The Turbulen Sixties Essay -- essays research papers

The Turbulent SixtiesThroughout American story, each generation has sought toindividualize itself from all others preceding it. Decades of Americanhistory can be separated to represent a distinctive establish of values, culture,and political ideals. The 1960s was a decade caught between euphoric,idealistic beginnings and a discordant, barbarian climax. The music of thistime period produced a strong counterculture which sought to goAmerica in a way never before experienced. The songs were the grit ofthis new age they were the tunes which the generation danced to, marchedto, and got high off of. This paper will discuss the ways popular music ofthe 1960s produced national a fighteness of the anti-war movements, take tothe partialcollapse of the structure of American society, and foreverchanged the way current generations listen to and cloud music.The songwriters of the 1960s were rargonly without inspiration.Perhaps the close powerful incentive came from the movement to ratioc ination theVietnam War. Many of the most prominent musicians of that generation aidedthe struggle to admit against and attempt to end the war. The mostpopular song to be considered an hymn against the war efforts was called"Blowin in the Wind," written by Bob Dylan in 1962 firearm he was living inNew York. The song is centered just about racism and militarism, two mainfocal points which were principal in some early sixties protest songs(Pichaske 58). Dylan used conventional symbols to blatantly demesne hispoint a dust coat dove representing peace, flying cannon balls describing warand violence, and roads and seas symbolizing the hardships and strugglesthere would have to be with eliminating the war.Demonstrations against the Vietnam War took office staff in many majorcities and college campuses. While many of these demonstrations had only imperturbable motives, violent methods were often used to break them up. Takefor example the noteworthy student takeover of Colum bia University. Blackstudents arguing for civil rights, and white students protesting againstthe Vietnam war successfully took over Hamilton Hall, the Low Library andthe Deans office, as hearty as three other buildings. The Grateful Deadwere smuggled onto campus and play several long sets of music whilestudents began to set up common living, with food generously donated byoutside supporters and Harlems CORE (Co... ... labels began methodically recruiting performers and signing them to contracts. The music was becoming less oriented to freeform and more than constricted so as to present them on FM radio. adbecame increasingly directed towards the hippies. Pepsi Cola began airingcommercials that consisted of an eerie psychedelic renderings of urbannightlife, with the Pepsi theme sounding more like a Byrds song than acommercial jingle (Frank 178). Many musicians began fighting a sense of recondite disillusion as the sixties winded down. Perhaps Dylan, the man who intercommunicate so poignantly about the generation understood it best, he knew thatthe most prominent threat to musicians of the sixties was their image, itleads to the generalization of their art and destroys it (Pichaske 177).In conclusion, the sixties were a turbulent time characterized withboth optimism and despair. The music that this generation spawned haslasted as a remnant of the idealistic and hopful nature of the times. Inmany racing shells, the songs are interrelated with certain events. In otherinstances, music was used as a catalyst to ignite a chain of events.Whatever the case may be, music was revolutionized during the1960s.