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Post by sayne on Dec 1, 2010 1:28:09 GMT -5
. . . As a long haired college youth in the late 1970's, I believe I was more of a "radical" because I did not take drugs than I would have been if I did take drugs . . . The late 70's were quite a different time than 10 years earlier. By the late 70's, long hair and long hair rock was passe. Punk, new wave, disco were the scene. Pot was replaced by coke. Long hairs were not the edgy ones any longer. Where I lived in Los Angeles, radicalism was not found in the long hairs, so whether you took drugs or not would not have registered with anyone. Your long hair, independent of your drug taking or lack of it, would have pegged you as a "straight." Use of drugs wouldn't not have changed it.
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Post by coachbk on Dec 1, 2010 9:38:38 GMT -5
. . . As a long haired college youth in the late 1970's, I believe I was more of a "radical" because I did not take drugs than I would have been if I did take drugs . . . The late 70's were quite a different time than 10 years earlier. By the late 70's, long hair and long hair rock was passe. Punk, new wave, disco were the scene. Pot was replaced by coke. Long hairs were not the edgy ones any longer. Where I lived in Los Angeles, radicalism was not found in the long hairs, so whether you took drugs or not would not have registered with anyone. Your long hair, independent of your drug taking or lack of it, would have pegged you as a "straight." Use of drugs wouldn't not have changed it. Well I was in New England and we were probably "behind the times" compared to LA. The hair length really had little to do with my point. Taking drugs at that point was more "conservative" than not taking drugs. BTW musically I was still expanding my knowledge of 60's rock, especially British (a process that continues to this day) while being very into the punk/new wave of the times. That was not the norm where I went to school. The mainstream was Boston, Aerosmith, Zeppelin, Kansas, Styx, etc. You also had a seperate "disco" crowd. I like the best of the mainstream stuff and hated disco.
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Post by acebackwords on Dec 1, 2010 14:52:39 GMT -5
And I'll still say that's a cop out. I'd venture to guess that anyone who used drugs and claims it was because of the Beatles (or any other pop/rock performer(s)) probably would have ended up trying them anyway. The Beatles (and the 60's as a whole) were largely about freedoms and choices. This means not only the freedom of choice to take drugs, but the freedom to not take them just because other people are. As a long haired college youth in the late 1970's, I believe I was more of a "radical" because I did not take drugs than I would have been if I did take drugs. To quote George Harrison: "Everyone has choice/When to and when not to raise their voice/It's you that decides" Thats true, Coach. But does that "choice" and "decision" stuff also apply to little children? Well, what you say is true, Coach. Everyone is responsible for their own karma at the end of the day. And I'm not implying the Beatles were puppet-masters to their audience. They might mention they like jellybeans and end up with millions of fans buying jellybeans in imitation. But the Beatles could say "peace" and the world will go on as violent as ever. That said, advertisers pay celebrities big bucks precisely because they do influence their audience. And if a person shouts "FIRE!" in a crowded theatre they may in fact be held responsible for the rampaging masses. ANd I would certainly imply that the Beatles got behind the media microphone and shouted "DRUGS!" in the loudest voice. And hey, if Yoko is going to continue to claim that Lennon had this incredibly possitive influence on society (why he "changed the world") then there may be a place for looking at some of his possible negative influences. I know most of the people on this board are primarily interested in the music and the record collecting side of the Beatles. But I've always been fascinated by their cultural/historic impact. For both good and ill. You can say the Beatles were just the ones who happen to get in front of the '60s parade and pretend to lead it. Or you can say they had profound impact on that decade. Everybody picks up on different facets of the Beatles. I'm mostly referring to all the Beatles fans like me who were huge fans of the moptops in 1964 when we were little kids, only to see them metamorphis two years later into their psychedelic drug period. There's nothing new about musicians and drugs. But what was unprecedented about the Beatles drug songs was that they weren't being picked up by jaded hipsters but piped into the bedrooms of millions of little kids. To tragic consequences, in my opinion.
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Post by John S. Damm on Dec 1, 2010 17:03:36 GMT -5
I know most of the people on this board are primarily interested in the music and the record collecting side of the Beatles. But I've always been fascinated by their cultural/historic impact. That's me too. I am not a musician or scholar of music theory so I can't talk that talk but I know what I like and dislike. I am not a recording engineer or electronics whiz so I can't really talk the technical stuff. But I am trained more in the historical, political, and social sciences so that is where my greatest interests as to The Beatles lie. That and to shake my ass to their music! ;D
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Post by vectisfabber on Dec 2, 2010 5:30:47 GMT -5
Always the music, first and foremost, but you can't divorce that from the group. They were one of the earliest acts to be heavily televised, and they had a really intriguing look with Paul's bass stuck out in the opposite direction. They were all attractive looking (without necessarily being conventionally handsome, they all had pleasing faces), and they looked strongly individual within an overall group look.
I think they were the first group act where everyone quickly picked up on the four individual names. So, right from the start, we began to "know" them as individuals (which, of course, was sold at the same time by the teen magazines and so on). The perceived personalities were woven into the two main movies and so on (and things like the proposal for Lord Of The Rings etc.).
And, by the time they broke up, they had moved so fast through so many things, especially from 1967 onwards, that the detail of the story behind the facade was so fascinating that we have never lost interest in ferreting out more and more minutiae over the years.
Which, I suppose, makes us lucky in that we not only have the music, we also have a multi-layered, multi-faceted story behind it.
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Post by coachbk on Dec 2, 2010 11:56:01 GMT -5
[quote
I know most of the people on this board are primarily interested in the music and the record collecting side of the Beatles. But I've always been fascinated by their cultural/historic impact. For both good and ill. You can say the Beatles were just the ones who happen to get in front of the '60s parade and pretend to lead it. Or you can say they had profound impact on that decade. Everybody picks up on different facets of the Beatles. I'm mostly referring to all the Beatles fans like me who were huge fans of the moptops in 1964 when we were little kids, only to see them metamorphis two years later into their psychedelic drug period. There's nothing new about musicians and drugs. But what was unprecedented about the Beatles drug songs was that they weren't being picked up by jaded hipsters but piped into the bedrooms of millions of little kids. To tragic consequences, in my opinion.[/quote]
I guess there would be a certain age group for whom what you say is true. I was 5 when I first heard the Beatles and 9 when Sgt. Pepper was released. Much too young for the drug influence. By the time I was old enough, I knew drugs were bad. To me the Beatles (and other 60's folk) were like explorers. Some of what they discovered was good and some was bad. I try to follow the good (peace and love, freedom of expression, civil rights, great music, etc) and learn from the bad (drugs, sexual infidelity). But I can see that for someone who in their early teens when the Beatles hit it could be a very different experience. So for those of that age the drug thing is a definite negative part of the Beatles story.
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