I resume my podcast discussion (part one is here) with the British music journalist, Toby Manning, by exploring the dark and troubled waters of the late 60s and early 70s.
The interview starts with our mutual enthusiasm for the humble mellotron, and how its orchestral, steampunk vibe was considered by prominent prog rock acts like King Crimson, Yes and The Moody Blues as a key not only to higher consciousness, but to the cosmos itself.
‘The mellotron communicates this sort of 1960s nostalgia for social democracy,’ Toby observes, ‘for the dream of a future that once was. Its spacey, swimmy sound famously introduces The Beatles’ ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, for example. It’s very redolent of its time in quite a sort of melancholic and evocative way.’
Why melancholic?
‘The mystical aspects of the 60s have dated the least well,’ he continues. ‘These are the things that people started to sneer at and ridicule during the 1980s as Thatcherism and Reaganomics began to take hold, forcing us towards materialism and away from spiritualism.’
Well, at least the hippie movement popularised a greater awareness of the natural world, I argue, and this still persists today.
Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1968
Songs like Creedance Clearwater Revival’s ‘Bad Moon Rising’ from 69 and Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ from 1970 memorably articulate issues like climate change and eco-activism, for instance.
‘People never really talk about ‘Bad Moon Rising’ as an ecological song,’ Toby reflects, ‘but it’s just full of Biblical images of catastrophe. I would add as well Neil Young’s ‘After the Gold Rush’ which has this sort of yearning sense of veneration for nature.’
How do you think 60s music culture and politics are perceived now, in general?
‘One of the things I’ve noticed while on tour with the book, particularly amongst Millennials, is a feeling that the 60s was just privileged, self-indulgent, middle-class people play-acting as rebels.’
And why would they think this?
‘Well, following 15 years of austerity cuts, disenfranchisement and demoralisation,’ he asserts, ‘Millennials seem to feel that it’s the Baby Boomers who have used up all of society’s available resources, that they have had the best of everything: a booming economy, a raft of social liberal legislation, almost unparalleled freedom.
‘But the amount of wealth that’s redistributed, the amount of freedom that’s allowed, are political choices made by the governments that we vote in. So I don’t think that hippies and Boomers should get the blame for the 50 years of neoliberalism that have ground our current society down.’
What about the scathing soundtrack which accompanied the student protests against the Vietnam War, the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, and the May ’68 riots?
Surely today’s young adults find songs like Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are a-Changin” or The Rolling Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter’ politically inspiring and motivational?
‘The difference between then and now is that there is no concerted, organised campaign of collective refusal these days,’ Toby laments.
And why is that?
‘Ironically, in large part, the very political system that was cracking down on student unrest in the 1960s had actually created enough space for them to be able to protest in the first place. Trade unions were still effective, as were groups like the Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers, Weather Underground.
‘Their campaigns were enabled by an economic boom where everybody was actually in a reasonably decent state. Now, if you’re too concerned with how you’re going to survive and how you’re going to keep your head above water in a precarious job market, then you’re not particularly in a good position to organise and risk things.
‘The times were very different back then. People felt a sort of security in their society which allowed them to rebel.’
‘Well, yeah, an army marches on its stomach,’ I muse. ‘Maybe that’s why they’re now starving us.’
‘Mixing Pop and Politics: A Marxist History of Popular Music’ is published by Repeater Books:
The full 30 minute podcast interview with Toby Manning is available here on Spotify:
and here on YouTube:
Brett Gregory is an award-winning filmmaker based in Greater Manchester who is currently producing a documentary called ‘Autism and the Arts: Poetry with Peter Street’ – see here.
