The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Spirit of the 1960's

In my last post on the legacy of  the Beatles I wrote about how they were true revolutionaries in a more profound way than many of their contemporaries, and one contemporary in particular.  The Rolling Stones are usually held up as the "bad boys" of Rock, contrasted with the Beatles as our lovable Mop Tops. The Stones' reputation wasn't unearned, to be sure, but the wrap on them is that this was an image carefully engineered by their first manager Andrew Loog Oldham.  Bill Wyman, their former bassist and diarist who kept a detailed journal of the band's exploits for decades, has contested that their image was real, but exploited by their handlers in a way the group itself didn't necessarily like.

Though this proposed dualism between the two bands has become a cliche, it doesn't change the fact that there is truth contained in it.  In a bigger sense The Beatles and Stones can be seen as both ends of a struggle to find the true meaning of the late Sixties.  The pop music of the day reflects the dualism embodied by the two groups.  There is Utopian optimism in songs like "The Age of Aquarius/ Let the Sun Shine In" by The 5th Dimension and Friend and Lover's "Reach Out in the Darkness," but also discontent reflected in Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth," Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction," and just about anything by The Doors.  Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" represents a strange hybrid of hippie idealism in its lyrics but an ominous, spooky quality to it's arrangement that points to something darker just beneath the surface (the song was used to masterful effect in David Fincher's movie "Zodiac" a few years ago).

There is a romanticism associated with the age that endures that wasn't lost on the people living through it.  Jim Morrison predicted that in decades to follow the late 60's would be seen in the same romantic light as the French Revolution period.  What has indeed endured in the popular mind is the idealized image of flowers in your hair, free love and anti-war protests.  But read Hunter Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," written in 1971, and we can see that there is already a sense that the 60's generation failed. What struck me reading the book was that Thompson, who from our vantage point almost 40 years later is right in the middle of it all, seems to write of the period as if it was some long gone era.  The Who's LP "Who's Next" from the same year also points to a lost idealism in the two anthemic numbers that bookend the album.  David Bowie's "All the Young Dudes," made famous by Mott the Hoople in 1972, states:

And my brother's back at home
With his Beatles and his Stones
We never got it off on that revolution stuff 
What a drag, too many snags

Why the pessimism? The spirit of the youth movement of the late 60's was rebellion, in the sense of reexamining the values and mores that held sway and setting about to change them.  We can look at the Civil Rights Movement as effecting a positive change in that era, but the rebellion extended to every aspect of life.  Mixed up with all this is the Sexual Revolution and the rise of a drug culture that thought it could bring spiritual enlightenment through chemical means.  All this was part of a rebellion against the status quo.  But who is the master of rebellion?  It is Lucifer, of course.

I'm not suggesting that all revolution is the product of the Evil One, but its undeniable that there was a flirtation with the dark side, if you will, especially by the Rolling Stones, during this era.  I am not one who believes that Mick Jagger sold his soul for Rock and Roll.  Like I wrote above, the Stone's image was carefully crafted, and I have no problem believing that it was all a part of the act.  But when we play with these forces, even cynically, bad things happen.  It is often pointed out by those who try to deny the satanic connection with the Stones that when Meredith Hunter, an 18 year old concert goer, was murdered at the infamous Altamont free concert the song being played was "Under My Thumb," not "Sympathy for the Devil," as legend has it. This is true but it misses the point (not that I think "Under My Thumb" has such great karma attached to it either).  As Stephen Davis' bio of the band states, 1969 was a "witchy time," with tarot readings and seances being in vogue.  How deep the Stones or anyone in the counter culture were involved in such occult activities is open to debate.  But once that door is opened, even a little, it becomes hard to close.  What ever positive changes were being fought for were undermined by the presence of the "smoke of Satan," to borrow a phrase form Paul VI.  It was this connection with the forces of darkness that ultimately undid the 60's dream.

As a footnote, the only major musical artist of that time who never seemed to buy into the Utopianism was Bob Dylan.  He never put out a psychedelic album, as did so may of his contemporaries, and always maintained an ambivalence, some would say pessimism, about the world and it's future.  After 1966 he retreated, still putting out albums, but not touring or making public appearances.  In a way you could say he sat out the revolution that he helped start.  In the end, he was probably the wisest one of them all.