Letters to the Editor
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"IN MY LIFE" FROM THE BALCONY WHILE THE '60s RAGED
This is really cool. I usually glance at the letters on all Websites that have news stories, but I've spent the better part of today returning to the computer off and on to read every one of these submission about the Beatles -- which are so good compared to the lame "article" that spawned them.
-tom payne writes in his posting:
"'In this way, Mr. K will challenge the world,' indeed. Yes, the revolution was naive and short lived, but it did, for a brief while, change America. The cultural lines drawn in the mid sixties are very close parallels to the red/blue (formerly blue/gray) dichotomy that divides our country."
Yeah, maybe if we nail the parallels to the blue/gray dichotomy we can figure out this whole Civil War thing.
Anyway, "tom" says he was married in the Ozarks and used "In My Life" for the ceremony. I got married in Missouri (close to the Ozarks) and used the same song, with one of our musician friends strumming his acoustic guitar from the church balcony. Chance? I think not. We both could have picked a Rolling Stones of Kinks song, but get real.
I was at camp that famous summer of '67 when "Sergeant Pepper" was being played around the clock as each song was released, one at a time, promo'd and hyped by the DJs on our local radio station, on a little portable radio. I was a HS sophomore, hormones were raging, my girlfriend and all the rest of my friends were in camp. We coded that album in our DNA as we heard each song for the first time - then again and again - then went home and got the album and, yes, made out while listening to it over and over (this time in stereo). I've been listening to it ever since, sometimes on vinyl, sometimes on cassette tape, sometimes on CD.
Salon junior journalists, you just had to be there. Everything was possible at the end of the '60s. I thank Salon for hiring these sorry critics just so I got a chance to read all the pissed off -- but moving and insightful -- responses from us posting "amateurs."