The Answers are Still Blowing in the Wind

 

I was thinking today about how life has changed since I graduated High School and how it hasn't. Much can be told of the '60s from the popular music of that time. Songs like "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield. Released in 1967, the words of that song still apply to what is happening in the United States today (1/18/26). "Blowin in the Wind" by Bob Dylan could have been written yesterday, it's still that relevant to what is happening today. 

In the '60s when I was 16, 17, and 18, I didn't really pay attention to what the words of the songs were. I just listen to it because my peers listened to it. But, as I listen today, I hear in the songs of the '60s, the things I saw on the 6:00 o'clock news tonight. Civil rights are being violated by armed government militias, the US is threatening war on countries, there are riots in some of our largest cities against civil rights and marches against war and government policies, when will we ever learn? I think The answers we seek are still blowing in the wind.

 

Society today hasn't changed much from the '60s.  I grew up first on the South Side of Chicago, then in Oaklawn, about 10 miles south; then on to New Lenox, about another 10 miles south of Chicago. I still remember going to the large Sears store and Montgomery Ward store in Downtown Chicago where there were signs over the restroom doors; "Whites Only" and "colored". Separate but equal is what our government (and white America) called it. From what I remember, most of "Downtown Chicago" was "Whites Only". Things are supposed to be different now, anyone can go anywhere, but just because you "can" go somewhere, it doesn't mean you will be welcome. Chicago along with most other big cities is still segregated. There are areas where whites live, areas where blacks live, areas for Latinos, Italians, Irish, Puerto Recons, etc... Still today, you are only really welcome in your designated area. I always lived in the white side of town, went to schools that were "Whites Only", went to churches that were all white. Sometimes, it seemed to me that we were still fighting the Civil War. 

 

I live in Winterville North Carolina now, society is still segregated; not by race now, but by economic status. Greenville is broken up into rich, middle and poor communities. Again, just because you can cross community boundaries, it doesn't mean you will be welcome. What is really sad is that although races can intermix within their economic communities, race still seems to be a factor among whites. I still don't understand how our rich white forefathers who owned many slaves, could write in a Declaration of Independence that all men are free and equal when they, themselves did not believe it. They were good at talking the talk, but they did not walk the walk.  

 

Where ever you are now, look around. Do you see freedom and equality? Or do you see segregation and lack of respect. What our forefathers did not understand was that before we can be truly free, we must have respect for those around us. And before we can have equality, we must respect the race, religious beliefs and economic status of those around us. 

  

"How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they're forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

Yes, and how many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, and how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, and how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'til he knows
That too many people have died?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind."  

There's Something Happening Here

"There's something happening here
But what it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
A-telling me I got to beware"

 

We're reliving the '60s. In America it was a time of lawlessness, shootings, mass killings, thievery, widespread corruption and denouncing the President. It was all over a war that our government perpetuated over the will of the people. It's happening again, the government perpetuating many things over the will of the people. 

 

Those lines above come from a protest song from the '60s. “For What It’s Worth” is one of the most widely known protest songs of the 1960s. Recorded by Buffalo Springfield as a single, it was eventually released in 1967 on their self-titled album. It has transcended its origin story to become one of pop’s most-covered protest songs – a sort of “We Shall Overcome” of its time, its references to police, guns and paranoia remaining continually relevant even to this day.  

 

Buffalo Springfield was the house band for LA’s famous Whiskey A Go Go Club during the time of the LA riots, which led Stephen Stills to pen the song.

 

“For What It’s Worth” was penned solely by Stills in response to the Sunset Strip curfew riots in Los Angeles in 1966. It all started in the mid-1960s when hippies and young people associated with rock and roll culture would frequently gather on the famous street in West Hollywood. The commercial merchants on Sunset Boulevard decided that the element of young people on the street every night was not conducive to commercial enterprise. When bunch of kids got together on a street corner and said we aren’t moving, the local government put in place curfew and anti-loitering laws to stop people from congregating at the behest of local businesses.

 

This tension between the free-spirited culture and local government came to a head in November and December 1966 when protesters clashed with police, particularly on the night of November 12 when a local radio station announced there would be a protest over the closing of Pandora’s Box, a popular nightclub for young people. Roughly 1,000 people showed up to protest. Three busloads of Los Angeles police showed up, who looked very much like storm troopers. 

 

According to reports, a fight broke out for reasons having nothing to do with the curfew; a car carrying a group of Marines was bumped by another vehicle. Egged on by that fight, the protesters (some of whom carried placards that read “We’re Your Children! Don’t Destroy Us”) trashed a city bus and threw bottles and rocks at storefronts. 

  

The LAPD instigated a 10 p.m. curfew for anyone under 18. 

 

 

The riot was really four different things intertwined, including the war and the absurdity of what was happening on the Strip. 

 

Despite having a reputation as being an anti-war song, as it was also written during the Vietnam War, Stills said that “For What It’s Worth” was mostly written in response to the Sunset Strip riots. 

 

“It was really four different things intertwined, including the war and the absurdity of what was happening on the Strip,” Stills explained in an archived interview, according to the Los Angeles Times. “But I knew I had to skedaddle and headed back to Topanga, where I wrote my song in about 15 minutes. For me, there was no riot. It was basically a cop dance. … Riot is a ridiculous name. It was a funeral for Pandora’s Box. But it looked like a revolution.” 

  

The beginning of the song is a study in understatement. An electric guitar plays two notes, slowly repeated, with tremolo. The drums set up a quiet pulse-like beat. An acoustic guitar enters, strumming two chords, then beginning a quiet riff that is a definition of laid-back L.A. funk. (Audio clip – 80K.) Finally Steve Stills’ voice enters, in a quiet, conversational tone. (Audio clip – 64K.) 

 

[Verse 1]
There's something happening here
But what it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
A-telling me I got to beware

[Chorus]
I think it's time we stop
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going down

[Verse 2]
There's battle lines being drawn
And nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Are gettin' so much resistance from behind

[Chorus]
It's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going down

[Verse 3]
What a field day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and a-carryin' signs
Mostly say, "Hooray for our side" 

[Chorus]
It's time we stopped
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going down

[Verse 4]
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life, it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the man come and take you away

[Chorus]
We better stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going
We better stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going
We better stop
Now, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going
We better stop
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going down

While watching the news today, this song from my past came to mind and has not left. Once again we have riots in LA, and beginning to start in other cities. We have battle lines being drawn between Trump supporters and Trump non-supporters; Republicans and Democrats; those who want peace and those who want to take peace. When will we learn that nobody's right if everybody's wrong?

We teach our young people to "speak their mind" but we forget to teach them to consider those around them before they speak. Our "freedom of speech" does not give us the right to trespass, steal or destroy other people's property. Our "freedom of speech" does not give us the right to bully or demean any other human.

Nearly 50 years later, and in very different times, we still haven't learned from our mistakes of the 1960s.

 

Imagine By John Lennon

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people livin' for today
Ah, ah, ah-ah

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothin' to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people livin' life in peace
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharin' all the world
Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one