The Sixties

Snowy Evening,” we see that Simon rewrote and r

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George Lipsitz, a professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California at San Diego, says that, to many listeners of popular music, the social barriers dividing groups in American society seemed to be eroding, and the market categories that had segregated the music business seemed to be obsolete. The problem was there was enough

people to join in the cause but drugs ruined their commitment, and too many more powerful and wealthy people who wanted the war to continue. One source states that the student activism had some liberal white students taking their spring breaks in the South to join in freedom rides and bus boycotts with black brothers and sisters in the movement for full black equality. Many young women and men acted in defiance to the rules, but that didn’t make the rules irrelevant.

The social reforms that had been achieved in the sixties were hard won victories over a society that was rigid and un-moving. This gap that Dylan felt between him and his adult audience is symbolic because he was feeling what most teenagers felt alienation and hopelessness.

When people think of popular recording artists of the sixties they think of musicians like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Lyrics had stopped trying to be socially correct. Denisoff comments that popular protest songs are not collective statements but rather individualized sentiments of what’s wrong with society.

In Frost’s poem the persona has some hard travelling to do before he sleeps, whereas Simon’s is ready to sleep now. Thus music called most of these social reforms into the public eye. Les Cleavland, author of Dark Laughter, says that contemporary popular music was once again related directly to the passions and anxieties of an entire generation of people to the point where, it became a political weapon. According to George Lipsitz, the popularity of folk music as an organizing tool within the civil rights and antiwar movements made musical expression an organic part

of political protest. Like theory, the best popular songs of the time identified social problems, gave names to vague feelings of alienation and oppression and even gave some explanations. Dylan is expressing his hate for the people who were making money off the war.

Common topics in this essay:
George Lipsitz, Cynthia Weil, Jersey Detroit, Womans Liberation, Evening Simon, Eyed Girls, Paul Simons, Songs Vietnam, Grateful Dead, Fortunate Son, civil rights, popular music, music sixties, martin luther king, popular recording, martin luther, luther king, folk music, social reforms, change lyrics, bob dylans, popular recording artists, civil rights movement, lyrics popular recording, king robert kennedy,

Approximate Word count = 2377
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)

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