The folk- rock-protest music of the sixties is my all time favorite music. I didn’t really begin listening to sixties music until around 1965. I was too busy attending college to do much listening. Mostly I listened to classic music while I was in school trying to develop a little culture. But, I still listen to sixties music today. When you compare the lyrics of sixties music to that of the fifties, there is no contest. “Life would be a dream if I could take you to paradise up above. Sha boom sha boom…” How can you even begin to compare that with “The times they are a changing?” The lyrics of the sixties went from bubble gum to meaningful social protest. And the actual music was so much more professional, so much more pleasing to ear, closer to jazz than to do wop.

My favorite artist of the sixties is Bob Dylan. Though, I remember when a friend, George introduced me to Dylan’s “Eve of Destruction,” I kind of thought he had a really rough voice and was difficult to understand. In sixty-seven when another friend introduced me to “Tambourine Man,” I became a Dylan fan for life. “Hey Mr. Tambourine Man play a song for me. I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to… In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you… Take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship… Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one arm waving free… Let me forget about the day until tomorrow…”

Dylan’s Blowing in the Wind and The Times They Are A Changing are my favorites. Even today through I’ve listened to both cuts probably a hundred times they still send chills down my spine. The lyrics tell of the times so vividly. And I suppose Dylan’s words helped change the times. “Here comes the story of the Hurricane…” depicts the prejudice of Patterson New Jersey and other small towns back East so very well. His “Subterranean Homesick Blues” album again tells so much about our times. “Look out kid. Don’t matter what you did…” “All Along the Watch Tower,” “A Hard Rains Gonna Fall, “Tangled up in Blue,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” and “Maggie’s Farm” are other of my favorite songs from Dylan.

Simon and Gurfunkel are a close second behind Dylan as my favorite artists of the sixties. “The Boxer” is my favorite of their songs. The refrain, “Lie-la-lie Lie-la-lie lie-lie-lie…” is a key to understanding the sixties. Because in the sixties we learned that everything they tell you is a lie. Everything. “The Boxer” rings so true to me because my father was a boxer with over two hundred fights to his credit. “In a clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade. And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down and cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame, ‘I am leaving, I am leaving.’ But the fighter still remains…” I’m not sure exactly when my father left the fight game, but he always thought of it as the best part of his life and he stayed a member of the local boxer’s club in Philadelphia until the day he died.

“The Sounds of Silence,” is another of my favorites and also echoes a major theme of the sixties as we were always trying to enter the Silence. There are so many excellent songs from Simon and Garfunkel, “Bridge Over Troubled Waters,” “The Only Living Boy in New York,” “El Condor Pasa,” “The 59^th Street Bridge Street Song”, “Homeward Bound,” “Richard Corey,” “Old Friends,” and so many more…

The Moody Blues is another great group from the sixties. “The Moody Blues were best known for fusing an orchestral sound with rock and roll…” someone wrote. Their music would simply blow you away, such force. Some of my favorites are “A Question of Balance,” Nights in White Satin,” “I’m Just a Singer in a Rock and Roll Band,” and “The Balance.”

Another of my favorites is Joan Baez. I loved her “Be Not Too Hard,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “If I Were A Carpenter,” “Johnny I Hardly Knew Yeh,” and “Minister of War.” Again I have to say that hers was folk music with a real message.

Other great artists of the sixties were, Pink Floyd especially his “Another Brick in the Wall.” Janis Joplin wailed with “Take Another Little Piece of My Heart,” and “Me and Bobby Mc Gee.” There was Blood Sweat and Tears, “What Goes Up Must Come Down.” Chicago with “Saturday in the Park.” And, how could I forget the Dead. They were the hallmark of California sixties music. “Don't Think Twice, It's All Right,” “Franklin’s Tower,” “Driving That Train High on Cocaine…”

I didn’t really get into the Beetles that much but John Lennon’s “Imagine” is another favorite. “Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace…” A profoundly anti-war song as so much of the sixties music was.

My son gave me a C D of Rage Against the Machine’s rendition of “Maggie’s Farm.” As I listened to it I saw a major difference between the sixties music and today’s music. The difference between the Dylan and Rage Against the Machine renditions of “Maggie’s Farm” is that Dylan is loose and happy. Rage is up tight and mad about the whole thing. Dylan ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s Pa no mo, ‘cause he’s tired of working for nickels and dimes. He’s happy to be free and poor and enjoying life. He doesn’t need their money, advice, or morals. He doesn’t believe their lies. But, he’s happy about it. He’s glad to be free.

Rage is mad about the whole situation. He hasn’t changed Dylan’s lyrics and he spits them out in a hard mechanical way. He’s stiff and unhappy like he still wants the nickels and dimes, but he doesn’t want to work for them. He’s mad at the machine, but hasn’t freed himself from the conditioned violence.

A major difference between the sixties and right now, some sixties people, Dylan included, saw their conditioning and were able to jump clear of the clockwork, at least for the moment. Today, we can’t see that we too are conditioned and anger will not help us to awaken and free ourselves from our imprisonment. The music of the sixties helped to free us from our imprisonment in the older morals and traditions.