Sixties Music: Did I get it Backwards?

“I’ll be the roundabout the words will make you out n out.” Recognize the line? It’s the opening lyrics to Roundabout, a song by the early seventies rock group Yes.
I have it on my i-Pod nano. After we gave iPods to our granddaughters for Christmas last year I got curious enough to buy one for myself and began the process of downloading my favorite music from iTunes. As I remember a song I really like I add it to my playlist. Most of what I have on my nano is sixties and seventies vintage stuff. (Note that “vintage” is in the eye of the beholder.) The obvious picks, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Four Seasons and a cornucopia of sentimental jukebox favorites make up the vast majority of the works I’ve complied. There are a few surprises in my iPod too like Sunday Morning by Maroon 5. I am happy to report that there is nothing in my iPod by the 1910 Fruit Gum Company or the Archies. On the other hand Harper Valley PTA and Okie from Muskogee are on my play list.
Merle Haggard’s number is there because it reminds me of being old enough to order a beer in a tavern. The New Warren Lounge was a typical corner bar near the campus. Okie From Muskogee was on the jukebox and we played it often, singing along and laughing, our tone, mocking. That was a long time ago.
It’s still a weird feeling to have the ability to listen to the songs I most want to hear when I feel like it, no matter where I am. When these songs were actually hit records, not CDs -records, we had to wait until they came on the radio. If we bought the album we had to be sitting next to a record player if we wanted to skip a song or two. In the late sixties eight track tapes were introduced, giving us the option to listen while we drove around. The smart thing to do was to install the tape player in the glove compartment. It reduced the chances that you would wake up one morning only to find one of your car windows broken and the tape player gone. By the way if you’re reading this and you took my friend Frank’s tape player and the Moody Blues Days of Future Passed album out of his ’62 Buick Electra, he still wants it back.
With an iPod or any MP3 player we have the luxury of listening to our favorites anywhere, anytime and in any order. If I want to listen to the same song twenty times in a row it’s easy to do. So where do I use it? Most of my listening is confined to early morning workouts. Sometimes I take my iPod along when I travel. I can easily kill a few hours listening to golden oldies on a long flight.
I hate to admit it but there is something comical about listening to the lyrics of some of the old songs. In my early twenties I often listened for messages with deep philosophical meaning, something that might point me in the right direction. Listening to the same songs almost forty years later it’s now plain to see that other guys in their early twenties, just as confused as we were, wrote this stuff. Here’s a case in point: More lines from Roundabout.
“I will remember you
Your silhouette will charge the view
Of distance atmosphere
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
Even in the valley”
With the guitars and near falsetto voice of Jon Anderson it all sounded profound at the time. Interestingly enough, Anderson himself acknowledged that they were just words he happened to think of while driving to the recording studio. If I still had my old record player I could play the song backwards. The hidden meaning is in there somewhere.
I made fun of Merle Haggard back then. Looking back, did I have it backwards? Read a few lines from Okie From Muskogee.
“I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse, And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all”
The words are neither eloquent nor clever. Yet, it’s hard to recall these words without thinking about how sweet life was back then. Recent polls say that 84% of Americans think we’re on the wrong track. Maybe things will improve if being a square makes a comeback.

Copyright 2008 Len Serafino. All rights reserved