Searching For The American Songbook- When The Fight To Turn The World Upside Down Was In Full Flower- With The Doors The Unknown Soldier In Mind
Wait until the war is over
And we're both a little older
The unknown soldier
And we're both a little older
The unknown soldier
Breakfast where the news is read
Television children fed
Unborn living, living, dead
Bullet strikes the helmet's head
And it's all over
For the unknown soldier
It's all over
For the unknown soldier
Hut, hut, hut ho hee up
Hut, hut, hut ho hee up
Hut, hut, hut ho hee up
Comp'nee, halt
Present, arms
Make a grave for the unknown soldier
Nestled in your hollow shoulder
The unknown soldier
Breakfast where the news is read
Television children fed
Bullet strikes the helmet's head
And, it's all over
The war is over
It's all over
War is over
Television children fed
Unborn living, living, dead
Bullet strikes the helmet's head
And it's all over
For the unknown soldier
It's all over
For the unknown soldier
Hut, hut, hut ho hee up
Hut, hut, hut ho hee up
Hut, hut, hut ho hee up
Comp'nee, halt
Present, arms
Make a grave for the unknown soldier
Nestled in your hollow shoulder
The unknown soldier
Breakfast where the news is read
Television children fed
Bullet strikes the helmet's head
And, it's all over
The war is over
It's all over
War is over
Well, all over, baby
All over, baby
Oh, over, yeah
All over, baby
All over, baby
Oh, over, yeah
All over, baby
Ooh, ha, ha, all over
All over, baby
Oh, woah, yeah, all over
All over, heh
Songwriters
Robbie Krieger;John Densmore;Jim Morrison;Ray Manzarek
From The Pen of Frank Jackman
There was no seamless thread that wrapped the 1960s up tightly. A thousand things, or it seemed like a thousand things, came together in pretty rapid succession to draw down in flames, for a while anyway although none of us though it would on be for only a while just as we thought that we would live forever, or at least fast, the dread red scare Cold War freezes of our childhood. But you could traces things a little, make your own “live free” categories of the events that chipped away the ice of those dark nights.
Start in with the mid-1950s if you like with the heat of the black struggle for some semblance of civil liberties down South with fearless ladies refusing to go to the back of the bus (and some sense for equality up North with students and young people mainly wondering what to do and getting an idea of how deep the racial divide was then as now when they started doing solidarity work for the freedom riders and standing tall picketing Woolworth’s telling them to let black people eat at their freaking lunch counters if they wanted too, if they couldhanlde the food is what I though), the first break-out of music with the crowning of rock and roll as the wave of the future (black rhythm and blues, scat, rockabilly mixed all stirred up), the “discovery” of teen alienation and angst exemplified by movie star James Dean, who lived fast, and died fast a metaphor that would work its way through youth culture over the next generation. An odd-ball mix right there. Then start to throw in the struggles against the old authority, the old certitudes that had calmed our parents’ lives in places like Frisco town where they practically ran the red-baiters in the HUAC out of town, but of course the biggest event that opened the doors for liberals, radicals, hell even thoughtful conservatives was the sweet breeze coming down the road from Boston with the election of Jack Kennedy.
That event opened up a new psychological twist (twist since Smilin’ Jack was not exactly Lenin or Trotsky or guys like that who really shook up the old order), that it was okay to question authority, whatever the limitations and shortness of the Camelot times with the struggles against some hoary things like segregation, the death penalty, nuclear proliferation, the unevenness of life which would get propelled later in the decade with fight for women’s liberation, gay liberation, and the fight against the draft, the damn war in Vietnam that drove a nail into the heart of the generation. There were more things, cultural things and experimentations with new lifestyles that all got a fair workout during this period as well.
Plenty of us in retrospective would weigh the various combinations of events differently in figuring out how the uprising started just as plenty of us have our specific dates for when the tide began to ebb, when the mean-spirited and authoritarian began their successful counter-offensive that we still live with today for not taking the omens more seriously.
And then we have a mind's eye photograph to grace this short screed. This photograph is almost impossible to imagine without some combination of that hell broth mix stirred up in the 1960s. Think this-three self-assured women comfortable with the loose and individualistic fashion statements of the day from floppy hats to bare legs, bare legs that would have shocked a mother who all corseted up dreamed a World War II dream of nylons, and would do quite a bite to get her hands on such womanly finery. Uncomfortable about the damn Vietnam war that was eating up boyfriends, brothers, just friends at a heavy rate and they unlike their mothers who came through World War II waiting patiently and patriotically for their military heroes to come home, come home in one piece, have a very different sense of the heroic. A sense of the heroic going back to ancient times when one group of women demanded that their men come home on their shields if they had to rather than speak of defeat and others providing a distant echo for these three women pictured here who refused their soldier boys any favors if they went off to war. That says it all enough said.
All over, baby
Oh, woah, yeah, all over
All over, heh
Songwriters
Robbie Krieger;John Densmore;Jim Morrison;Ray Manzarek
From The Pen of Frank Jackman
There was no seamless thread that wrapped the 1960s up tightly. A thousand things, or it seemed like a thousand things, came together in pretty rapid succession to draw down in flames, for a while anyway although none of us though it would on be for only a while just as we thought that we would live forever, or at least fast, the dread red scare Cold War freezes of our childhood. But you could traces things a little, make your own “live free” categories of the events that chipped away the ice of those dark nights.
Start in with the mid-1950s if you like with the heat of the black struggle for some semblance of civil liberties down South with fearless ladies refusing to go to the back of the bus (and some sense for equality up North with students and young people mainly wondering what to do and getting an idea of how deep the racial divide was then as now when they started doing solidarity work for the freedom riders and standing tall picketing Woolworth’s telling them to let black people eat at their freaking lunch counters if they wanted too, if they couldhanlde the food is what I though), the first break-out of music with the crowning of rock and roll as the wave of the future (black rhythm and blues, scat, rockabilly mixed all stirred up), the “discovery” of teen alienation and angst exemplified by movie star James Dean, who lived fast, and died fast a metaphor that would work its way through youth culture over the next generation. An odd-ball mix right there. Then start to throw in the struggles against the old authority, the old certitudes that had calmed our parents’ lives in places like Frisco town where they practically ran the red-baiters in the HUAC out of town, but of course the biggest event that opened the doors for liberals, radicals, hell even thoughtful conservatives was the sweet breeze coming down the road from Boston with the election of Jack Kennedy.
That event opened up a new psychological twist (twist since Smilin’ Jack was not exactly Lenin or Trotsky or guys like that who really shook up the old order), that it was okay to question authority, whatever the limitations and shortness of the Camelot times with the struggles against some hoary things like segregation, the death penalty, nuclear proliferation, the unevenness of life which would get propelled later in the decade with fight for women’s liberation, gay liberation, and the fight against the draft, the damn war in Vietnam that drove a nail into the heart of the generation. There were more things, cultural things and experimentations with new lifestyles that all got a fair workout during this period as well.
Plenty of us in retrospective would weigh the various combinations of events differently in figuring out how the uprising started just as plenty of us have our specific dates for when the tide began to ebb, when the mean-spirited and authoritarian began their successful counter-offensive that we still live with today for not taking the omens more seriously.
And then we have a mind's eye photograph to grace this short screed. This photograph is almost impossible to imagine without some combination of that hell broth mix stirred up in the 1960s. Think this-three self-assured women comfortable with the loose and individualistic fashion statements of the day from floppy hats to bare legs, bare legs that would have shocked a mother who all corseted up dreamed a World War II dream of nylons, and would do quite a bite to get her hands on such womanly finery. Uncomfortable about the damn Vietnam war that was eating up boyfriends, brothers, just friends at a heavy rate and they unlike their mothers who came through World War II waiting patiently and patriotically for their military heroes to come home, come home in one piece, have a very different sense of the heroic. A sense of the heroic going back to ancient times when one group of women demanded that their men come home on their shields if they had to rather than speak of defeat and others providing a distant echo for these three women pictured here who refused their soldier boys any favors if they went off to war. That says it all enough said.
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