Intro/Outro (00:06)
From the Bill of Rights Institute, Fabric of history weaves together US history, founding principles, and what all of this means to us today. Join us as we pull back the curtains of the past to see what’s inside.

Mary (00:22)
Growing up, my dad always played the music that he grew up with, which was the music from the 1960s. So Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Credence, Clearwater Revival, the Beatles, all this great music was always around me. And lately at work at the Bill of Rights Institute, I’ve been working on Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, which is BRI’s forthcoming online AP US History resource. And I am up to my nose in the 1960s, which I am convinced was the most fascinating decade to live in. And the music of the 60s is just something else. There’s something timeless about it. And it really got me thinking about what was going on in the 60s that made this music, because this music is dope, as the kids say. So I’m Mary and I’m here with Gary and Eryn again, and we’re going to dive into some really great music.

Gary (01:19)
I love this topic. It’s an exciting period of time. You’re right. Sure. Every decade has their elements that make them fascinating. But there’s something about when you say 60s, right? You think automatically something about American culture and then American counterculture. And just starting with that, I think is really interesting even now, what is the culture now? And is there a counterculture? And if so, how is it captured in the clothing? The music is a perfect example of it, but just contemplating that’s an interesting question.

Eryn (01:57)
Yeah. That was one of the questions I was asking myself when we were talking about this music and protest, and that a lot of the music that they had, they were all kind of surrounding themselves and be united by a lot of this music and expressing these common views. And it got me thinking about, do we have music that does that today, really? And I just thought I don’t think it’s really to the same point or level that it really was in the 60s. But I think like Mary was saying, that’s what makes the music so significant and kind of why it stood the test of time.

Gary (02:38)
Can you tell me more about what you’re working on in there?

Mary (02:41)
Yeah. Well, two things really come to mind. So unfortunately for rights purposes, we weren’t allowed to use Bob Dylan in our forthcoming resource.

Gary (02:54)
And I will not do the impression.

Mary (02:59)
We wanted to because I always played Bob Dylan in my classroom and I played him in American history classroom and I played him in world history classroom. The times they are changing because I think the message, the message is timeless. I used to play this when we did the Industrial Revolution in late 18th century England because it’s same principle. But I mean, if you look at the context in which he wrote it. He writes it, and it’s released in 1964. And I love the line, Come mothers and daughters throughout the land. And don’t criticize what you can’t understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. If that doesn’t summarize history, right. Period.

Gary (03:43)
I mean, there are writings in ancient realm saying the same thing.

Mary (03:48)
You don’t get it, mom and dad. And then 50 years, my kids are going to be saying, kid, because I’m not having anymore is going to be saying the same thing. It’s really interesting.

Gary (04:00)
It’s interesting. So you started off talking about your introduction was your father who grew up in the 60s and embraced what I’m assuming is the youth culture of the time.

Mary (04:10)
He actually didn’t. So that’s sort of my dad actually is a really interesting story. So my dad went to College. I think he went to College in 1967 or 1968.

Gary (04:24)
Okay.

Mary (04:24)
And he was in a band actually, he was a drummer for a band called the Eastern Explosion. And they earned their money by playing frat parties and just sort of I guess they were quite good. And that’s how he paid for school.

Gary (04:37)
Working musicians.

Mary (04:38)
Yes, they were musicians. And he actually opened for Jimi Hendrix when Jimi Hendrix played at Clark University in Massachusetts in I think it was 1968.

Gary (04:45)
Wow, that’s wild.

Mary (04:48)
And he played with Janice Joplin’s band. They like came to where they were playing and played with the band literally in Mary’s blood. But pretty much it the way my dad describes Janis Joplin, I cannot repeat on here. But apparently, she came in and was like cursing the band out that they were there and they shouldn’t have been there. But I think he’s a musician. My grandfather was a musician, so I think he liked the music. But in terms of the counterculture hippies’ reaction against the man and the power elite, which we can get into, there’s a lot to unpack there. That was not his experience because he also joined ROTC to pay for college, which meant he was drafted and sent to Vietnam.

Eryn (05:30)
That’s exactly what happened to my dad. Yeah. Because he was in college around the same time at Berkeley. At Berkeley. But he was in AFROTC, and that actually had a different effect on him because of the counterculture and being in the Air Force and wearing a uniform and people’s opinion of that at the time. And so he always told me that just because he was in the Air Force didn’t mean that he didn’t believe in the war or everything else that was going on in this counterculture movement, but still dealt with all the negative repercussions of people who, of course, were against the Vietnam War and everything that they said to him. So in a very similar vein, I would say that my dad had that experience because you’re off in the war, but you don’t necessarily you don’t want to be there. Right.

Mary (06:38)
You don’t agree with it.

Eryn (06:39)
Exactly. You have to because that’s what you’re told to do. And also just being at Berkeley, I think that was very interesting for me.

Mary (06:50)
Yeah. That’s insane.

Eryn (06:51)
Yeah.

Gary (06:52)
So you’re right. I mean, there is a lot to unpack already. You’re talking about some really interesting things. First thing I’m hearing is a generation gap right at the time or even now, like thinking necessarily the children of adults are going to be a couple of decades, at least probably a decade and a half at most two or three decades different. And so there’s what you carry of the culture of one’s time into a new time. And for those who are young at the time, this is new and fresh and you’re finding your way in the world. But then there’s also the over the course of decades. And I don’t even know that the 60s are actually special in terms of there being a, I guess, dominant culture and then a counterculture. Right. From what you’re saying in both of your stories, there’s sort of this mix in your families of you can have values that don’t necessarily make you part of one group or another.

Mary (07:48)
Yeah, I think that’s true. Even just exploring the counterculture a little bit, it’s hard to say because we have a lot of protests and there’s the March for Our Lives and the Climate Change. So students are still protesting today. But my sense is and of course, I wasn’t there. It seems like it was a very different ballgame in the 19s 60s when you talk about the counterculture and like, are we having another counterculture emerging now? I don’t know, but I think there are pieces of both, certainly in my parents and what I’ve heard them say about the 60s. But I think the counterculture if they were really hardcore counterculture, was just this disillusion with the world and what they were inheriting. So the famous document that comes out of this counterculture movement is the Port Huron Statement, which is the Students for a Democratic Society. So they basically just felt that they say we are the people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit. So I think even that sentence in and of itself is just I think that pretty much applies to most generations.

Mary (09:09)
Like, you see what it was like for your parents or your grandparents, and you take issue with some of those things. But this statement was just this Port Huron statement. So it’s from 1962. It’s also referenced in The Big Lebowski, okay. Which I feel impelled to say because my husband quotes that movie all the time. I don’t quite get it. But if you get it out there, listener email the dude. Jeff Lebowski says he was one of the authors of the PortHuron Statement, but anyway.

Gary (09:37)
You have to kind of approach it in terms of questioning the way things are.

Mary (09:44)
Yeah. I think questioning the way things are, it just seems like people are always doing that and maybe they were just doing that more and more forthrightly or something. I don’t know if I’m saying that right.

Eryn (09:58)
We started talking about Bob Dylan in the beginning and that I think this still is true today, but especially in what we’re talking about here, that a lot of people do their questioning through music and writing out lyrics and anything they have questions about or anything that they’re having a problem with. A lot of artists put that in song. And so I think that was just kind of done to this penultimate degree in the 60s that was manifest in things like Woodstock or Three Days of Peace and Music, Summer of Love. Yeah, that’s what I think.

Gary (10:37)
And I think that’s true. I’ve always wondered if it’s a factor of just sheer statistics. Right. So you just have a larger number of people roughly the same age at that time. Right. It’s baby boom time. So at this point, you have a significantly larger number of people who are kind of getting it, who are sort of on your I’ve experienced this in the reverse. So the year I was born, I won’t say what year listeners, but the year I was born, actually in the past 100 years, had the lowest birth rates that particular year. So there are fewer people my age exact age than there are any other age alive right now.

Mary (11:15)
That’s so interesting. How do you know that?

Gary (11:15)
People write things down and there are nice statistics.

Mary (11:21)
I mean, it was our birth year.

Gary (11:24)
It was back when I was teaching, and we were looking at generations. Then we’re looking at the baby boom and then the Echo boom, which of course is the children of the baby boom because you have so many boomers out there and they’re around the same age and they’re having children roughly around the same time. And so in between those two things sit kind of dips. Yeah. The Echo boom or boom boom. Echo. I don’t know. I like that a lot, which actually are probably many of the students who are listening to us right now would fit into that age group as well here and there. Some of the teachers as well. But point being, if you don’t have others, that’s why I think it was so hard for Gen Xers to form a cohesive counterculture because they just weren’t the numbers there compared to others. So at the time in the 90s and so forth, you’ve got older people and much younger people. What do we call younger people now? Millennials.

Mary (12:14)
Is that now Gen Z? Yeah, Gen Z. I think Gen Z is a new one.

Eryn (12:21)
What are they going to do after Z now?

Mary (12:23)
They start over again.

Gary (12:24)
I think we’re just going to rename. But it just explains why that in the 60s, you just have a lot of people around your age. And so music is going to take off, and there’s a lot of opportunities.

Mary (12:35)
That’s a really good point because with the baby boom in the 1960s, you have all of these children. You have an unprecedented number of people entering universities for the first time because there’s not only more people, young people but there’s more prosperity. Like the war is over, the 50s are prosperous, and you all let these students in school, and you’re exposed to new ideas, and you have time to think about things and be committed to things. Like, I think about my college schedule sometimes, and I just want to shake myself. Like, you have so much time. You have no idea. And I was working. I worked a lot in College. But I still you have time, and it’s just a form of the period. So that energy, I think you feed off of each other. And there was no social media either.

Gary (13:24)
But there’s still communication to the culture itself.

Mary (13:29)
Right. But I think it was really people being with other people. The protests were I don’t know where it was.

Gary (13:39)
I think we should contemplate this with a break, play a little music, think about it. All right, let’s take a break.

Gary (14:07)
So over the break, we were talking about the difference between the 60s and today. First of all, it’s always good from a teaching point of view, from a studying history point of view, to connect things to today. Right. And see, is it different in the 60s? Was it an unusual time for this, or is it consistent throughout history that there’s always a culture and a counterculture and music and art and clothing and things that are part of that? And we were sort of debating that back and forth whether or not there was something special about the 60s or if you find that now

Eryn (14:39)
Versus like We Shall Overcome back in the Sixties, huge springboard for change and really made a difference to a lot of people.

Gary (14:49)
Let’s talk a little more about that.

Mary (14:51)
Yeah. I think the beauty of We Shall Overcome is its simplicity and its repetition. So We Shall Come is very simple. I think when you hear it, it’s just we shall overcome. We shall overcome. We shall overcome.

Gary (15:10)
Is there a way we could take a break and play that?

Mary (16:02)
But I think it’s meant to be. That like a call and response. So that the history. The song eventually comes to be known as the song of the civil rights movement, but it’s been adopted by other protest movements across the world. It was sung in South Africa protesting apartheid. It’s been sung in Tiananmen Square in China, but it’s most known for civil rights movement, and it’s just simple, and it’s a folk song. So with any folk song, you’re not quite sure of where you can’t pinpoint where it originated. And there’s probably different versions floating around out there. But it was recorded in 1947? Yes. So someone brings it to Pete Seeker. Right. So someone who records it working with the Folks Center, and then Pete Seer records it. And I think it was used for the first time as like a protest during some sort that they were protesting, I don’t remember like, tobacco workers or something we’re singing. But again, I think it’s just that it’s so simple. You don’t have to sing really fast. You don’t even really have to sing. Anybody can sort of join along with it. To me, I think that’s what’s sort of beautiful about it. And it’s like everyone is singing it together. So everyone is uniting against this idea that civil rights. We had these amendments guaranteeing African Americans’ right to vote pass during the Reconstruction era. And here we are in the 1960s, and they’re still not delivering on that. And that’s ridiculous. So it’s just everyone sort of quietly joining their voices together to protest against something that’s wrong. And why is it taking so long to fix it?

Eryn (17:58)
Yeah, it makes sense even for because when I first listened to this song, in all honesty, I was like, there’s not really a lot to this. And how was this so powerful?

Gary (18:10)
I’m sorry, did you listen to it alone?

Eryn (18:12)
Yes.

Gary (18:12)
Okay.

Eryn (18:13)
But I listened to a recording of it. It was a group that was doing okay. So it was a big group doing the call and response with her, but it just didn’t have that feeling for me. But then when you start thinking about in what situations it was used like it was used out in the March in Washington. And when you have such a big event like the March on Washington, a simple, powerful column response, I think has a much stronger impact than a more complicated song does. So contextually, it makes a lot of sense.

Gary (18:48)
Right and that’s why I was asking there’s a certain psychology to the mass singing that it can’t be a complicated song. Right. If it’s going to be thousands of people. I mean, it’s not unusual to find yourself in a protest at some point and there’s thousands of people around. And so you’re not going to harmonize with a thousand people. But you can try. You could try.

Eryn (19:12)
There you go.

Gary (19:14)
But I think something like you said, sort of the simplicity of it becomes elegant and becomes something that everybody can kind of jump in on. And you rise and fall with, I think, slow too crescendos and dips and things. And even if you’re not hearing the individual words of it, a really good protest song can get a crowd really going. And it’s not, again, not manipulative, but more community.

Eryn (19:38)
I saw a quote from John Lewis, and he was talking about how we shall overcome helped him through all his struggles. He was jailed and beaten multiple times in the 60s. And he said that we Shall Overcome gave him a sense of faith, a sense of strength, and led him to be prepared to March into Hell’s fire. This is very powerful. And to say what, in my opinion, was such a simple song had such a powerful impact.

Mary (20:12)
Yeah. And I think it’s an affirmation. It’s just cause. And we are going to win and we’re going to have to go through Hell’s fire to win, but we will win. So I think that’s the other piece of We Shall Overcome in particular. Yeah.

Eryn (20:32)
It’s like that daily mantra that everyone wants you to have. Now, they started doing that back in the 60s. Right. That was their mantra. We shall overcome.

Mary (20:45)
The March on Selma. So this is the famous March in the civil rights movement where Martin Luther King and John Lewis, others are walking across the Edmund Peters Bridge and they’re just clubbed and gassed and it’s just this ridiculously violent scene. And it’s broadcast on TV and Americans see this and like what is going on in the south. And that is in many ways the impetus for passing the Voting Rights Act. And President Johnson actually comes on TV and uses the words. He says I am going to quote President Lyndon B. Johnson right now, okay. This cause must be our cause, too, because it’s not just Negroes, but really it’s all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice and we shall overcome. So even Johnson addressing the nation, Co-ops, that free. Well, saying co-ops has a negative connotation, but he references, I guess would be a better way of saying that the power of that specific statement.

Gary (21:50)
But we’re amazing imagery. Right. So the idea of we not being exclusive, that we is not us and versus you, but rather collectively, I think there’s another aspect of songs like that is that it has to be if you can sing the song with us, then come join us. And it becomes just a spread, almost an organism that just grows in a really interesting, powerful way that you can’t resist it. Again, not manipulatively, but just sort of it’s so Democratic, I think.

Mary (22:25)
Yeah. That’s what makes it beautiful to me. And when we were talking about why the 60s, why do we think about music in the 60s in particular? Why is it so special? It’s just something like this. And of course, as we just said, this song didn’t originate in the 60s, but it comes to be identified with the civil rights movement, which is really gaining momentum in the 60s but also didn’t start in the 60s. But it’s just something like this where it’s beautiful, it’s simple, and it gives you the strength to walk through Hell’s fire. I mean, these people really were walking through Hell’s fire. This was not like a first-world problem or something like that. This is talking about very basic rights that were just denied to people. You can’t vote. Yes. You can vote. Why can’t they vote? It’s powerful stuff. So I think, yes, I think the 60s were exceptional in some way. And I do think that idea of music, the artists challenging the times or calling out on ugly things in society or things that need to be addressed is timeless in a lot of ways. But like you said earlier, it’s different. So it makes me want to pay more attention to the music that’s coming out today because I’m not teaching anymore. It’s telling you those kids are what kept me young and relevant.

Eryn (23:47)
Mary, I’ll just start emailing you music videos.

Mary (23:49)
Okay. Please do, because that’s what kids used to do, and I don’t get that anymore.

Eryn (23:53)
So I feel like I’m Gary, he knows a lot, too. He probably knows more about pop culture, actually.

Gary (23:58)
No. But I do know we have listeners who also can send us suggestions that I think would be super cool to see either ones if they are teachers that use in the classrooms or if they’re history enthusiasts or a young person yourself

Eryn (24:14)
Also hearing from students in particular. That how they feel about if there’s a modern-day counterculture movement.

Gary (24:22)
Exactly.

Eryn (24:23)
And what are students doing? Are they doing it through music or what are the platforms that are being used?

Gary (24:28)
Right. What’s the powerful? Because as you’re saying, that it’s interesting if We Shall Overcome has been around a lot longer but has been used, as you said, in different contexts. It’s basically a meme. Right. It’s basically a thing that has existed.

Eryn (24:41)
I told you he knows more about pop culture. Yeah, I do know meme.

Gary (24:48)
Yeah.

Eryn (24:48)
Speaking my language.

Gary (24:53)
Mary, for those who don’t see our website, actually, I don’t know if your memes are on our website, but maybe we’ll be on this page right now. But yeah, they did that something exists and then you take it and you keep the basic idea of it, but then you alter it just enough that it fits the context of what it is you’re trying to convey. And I think that’s a really good song, particularly a really good protest song. Right. That you have the basic idea. But then in between, say, a chorus, you can talk about the very specific thing and tailor it to what it is, and then it just gets used over and over in new and important ways. So, yeah, we welcome those suggestions. You can email us at comments@fabricohistory.org.

Eryn (25:36)
Send us music videos for Mary, too.

Gary (25:37)
Music videos so we can watch around here.

Eryn (25:39)
Mary, great day at work. We’re going to watch a bunch of music videos.

Gary (25:43)
Yeah. Make sure you tell us your first name and last initial and we may mention you on a future podcast.

Eryn (25:48)
Favorite music videos.

Gary (25:49)
Yes, exactly. So this has given me a lot to think about. I think after we leave the studio here today and go out into the world, I think I’m really going to try to take a look at what is the culture in quotes and what is the counterculture. And part of me thinks it’s a little hard when you’re in the middle of it, right. To kind of know.

Eryn (26:11)
It’s almost like we have to look back X amount of years from now or something, right.

Gary (26:15)
History books can talk about the 60s or history resources can talk about the 60s, perhaps in a different way than we can kind of see it now. I don’t know. What do you think, Eryn?

Eryn (26:24)
Yeah, I think it’s really hard to look right now at what’s going on and say, Yep, this is what marked this decade. We can look back at like, the first ten years of 2000 and start to do that right now. But maybe in the next couple of years, we’ll be able to look at the second decade of the 2000s and do the same thing. But I don’t think we can necessarily do that for what we’re currently in because it’s almost like you’re looking at the big picture and what the big takeaways were and how events impact one another and we haven’t necessarily I think we’re in the middle of that right now with a lot of our students doing things like the climate protests in March for our lives and what will be the impact on that from ten years from now and what will be that big picture and what is the cultural takeaway, right.

Mary (27:23)
Like you said, it’s hard to say when you’re in. I feel like it’s sort of like when you have a baby and everyone says it goes so fast, but then it doesn’t feel that way when you’re in it. But then you take a minute and look back, you’re like, oh, okay. And maybe you just need that time and space to look back and say, what are they going to say about our culture? How will it compare to the 60s? I guess time will tell.

Eryn (27:44)
Yeah.

Mary (27:45)
And that’s how we’ll just have to end it.

Gary (27:47)
That’s good. That’s a perfect ending.

Mary (27:49)
All right.

Gary (27:50)
Time will tell.

Intro/Outro (27:55)
The Bill of Rights Institute engages, educates, and empowers individuals with a passion for the freedom and opportunity that exists in a free society. Check out our educational resources and programs on our website mybri.org. Any questions or suggestions for future episodes? We’d love to hear from you. Just email us at comments@fabricofhistory.org and don’t forget to visit us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to stay connected and informed about future episodes. Thank you for listening.