McMurphy

The youth generation of the late 1950's through the 1960's can be labeled as the generation of the gunslinger. Like the gunslinger, this youth generation, separated from the establishment, sought out new, exotic social frontiers with their sense of protest and rebellion. By looking at the gunslinger archetype more closely, music’s role as both influencing and being influenced by the collective mentality of the youth because of the unique combination of race, gender, class, and historical situations of the sixties’ generation becomes apparent.

The concepts of race, gender, and class highly influenced the development of rock-n’-roll. One of the characteristics of the archetypical gunslinger, which symbolizes the sixties’ youth generation, is a feeling of separation from the establishment. The 1960's youth felt such separation in the sense that they felt alienated by the adult world. Youth, by definition, breeds a barrier between the two age groups. “Youth,” as a label of a stage in a person’s life, was developed because the industrialized world set up a social situation where childhood is extended much longer. Since the youth can no longer identify themselves as children or adults, a sense of alienation is natural. An example of this need to separate from the child status is expressed in The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion, and Rock-n’-Roll by Reynolds and Press. In the first chapter, the authors discuss the hypothesis of males demonizing the female (more importantly, the mother) to rebel. The adolescent male rebels felt that “feminine sensibilities,” which gave birth to department stores and soap operas, “were undermining the virility of American culture” (4). Why is this sense of separation important to the growing pains of rock-n’-roll? It’s important because it explains why white males of the suburban social class—the majority of the American population—can feel alienated. These suburban, white gunslingers craved exotic, foreign music. To them, the new frontier of music was from poor Southern whites and African Americans. The poor Southern whites offered country music, while African Americans provided blues. Both country and blues music appealed to their counterculture tastes since both groups were not part of the establishment and expressed themes and subject matters different from the ones of suburbanites heard on conventional radio stations. The interest by the white youth allowed rock-‘n-roll, a hybrid form of country and blues, to filter into the attention of the mass population.

Beyond race, gender, and social class influences, there are many historical factors that influenced the continued development of rock-n’-roll. One such reason is found within Elvis Presley’s career. If the sixties were comprised of youthful gunslingers, Elvis was one of the originals. He provided the suburban, white youth with a fully relatable icon. Elvis was a white singer that personified the hybrid of country and blues. He became the source of exotic wonder without losing his source attachment to the mass culture. Timothy Scheurer said it best in his essay, “Elvis Presley and The Myth of America.” In this essay, Scheurer states that “Elvis, as a rock n’ roll hero, suggests a new vision for kids while anchoring his ethos in the past” (103). Elvis as a hero confirms the gunslinger motif. A characteristic of the gunslinger archetype is being a hero in the eyes of the counterculture. Presley “struck a chord in many who also saw themselves as disenfranchised from the mainstream culture” (Scheurer 104). Besides adding vitality to the youth’s sense of alienation, Elvis also personified their urge to rebel through his “taboo” sexuality that tinted his live performances. His rotating pelvis movement on stage is legend in any music folklore. “It was kinetic sex” (106), which was reminiscent of African American blues and R&B (107). Danger, in the sense of intimidating the mass culture’s social boundaries, is another characteristic of the gunslinger (for obvious reasons), which confirms Elvis’s role in influencing the sixties’ generation. Without Presley’s influence, the development of rock-n’-roll may have never existed or, at least, have been delayed for a much greater amount of time.

The youth’s protest on the political situation of the sixties, which is akin to the gunslinger archetype, influenced the development of rock-n’-roll. The gunslinger seems to reemerge in the mentality of a generation during times of revitalization and social transition when faced with stress and oppression. The sixties generation is one of the best examples of a revitalization period. During the “revolution” of the 1960's, the gunslinger dueled with war without a clear focus, witnessed the youngest president in American history assassinated, and saw African Americans refuse to take a backseat regarding their civil rights. These three events made the youth’s music into a cauldron of rage and protest. Take Bob Dylan’s music for example. Songs such as “Masters of War,” “Times They Are A-Changin’,” and “Maggie’s Farm” express great dissatisfaction with the political activities of the establishment. In fact, the major messages of the earlier sixties’ rock music were protesting war, intolerance, and oppression (Burns 137). The sixties aren’t when the protest song began., however. The ancestor of the modern protest song can be traced back to the first ten years of the twentieth century. One of the first examples of protest music is found in the political lyrics of IWW’s (International Workers of the World) Little Red Songbook, which demanded better labor and union rights (Rodnitzky 114). The movement of the IWW was a reaction to dehumanizing side effects of the industrialization of America. The movement of the anti-war songs was a reaction to the dehumanizing result of the Vietnam War. What started as a subcultural political movement turned into a counterculture movement full of strong voiced musicians and adolescents who refused the answers that the establishment offered.

To protest against social ills, is also to redefine what can be considered paradise. The counterculture, in reaction to political environment, created their own politics and own visions of Utopia, which radically transformed the subject matter of rock-n’-roll, because of their gunslinger mentality. The gunslinger is a nomad searching for the new frontier. What is the new frontier? Utopia. The sixties’ generation was seeking Eden in two ways. One, obviously, was through social change. Gary Burns in “Trends in Lyrics in the Annual Top Twenty Songs in the United States, 1963-1972" identify rock-n’-roll as “programmed fantasies” which “seem......to follow identifiable patterns consistent with other cultural trends” (129). The cultural trend of the sixties, in the answer of the protest song, was centered around Utopia. Their paradise would be void of consumerism and corporate membership. Paradise would make acts of war and aggression obsolete. Paradise would be more nature based and centered around the love for the fellow human. Another venue to reach Utopia is through drugs. Drugs was the gunslinger’s horse that lead him to the inner frontier. Drugs were viewed as the vehicle to free the mind of social restrictions and progress towards the unity with the world and its inhabitants. “From Eternity to Here” by Charles Perry showcases the mentality behind the drug orientated music. Perry states that “Stanford University......had a scene where people took LSD for adventure, just to see what would happen” (2). In fact, the later half of the sixties music centered around “drugs, being stoned” (136). A sample song of drug worship is “Hey, Jude” by the Beatles.

The incredible, immense popularity of the Beatles, who were the next gunslingers after Presley, during the sixties is another historical influence on rock-n’-roll. A large part of their success is due to their ability to take musical elements from the African Americans and poor white southerners of America and incorporate those influences into British music, which was foreign to American listener. Like Elvis, the Beatles are symbolic gunslingers due to their co-existing exotic appeal and point-of-reference reassurance. Another factor that helped youth listeners of America to connect to the Beatles is the comparative elements between the perceived rigid class structure of Britain and America’s strong race distinctions. In Britain, the Beatles, at first, weren’t played on the BBC because they belonged to the working class. In America, African American musicians weren’t played on mass cultural radio stations because of race barriers. Also, the British working class lacked opportunities in society, much like African Americans lacked opportunities in America. The Beatles achieved acceptance in the American youth so well that “there was probably no pop stars as high on the iconographic scale” as them (Brauer 152). How does the success of the Beatles influence the sixties? The Beatles and their success acted as the key that unlocked the floodgates of the British Invasion. After the appearance of the Beatles, the sixties’ music scene became dominated with British musicians. The Rolling Stones is an example of the British bands that later grabbed the attention of America’s counterculture. The political views of John Lennon helped spur and elongate the sixties’ attraction to protest songs, Utopian images, and drugs. Some people would even say that the break-up of the Beatles was one of the reasons that the ideals of the sixties gave way to a darker and more sinister tone in the seventies. It was surely a symptom.

The youth generation of late fifties and sixties was the generation of the gunslinger. The youth valued free-thinking, protest, concepts of Utopia, disengagement with the establishment, strong willed individuals, the exotic, and rebellion. The gunslinger has popped in and out of history during times of change and suppression and will continue to do so in the future. Many social critics argue that post Generation X could be considered the generation of the vampire—a generation concerned with the preservation of the eternal child to escape real life and responsibility. If that assumption was true, would that mean that the gunslinger is just over the horizon now that war has reemerged? Is the gunslinger ready to once again ride into town and cast a wondering eye towards the new frontier?




Brauer, Ralph. “Iconic Modes: The Beatles.” 151-158.

Burns, Gary. “Trends in Lyrics in the Annual Top Twenty Songs in the United States, 1963-1972.” Journal of Popular Music & Society. Volume 9:1; 1983. 129-141.

Perry, Charles. “From Eternity to Here.” 20 Years of Rolling Stone: What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been. 1987. 1-13.

Reynolds and Press. The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock-n’-Roll. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Rodnitzky, Jerome L. “The Evolution of the American Protest Song.” Journal of Popular Culture. Summer 1969. 113-121.

Scheurer, Timothy E. “Elvis Presley and The Myth of America.” 102-111.

chrispenycate

That might be right, but it didn't feel that way at the time. Your gunslinger is a loner, a nomad. A large percentage of the musicians felt themselves part of communities, indeed frequently the voices of those communities. Certainly, march against atomic power, campain against inequality, sing your way out of Vietnam- but you're doing it for them, you're neither a Jesse James or a Wyatt Earp, you're a Martin Luther King.

Drugs, sure- but musicians and actors have always been heavy indulgers in whatever conciousness modifiers were available. And by no means all of the musical movements were in the same direction- I wasn't the only one into Dave Brubeck and Charley Parker- and a lot of the music was trivial, the same product music we'd been hearing so much since the early fifties plus, of course the omnipresent crooners. The true novelty was the sheer quantity of music being distributed- the relatively high income of the unmarrieds, the use of a record collection as both a status symbol and a badge of ones affinities, a guide to which social groups one considered oneself part of just hadn't existed in the 78 days, and evarourated before the CD- perhaps, even, the artwork on the LP sleeve had more influence than would normally be considered.

So there you are- no citations, no intellectual analysis, just the experience of the period- we wanted to change society, sure, but we didn't see ourselves as societies outcasts or rejects, but the voice of that change. Every secondary school, every youth club had its band, every band had its message, its heros- and bought even more records than the general public.

Rosemary

I still lived in England during the 60's. I didn't see the 'rebellion against politics' as a "çlass' thing. I certainly don't consider that i was a gunslinger.

Yes, I loved 'Times They Are A Changing' and the various protest songs but the majority of my peers would still consider their upbringing - to respect their parents in most things. Not all of my friends were from the same çlass', we spanned those, Upper Class joining with Lower Class in the area where I lived (Surry).
Wages were spent on 45's, EP's or if we were lucky - an Album. Music was our life. There was more freedom I admit, although not to the extent that it was now. I still had to be home by a certain time each night, except when I was going to a 'music gig' at the local town hall! The Hollies, Manfred Mann, Dave Clark 5 and many more.
Very few of my friends or I smoked cigarettes yet alone took drugs.
Yes, I wore my hair long, painted flowers and butterflies on my face and marched in the 'ban the bomb' protest marches.
Yes, my friends and I were encouraged to become free thinkers but not to the extent that some of the teenagers went to.
I am glad to think that I was a teenager in those days, I wouldn't have missed them for the world.

chrispenycate

Worn out hippies 2, James gang 1

Rosemary

Peace man...

Hooray For The Hippies

chrispenycate

Peace, love and happiness.

Rosemary

What about another Woodstock?

chrispenycate

Who's left? I bet Arlo Guthry'd come (I toured with him back in '79) Joe Cocker perhaps? Some of the CSNY crew? And do it it Woodstock in Hampshire, or whatever county it's in (or were you intending it down under? Split the difference is South Africa- I've never PAd a concert in SA.

Hey, we've thoroughly hijacked this thread *guilty giggle* we'll have to stop meeting like this.
And it was such a nice academic thread too, if wrong.

littlemissattitude

As another one who was there during the sixties (I was three years old when the sixties began and 13 when they ended), your analysis doesn't quite ring true for me, either, McMurphy. Sorry.

Yes, I was young at the beginning of the era, but I've thought a bit about it, and I don't consider that "the sixties" as a cultural period, as opposed to a chronological period, even started until November 22, 1963, when JFK was assassinated, and that they didn't really get rolling until the Beatles arrived on US soil the following February. And the cultural period didn't quite last out the chronological decade, ending in the summer of '69 with the Tate-LaBianca killings in July, although Woodstock was a last gasp in August. As far as I'm concerned, Elvis was completely a fifties phenomenon, and didn't really have all that much to do with sixties music as a youth phenomenon. Elvis was what our parents listened to, not what we listened to. So, while, yes, he had some influence on some of the folks who made sixties music, there were many other influences that were just as potent.

And, although I was young at the time, I came to a consciousness of public events very young. I remember the shock of JFK's killing very well, and the Cuban Missile Crisis even before that, although my memories of that are a little more vague. And, I still remember seeing the Beatles the first time they were on the Ed Sullivan show. I was seven years old, and had to watch hiding behind the piano because it was Sunday night and it was past my bedtime, as the next day was a school day. Both were revelations for me. JFK's assassination taught me that bad stuff can happen quite suddenly and out of the blue. That made a lasting impact on me and, I think, had a substantial effect on how I see the world.

The Beatles were also a revelation for me, and seeing that one show altered my life. I've been known to refer to it as the closest thing to a spiritual experience I've ever had. I'd never heard anything quite like that before, and it wasn't for a lack of being exposed to music. But even at the age of seven, after that show, while my little 7-year-old peers were rushing home after school to watch cartoons, I was quite suddenly rushing home after school to watch the local L.A. versions of the American Bandstand-type music shows.

From that time forward, music was a very important part of my life. I kind of lived and breathed it for years and years, along with a number of other interests. I knew the songs, I knew the lyrics. I even knew the labels the artists were on and the running times of most of the songs. Yeah. I was a nerd. But my point is, music was an organic part of my life. It was always there. And I loved all of it, the bad with the good, the silly with the serious. And it was music. It wasn't social protest. It wasn't sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. It wasn't counterculture to me, it was my culture, and I honestly never really felt all that disconnected from the culture at large even though I had some serious disagreements with what we called "the establishment" back then.

Honestly, I think that some of your sources have quite over-intellectualized sixties music in order to make it fit into their own views of the world. And, certainly, they are entitled to their points of view, as are you, McMurphy. But there's a saying about the sixties: if you were there, you don't remember the sixties, and if you remember them, then you weren't really there. My position in relation to the sixties is that I wasn't "there" in the sense of being old enough to fully participate in them, but I was "there" enough to experience them and witness them and remember a whole lot about them. I don't think the people who produced the writings you used as sources were "there" at all.

Oh, and one note: I thought I knew all the "drug songs"; they've always fascinated me because I never did drugs but loved the songs anyway. Heck, we had to memorize "Puff, the Magic Dragon" in second grade, presumably before it got its own reputation as a "drug song". But I've never, ever heard of "Hey, Jude" referred to as a "drug song" before.

I don't know what any of this long ramble means, if anything. But, to echo Chris and Rosemary, that isn't how I remember the sixties and the music from that period of time.

__________________
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Rosemary

Well written Littlemiss, it's as if I were reading a biography of me! Music was the heart and soul of many óf the Children of Peace and I wouldn't have missed it for the world...
I have heard it said that when all the hippies, the baby boomers and the Children of Peace get together in the Old Age Nursing Homes, we'll have the best Autumn of our lives!

Syn

I LOVE HIPPIES!
they rock...my personal opinion is that everyone has a little hippie in them waiting to be released.
mine is
one question i here a lot of talk about WOODSTOCK, in the forums and in real life aka life off the forums, what is it and is it like a rock festival?

Rosemary

It was THE Rock Festival attended by hundreds of thousands of music lovers.

To find out exactly what it was all about try the Wikipedia, that has all of the facts and figures. The only thing it will not tell you are of the real true 'feelings' that Woodstock and the music of that culture generated into our being. We were music...

For most of us, that was our way of life - a life of music, of love and of peace and for many it still is our ideology.

chrispenycate

Woodstock was more than a festival, it was a happening- watch the film, it's out on DVD, but watch it on a home cinema with a serious sound system- you don't need to blow yor eardrums out, but it loses so much coming outt of matchboxes.
I missed it, though I know lots of people who were there, most of them musicians. I also missed Britains equivalent,th Isle of Wight festival, though Terry, another englishgit living in Switzerland and a good friend, even if he doen't read much science fiction, was rigging for WEM at the time so was on stage most of the weekend (he also got to do the tech side of the Hendrix/Pink Floyd/ the Move tour- jammy B.)

Ah, 1969- moon landing, Woodstock and I was finally working full time in sound,

Rosemary

I agree with you there Chris - A HAPPENING. I missed the British one but your friend Terry was a luck devil. Hendrix AND Pink Floyd - wow.
Obviously need to save seriously to get that DVD...
I hope they get to put on a serious festival over here. We used to have a rock fest every summer. Lots of bands, singers, dust, heat, water hoses spraying the crowds so that dust turned to mud. Brilliant stuff...

McMurphy

I'm the first to admit that attempting to write a perspective that incorporates a few fundamentals of the collective consciousness within analysis of the musical front of a culturally significant time period of a certain national identity decades after the fact is slippery at best.

There are some assertions that need to be corrected, however. Just because some of my sources have, years later, come to a different conclusion of that time period does not necessarily mean they didn't "experience" the '60s. In fact, some in the Work Cited section most likely was old enough to take part in the counterculture of the '60s instead of having sentimental memories of it. [Edit to Add: doing a quick google search of the authors' bios support this.]

Second, the thesis of the post was meant to be a positive view of Sixties music and protest scene. I felt it was probably best to refrain from pointing out that, indeed, people who were part of the Sixties don't seem to remember it based on the blatant hypocrisy of their actions later on in life. Of course, the biggest reason I didn't choose that course is because I have been reminded by writers who lived through that time period that the hippy and political protest laced segment of society was a countercultural one in nature, and, by the time events such as Woodstock came about, the relevant essence of the moment had already passed. There was a reason that the likes of Bob Dylan didn't attend the original Woodstock.

While is it easy to challenge the original post by using the age-old "but I was there" reaction, it doesn't mean it is a failsafe. As evidenced in the published field, there are many people that have conflicting versions of what they lived through. For example, just because someone was in the New York area in 2001 doesn't mean that they are equipped with the ability to strike down any and all opinions on 9/11. They certainly have a real life experience that we should all hesitate and listen to, but not swear by.