Scott Johnson’s column noted that Jackie DeShannon celebrated her 80th birthday last week, August 21. That in turn spurred me to invite you to briefly visit with me the summers of 1965 and 1969.
The background noise was, of course, the war in Vietnam. This post is not about that, other than to mention it as a backdrop, given that DeShannon’s renditions seemed to be reactions (or purported remedies?) to the controversies swirling at the time regarding that Hot Spot in the Cold War.
The Beatles were still very big in 1965 and their concert in New York’s Shea Stadium was their biggest, in fact the largest attended outdoor event up to that time. Press officer, Tony Barrow said it was “the ultimate pinnacle of Beatlemania … the group’s brightly-shining summer solstice.” During their brief stay in New York they also performed at the world’s fair.
As with all home office employees, my father’s employment contract included annual leave with paid travel to point of origin, which in his case was Massachusetts. That year he took us to the world’s fair and gave me memories which are cherished to this day.
Although Beatlemania was at its peak, a Burt Bacharach – Hal David song managed to break through the British Invasion that summer. I was just an 11-year old, and, when it came to pop music, I did not differ much from my generation in being mesmerized by the “Beatles Sound”. However, DeShannon’s rendition of “What The World Needs Now” caught on, making it into the top 10 that year. In Miami and Miami Beach the song could be heard everywhere, including the more “adult” radio stations some folks played while at the beach.
It is a memorable song which she handles seriously. Dionne Warwick, who was THE Bacharach – David interpreter, had turned it down, considering it “too preachy”. DeShannon agreed to record it and I am glad she did. Her earnest, captivating interpretation is linked below, should you like to hear it.
In a year that saw the Watts Riots, the song seems counterintuitive, but does manage to express a felt longing and seeking.
Other events from that year that I remember from childhood were Hurricane Betsy, which I excitedly anticipated and witnessed as it hit us in Miami, and the phenomenal Comet Ikeya-Seki which I wrote about here. This was the brightest comet of the past thousand years, and I’ll be forever grateful to my mother and father for waking us up hours before dawn and driving us to the labor camp to behold a sight of a lifetime.
And I also remember the excitement of the St. Louis Arch having been completed. I would visit it with my father and brother about 15 years later.
In 1969, as the pop world continued to move away from the existential exuberance of the early Fab Four and into a more cynical, psychedelic phase which 1967’s Sgt. Peppers album is usually thought to have unleashed, DeShannon again broke through with another “preachy song” which she wrote herself. Obviously taking her cues from her 1965 hit, DeShannon recorded, “Put a Little Love In Your Heart”. And, again, she spoke to teens as well as young adults, the song charting high in both markets. See link further below if you wish to hear it.
Both the 747 and the Concorde celebrated their maiden flights that year; I remember wanting the opportunity to fly in each. My wish for flying the 747 was fulfilled; not the Concorde. Man landed on the moon and I still hear Neil Armstrong’s “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind,” as we sat around my father’s short wave radio, listening to Voice of America in El Pao.
But those exciting technological and American can-do achievements were accompanied, if not overshadowed, by many other events reflecting trouble beneath the surface. Massive, angry “anti-war” demonstrations and marches were launched; Senator Edward Kennedy drove into a pond in Chappaquiddick Island and reported the incident over 10 hours later, prompting rescuers to the scene only to retrieve the corpse of a young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne. This event was taking place while most of us were avidly following the course of the Apollo 11 lunar flight.
And then there was Woodstock, which is still reported as a pristine shout for love, freedom, peace, and harmony. It was none of those, although I do not doubt the sincerity of the hundreds of thousands who attended. One after-the-fact look at the farm where the event took place ought to be enough to cast doubt on the promotion of Woodstock as some sort of Elysian Fields, dreamscape sojourn. It was pretty filthy. But, one could argue (and many have argued) that hundreds of thousands more showed up than were expected and hence the defilement and devastation. Even if we stipulate that, we can still ask, if this was such a massive promotion of peace and love and harmony, has that been its progeny? A quick look at crime statistics, suicides, divorce, and utter breakdowns in society since Woodstock should be enough to cast doubt. Maybe it was no more than what many of the participants described: drugs, sex, and rock and roll. Jesus said, by their fruits ye shall know them, and that includes events such as Woodstock.
And in the midst of this psychedelic haze, Jackie DeShannon had her 1969 “preachy song” hit.
Her 1965 song did not improve things and neither did her 1969 version. Both merely gave a voice, albeit weak, to the longing for meaning and love in lives. These are very real needs we all have, but few attain. In this, Thoreau was right: most men live lives of quiet desperation. And they seek for those eternal verities in the wrong places. Such can only be found in the Creator of life and of all there is. Man cannot create or be the source of absolutes. Only God can and is.
