Voices of the Zeitgeist

Painting of Bob Dylan, by Richard Day

"We were born before the wind

Also younger than the sun

Ere the bonnie boat was won as we sailed into the mystic

Hark, now hear the sailors cry

Smell the sea and feel the sky

Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic"

Born before the wind, we sailed into the mystic. We were enchanted by the music that played its timeless sounds and rhythms, rocked by a raucous sea, and by the sparkling, jangling words of poetry and myth.

"And every one of them words rang true

And glowed like burning coal

Pouring off of every page

Like it was written in my soul

From me to you

Tangled up in blue"

"And take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind

Down the foggy ruins of time

Far past the frozen leaves

The haunted, frightened trees

Out to the windy beach

Far from the twisted reach

Of crazy sorrow

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free

Silhouetted by the sea

Circled by the circus sands

With all memory and fate

Driven deep beneath the waves

Let me forget about today

Until tomorrow"

The poet musicians transported us to a place of solace, a haven of wonder, a sanctuary of peace, an oasis of deep love. And yet, they also haunted us with visions of terror, upheaval, dystopia, calamity and chaos. Before the deluge, all along the watchtower, a hard rain's a gonna fall. All these decades later, that same music and poetry still ring true. They stand testament to a time of youthful exuberance and primal innocence seeking an end to wars and civil strife. Our spirit is weathered and worn, remaining intact in pockets of resilience. Collectively, as a generation, we feel blessed by the awakening and traumatized by its evanescence as a zeitgeist, a political and very personal philosophy, a template for living. Not that it failed us, but that we failed it.

We are stardust

We are golden

And we've got to get ourselves

Back to the garden 

There was a fanfare blowing to the sun

That was floating on the breeze.

Look at Mother Nature on the run

In the nineteen seventies.

Woodstock was a music festival held August 15–18, 1969, which attracted an audience of more than 400,000. Billed as "an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music", it was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York, 43 miles southwest of Woodstock. Woodstock was a seminal happening now fifty years ago - half a century in historical terms. A heady mix of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Canned Heat, the Grateful Dead, Santana, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, The Who and, oh, so much more, the event now encapsulates that wild Zeitgeist. My generation. Won't get fooled again.

Years later, the generational shift morphed:

Some of them were dreamers

And some of them were fools

Who were making plans and thinking of the future

With the energy of the innocent

They were gathering the tools

They would need to make their journey back to nature...

All the people we used to know

They're an illusion to me now

Some are mathematicians

Some are carpenter's wives

Don't know how it all got started

I don't know what they do with their lives

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions 

Won't be nothing 

Nothing you can measure anymore 

The blizzard, the blizzard of the world 

has crossed the threshold 

and it has overturned 

the order of the soul

... I've seen the future, baby

It is murder

And what'll you do now?...

I'll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest

Where the people are many and their hands are all empty

Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters

Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison

And the executioner's face is always well hidden

Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten

Where black is the color, where none is the number

... And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard

It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Where are the present-day voices, the reflective and explosive words to rock us through the night, herald the dawn, and help us negotiate the breaking waves, the jagged and disintegrating reefs of our time? After all, we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.

 

As a fresh young generation finds its voice:

... and you of tender years

Can't know the fears

That your elders grew by

And so please help

Them with your youth

They seek the truth

Before they can die

Teach your parents well

The children's hell

Will slowly go by

And feed them on your dreams

The one they pick

The one you'll know by

Don't you ever ask them why

If they told you, you would cry

So just look at them and sigh

And know they love you