The Sixties and the Songs of Our Lives in Daydreaming on the Porch

I have a theory about getting old. First you’re a teenager, and then you’re in your 20s feeling big. Then things get a bit blurry, and the next thing you know you’re 70 and wondering where it all went. But I was a teenager again there for a moment.

YouTube reaction to “Surf City” by The Beach Boys.

Can you see any of the bonehead “musicians” composing intricate lyrics and music like this today? Truly, the 1960s was the apex of music, fashions, ideas, hope and dreams. Everything has been dumbed down, including the music, in the great wasteland that was once a country like no other.

The above quote is from a YouTube viewer after watching a clip of “Conquistador” by Procol Harum. The song was released in 1967, and that is when I recall listening to it, but it was re-released and became a big hit in 1972. The music came first in the song then the words to fit the music. I never paid attention to the words. It was the music that really got me in his song and, for example, In “Little Green Bag” by The George Baker Selection.”. Who cared about the words? The music was IT!

That’s the fascinating thing about 1960s popular music. The decade is more less split between a lighter, more fun and innocent earlier and middle part of the decade and a heavier,
more serious and somber later part of the decade after the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. In addition, the anti-Vietnam War protest movement was gaining speed rapidly with protests taking place around the country on college campuses. Whereas in the mid-60s you heard slightly vapid, but catchy and enjoyable tunes like The Buckingham’s “Kind of a Drag,” “Windy” by The Association and “Build Me Up Buttercup” by The Foundations, you also heard in that tumultuous decade songs like “For What It’s Worth” by Buffalo Springfield, “The Eve of Destruction” by Barry McGuire, “Blowin in the “Wind” by Bob Dylan and Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come.”

It was only after I had gone off to college, and in the decades after, that I really began to appreciate harder rock and the protest and social justice songs of the 60s, which had a long history going back o singers of deep social conscience and enduring influence such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger.

In this essay, however, I’m focusing on the songs I loved to listen to on the radio in the 60s during the years I was in junior and senior high from 1964-69. I’ll never forget those songs which truly were emblematic of a time of great change musically with the coming of The Beatles in 1964. And yes, I watched them on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and danced to “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “I Saw Her Standing There” at exquisitely painful and awkward 7th and 8th grade dances. How I dreaded going to those social catastrophes, but which somehow I survived with my dignity more or less intact. I think it was because of that spiffy new, navy-blue blazer I wore with gray slacks.

So yes, absolutely I loved the joyous, innocent, silly but fun Top 40 songs I listed to either in the radio while on summer vacation at the beach or at home flipping through my collection of 45s to play on my record player.

Now I’m much older, sadder and wiser, and dealing with all he awful news about a global pandemic that has turned our world upside down. But the music of the 60s lives on , forever in our memories.

What are your favorite songs of the 60s?

Here’s a sampling of mine::

Kind of a Drag — The Buckinghams

Build Me Up Buttercup – The Foundations

These two songs in my view are among very best of the decade:

Sounds of Silence – Simon and Garfunkel

Good Vibrations – The Beach Boys

These were just plain fun:

Green Grass – Gary Lewis and the Playboys

Friday on My Mind – The Easy Beats

Some consider this the best of Procol Harum’s songs, ahead of even “Whiter Shade of Pale.” As a 16-year- old in suburban New Orleans there was just something really exciting about this song. It got me revved up.

Conquistador – Procol Harum

Here is a song I could listen to over and over. It just got me Jumpin, and I normally wasn’t so much into that.

Little Green Bag – George Baker Selection

Just plain fun and innocent and of course some of the earliest and best beach and surf music:

Little Old Lady from Pasadena

Surf City – Jan and Dean (original video clip from 1963)

I still think this was the best song by The Monkees, at least according to my 15-year-old musical sensibilities.

I’m a Believer – The Monkees

Very catchy:

Bus Stop - The Hollies

Many consider this the best live vocal performance of all time. With 54 million views on YouTube, there’s some strong validation for that claim.

Unchained Melody – Righteous Brothers

The following are just plain great 60 songs. I love them all and listen to them to this day. And what’s really neat is being able to see them perform the songs. Thanks, YouTube!

Treat Her Like a Lady – Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose

You Don’t Own Me - Leslie Gore

Yesterday – The Beatles

Sittin’ On the Dock of The Bay – Otis Redding

Crazy – Patsy Cline

I’ll Never Find Another You – The Seekers

House of the Rising Sun – The Animals

Bad Moon Rising – Credence Clearwater Revival

California Dreamin’ – Mamas and the Papas

Rolling Stone’s list of the 10 Best Protest Songs
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/readers-poll-the-10-best-protest-songs-of-all-time-141706/buffalo-springfield-for-what-its-worth-2-172855/

The Nation Magazine’s list of the Top 10 Civil Rights
Songs:
https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/top-ten-civil-rights-songs/

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Last updated July 28, 2020