A couple weeks ago, on a Sunday night, looking for something on the TV Guide of my television, I saw an upcoming program listed on PBS that was first made in 2015 featuring many of the Folk groups and their songs of the 1960s. Being a teenager around that time, many of those songs became, and still remain, on my private Karaoke list of sing-a-long songs while driving down the highways as we travel.
The PBS program featured some of the best performers, sharing the same stage at Carnegie Mellon Hall in Pittsburgh as part of a PBS fundraiser in ’15, and was later complied into CDs and DVDs which were being offered as a gift for a pledge to the 2022 fundraiser aired a couple weeks ago.
Some of the featured performers from that 2015 show, surprisingly sounding very much the same as they did in the 60s, were Judy Collins, The Kingston Trio, Glenn Yarborough, The New Christy Minstrels, the Highwaymen, the Limelighters, the Smothers Brothers, the Brothers Four, Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, and Barry McGuire, who did a retrospect on the times we were living in at that time with his ’65 hit song, Eve of Destruction.
Not having heard McGuire’s song for a long time, but still remembering most of the lyrics, and not wanting to wake Sally who had dozed off, I mouthed the words with him, as I recalled them, and as I listened and lip-synced, it struck me that many of the words of that song are just as prevalent in today’s life as they were in the decade of the 1960s.
The first stanza of the McGuire song:
“The Eastern World, it is explodin’, violence flarin’, bullets loadin’,
You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’,
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin?”
This stanza was followed by the chorus of the song:
“But you tell me, over and over and over again, my friend.
That you don’t believe, we’re on the Eve of Destruction.”
Many parts of the world are exploding today, in some ways, ours is one of them. We’ve seen too much violence flaring, and too many bullets being loaded into guns and used in senseless shootings and mass murders by people who seem to find it just as easy to purchase a gun as it is to order shoes online.
McGuire’s song went on with the lyrics:
“Yeah, my blood’s so mad, feels like coagulatin’, I’m sittin’ here just contemplatin’,
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation, handful of senators don’t pass legislation,
And marches alone, can’t bring integration, when human respect is disintigratin’,
This crazy world is just too frustratin’ ” (Repeat chorus)
Many of us are angered by all that’s happening in the world, in particular, our country. Mass murders in/on our schools, churches, hospitals, streets, shopping places, neighborhoods, all cause my blood to boil, and I’m sure I’m not alone. We have too many people who are elected to represent all of us, who can’t put party affiliation, and, of course, their egos, aside to do the job for which they were elected, which is to do what’s best for all the people of this country. And although expressing support for or against something is good, it alone, might not be enough to create the change we need to build the respect there should be for every human being in our communities, cities, states, our country, and the world.
McGuire’s song continued:
“And think of all the hate there is in Red China, then take a look around to Selma, AL,
Ah, you may leave here for four days in space, but when you return, it’s the same old place,
The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace, you can bury the dead, but don’t leave a trace,
Hate your next door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace.” (Repeat Chorus)
Substitute Russia for Red China. Replace Selma, Ala., with Uvalde, Buffalo, LA, Omaha, and all the rest of the places of senseless shootings and murders since they started in Columbine, Colo. (’99), and have continued all too frequently. And yes, we can take a break from all that upsets us by traveling, vacationing, etc., but when we return, not much will have changed for the better. We can stand and pound our chests and sing the praises of our country, but too often we then close our eyes and/or look the other way at things that are tragic and shameful. And we often live by our own imposed double standards by saying or doing one thing, then covering it up with our self-profession of righteous actions we want those around us to see.
So, what was being protested through music back in the 60s still seems to be with us in many ways today, and words of some of those folk songs may still be applicable to our world today, maybe none though as impactful as the chorus of Barry McGuire’s hit:
“And you tell me, over, and over, and over again, my friend,
You don’t believe we’re on the Eve of Destruction.”
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