6 posts tagged “60s”
Of all the bands who could have recorded and had a hit with the
title song of the musical "Hair", the Cowsills bucked their family
image and went for broke. However, it works. The tongue-in-cheek
lyrics, as sung by the kissing cousins of Beaver and his mom June,
probably did more to make rebellion acceptable to a generation of
pre-adolescents than any other song or TV show before its time.
Too bad the video quality here is so bad, but in a way, it works.
I have few memories of Tommy Roe's "Dizzy" because no one owned the
single. However, our local AM station (no FM where I lived) played the
Top 5 songs after the 8 am news. A couple of us had transistor radios,
and we would try to sneak them past our parents when the school bus
came. So, hearing "Dizzy" was pretty much catch-as-catch-can.
I liked the song as did many of the girls; the other boys were of a
different opinion. What caught my attention was how the background
vocals pushed the meaning of the lyrics, making the song sound dizzy.
Oh, and those organ stabs! Bubblegum does not get much more basic than
this.
"In The Year 2525" was the other song that got heavy play on that record player in fifth grade. I guess my little hometown was too poor to afford more than two records among 20 students.
That this song sparks the imagination goes without saying, especially for an eleven year old who devoured L. Frank Baum's Oz books. However, where many heard this song as pessimistic, I found it oddly optimistic and more than a little anti-religion. Reading through the lyrics now, I am not exactly sure why I felt that way, but I am proud that I went against the grain.
Today, l leave you with this bit of lyric:
But through the eternal night
The twinkling of starlight
So very far away
Maybe it's only yesterday
I, however, recognized the opportunity and joined the girls around the record player. As it happened, these were the village girls, as opposed to the extension girls or better known as the middle-class clique. Well, what served for middle-class in Appalachian communities anyway. The point being that from then on, I could always get a date from among the village girls.
Note the lyrics:
Not the most PC in the world, eh? Heheh!Stop the game, you've got too much to lose.
If you stop me again, that's when we might end.
so don't refuse.
The song that has had the greatest impact on me is the one linked at right, "In My Room", a proto-goth ditty that tells much but leaves even more to be imagined. By the way, I noticed that few sites have the correct lyrics. Here they are:
In my room
down at the end of the hall.
I sit and I stare at the wall.
Each day is just like the last
for I live
in the past.In my room
where every night is the same.
I play a dangerous game.
I keep pretending he's late
and I sit
and I wait.Over there is the picture
we took when he made me his bride.
Over there is the chair
where he held me whenever I cried.
Over there by the window
the flowers he left
have all died.In my room
down at the end of the hall.
I sit at I stare at the wall,
hating how lonely I've grown
all alone
in my room.
