The Sound of Turbulence

An important point to note about the 1960s, especially as the music relates to the young people, is that the music helped mesh together the antiwar sentiment and the youth, themselves. As the '60s wear on, and U.S. involvement increases in Vietnam, the music gets more vehemently antiwar, and straight to the point about being against Vietnam. In 1963, "Blowin' in the Wind" is very symbolic and preaches a message of no wars anywhere. But, by 1969, music regularly cites Vietnam by name, in the lyrics, and is very aggressively against military action. But also, this helps shape the youth movement of the time. For those on the cutting edge, the music is a mirror of their feelings toward the war, and for those who may not be as well informed, the music helped mold their minds and make up their opinions on certain issues. One of the accomplishments the youth movement made was the definition of self. They developed an identity of who they were, and not just a list of favorite bands and hobbies, but an entire way to act, talk, dress, wear their hair, and express themselves in ways other than verbally. This new identity allowed them to openly question and oppose the decision to engage in the Vietnam War. The stage for opposition was set even before boots were on the ground in Vietnam. "Blowin' in the Wind" was an anti-war protest song, written by Bob Dylan, in 1962. Because of the lack of references to any war, and the use of metaphors, rhetorical questions, and symbolic imagery, it is not an anti-Vietnam song, nor a song that points any blame for the Korean War. It is simply an anti-war song. No opposition to any one war in particular, but rather demonstrates opposition to all war. In other words, this song is a cry for world peace. And, the goal of world peace will be realized when all leaders cast away their ignorance. The song is very symbolic. "How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man?", "How many seas must the white dove sail, before she sleeps in the sand?", "How many times must the cannonballs fly, before they're forever banned?" The key words in these questions (namely, the latter two) are "white dove", "cannonballs", and "banned". The white dove has become a symbol of peace, and she is looking for a place to land, or peace is looking for a time to take over for war. And the somewhat rhetorical question of when will cannonballs (and other weapons of war) be banned? All of the symbolic rhetorical questions are actually asking the real rhetorical question, "How many wars must mankind endure, before we can live in peace?" Bob Dylan had become an antiwar warrior throughout the '60s and '70s, and his music has helped inspire a generation to a commitment of peace and opposition to war. But one man, alone, cannot influence a nation and generation through music. There was a great wealth of musical antiwar protesters in the 1960s, including Country Joe & the Fish, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul & Mary, and many, many, more. One such group, was not as much an antiwar group, but rather a group that believes that the day's older generations did not understand them. The Who, fronted by Roger Daltrey, with Pete Townshend on guitar, and Keith Moon on drums, was a British influence that many punk rockers look back on as the first punk rock group. "My Generation" was written in 1965, by Peter Townshend, and is considered the first punk rock song. Punk rock, of course, is the musical genre famous for standing up against authority. The Who are a British rock band, so a socially progressive movement was brewing overseas, and not just at home. The Who also performed at Woodstock, where they played most of their hits, as well as the entire rock-opera Tommy. "My Generation" was a stinging critique of the older generations, who just did not understand the actions of younger people. The song takes the call-and-response method, used in many doo-wop and R&B songs. Some of the trademark lyrics include, People try to put us down, (Talkin' 'bout my generation) Just because we get around, (Talkin' 'bout my generation) Things they do look awful cold, (Talkin' 'bout my generation) I hope I die before I get old. One aspect that makes this song so powerful is the delivery by The Who's lead singer, Roger Daltrey, which comes off as angry, with a noticeable stutter, "I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-g-generation." Couple the lyrics with the powerful drumming by Keith Moon and Pete Townshend's hard and driving guitar playing. The music of The Who emboldened a large section of young Brits, as well as Americans, and led to these youngsters standing up for themselves and fighting to end the Vietnam War, for their rights in society, and eventually their right to party. The Who later played this song, and many others, at Woodstock in 1969, along with many other musical acts. These acts included many different and varied genres and styles of music. The performances ranged from Eastern drum ensembles from Ravi Shankar to the driving guitar licks of Jimi Hendrix; from the apolitical doo-wop beats of Sha Na Na, to the politically charged music of Country Joe & the Fish. In 1968, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive. Although this was a military victory for the United States' forces, it was seen as a political loss at home, where public opinion turned from mostly positive and supportive of the war to negative and against the war. For many of the holdouts in the youth movement, Tet was a turning point that led them to oppose the war. One of the biggest symbols of the 1960s youth movement, meanwhile, was Woodstock, which would happen in the summer of the following year. Woodstock was an amazing event. Over three (which turned into four) days, dozens of musical acts performed for a crowd, which measured at its peak, of approximately 500,000 people who were for Vietnam, against Vietnam, pro-drug use, anti-drug use, hippies, motorcyclists, and just plain lovers of music, along with lovers of love. Whether they attended the concert or not, those who came of age during the 1960s embraced Woodstock's freedom-espousing spirit: Hendrix's screaming guitar rendition of the national anthem, rampant drug use, sexual freedom, long hair, and bell-bottoms. At Woodstock, Country Joe & the Fish played a set of stinging anti-Vietnam music, that was capped by the "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag". The "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag" was written in 1967, and released on an album of the same name. This song is written in the style of dark humor, and is directed toward those who are opposed to Vietnam, as well as those on the fence. The lyrics, compared to the music itself, are very macabre. The melody sounds like an upbeat and happy tune, but the words tell a different story. "Let's just pray when we drop the bomb, we drop it on the Viet Cong.", "And it's five-six-seven-open up the pearly gates. Well, there ain't no time to wonder why. Whoopee, we all gonna die!", "Be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a box." These are all excellent examples of disturbing images, delivered in an uplifting tone, to send the message that the government not only sends people off to war to die for their country, but they do it with such ease that it can be done in a pleasant mood. Country Joe McDonald performed this song twice at Woodstock, first time solo, and the second time with his band, The Fish, and even altered the "Fish Cheer", which used the call-and-response method with the audience, of "Give me an F! (F!). Give me an I! (I!). Give me an S (S!). Give me an H (H!). What's that spell? (Fish!) [Repeated five more times]", to one using the letters in "fuck". This alteration is an example of the anger and displeasure, as well as the defiance toward, authority-the authority of the same people who had gotten the United States into the Vietnam War. While Country Joe & the Fish provided a lot of anti-Vietnam sentiment, at Woodstock, they could not top the performance by the show's official headliner, Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix played a two-hour set (the longest of his career) consisting of several of his biggest hits. Along with his hits, he also played a version of the "Star Spangled Banner" that would go down in the annals of history as one of the greatest, and most controversial, performances of the song ever played/sung. The rendition of the American national anthem performed by Jimi Hendrix, at Woodstock, where he performed with his newly formed group, the Band of Gypsys was epic. The song was primarily a solo, with some drums in the background. The Jimi Hendrix version of the "Star Spangled Banner" was slightly different from the original Francis Scott Key poem. First, this was an instrumental, but nothing too important there. What was different was how Hendrix used his guitar to skew and distort the notes, play whole lines that are not even close to being in the Star Spangled Banner, and at one point breaking out into "Taps" (a song played at the end of the day and at military funerals). Many believe Hendrix was on drugs, and some even have differing views of exactly what drugs and which combinations he was on. However, Hendrix, himself, said that the distortions were meant to simulate the sounds of war, such as machine guns, dropping bombs, and a funeral. But, aside from the sounds of war, what is also important is simply the way he played the song. It was not softly strummed, but rather played with a hard and driving sound. This rendition was not meant to put the listener at ease, but rather to invigorate the audience. And, Hendrix finished by segueing it into Purple Haze, which rocks hard. Hendrix "brought down the house" at Woodstock, and enthused hundreds of thousands of young adults in the process. As Gillon said, it was a song that those who came of age in the '60s identified with, even if they were not at Woodstock. But, not everybody was amused. There was quite a large pro-war group found in the middle of the country. These people were mainly the Southern and Midwestern, family values, Bible belt, conservative, Vietnam supporters, who loved country music. So, to play to their audience, many country music artists released pro-war or anti-hippie music. One such artist was the "Okie from Muskogee", Merle Haggard. "Okie from Muskogee" is a song by Merle Haggard, written in 1969, as part of the album of the same name. This is a song that is critical of the more liberal attitudes of the hippies out in San Francisco and in the liberal northeast. Also, it promotes a more conservative lifestyle. The album was recorded in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in front of a live audience, of presumably conservative, Bible belters, who also do not agree with the hippie lifestyle. This music caught me slightly off guard, because Merle Haggard is part of the country music sub grouping known as "Outlaw Country", along with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and later Hank Williams, Jr., among others. The anti-hippie rhetoric is evident from the first line, "We don't smoke Marijuana in Muskogee." It continues by showing stark differences between the hippie and conservative lifestyles. Hippies do LSD, wear beads and sandals, make a party out of making love, and burn draft cards in public. Meanwhile, conservatives "pitch woo" (a colloquial term for dating), wear leather boots, watch and play football on the college campus , the kids respect the dean, and drink white lightning (another colloquial term, used for home-brewed high-alcohol content liquor, or moonshine). Two lines, though, seem to set up a superiority/inferiority system between the two adverse cultures. "We like livin' right, and bein' free," suggests what Oklahomans (as well as other Midwestern and Southern people) do is right, and the way to live free, which also means that the hippies are not living the right way. The other line is, "We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse," implying that the hippies do not even care about one of the greatest symbols of American freedom, the flag. This is the type of attitude that a lot of mainstream Americans held toward the hippie movement. In an anachronistic response to Merle Haggard's critique of hippie culture, and promotion of conservative and midwestern values, was Arlo Guthrie's eighteen-and-a-half minute long song, "Alice's Restaurant". As a comical side note, in the Oval Office tapes from the Watergate trial, there is an 18.5-minute gap of deleted sound. Guthrie's commitment to folk music, as well as being the son of folk music great Woody Guthrie, continues through today. But still, the 1967 performance of "The Alice's Restaurant Massacre" is still considered his best work to date. "The Massacre" was an anti-war protest song by Arlo Guthrie, written and performed in 1967. It was performed live, for an antiwar audience. This song was, also, written before the Tet Offensive, so this is not a mainstream group, who opposed the war only after the Tet Offensive. This was a group of anti-war people who held the principle that war was wrong, in the first place. The song starts out with an explanation of a Thanksgiving Day story of being arrested after taking trash to a dump, which was closed for the holiday, and then taking the trash, and dumping it onto another pile of garbage "off to the side of a side road." They were forced to pay $25 each (Guthrie, and his friend) and had to pick up all the garbage. The meat of the story is actually the second half of the song, where Guthrie describes an experience of being called up for the draft, going to New York City's Whitehall Street. At the examination center, he tries to pose as morally unfit to serve. On one occasion, he walks into the shrink's office and states, "Shrink, I wanna kill. I wanna- I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna- I wanna see- I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Beat, dead, burnt bodies. I mean, kill. Kill! Kill! KILL!" A sergeant promptly walked over to him, pinned a medal on him and said, "You're our boy." The military eventually decides that he is morally unfit for combat, and sends his fingerprints off to Washington, because "we don't like your kind." At the end of the song, Guthrie proposes the idea of ending the draft by having as many people as possible walk into the shrink's office, and singing, in four parts harmony, "You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant.", and walking out. He calls this the "Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement." All of the above mention music, with exception of "Okie from Muskogee" was directed toward the 18-35 age-demographic. This is no coincidence. The antiwar music was geared toward the young, and more impressionable, people, while the music that supported staying the same and being more traditional was geared toward the earlier generations. The Rock & Roll, Country, and Folk music of the 1960s contributed greatly toward the debate of whether to "fish or cut bait" in Vietnam. If you wanted to go out on a limb, you could say that it was similar to the debate between The Federalist and The Antifederalist, set to life, in another century, and through music! But also, the antiwar music of the 1960s defined a generation. Many would look and see no real difference between those who grew up in the 1920s and those who grew up in the 1940s. But there is a stark difference in those who grew up in the 1940s and those who grew up in the 1960s. By 1975 the U.S. had withdrawn from Vietnam, having lost almost all support from the people at home, and fighting to a practical stalemate in Vietnam. This war was looking like another Korea (the term "another Vietnam" obviously not having been yet coined). Did the anti-war Rock and Folk music have an impact on the Vietnam War? Absolutely. Was it the major force that led to the eventual U.S. withdrawal? It probably did not. Exactly how much of an impact did it have? It is hard to say. But I am sure that the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind. Works Cited

Bob Dylan, "Blowin' in the Wind", The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Produced by Columbia Records: New York City, 1963
Steven M. Gillon, "The American Paradox," (New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 2007).
Arlo Guthrie, "Alice's Restaurant Massacre", Alice's Restaurant. Produced by Reprise Records: New York City, 1967.
Merle Haggard, "Okie From Muskogee", Okie From Muskogee. Produced by Jim Beavers and Capitol Records: Muskogee, OK, 1969.
Jimi Hendrix, "Star-Spangled Banner". Live, at Woodstock Music Festival. Bethel, NY: 1969.
Country Joe McDonald & The Fish, "Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin-to-Die Rag". Live, at Woodstock Music Festival. Bethel, NY: 1969.
The Who, "My Generation", The Who Sings My Generation. Produced by Shel Talmy and Brunswick Records: London, 1965.
Wikipedia, "Jimi Hendrix", Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_hendrix (accessed November 15, 2006).