I was a kid when this song hit the radio, I was maybe 10 at the time. The song always struck a cord with me as did many songs of the time that addressed the war, something at 10 I new allot about as back then graphic news was normal and dead bodies would be flooded in ink on the local paper. Growing up then was a strange time, the world as it is right now was moving so fast that it was hard to imagine what was in the future. We lived very close to the levees where I was at and rode my Schwin Stingray I worked two summers mowing laws to buy. So of course this song kinda stuck in my head as much everything did. I like to think my generation was the very last end of innocence in America, by the time I was in my early 20's drives in were slowing down, people seldom cruised and life was moving fasters yet our personal lives were slowing and have all but stopped today. I heard this song play the other night as we had Graffiti week here in Roseburg, Oregon and the song stuck in my head I listened and knew over the years there are many variation of what the song meant even the singer left allot of imagination in the son, maybe that was the point. I can still smell the sweet ocean air near where we fished and would have our cheap radio tied with shoes strings to the handlebars and the song would be playing. Life was so much simpler then. Its hard to imagine kids not knowing what peace existed once for all children has turned into a liberal heap of bat crazy everyone gets a trophy world. So yes the song was open to interpretation the lyrics may have been, the song's emotional resonance was unmistakable: McLean was clearly relating a defining moment in the American experience—something had been lost, and we knew it then and know it now. we are able to frame the span of years the song is covering—1959 to 1970—as the "10 years we've been on our own" of the third verse. It is across this decade that the American cultural landscape changed radically, passing from the relative optimism and conformity of the 1950s and early 1960s to the rejection of these values by the various political and social movements of the mid and late 1960s. I am sure it also grips many outsides of these zones as well. Coming as it did near the end of this turbulent era, American Pie seemed to be speaking to the precarious position we found ourselves in and do now, as the grand social experiments of the 1960s began collapsing under the weight of their own unrealized utopian dreams, while the quieter, hopeful world we grew up in receded into memory. And as 1970 came to a close and the world this generation had envisioned no longer seemed viable, a sense of disillusion and loss fell over us; we weren't the people we once were. But we couldn't go home again either, having challenged the assumptions of that older order. The black and white days were over, or were they. They say those whom do not learn from their mistakes are destine to repeat them. Are we as a nation reliving 4 years ago ? The riots, protests its a different time in space but the sound is the same is it not. Different players but we are still the pawns. Paul PS. Included the songs vid with lyrics for your enjoyment.
My great grand father came to Minnesota when he got out of the Army at the end of the civil war, homesteaded 160 acres of land and a couple years later built a house. My grand father was born in the downstairs bedroom in 1873 and died 89 years later in the same room. They had bought a new bedroom set in the 1920's so it was a different bed than the one he was born in. Nothing like that happens any more. On the average we move about once every 5 years, our homes are an "investment" and working 5 years for one company is a rarity. I don't know if it was Viet Nam, tv, computers, travel, centralized education, or what, but somehow in the late 1960's we started to lose our sense of being American and being special, and being part of a community. It isn't a black -white-hispanic thing either, I had friends in all of those groups and we all had the same sense of community. We invited each other to our weddings, shared tears in our funerals, and proudly went to school graduations. All seems to be gone and I don't see anyyone trying to unite us, it seems like every one is out to get the whole pie.
Western civilization has been on a steady decline since the late 50's. Our peak was the 10 years following WWII. We were the only free nation that did no have our base manufacturing bombed back into the stone age, it was also this time period that we saw the biggest transformation of the American way of life.
You know, would be nice if we could go back and make it right the first time, and avoid these events. But also it is said the future is destined to be what it will be.
I always like the Crosby, Stills Nash, & Young songs.... "Teach your Children, Well" and "Wooden Ships" Myself......
When I get in my TransAm racing down the highway, I play what I think of as my TA songs, full tilt - Chuck Berry's No Particular Place to Go, Meat Load and the Bat out of Hell album, Chris DeBurgh's Lady in Red and end with the Stones doing Start Me Up. When I'm cleaning the house, it's always opera. and when I'm working at night, a lot of Grateful Dead, not so loud.
In this age, as in most past ages, for what ever reason, our best poets and philosophers have been our song writers. They have the ability to take a complex subject, war, education, getting old, etc, and distill it down to a few words that stick in your minds and heart and make you feel part of a group with a like view. The old folk music, country music, rock and roll, all did it for me. I guess the modern stuff does it for the younger folk, but I just don't understand it and it seems to focus on the negative rather than hope. Just my view. I have Johnny Cash songs that I have listened to hundreds of times and I still enjoy them and he sure as he** wasn't a trained opera singer, so I guess it was the words and the way he said them that counted. Songs and their artists can be an almost religious thing, the Doors. the Dead. Buffy St. Marie, Dylan, etc do things to me that the pipes and harps did to our fore fathers They seem to strike some primal chord in our minds. Puts me in the mind to stop typing, put on a disk in the player, and take the dog for a walk and watch the sun come up over the lake. Hotel California or Dylan, so many choices in life.
Sorry but I cannot figure what we did wrong. I have been thinking over and over, trying to figure what the true issue is. It just doesn't make sense. Allegedly they wanted equality, I was raised that way but I guess equality never landed. I always treated people the same but that is not how I was supposed to. I was supposed to treat minorities equal but acknowledge the differences. What??? I do not know what all these people want. I refuse to give them more then what I give myself. Respect, admiration, wealth.... all that stuff is earned so if people want it then they need to earn it.
In 1962 when I was born, blacks as they were called back then had their own bathrooms, drinking faucets, most could not own land, or vote. Most got paid less then women of the time at Jobs. By 1972 just ten years later most all that in just one decade was near gone. I then grew up a tad more and then they were called African Americans and were offended being called black, and now yet a again they want to be called Black in BLM, and in the Black Panthers. I'm not white really, like most I am split up, me I am among three main races. One of which would be considered a minority of which I am a 3rd. Never paid no never mind to being a 3rd anything as society marked me as white and white I guess I was. By 1989 near 60% of all jobs in California were held by minorities hardly even makes the word mean anything. Its higher today yet here we have BLM and others preaching equality when near all mayors, counsel members, police, are black in black communities? Maybe the problem is not white people but black leaders selling out their own races for power. Martin Luther King, saw this early on that black leaders were willing and did sell out to get ahead. But MLK wanted equality without strings attached many say thats what got him killed. There was peace from about 1980 until 2007, after Obama got into view all of a sudden a full fledged race war was in the midst all at the hands on the white house and top country leaders. The why is still semi a mystery what drove a nation to become peaceful from working 1962- 1972 to becoming near civil war within near 10 years 2007 -2016 with Obama. Its as if the earth switched its poles and nothing makes sense at all. Every where I have worked there was minorities. I live in a very conservative community of 20K people and at my last employment the ratio was about 1/3 minority 70% women so yes minority women held more position is this mainly white community where if whites are all racist this town would be easy. In my jobs before that over half were Hispanic, the owner was Hispanic and Japanese. I am still trying to see where my white privileged comes in to play cause after living in America nearly 54 years now ( in sept) I saw no why advantage other then I am guilty of something I did wrong apparently to other races of which the evidence does not exist.
Of course it is. The black leaders and the rap singers are not healthy for the sake of the nation. I think rap music is destructive and truly influences the inner city kids. When I say black leaders, I mean black movie stars, politicians and holy folk. Martin Luther King was someone that the black community was proud of. I do not see him approving of this black live matter or the protests that were taking place. Like I said, I do not understand it also. What scares me the most is that these protestors are in a mode of hate. They want to hurt the people that they are projecting has done them wrong. I did not hurt any of them. I am sure you never hurt them. But those protestors have rage and want blood in a way to seek justice. This IMO is a the perfect opportunity for ISIS or the like to slip one of these protestors a bomb and advise them to blow up a predominately white event. Those are my thoughts, maybe wrong and I pray they are but rage and hate blinds and people do the unspeakable when blinded.
