General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: 1968 (Your Help, Please!) [View all]H2O Man
(73,537 posts)who served in Vietnam say that same thing -- the music was important to them. It helped them stay sane, while existing in insane circumstances. And created a bridge to the society that they had left.
My four siblings -- all older -- had wider tastes in music than me. I tended to listen to Jimi, the Doors, and The Beatles. In 1967, the four Beatles had transformed. The days of "she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah" had morphed into Strawberry Fields and Sgt. Peppers. Then the White Album came out, and seemed even more of a step forward .....
I've never left North America. But some of that music -- for example, I remember my college friends and I were amazed at "Revolution 9" while chemically-enhanced -- defined the confusion we felt at the time. For example, when Nixon had been elected in November, my siblings and I were horrified (though we had come to despise LBJ). I remember my father saying, "You might not like him, but you have to respect the position he has been elected to." But that would not hold true for us -- we came to view the Office of the President as so corrupt, that it deserved contempt.
Reading this thread has gotten me thinking about how the huge shift in "respect for authority" came to separate my father's generation from our's .... and how that would influence the generations that have followed .....
I'm not confident that I'm making sense now. (grin) But this will stick with me today ....