The Popular culture of the 1960s and 1970s: focus on music Has it all ended with the final years of the 1960s, as Dr. Medgyes suggested some time ago?

The Popular culture of the 1960s and 1970s: focus on

musicHas it all ended with the final years of the 1960s, as Dr. Medgyes suggested

some time ago?

Background

• Initial questions that gave rise to the course:– Has nothing valuable, interesting or relevant

happened after 1968?– Were the 1970s the dying of what was born

and grown in the ‘60s?

• The metaphor of a building project

Our starting point

• We must understand something of the 1950s and 1960s – to make some sense of the 1970s and later.

• Especially, we must understand something of the transition from the ’60s to the ’70s.

• Another discipline: demographics

The baby boom, 1945-1960 (64?)

• Murky limits to the period• Term comes from the US,

but also in Canada, Australia, Britain and Western-Europe.

• Writers, sociologists, demographers have started using the term for their own countries

• Something similar in Hungary, too: „Ratkó-era”.

United States birth rate (births per 1000 population). The

blue segment from 1946 to 1964 is the postwar baby boom.

Why is the boom at all interesting?

• Massive impact that lasts to this very day.

• Helps explain a lot that happened in post-war US and elsewhere.

• Helps understand the difference between 1960s and later.

• A revelation about the role of demography– See separate handout

Thinking and speaking task: the importance of the baby boom

• photographic cameras

• HIFI systems

• toys

• plastic models

• jobs and business

• cheap cars (Fiats, Beetles)

• medical services

• parents’ money

• houses (real estate)

• pensions

• Merchandise, skills, expertise, etc.

• credit

• college education

• music

Study the timescale in the table belowFill the table with the items in the list above.

What their needs were

What they wanted to sell

Dominant country supplying

The early 1950s

The mid…

The late…

Mid 1960s

1980s and later

Recently

One possible solution

What their needs were

What they had to offer

Dominant country supplying

The early 1950s Toys, USA

The mid… Plastic models

The late… cameras Japan

1960s HIFI, college educationjobs

France

1980s and later Cheap carshouses

expertise Germany

Recently More expensive cars

Italy

Medical services

The musical scene: fathers of rockprogrammatic art

• Many of them. How many more? • Rock anthem Bill Haley’s „Rock Around the

Clock”, 1953/1954.– Pitiful failure of Hungarian radio presenters

• „Hunglish” Mistranslation • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zju6KbP_1xY

– What in the lyrics evidences a correct interpretation of the idiom/metaphor?

– How is the song programmatic?– What’s a kiss curl?

• Also credited to Chuck Berry

Rock around the ClockOne, two, three o'clock, four o'clock rockFive, six, seven o'clock, eight o'clock rockNine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock rockWe're gonna rock around the clock tonight

Put your glad rags on and join me hon'We'll have some fun when the clock strikes oneWe're gonna rock around the clock tonightWe're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'till broad daylightWe're gonna rock, gonna rock around the clock tonight

When the clock strikes two, three and fourIf the band slows down we'll yell for moreWe're gonna rock around the clock tonightWe're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'till broad daylight

We're gonna rock, gonna rock around the clock tonight

When the chimes ring five, six, and sevenWe'll be right in seventh heavenWe're gonna rock around the clock tonightWe're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'till broad daylightWe're gonna rock, gonna rock around the clock tonight

When it's eight, nine, ten, eleven tooI'll be goin' strong and so will youWe're gonna rock around the clock tonightWe're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'till broad daylightWe're gonna rock, gonna rock around the clock tonight

When the clock strikes twelve we'll cool off thenStart rockin' 'round the clock againWe're gonna rock around the clock tonightWe're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'till broad daylightWe're gonna rock, gonna rock around the clock tonight

More programmatic art: Chuck Berry

• Trained to be a barber

• „Roll Over Beethoven„ is not only a good song, but there was a message in it too– https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=kT3kCVFFLNg– What’s the difference between duck walk and goose

step?– What is this message? „Two interpretations in 1:”– What are the key idioms to carry that message?

• Viewing

Roll Over BeethovenI'm gonna write a little letter,Gonna mail it to my local DJIt's a rockin' rhythm record I want my jockey to playRoll over Beethoven, I gotta hear it again today

You know, my temperature's risin' And the jukebox blows a fuseMy heart's beatin' rhythm And my soul keeps on singin' the bluesRoll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news

I got the rockin' pneumonia, I need a shot of rhythm and bluesI think I'm rollin' arthritis Sittin' down by the rhythm reviewRoll over Beethoven rockin' in two by two.

Well, if you feel you like itGo get your lover, then reel and rock itRoll it over and move on up just

A trifle further and reel and rock it,Roll it over,Roll over Beethoven rockin' in two by two

Well, early in the mornin' I'm a-givin' you a warnin' Don't you step on my blue suede shoesHey diddle diddle, I am playin' my fiddle,Ain't got nothin' to loseRoll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news

You know she wiggles like a glow worm,Dance like a spinnin' topShe got a crazy partner, Oughta see 'em reel and rockLong as she got a dime the music will never stop

Roll over Beethoven, *3

Roll over Beethoven and dig these rhythm and blues

Autobiographical• What can be achieved from

an experience of growing up behind the Iron Curtain?

• What claims can be made? – A perspective from behind

the Iron Curtain– Cca. 300 records on vynil,

CDs and tapes– Parents listening to Radio

Luxemburg in early ‘60s.• Terta rádió

How were Hungarians supposed to know?

• Status of English behind the iron Curtain?– my grandfather

• Hungarians, surprisingly, understood a lot even without English!– One of the chroniclers, Cseh Tamás

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldexUAVeEqA

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc2jByV8lqw

The planDate Content Other ideas 10 Sep Intro: the Baby-boom and its context Bill Haley, Chuck

Berry

17 Musical beginnings: The Shadows, Elvis The rise of the managers

24 The American scene. Songs like „Speedy Gonzales”. Blues and blues-based music, the British invasion.

BBC video 1

1 Oct California sound: The Doors, Jefferson Airplane Pyschedelia, early Pink Floyd Flower power, Steppenwolf

The Doors film by

8 The Beatles, the Cream, Hendrix, BBC video 2 15 The Rolling Stones

Janis Joplin I can get no statisfaction: Apocalypse now.

22 Hard rock 1: Led Zep and Deep Purple BBC video 3 29 Break 5 Hard rock 2: Black Sabbath and the decline of

industrial Britain Uriah Heep +influence on Hungarian Omega

BBC video 4

12 Progressive rock 1: Pink Floyd (middle and later years) +The Wall

19 Progressive rock 2: King Crimson and Manfred Mann’s Earth Band

26 Progressive rock 3 Yes and Emerson Lake and Palmer The influence of classical music.

3 Dec Minstrels and chroniclers: Dylan and Cohen Cseh Tamás, Zorán 10 Negotiating the marks

Homework • Musicians

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Haley• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Berry

• The baby boom• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomer• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boom

– What’s the pig in the python in the text?– Typically how old were those influential among baby boomers

(look for some names in the text)? – What two main cohorts are distinguished between baby

boomers?

• Harmony and Handbook encyclopaedias– Haley and Chuck Berry entries

• Tricky words to explore: – Imperious, imperial, impervious– Magic eye, bull’s eye, cat’s eye