The music is the message. Lessons of New Year's Eve past . . .

When I was in junior high my favorite New Year's Eve tradition was waiting until the sun went down and the ionosphere got just right, bouncing far away radio waves back to earth, back to an even more rural Oneonta, Alabama,  so I could tune in WLS 89,  the AM radio juggernaut out of Chicago, as they counted down the final hours of the old year by playing the top 89 songs of the year.  I think it meant more back then because we had to work so hard to hear the music through the static and interference. The Beatles, the Dave Clark Five, the Stones, the Grass Roots, the Mamas and Papas, the Temptations, Aretha,  the Four Tops, Buffalo Springfield, Sly and the Family Stone,  and, well I can't name them all.  Clear, cold nights were the best, so New Year's Eve usually worked out.

One thing that was different about radio back in that ancient time was that even rock and roll stations regularly broadcast the news. Not the kind of news you hear on talk radio now.  At the top of the hour every hour we heard the headline news of the hour.  The news of that era was not good, mostly dominated by war, riots, and assasinations.  Or at least it seemed that way to me. And back then they were All-American stories, tragically.

So it was an odd experience. The joy of the best music of the year.  The angst created by what seemed to be a crumbling society.

And the music reflected what the newscasts told us. CSNY sang of Four dead in Ohio. Dylan offered the invitation "Come Senators, Congressmen, please heed the call. The times they are changing.". Dion grieved the loss of great leaders to assasination, "Any body hear seen my old friend Bobby, can you tell me where he's gone,. I thought I saw him going up over the hill, with Abraham, Martin and John "  Edwin Starr asked the question that so many were wanting answered , "War, what is it good for?   Creedence decried the inequity of the draft, "It ain't me, It aint me, I ain't no senator's son, I ain't no fortunate one.  Sly and the Family Stone sang of racial, cultural and economic tolerance in Everyday People, " There is a blue one who can't accept the green one for living with the fat one for trying to be the skinny one."   Even Elvis sang of the social condition, "In the Ghetto."  I could go on and on.  Feel free to add my commenting if you wish.

Of course there was Sugar, Sugar by the Archies, or Temptation Eyes by the Grass Roots, or my all time favorite feel good song, Build Me Up Buttercup by the Foundations.   Thank goodness for the relief.

Where was I?  Oh yeah.  It was all mixed up together.

Music and news.

Art and life.

And so here we are now, closing out another year, several decades later.  The amplitude modulated waves of WLS still rebound off the ionosphere to reach the hinterlands of North Alabama on cold, clear nights, but I never listen. I can hear the same talk radio out of Birmingham pretty much. And music stations don't dare give us any news.  It's just not good radio.

And, other than a few rappers, there is very little news in the music, it seems to me.  Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm old and I just don't know.

But, if I'm right, it's too bad. Because the music of those New Year's Eves of decades ago made a difference.  As Marshall McLuhan,  a pop communications guru of that time, famously penned:

"The medium is the message."

Even now, when I hear the first instrumental notes of Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth," I get a feeling that I'll never forget.  I hope.A couple of the verses are particularly timeless:

"There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speakin' their minds
A gettin' so much resistance from behind

Time we stop, hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going down

What a field day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and they carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side".

Or maybe that's our problem.

 Music does reflect society.

 Art does reflect life

And maybe we just don't care anymore..

Or maybe I'm wrong.

Feel free to let me know. 

Nothing would make me happier.

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