Shenandoah (1965)

My posting this clip got a rise out of a commenter over on Althouse who thought the Jimmy Stewart character was a pretty much a pussy:

rcocean said...

Thanks for the link. Funny how some farmer who saw the idiocy of the civil war is turned into some Ayn Randian "free marketer". Jimmy of course owed an obligation to either the state of Virginia or the USA. Had some foreign power decided to invade & take HIS sons and take HIS land he wouldn't pulled his absurd "When did the state raise my kids?" shtick. Instead he'd be cryin' for mama. 

No man is an island. I'm always amazed at how many dumb-ass white boys think they're "citizens of the world" who just happen to live in the USA. Yep, it's all about you boy-o, and how you don't owe nothing to nobody. We're just random individuals - competing. The East Asians and lots of others are laughing at you. 

5/6/13, 11:03 PM

Turn! Turn! Turn!

Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl? (1965)

Released as a single in 1965, and on album in 1966. I like this video version better but blogger won't let me embed it.

Conversations with Henry

Henry: You forgot to mention Allen and Senoff.

Me: Who? 

Henry: Allen and Senoff. They made the first dinitrogen complex from ruthenium, [Ru(NH₃)₅(N₂)]²⁺. That news caused quite a stir back in 1965. Ruthenium rhymes with iron, so you're also speculating about molybdenum. It could be iron doing the fixing in nitrogenase.  Never sell iron short.

Me: *gulps*

Henry: I'm glad to see that you're reading and keeping up with newer stuff. Barry told me you'd be back.

Winston Churchill and "Fool's Overture"

While dwelling on 1965 memories, I thought it fitting to pay respects to Winston Churchill, who died in January of that year and whose funeral I recall watching as a kid on TV. Twelve years later, in 1977, the UK band Supertramp released a song  called Fool's Overture, which I always thought referred to Churchill (there is a recording of his voice in the song fer Chrisakes). I also thought this was common knowledge, but I recall discussing this topic one night over on the Althouse blog with someone convinced that the lyrics referred to Jesus.

You can hear the song here. (embedding was disabled for that video otherwise I'd put it here). Here are the lyrics for the song along with my specific reasons why it refers to Churchill:

History recalls how great the fall can be
While everybody's sleeping, the boats put out to sea [1]
Borne on the wings of time
It seemed the answers were so easy to find [2]
Too late, the prophets cry
The island's sinking, let's take to the sky [3]

Called the man a fool, stripped him of his pride
Everyone was laughing up until the day he died [4]
And though the wound went deep
Still he's calling us out of our sleep [5]
My friends, we're not alone
He waits in silence to lead us all home [6]

So you tell me that you find it hard to grow
Well I know, I know, I know
And you tell me that you've many seeds to sow
Well I know, I know, I know [7]

Can you hear what I'm saying?
Can you see the parts that I'm playing?
Holy man, rocker man, come-on queenie,
Joker man, spider man, blue-eyed meanie [8]

So you found your solution
What will be your last contribution?
Live it up, rip it up, why so lazy?
Give it out, dish it out, let's go crazy! [9]

Yeah!

________________________
[1] Refers to Francis Drake's night time attacks to fend off the Spanish Armada in 1588.
[2] Refers to the British Empire's subsequent historical momentum and a sense of entitlement.
[3] I've no idea who the "prophets" were of the time but their message was to abandon the ship of state.
[4] Refers to the replacement of Churchill by the Labour Party and the subsequent decades-long deconstruction of his legacy (note that this song was written in 1977, prior to the ascendency of Thatcher).
[5] & [6] Here is where the allusion to a force from beyond (ostensibly the memory of Churchill) may have caused that Althouse commenter to remark that he thought the song was about Jesus.
[7] Here the songwriter is answering the unspoken retort from British youth--that maturity is hard, that the legacy is too hard to live up to.
[8] Refers to the spectrum of people present in the 1970s Britain: religious, culture, celebrity, social, misfit--each one is a character.
[9] Refers to the state of anarchy amongst the mid 1970's youth in Britain.

Three Accidents That Enriched The Guitar Driven Sound Of Rock n Roll:

1961: Dick Dale and Leo Fender invent the reverb surf guitar sound:

Leo Fender kept giving Dale amps and Dale kept blowing them up! Till one night Leo and his right hand man Freddy T. went down to the Rendezvous Ballroom on the Balboa Peninsula in Balboa, California and stood in the middle of four thousand screaming dancing Dick Dale fans and said to Freddy, I now know what Dick Dale is trying to tell me. Back to the drawing board. A special 85 watt output transformer was made that peaked 100 watts when Dale would pump up the volume of his amp, this transformer would create the sounds along with Dale's style of playing, the kind of sounds that Dale dreamed of. BUT! they now needed a speaker that would handle the power and not burn up from the volume that would come from Dale's guitar.

Leo, Freddy and Dale went to the James B. Lansing speaker company, and they explained that they wanted a fifteen inch speaker built to their specifications. That speaker would soon be known as the 15'' JBL -D130 speaker. It made the complete package for Dale to play through and was named the Single Showman Amp. When Dale plugged his Fender Stratocaster guitar into the new Showman Amp and speaker cabinet, Dale became the first creature on earth to jump from the volume scale of a modest quiet guitar player on a scale of 4 to blasting up through the volume scale to TEN! That is when Dale became the 'Father of Heavy Metal' as quoted from Guitar Player Magazine. Dale broke through the electronic barrier limitations of that era!

1964: Dave Davies of The Kinks invents grunge sound while recording "You Really Got Me":

The influential distortion sound of the guitar track was created after guitarist Dave Davies sliced the speaker cone of his guitar amplifier with a razor blade and poked it with a pin. The amplifier was affectionately called "little green," after the name of the amplifier made by the Elpico company, and purchased in Davies' neighbourhood music shop, slaved into a Vox AC-30. link

1965: Roger McGuinn accidently invents the "jingle-jangle" guitar sound of The Byrds:

While 'tracking' The Byrds' first single, 'Mr. Tambourine Man', at Columbia studios, McGuinn discovered an important component of his style. 'The 'Rick' [Rickenbacker guitar] by itself is kind of thuddy,' he notes. 'It doesn't ring. But if you add a compressor, you get that long sustain. To be honest, I found this by accident. The engineer, Ray Gerhardt, would run compressors on everything to protect his precious equipment from loud rock and roll. He compressed the heck out of my 12-string, and it sounded so great we decided to use two tube compressors [likely Teletronix LA-2As] in series, and then go directly into the board. That's how I got my 'jingle-jangle' tone. It's really squashed down, but it jumps out from the radio. With compression, I found I could hold a note for three or four seconds, and sound more like a wind instrument. Later, this led me to emulate John Coltrane's saxophone on 'Eight Miles High". Without compression, I couldn't have sustained the riff's first note.' link.

[added, a fourth]:
1966: Eric Clapton combines the Gibson Les Paul and the Marshall Amplifier: link

50 Years Of MyTunes: 1965 Can't Get No Satisfaction

When I'm watchin' my TV

And a man comes on and tells me

How white my shirts can be

But he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke

The same cigarettes as me

This is getting tougher. Too many songs!  Keep in mind that I'm just trying to pick out my favorites from each year--I'm not trying to be all inclusive.  What I've had to do now is to carve out the Beatles and the Beach Boys and to divvy up what's left. I'll leave discussions of the Beatles to a professional like Ron.  I suppose I should eventually say what I think about the Beach Boys.  But not today.

1965 was another big change year for rock 'n' roll. A couple of new favorite groups appeared on the scene: most notably The Byrds, The Who & The Yardbirds (all big guitar sounds). Here are my nominees with the emboldened winner:

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction ~ Rolling Stones
Like A Rolling Stone ~ Bob Dylan
My Generation  ~ The Who
Turn, Turn, Turn ~ The Byrds
The Sounds Of Silence~ Simon & Garfunkel
The Tracks Of My Tears ~ Smokey Robinsion & The Miracles
California Dreamin' ~ The Mamas & The Papas
Do You Believe In Magic ~ Lovin' Spoonful
I Got You (I Feel Good) ~ James Brown
I Fought The Law ~ Bobby Fuller Four
I Can't Help Myself ~ Four Tops
For Your Love ~ Yardbirds
Unchained Melody ~ Righteous Brothers
Hang On Sloopy ~ McCoys
Stop! In The Name Of Love ~ Supremes