The Summer of '69

While driving to Cooperstown for my annual trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame (which I will detail in my next post) about half the trip was taken up by listening to the top 40 from July, 1969. It really made the time go by, as I was familiar with almost all the songs, and the host included other bits of information about the time period, such as the most popular TV shows, books, and the like.

What an interesting time that was. I was only 8, so I had other thing on my mind, like baseball cards and Dark Shadows, but late July 1969 was smack between two of the most significant events of the decade: the moon landing and Woodstock. Both have had lasting influence, and the participants in one had almost nothing to do with the participants of the other. It's easy to look back at 1969 and think the whole country was flower children, but the guys with crew cuts and pocket protectors at mission control in Houston had very little in common with the hippies who dropped acid at Yasgur's Farm.

Also that summer Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge in Chappaquiddick, killing Mary Jo Kopechne, the Stonewall riots occurred in Greenwich Village, which started the gay rights movement, and Hurricane Camille killed hundreds (this happened at the same time as Woodstock, an interesting juxtaposition). The TV shows Star Trek and The Smothers Brothers aired their last episodes, while Hee Haw, as anti-hippie a show that could be, debuted.

The most popular TV shows that summer also showed a wide range. For CBS it was Gomer Pyle, USMC, while on NBC it was the hip and psychedelic comedy sketch show, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. ABC's number one show was Bewitched which, in retrospect, was a metaphor for being a closeted gay.

On the charts were all different types of songs, from Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue" to Henry Mancini's version of the "Romeo and Juliet Theme." There was "Crystal Blue Persuasion" by Tommy James and the Shondells, "Get Together" by The Youngbloods (at least the fifth version of the song, which had been previously recorded by The Kingston Trio and The Jefferson Airplane), and "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond. The Rolling Stones were on the chart with "Honky Tonk Woman," and The Beatles with "The Ballad of John and Yoko." John Lennon was also on the list with his Plastic Ono Band's "Give Peace a Chance," the first song by a Beatle that had no other Beatles performing on it.

Number one that summer, spanning the time between the moon landing and Woodstock, was "In the Year 2525," by Zager and Evans. It is a classic of one-hit wonders; in fact, Zager and Evans are the only artists to hit number one in the U.S. and the U.K. and then never have another hit. The song is a warning against technology, taking a similar view as H.G. Wells as they project what life would be like in future generations:

In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may find

In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies
Everything you think, do, and say
Is in the pill you took today

In the year 4545
Ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes
You won't find a thing to chew
Nobody's gonna look at you

In the year 5555
Your arms are hanging limp at your sides
Your legs got not nothing to do
Some machine is doing that for you

In the year 6565
Ain't gonna need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube

In the year 7510
If God's a-comin' he ought to make it by then
Maybe he'll look around himself and say
Guess it's time for the Judgement day

In the year 8510
God is gonna shake his mighty head
He'll either say I'm pleased where man has been
Or tear it down and start again

In the year 9595
I'm kinda wondering if man is gonna be alive
He's taken everything this old earth can give
And he ain't put back nothing
Now it's been 10,000 years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what he never knew
Now man's reign is through
But through the eternal night
The twinkling of starlight
So very far away
Maybe it's only yesterday

Some of this is pretty prescient: the choosing of a child's traits before it's even born probably will be ready before 6565, and the same for the stanza about pills and machines doing all the work. The song has no chorus, and a horn section that gives it a Mexican sound--I was surprised to learn that these two guys came from Nebraska.

Because the song was number at such a key moment in history, it has Proustian qualities for baby boomers, as it takes them back to when science and technology and the counterculture were front and center in American life. The Summer of '69 wasn't just a bad Bryan Adams song, it was a lively time in American history.