The Sixties
The Sixties was a time when corruption and cultural conflict were prominent in society. One source states that it was also a decade that was defined by the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, riots, and assassinations. This tumultuous decade is expressed through the music. John Orman author of The Politics of Rock Music, writes that "Rock music reflects society." Music is in Clive Davis's phrase, "a footnote to the events within society." The origin of popular music in the sixties, the Farber source states, is undeniably African American. Black innovators including Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and B.B. King, never gained the critical or commercial respect due to them. White groups such as the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and the Young Rascals openly acknowledged their debt to the black music tradition, but all reaped the benefits far beyond those available to black artists. Many artists didn't just use black tradition in their music, but they used great works by famous poets. Jim Curtis, author of Rock Eras observes, that if we compare Paul Simon's "Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy)" to Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," we see that Simon rewrote and r
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.
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Acceptance Essays
