Episode 91 - Beat It

The last episode ended with the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962. As you may recall, one day at the height of the crisis, October 27^th is considered by some experts to be the closest the world has ever come to a full-out nuclear war. And it is thought that the wise decision of one 34-year-old Russian naval officer was all that stood in the way of provoking what could have been the cause of the greatest single loss of life in human history.

          The American public had been deeply shaken by the event. Early in the crisis, on the night of October 22, 1962, JFK appeared on national TV and outlined the situation to the country. He said that Cuba had in essence, been turned into a Russian strategic nuclear base, complete with long-range and unmistakably offensive weapons, clearly capable of mass destruction.

          Saying that this now constituted an explicit threat to all the Americas and acting in the defense of the entire Western Hemisphere, he announced a strict naval embargo. Then he gave a clear and stark warning to Russia. “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”

          Clearly, the gauntlet had been thrown and the ultimatum was unmistakable. If you fire a missile from Cuba at any county on this side of the globe, we will launch an immediate and full retaliatory response upon you.

          In closing, he said to the American public, “My fellow citizens: let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out. No one can foresee precisely what course it will take or what costs or casualties will be incurred.”

          Nothing like this had ever happened before and a lot of people felt that a real catastrophe was at hand. Fortunately, the crisis resolved itself with no major incidents and things returned to some facsimile of normal. Still, most people remained extremely concerned about the future, because it had become painfully obvious that this ongoing cold war could get really hot, really fast.

          Again, the evolution of consciousness is the focus of this story, along with an understanding of how certain societal and cultural events served to catalyze its emergence, so we’re going to shift our perspective a bit at this point.  

We’re going to stay in the same time-frame, but we’re going to look at a different series of events, set against a very different backdrop.

In 1945, when the country had emerged victorious from the six years of hell that it had gone through in World War Two, it exhaled a deep sigh of relief that turned into a general state of conformity.

It seemed that we wanted and needed a calming sense of normality to set in after suffering the harrowing insanity of the unending torment of injury, misery and death that had overcome the world for what seemed like eternity.

It might have been a little boring, or even intimidating, but we wanted everything to be safely, sanely the same, at least for a while. And that’s what happened. America turned basic vanilla, 70 million babies were born and for a while, we just let it be.

But that kind of thing only lasts for so long, and then the younger generation starts to stretch its legs and flex its muscles a little.  In the mid ‘50s a kind of subculture began developing around the country. In general, it featured a rejection of conventional norms including the materialistic and conformist aspects of the society.

It became known as the Beat Generation and interestingly, the term had been coined by writer Jack Kerouac, who claimed that it didn’t mean that you were deflated or beat. It meant you had the beat. It was something you could feel, like a jazz beat, and according to him, it didn’t matter what you called it. What mattered is that you had it.

Along with Kerouac, other key writers included Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Neal Cassidy. The Beats became known for their exploration of alternative lifestyles, experimentation with drugs, and a deep interest in Eastern philosophy and spirituality. Although it began as a relatively small nuance of society, the seeds they planted throughout the fifties and early sixties would populate and grow into a massive forest. And like flower power on steroids, it would permanently alter the landscape of the entire culture.

Along with the poets, writers and folk musicians, other revolutions began to take hold in the entertainment world. In movies, a new actor named Marlon Brando was being noticed for his avant-garde style of acting, which created a radically different kind of hero.

With his ability to convey a feeling of inner turmoil and vulnerability beneath a tough exterior, he brought a new sense of realism to the screen. Soon after playing a conflicted blue-collar brute in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” in 1953 he played a black-leather jacketed, delinquent motorcycle gang leader in “The Wild One.”

Early in the film, a possible girlfriend  asked him, “What are you rebelling against Johnny?”  With a casual shrug he replied, “What do you got?” His defiant attitude symbolized rebellion and constructed a new kind of “bad boy” archetype in film. James Dean took it a step further in “East of Eden” and “Rebel Without a Cause” and inevitably, movies began to change in a major way.

A similar, but louder revolution was building in popular music as well. A new rhythm called “Rock and Roll” had begun to emerge. In the early-fifties, artists like Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Fats Domino fueled the flames of the vibrant new sound, and year by year, its popularity continued to grow. Then on September 9, 1956, the burning candle of rock exploded into a full-scale conflagration when Elvis Presly gyrated his way onto the stage of the Ed Sullivan Theatre. The genie was out of the bottle, sixty million kids went nuts, and that was only the beginning.   

Meanwhile, a vibrant Beat scene had begun to develop in New York City’s Greenwich Village and a bunch of coffee houses had sprung up featuring folk music singers and poets. Thousands of onlookers were drawn to the streets on a weekly basis, just to check out the scene.  

In January of 1961, as the Beat scene was in full swing, a 19-year-old kid from Minnesota hitch-hiked to Manhattan to see what he could see. He was a skilled singer-songwriter who played the guitar and harmonica, and a few years earlier, he had changed his name to Bob Dlyan. He began hanging out at the folk café’s and playing songs whenever he got the chance.

But it soon became apparent that this was no ordinary kid. He seemed to possess an extreme talent, both in writing and performing. Within an amazingly short period of time, he became one of the most important folk/protest voices in the city. Of course, that was just the beginning of a truly legendary career. Fifty-five years later, he was granted the Nobel Prize in literature and the New York Times estimated that he had written over six hundred songs.

But even back at the beginning, he seemed to be light-years ahead of everyone else. And there seemed to be something prophetic about his work. Surprisingly, he had secured a record deal rather early in his career, and in April of 1962, he went into the studio to record his second album. At one point in early September, he recorded his iconic song, “A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall.”

In the song, in response to the question, “Where have you been my blue-eyed son?” he answered with line after now famous line. Listen to his poetic description of the visions he saw, which stood for the darkness that was engulfing the world.

“I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans. I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard. I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it. I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken. I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children. I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world.” Then as if warning of the fallout from a nuclear blast, he sang the chorus. “And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.”

The song was an immediate phenomenon with the beat generation and about a month later, it seemed to have been prophetic as President Kennedy went on TV to inform the American public about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and for thirteen days, the world held its breath.

A few months after that, things seemed to come back from the brink a little, but Dylan was just getting warmed up. He recorded a series of protest songs that instantly became classics and still are today. His first one sounded like it came right out of Eisenhower’s warning. It was called “Masters of War” and was incredibly powerful.

The first verse says. “Come you masters of war. You that build the big guns. You that build the death planes. You that build all the bombs. You that hide behind walls. You that hide behind desks. I just want you to know. I can see through your masks.”

A little later he continued – “You’ve thrown the worst fear that can ever be hurled. The fear to bring children into the world. Let me ask you one question – is your money that good. Will it buy you forgiveness, do you think that it could?”

Then the last verse really puts the nail in the coffin.  “And I hope that you die. And your death will come soon. I'll follow your casket by the pale afternoon. And I'll watch while you're lowered. Down to your deathbed. And I'll stand over your grave. 'Til I'm sure that you're dead.”

Maybe he was thinking that the masters of war were so tricky, they would probably fake their own death if would benefit them. Remember, in his warning, Eisenhower said to take nothing for granted. Regardless, representing the forces of life, he wanted the warmongers off the planet for good.

Before we close, a few points about the passage of time. First, it still always amazes me that Dylan was only 21 years old when he wrote that song. And besides his youth, these were still the earliest of days. JFK was still president.

We live now, knowing the history of what was to come, but back then, nobody knew it. Consider what was about to happen over the next seven years – JFK, Martin Luther King, Bobby, Woodstock, Kent State. And the emergence of a new generation whose look and outlook would have been unimaginable back then.

 But that generation was on the forefront of a conscious revolution that would ultimately bring the war machine to a grinding halt. Obviously, it was just a halt, not a stop.  But at least it was a beginning.

Anyway, at that point in 1963, Dylan’s career launched quickly. On April 12, he played Town Hall. On July 27, he played the Newport Folk Festival and on October 26, he played Carnegie Hall. And earlier, on May 27, Columbia Records released his second album which had Masters of War on it.

But it had another song that blew the roof off  the entire folk world. It was called “Blowin’ in the Wind” and it quickly became an anthem for American Youth. Dylan goes through a probing set of questions about the world as it was.  “How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man? How many times must the cannon balls fly before they’re forever banned? How many deaths will ‘it take til he knows that too many people have died?”

Then, in the chorus he said, “The answer my friend, is blowin’ in the wind. The answer is blowin’ in the wind.”

Now, I was in eighth grade when that song became popular and I remember hearing it and wondering, what the hell is he talking about, the answer is blowin’ in the wind?  What is it that is blowing in the wind that could possibly be the answer to all these problems?

Well, we’re going to dig into that in the next episode. So, as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened. And let’s get together in the next one.