Songs for terrible times in Daydreaming on the Porch
- Aug. 18, 2020, 1:25 a.m.
- |
- Public
The year 1969 was one of those pivotal years in my life. I graduated from high school for one thing. The first half of the year was the best time I had ever had in because I was on the staff of the yearbook. I was in my element. Editing, layout, photography, writing. It was great. Little did I know that a few years later I would be working at my first newspaper job.
In those days the arrival of the yearbook from the printer (no video versions) was a highlight of the year. As soon as we had unpacked the boxes and started distributing them, our classmates were everywhere getting people to sign them. That was a big deal back then. I wonder if they even do that today.
Graduation arrived at last. Freedom from four years of high school and a summer shad of bliss on vacation at the beach. I even quit my lawn mowing jobs.
Then in early September of that year everything starting going downhill big time. Not a week into college that September at a small private school far from my home, I realized that I had made the absolutely worst choice I could have possibly made. The next three months were a hellish nightmare of endurance until I could transfer back to a university in my hometown. I was totally out of place, an honor student in danger flunking out, a lost kid.
The country was still in shock a year after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. There were violent protests against the war in Vietnam and then as now, we had a thuggish, criminal Republican as president. But surviving depression and the fiasco of my first term at college we’re all that was on my mind that Fall of 1969.
There were two songs from that year that stand out. One was playing nonstop on the radio and in the college dining hall: Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” It was a great song forever tarnished by associations with that awful college experience.
Another song was released in November of 1969 and it was a powerful song, musically and lyrically. For some strange reason I have been listening to it over and over lately on YouTube. It’s “Reflections of My Life” by Dean Ford and The Marmalade. I decidedI needed to write about it.
It’s a song very much of its time and also for ours. Back in 1969 to many soldiers wading through rice paddies in Vietnam looking in all directions for an enemy they couldn’t see and didn’t know anything about, and for the millions of people against this nasty and vicious war of destruction, the world did indeed seem like a very bad place. For a soldier fighting a war he couldn’t comprehend, (nor could anybody else), he could only dream of returning home, away from that madhouse of a war that was poisoning and destroying an entire nation to satisfy he global delusions and pretentious of a country and it’s leaders gone astray. I thought I was insulated from that insanity until a just-returned, mentally disturbed veteran of that war became by chance and ill-fortune my dorm roommate in the Spring of 1970. He made my life miserable, tormenting me until I got away from his twisted influence.
At times that year of 1969 and well into 1970, I thought I was dying, psychologically, and emotionally. But I fought back, and I made it through that school year, but with lasting scars. When you’re 19 years old, you’re not ready to die.
Now the entire world is in the grips of a deadly pandemic and could kill millions and damage countless others for a lifetime with long-lasting after-effects. It is a calamitous new disease for which no one had any previous immunity and which has ravaged populations of the most vulnerable.
Today, also, to compound the damage and destruction to our people and our country from a killer disease, we have a massive toxic waste dump consisting of a Republican president and Senate that threatens to poison our “democracy,” civil rights, and what is left of our sense of unity as a country. And, a president who for many months denied there was any real problem at all.
As the song by The Marmalade laments, “the world is a bad place, a terrible place to live, but I don’t want to die.”
In November we have a chance to begin the cleanup of this toxic waste dump in Washington. We have a chance to begin anew and restore sanity to the body politic. We need a sea change, a paradigm shift before its too late.
As I began to see the end of that terrible Fall-Winter of 1969-70, I listened with gratitude and relief to another song that was emblematic of the era, “Bridge Over Triubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel. This song soothed my soul every time I listen led to it. It gave me hope that I would have friends, leave behind a terrible year, and that the world would be a better place.
A “bridge over troubled water,” is what we need. That bridge will lead to a vaccine for Covid-19 and a new beginning for the country in January of 2021.
“Reflections of My Life,” performed by Dean Young in 2014:
The changing of sunlight to moonlight
Reflections of my life
Oh, how they fill my eyes
The greetings of people in trouble
Reflections of my life
Oh, how they fill my eyes
Oh, my sorrows
Sad tomorrows
Take me back to my own home
Oh, my crying (Oh, my crying)
Feel I’m dying, dying
Take me back to my own home
I’m changing, arranging
I’m changing
I’m changing everything
Everything around me
The world is
A bad place
A bad place
A terrible place to live
Oh, but I don’t want to die
Oh, my sorrows
Sad tomorrows
Take me back to my own home
Oh, my crying (Oh, my crying)
Feel I’m dying, dying
Take me back to my own home
Oh, my sorrows
Sad tomorrows
Take me back to my home.
Bridge Over Troubled Water” from the Live in Central Park concert:
When you’re weary, feeling small
When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all, all
I’m on your side, oh, when times get rough
And friends just can’t be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
When you’re down and out
When you’re on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you
I’ll take your part, oh, when darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Sail on silver girl
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way
See how they shine
Oh, if you need a friend
I’m sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Jinn ⋅ August 18, 2020
I was pretty oblivious during much of the Vietnamese War until my Uncle got drafted . He chose not to defer to college , thinking he “ should go “. The Army recognized he was a talented photographer so that saved him from being a grunt , but he was asked to photograph almost every aftermath of Significant battles in his sector. Often he flew in on Medivacs and was in mortal danger. He saw too many terrible things. Somehow he met my Aunt Dailie, in DaNang , a nice Catholic schooled girl, who spoke French as fluently as she does Vietnamese and English .They married in a Buddhist temple . Unfortunately the US did not want to approve her to immigrate to the states so my Uncle was pressured into four tours. They finally were released to go to the US right before Viet Nam fell and came home with their first child. Sadly when the country fell Dailie’s Father was executed for being an American sympathizer . We have much to be ashamed for in that War ; the despicable way we treated our soldiers , the total lack of respect we had for the people of Viet Nam , the destruction of that country , and all the people who were killed needlessly on both sides for a war that accomplished nothing. My Uncle came back a shell of the person that he was before he left .While he was relatively young and had a young family he suffered from insomnia, nightmares , decreased concentration and depression. Despite that he became a talented lithographer . Today he has retired but suffers from cancer from Agent Orange , which was often sprayed on them when they were on patrol , because too often the brass had difficulty reading maps . They told the soldiers it was harmless to people , a blatant lie that the government was well aware of from the start. My Aunt Dailie has prospered ; she is now a multimillionaire and owns many properties in NY . Their children are gorgeous and all college graduates with gorgeous children of their own. I remember that time as a time when my Grandmother was highly anxious every day ; we watched the evening news with trepidation and constantly were mailing letters and packages full of snacks( chips, cakes , cookies, hard candy), , socks , foot powder ( this was very important ) , baby powder ( because it was so hot there fungus would grow on their skin , underwear , koolaid ( the water they gave the soldiers was almost undrinkable ) , worchestersire sauce , Tabasco , mustard ( the MREs were practically inedible ) ,vitamins, antiseptics , canned fruit . and lighters to burn the leeches off . Leeches would drop from the trees , as well as being in any body of water they had to wade through. We wrote endless letters . I used to make him scrap books :-) from magazines etc. I imagine those went straight into the garbage :-) Certain songs recall that time for me ; Unchained Melody , Buffalo Springfield songs” There’s something Happening Here “ , “ Hell No, We won’t go “, “ Woodstock” , “ One Tin Soldier “, “ I Heard it through the Grapevine “. , “ Here Comes the Sun”. And “ Imagine”.
ConnieK ⋅ August 18, 2020
Good choices.
mcbee ⋅ August 18, 2020
I was on the newspaper staff in high school. Editorial page editor and I wrote column each edition, a satirical humorous look at our high school. Reflecting back, I can't believe the administration allowed some of what I wrote, a lot of it was pot shots at the administrators and teachers. Such a fun experience.
Great song choices. It was such a troubled time. I think 2020 is worse though. I have high hopes for November.
Oswego mcbee ⋅ August 18, 2020
Did you save any of those high school newspaper columns?
Yes, 2020 is much worse overall. It’s sorta relative, though, in some ways. I’m not sure how 1969-70 could have been much worse psychologically for me. Today we have Trump and a pandemic to worry about. Not to mention climate change going on all around us! Yep, 2020 is a terrible year, but I also have hopes for November.
mcbee Oswego ⋅ August 18, 2020
I sure did. I stumbled across them a couple of years ago, if I hadn't I don't think I would have even rememered them. I'm sorry you had such a bad experience when you first went to college. I worked for a year, bought a car and commuted to a local community college for the first 2 years. So not roommate, no new surroundings, and and the comfort of my regular group of friends in the same town. By the time I transferred to the university to finish my bachelor's degree I was in a whole different space than the dorm kids. I never lived on campus, and I never regretted it. :)
Marg ⋅ August 21, 2020
I was just starting secondary school when you were going through your hell :) That Bridge Over Troubled Water does it for me every time - the effect never dies.
Oswego Marg ⋅ August 21, 2020
And Art Garfunkel’s beautiful, haunting voice. I’ll never forget that song and the soulful way he out everything into it. Magnificent!