The Role Of Music In Peace, Love, And Roll

Nikki Ocampo
Ms. Davis
Humanities 11
June 4th, 2013
Peace, Love, and Rock n’ Roll
Music is the backbone to every culture and society; when the culture begins to evolve so does the music. Throughout history we have constantly seen that music reflects the common beliefs and ideals of the people of that era. The most prominent example of this is Rock and Roll, which was a product of The Vietnam War in the 1960s. The music rebelled against the conformist sound of the 50s and evolved into the emotional, provocative, relatable sound of a new culture. America was flipped upside down and so was the music. Since the war had begun, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Robert F. Kennedy had been assassinated, the draft had taken thousands
According to F.X Shea author of “Reason and the Religion of the Counter-Culture”, the birth and death of the counterculture of the 60s and 70s in the United States parallels the dates of America’s involvement of the Vietnam War, beginning around 1964 and ending in 1975. This is no coincidence; the counterculture was made up of the youth of this era. Students and young adults that were against all of society’s mainstream norms, values, and ideals formed subcultures within the counterculture. These subcultures consisted of feminists, homosexuals, environmentalists, and civil-rights activists, for there were a plethora of different movements going on at the time but primarily anti-war and anti-establishment activists. Those against the government were known as the Hippie counterculture. It was a social revolution that defined the era with its fight for peace, its embrace of eastern philosophy, a motivation for self-expression, anti-establishment ideals, and psychedelic drugs, clothing, colors, and music. Different than the other countercultures preceding it, this generation wanted change and took matters into their own hands. It was courageous and had never been done before. At this point in history, the nation was divided into “The Hawks” and “The Doves”, the fighters and the peacemakers, those who supported the war and those who did not. This was a distinct gap between
Dylan was an artist that loved to be controversial, to go against the grain, and keep his audiences on their toes. At the beginning of his career he started out writing and preforming protest music. In 1963, Dylan released the song “The Times They are A-changin” which is a song that became an anthem for the period of transition that America was going through, and represented the inevitable and unstoppable cultural change. The song was released just as the nation began disapproving the war. The song spoke of the war directly and discussed how it will soon affect everybody’s life, “…There 's a battle outside/And it is ragin './It 'll soon shake your windows/And rattle your walls…” The song also addresses the older generation’s old conformist attitudes in the fourth verse “Come mothers and fathers/Throughout the land/And don 't criticize/What you can 't understand/Your sons and your daughters/Are beyond your command/Your old road is/Rapidly agin’/Please get out of the new one/If you can 't lend your hand/For the times they are a-changin '.” Bob Dylan is a prime example of an artist that emerged from the counterculture’s ideals and became popular from the get go. Bob Dylan didn’t jump on the bandwagon of psychedelic rock but he did switch from folk to rock and roll. This controversial change was attributed to the war. Rock and roll was the