1966
“Dark Shadows”
President Johnson declared, in his State of the Union message on January 12th, that “The United States will remain in Vietnam until aggression there ends.” According to the polls, LBJ scored high with nearly 70% of the general public. Teenage Boomers rated him zilch, but since none of us were eligible to vote, no one (over thirty) asked for our opinion.
The Generation Gap dwarfed the Grand Canyon in 1966. If you flipped on Top 40 radio the day of Lyndon’s speech, you probably heard Sgt. Barry Sadler singing the praises of the good soldier in “The Ballad of the Green Beret”, followed by Lennon’s (“He’s a real”) “Nowhere Man”. Or, Frank Sinatra reminiscing on different periods of his long life, declaring after each verse, “It Was a Very Good Year”, followed by the Who, stuttering “People try to put us down/ Just because we get around/ They don’t dig our hair or clothes/ Hope I die before I get old/ Ta-ta-talking ‘bout my generation.” Teens were “California Dreaming” with the Mamas and the Papas, except for thousands who had already run away, and then wished that they “Homeward Bound” like Simon and Garfunkel. The Rolling Stones delivered the Boomer State of the Union: (“Here comes your”) “19th Nervous Breakdown”.
Teenagers rode an emotional roller coaster. Paul Simon boasted of “Feeling Groovy” one minute, and then appeared isolated and withdrawn the next in “I Am a Rock”. A year prior, Dylan and Byrds begged, “Take me on a trip upon your magic, swirling ship.” This year, the Beach Boys sailed on board the “Sloop John B”, felt homesick, and complained, “This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on”. A bit later, the band was (“Picking up”) “Good Vibrations”, while ? and the Mysterians cried “96 Tears”. The Beatles declared “I’ve got to get you into my life”, but the Supremes had another idea with, “Get out of my life, why don’t you, Babe?” Again, the Beatles were optimistic, “I can wait forever, I’ve got time”, but not so the Outsiders, who sang “I can’t wait forever/ Time won’t let wait that long.”
We heard songs of great faith from the lightweights: (“You’re my”) “Soul and Inspiration” by the Righteous Brothers, “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees, “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys… And, songs of no faith from the heavyweights: Dylan sang, “Human Gods… made flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark/ It’s easy to see without looking too far/ That not much is really sacred”. Along that same line, the Beatles told us the story of “Father McKensie, writing the words of the sermon that no one will hear… All the lonely people/ Where do they all belong?” Perhaps aboard the “Yellow Submarine?” The Stones nixed the idea, “No colors anymore/ I want to paint it black.”
The radio played tunes that created images of ideal love, as in “Soul and Inspiration” and “Cherish”, and reflections of raunchy, get-down lure in (“My Baby does the”) “Hanky Panky” and “Wild Thing”. Even eternal teens, the Beach Boys, admitted that they lusted in their hearts, in “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” (“If we could sleep together?”). Cherish wasn’t a word to be found in the vocabulary of the Rolling Stones in 1966 in (“Look at that”) “Stupid Girl” and (“She’s”) “Under My Thumb.”
Nothing was simple… black and white… clearly right or wrong. Even the names of the groups were confusing. The Lovin’ Spoonful (Mary Poppins’ “Spoonful of Sugar”, or a junkie’s spoonful of smack?) felt up with “What a Day for a Daydream”, then down with “Hot town, ‘Summer in the City’ / Back of neck feeling dirty and gritty”, and then perfectly happy again with “You and me and ‘Rain on the Roof’.” Finally, even they had to admit that “It ain’t often easy, It ain’t often kind/ Did you ever have to make up your mind?”
In an intense comeback attempt, Phil Spector reflected the wide spectrum of changes going on inside our heads, as he produced “River Deep, Mountain High” for Ike and Tina Turner. But, he used the same old Wall of Sound technique and the record flopped. Spector announced his retirement at the age of 26.
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Defense Secretary McNamara revealed on March 2nd that US troop strength in Vietnam already topped 215,000, with 20,000 more Boomers on the way to the combat zone. That same month, the Beach Boys declared, “I feel so broke up, I want to go home”, and Peter, Paul and Mary released “The Cruel War”. Dylan, with tongue firmly in cheek, declared, “Everybody must get stoned.” Why not? The Great Society sends you half way around the world to get stoned in the Biblical sense, so why not stone yourself in a way that’s a lot more fun? The Byrds soared “Eight Miles High” in the “5-D” (Fifth Dimension), tripping with “Mr. Space Man”. The Stones’ “Mother’s Little Helpers” pointed out that pill popping had become a traditional, popular sport for our hypocritical elders. The Beatles confirmed their diagnosis with a second opinion in “Dr. Roberts”. Dylan observed that Boomer daughters had inherited a pill-popping habit from their moms: “With your amphetamines and pearls… Just like a woman.”
The Association celebrated the arrival and acceptance of marijuana into mainstream pop culture, with “Along Comes Mary”. The Beatles encouraged us to “Turn off your mind and gently float upstream”, as the Trade Winds offered to take us on a “Mind Excursion”. “Kicks” attempted to be an anti-drug song, but Boomers interpreted the line “Kicks just keep getting harder to find” to mean that supply fell far short of a rapidly growing demand among young people. Teens rejected the recreational vehicles of the past, such as booze, prescription uppers and downers, and searched for kicks of their own. Pot was king, with LSD catching on fast. Donovan boldly (and erroneously) predicted the future: “Elec-a-tricka banana (smoking banana peels), it’s bound to be the very next craze.”