your message was "generational".... after consideration, I think the right word is actually epochal...
I say this because, from a cultural standpoint, the early 60's were blah, boring... and extremely conservative... yes, there were some in the art world who were producing out-there works, but on my little transistor radio in those days, most of the songs were by the likes of Bobby Vinton or the smoothed-out hits of Pat Boone, who took exciting and dangerous black music and basically made pablum from it.... Elvis was back from the Army and was making boring movie soundtrack songs, so so far from his Sun hits that it was nauseating... Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran were already dead... if you wanted to see an occasional rock act on TV, you could watch somebody play their 2 songs on the Ed Sullivan show on Sunday night (right after the puppet act Topo Gigio) or maybe on American Bandstand... FM radio as an alternative did not exist... the world seemed sedate and grey to me, except that 2 or 3 times a week we'd have Civil Defense drills and we'd all
practice running to the fallout shelter in our grammar school because the Russian ICBMs in Cuba were pointed right at us... and a bit later, with the draft in place, all of us were fearful we'd be headed off to Viet Nam as soon as we got out of high school...
So that is the backdrop of what the world seemed like to many of us when the Beatles came to be... and a MILLION garage bands sprung up overnight, and lots of wonderful UK acts made their way to the shores of the US and on to our radios.... it must be hard to imagine a world without all these cultural choices, these new incredible sounds.... the clothes, the hair, the drugs, alternative lifestyles.... but that's in fact why they had such a huge impact on so many of us.... in a space of just 2 or 3 years, the world went CRAZY... in a very very good way
Mike
--- On Thu, 7/30/09, Gregory Sager <hochsalzburg@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Gregory Sager <hochsalzburg@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: ____ are my Beatles -- am I missing something here?
To: audities@smoe.org
Date: Thursday, July 30, 2009, 10:34 PM
I'm with Stewart on this one. I have a hard time fathoming how one could have a personal worldview emerge from a particular band's or artist's music. I'm not knocking your Beatles-derived philosophy of life, Michael -- different strokes for different folks -- I'm just saying that I find it hard to understand. Not impossible, but pretty difficult. Pop music has always been a major part of my life, but it's not the least bit formative to my belief system.
Perhaps it's a generational thing.
Interesting bit of revelation, though, Michael. Thanks for sharing it.
Gregory Sager
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