The Summer of Love..
It's the 50th anniversary of 'The Summer of Love' 50 years on.. Where are we now?
Koh Yao Noi.. one of my favourite places.. a mostly Muslim island in Southern Thailand.. so peaceful and friendly.. : )
See also: http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/im-just-musing-summer-solstice-from-latin-sun-stands-still-barrie-v) I was a child of the 'Sixties'.. I aspired to 'hippiedom' even though I wasn't quite old enough, and didn't really have all the 'right gear'.. thinking back through 50 years.. and looking at the monoliths of Stonehenge at the summer solstice..
I felt a resonance from the song 'White Man' written by Brian May and Queen - "What is left of your dream.. Just the words on your stone.. a man who learned how to teach.. then forgot how to learn.." and as it resonates another feeling entwines with that eternal spiral of positive and negative.. which of course.. are always thus entwined....
Read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Love - "Summer of Love" from Wikipedia - "The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behaviour, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood Haight-Ashbury. Although hippies also gathered in many other places in the U.S., Canada and Europe, San Francisco was at that time the most publicised location for hippie fashion.
Hippies, sometimes called 'flower children', were an eclectic optimistic group. Many were suspicious of the government, rejected consumerist values, and generally opposed the Vietnam War, (not to mention the carpet bombing of Laos and Cambodia). A few were interested in politics; others were concerned more with creativity, art (music, painting, poetry in particular) or religious and meditative practices."
Some 'happenings' of the time (1967) :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Be-In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_Fair_and_Magic_Mountain_Music_Festival
see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Jazz_and_Blues_Festival(1965) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock (1969)
50th anniversary
"During the summer of 2017, San Francisco plans to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love by holding numerous events and art exhibitions. In Liverpool, the city is staging a 50 Summers of Love festival based on the 50th anniversary of the June 1, 1967 release of the album - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, by The Beatles."
On June 25th 'All you need is Love' became the anthem of the generation, epitomised by The Beatles - it was released as a non-album single in July 1967. Written by John Lennon - The Beatles performed the song as Britain's contribution to Our World, the first live global television link watched by over 400 million in 25 countries, the programme was broadcast via satellite on 25 June 1967. All you need is love' captured the Utopian sentiments of the Summer of Love era.. In July, "All You Need Is Love" was top of the music charts all over the world..
Fast forward.. 2017
Last night I watched a film I'd missed previously, from 2008 - smack on the button for its' time and still is: War, Inc. - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0884224/ "Amazing it got made, and on such a low budget.. as well as it did, In War, Inc a political satire set in Turaqistan, we see a (semi)fictional country invaded and occupied by 'Corporation America' which is intent on monopolising the 'opportunities' they've created by devastating the country.. ring any bells?
So.. from 1967.. to here.. to quote from one of our dearly departed and much loved, of which there have been many this year; David Bowie: Where are we now? With President Fart banging on at the UN.. (it's really about China of course）it's not looking good is it?
You can't always get what you want...
But sometimes you get what you need..
Generations since, that have produced Anonymous, Wikileaks.. and Fight Club.. are less likely to hand out flowers by way of response to the continuing industrial/military complex' rape and pillage of planet Earth..
I was a child of the 'Sixties' - thinking back through 50 years.. It seems to me that the ever decreasing circle of the last two millennia or so of human history has spun us around to a similar point in time to that of fifty or so years ago.
The great spirit we call the Universe seems to be saying: 'Look, have one last go at this.. do it all over again, try a bit softer.. as this part of the journey is Ending, Maybe it's time to get on the right path.. '
I'll leave you to ponder.. and with the words from another song..
just one more Summer of Love..
Summer of Love, like many songs, has been and is yet still a journey.. I wrote the lyrics and melodies in 2001 originally and undertook this stage of the journey solo, with basic kit in Bushbury and Pembroke in the summer of 2004..
Over and above anything else, or rather, below and beneath, it's a song to the mother.. the Earth.. from whose Love we came.. and whose Love we should return..there is only Joy in giving.. that is.. Loving.. give Love !
My bro' Stew tells me it's not a song.. but a concept.. ha.
"There was a girl.. that I loved.. I still do.. We used to smile at each other.. there was a girl.. ohh.. tell me it's not too late mama..
Tell me it's not too late..
Darkness all around, and then there was you.. You shone a light to me, and you lifted me again.. I ‘been dancin’ with you twice in two days.. and somehow it all seemed to make sense, we flew around and round in circles.. fell down in a heap instead of sitting on the fence.. and you told me... Do it all over again. Get up and do it all over again…
Selfless love you showed to me I want to shine it on back to you..
Like a new Sun rising …out of the blue
and if you're worried about the way ahead, stop listen, feel, it's alright, don't trouble yourself about what may or may not be out of darkness cometh light
and you said something... Do it all over again.. get up and do it all over again, Mama, yeah.. you told me, give me, - just one more Summer of Love
please give me, just one more Summer of Love..
Why can’t we live, and be free, and at peace on this earth?
Ring out the old.. Sing in the new..
Fly to the future straight and true..
No time for shame.. No time for blame..
Open doors to joy Goodbye to pain..
Let’s do it all over again.. We got to do it all over again..
Dance like no-one's watching.. Love like it's never gonna hurt
Live like there's no tomorrow…
You looked just like Mother Earth today, So I asked you what was going on
And all around the air did say: ‘give me one more summer of love’
Keep it open keep it free, don't constrain it, let it be now now now
The answers you need are all inside, now it's time to set them free
And if I tell you.. let's do it all over again? Will you listen?
Get up and do it all over again, You know we've got to..
Just one more Summer of Love, just one more Summer of Love.."
from: 'just one more Summer of Love by Barrie V
(I offered this song for free use to 'the diggers' for free use by anyone holding an event with a summer of love ethos.. I haven't heard back from them so far.. hope they use it!)
N.B. 'The Diggers' were.. and are.. presumably, a group that was central to the summer of love 'movement in San Francisco circa 1967..)
Just one more Summer of Love..
TechSpec.. ..just out of interest! Recorded and mixed in 2004/5 in Pembroke and Bushbury on a 1998 600mhz pc with 128 ram (really.. steam driven.. well.. you could see the steam blasting out of the seams during the latter stages..) and using an old version of the wonderful Cooledit, the classic Yamaha SY85 workstation keyboard synth, a cheap mixer, cheap condenser mic, two acoustic guitars.. bags of persistence.. and with Love... huge great dollops of Love! : )
just one more Summer of Love by Barrie V - ISWC: T-011.189.497-3
(© Barrie Jones 2001 2004 2013 2017) PRS registered EJNW-170205-0050
PRS Tunecode: 4464258N ISWC: T-011.189.497-3
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(just one more) Summer of Love by Barrie V
(Copyright exists - all rights reserved © Barrie V (© Barrie Jones)
Footnote:
I recommend reading this rather well researched article by Steve Topple:
- perhaps the 'vested interests' interests.. so to speak.. are, in actual fact, quite a complex web.. too intertwined.. and interdependent to risk a nuclear exchange..
and this might just save us all..