Cars are an expensive pain in the butt. It was time to do some maintenance on the Honda, but the nearest Honda dealer is in St Cloud, so I had to get up early and drive across the state on icy snowy roads to get it serviced. They were quick and bounced me right back on the road to head home again.
I don’t do much driving any more, so this was an opportunity to while away the miles playing old tunes. For some reason, I fired up my old collection of 60s and 70s music. Joan Baez! Laura Nyro!
I got fury in my soul, fury’s gonna take me to the glory goal
In my mind I can’t study war no more
Save the people, save the children
Save the country, save the country, save the country
I think we need to bring back the 60s — the hippies had the right idea. Sure, they were a little vague on how to save the country, but we’ve had over 50 years to think on it. I’m sure we’ve got a plan by now, right?
Several years ago the jackass ex of one of my daughters thought that he would insult me by calling me “an aging hippie”.
I smiled and proudly told him “I resemble that remark!”
I consider myself a ‘retired Deadhead’. Still have the spirit, just not the energy I used to have…
POTUS-elect has concepts of a plan for how to save the country.
I’m not “aging”, I’m aged.
Everybody should drink Coca-Cola.
I dunno about bringing back the 60s in music. The 90s maybe.
As for Joan Baez, Judas Priest did a decent rendition of “Diamonds and Rust”.
larpar@#5
Some of the best work Don Draper ever did.
I can’t help but wonder though…how many people who loved this song in 1969 ended up voting for The Orange One fifty years later?
chigau @4: I’m both!
I’m tired of seeing the word “boomer” everywhere. Surf to one of my favorites news feeds and boomer appears in at least two headlines. Now if I could only stop clicking on them, I just may be able to trick AI and the algorithms into thinking I’m not a boomer.
@3:
Not at all true; he doesn’t care about the country. He has concepts of a plan to save his country estate, though — probably involving his concepts of a plan to get Deutschebank to finance the whole thing through one of his corporations, then manufacture a senior lien on the part of one of his trusts and run that corporation through bankruptcy (and due to the senior lien, Deutschebank can’t foreclose or take other steps to realize its security interest).
Jarper @5:
That brings to mind another Coca-Cola ad. It featured multiple Americans, each singing a line from “America the Beautiful”, all showing the happiness that America gave them. But it fueled protests across the country, because aside from the first (and I think the last) line, every line was sung in a different language. People who are Inuit, Arab, Chinese, French, German, Italy, and many other countries, according to the angry ones, make America ugly just by being in it. Some of the proud to be whiny party said that the ones in the ad should be ashamed for desecrating the national anthem, thereby promoting their own love of America by being ignorant of its national anthem.
@PZ:
There are no car mechanics in the city where you live?
@Hemidactylus:
You misspelled “80s”. HTH. (You want political rock, take your pick from Frozen Ghost, Tears for Fears, Martika … the list goes on.)
@Jaws:
All very clever — too clever for Trump, but I’m sure he has sycophants capable of thinking this up and helping him color inside the lines before signing the documents and submitting them to various loan officers and then the bankruptcy judge.
But who’s going to pay for the forty-foot seawall that will be needed to save his precious estate from the ravages of climate change? Else it’s going to end up underwater along with the rest of Florida fairly soon.
And don’t say “Mexico will pay for it”.
@13:
I was only being partly tongue in cheek there — that really does resemble the initial financing of the purchase of Mar-a-Lago, just not the later “lien” (yet, anyway, or that we know about).
And the sea wall would count as a capital improvement to the property, increasing the basis (and reducing the taxable profit on a later sale) dollar-for-dollar actually paid. (Not, that is, for the value of labor for which he stiffs the contractor…) But I suspect that last is what will happen: He’ll let a contract for the $18 million seawall, get it built, then refuse to pay the rest. That’s even better than Mexico paying for it!
Bekenstein Bound @13
I can’t speak for PZ but I’ve felt more comfortable taking my Hondas to the dealers for service over the decades. I am fortunate in having two Honda dealerships each 20 minutes in opposite directions. If PZ drives that far he may feel the same way.
As for music it’s all subjective but for me it’s not so much a political thing but aesthetic. The 80s had bright spots I was ignorant of at the time. Hair bands and glam metal chased me into the hiphop and techno realm. The rock music in the 90s improved with Tool, Smashing Pumpkins, and Pearl Temple Garden. I kinda got into some Henry Rollins too.
In the 80s political stuff was captured by Public Enemy and into the 90s Consolidated.
I recently deep dove into the trove of Joy Division who were more late 70s early 80s before becoming New Order due to tragedy I think. They were post-punk and I didn’t realize they did “Dead Souls” originally before NIN covered. Great stuff.
The 80s was too poodle perm and keytar synthpop for me overall. My favorite band Rush went too far into a doldrum of their own until grunge woke them from dogmatic slumber in the 90s. And touring with Primus (sucks).
I will commend Iron Maiden for staying true to a solid course through the 80s. They never went synthpop or glam. Metallica stayed the course too but weren’t as musically adept.
I was into the Beatles for a spell. They weren’t bad. Good production. The late 60s was Pink Floyd for experimental psychedelic stuff and Led Zep for proto-metal. I hadn’t realized how far back into the 70s Van Halen went. They were poster kids for a bad ass hard rock band ruined by keyboards in the 80s. Motley Crue were raw metal for like two early albums before the cotton candy and bubble gum took over. Piece of Your Action and Live Wire. Then they dovetailed into Poison crap. Puke.
And say what you want about Courtney Love, but these two songs epitomize the 90s grunge scene and surpass both Nirvana and Foo Fighters. Full stop:
Peace
I liked Laura Nyro back in the late ’60s; but the only song I remember is Wedding Bell Blues, I guess because she was singing it to Bill. 8-)
If we are going back in time for our music I still love Joni Mitchell, and for me, her album ‘Blue’ was peak Joni, although she has journeyed to many places musically over the decades.
@15: You owe yourself more British and German stuff from the 80s. Or, for that matter, right now (New Model Army is still touring, still putting out new, highly political stuff, as is Al Stewart; on a lesser level, so is Nena!). The 80s were generally a hole in rock in the US (not Hole, that’s 90s); the good and political stuff was often on the edge of urban folk out of New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and an unfortunately rapidly squelched outpost in Austin. That accelerated in the 90s; despite grunge being a hometown thing, it’s not at all to my taste, and it was waaaaaaaaay too tunnel-visioned for me.
A good general rule for 80s music is that you should move a band down your priority list by the square of the number of appearances in MTV top ten lists… if you care about either musicianship or lyrical quality (political or otherwise). Non-branded-band performers maybe only ^1.5.
I’ll fess up , I’m a serious Motown baby . Just got finished listening to the 4 Tops ( RIP Duke) singing Helpless which Kim Weston made into a hit. Liked a few Led Zep tunes. Like a lot of the new top 40 songs , hate a lot of the new top 40 songs . I don’t like derivative sh*t .
Speaking of Motown , there this hilarious song now on YouTube called Aint Got Time To Take A Sh*t recorded by one of their musicians back in the 60s . He was complaining about being overworked
Hey, I lived through the 60’s and I even remember them!
Here is a great one:
The Byrds – One of America’s great national pastimes is drinkin’ a Coke Takin’ a smoke …
One of America’s great national pastimes is drinkin’ a Coke
Takin’ a smoke, tellin’ a joke
One of America’s great national pastimes is playin’ ball
Takin’ it all and thinkin’ so small
Ah, but the great taste of Coke has refreshed players
The hot and the tired, the weary and the sore
The great taste of Coke has refreshed players
The hot and the tired, the weary and the sore
One of America’s great national pastimes is chocolate fudge
Carryin’ a grudge, bribin’ a judge
One of America’s great national pastimes is poisoning rain
Acting insane, inflicting pain
One of America’s great national pastimes is the worship of speed
Planting the seeds, takin’ more than she needs
One of America’s great national pastimes is cutting the grass
Grabbin’ some ass, living too fast
PZ wrote: I think we need to bring back the 60s
I reply: Yes, I lived through them, and I even remember it all. I loved many of the songs, see @22. I was heavily involved in community benefit activities. I agree with you only in regard to the positive, peaceful, constructive elements of that time. However, it will always be very bittersweet to me because it brings to mind all my friends returning in body bags from Vietnam.
If I might share how our Organization celebrates this day – –
From: the enchiridion of our Temple of Veracious Pacific Enlightenment
On each December 21st we celebrate the enduring life of evergreens sharing a period of thoughtful silence, reciting together our Official Invocation* and wish all people of honesty and decency a peaceful Winter Solstice. And may those always green, living and sheltering outstretched boughs of the Tannenbäume instill an abiding tranquility in us so we, too, will prevail against the dark and cold to carry through the end of the year and on into a healthy, prosperous new year.
Official Supplication and *Invocation –
May the multitude of warm, nurturing, life sustaining aspects of this heliosphere for which we are thankful and value and work to protect; grant us the physical ability and mental acuity to commit to being consistently: honest, rational, caring, thoughtful and productive and possessing a sense of propriety and of humor.
However, a song from the Early 60s that might be more applicable to today’s world:
https://www.youtube.com › watch?v=MdWGp3HQVjU
Barry McGuire – Eve Of Destruction (1965) – YouTube
“Eve of Destruction” is a protest song written by P. F. Sloan in mid-1964.
Corrected link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdWGp3HQVjU
It ain’t don’ it for me, sorry. But I was listening to some oldies and wow, this song about how the elites profit from the wars, but send the common folk to fight them has surely stood the test of time: