The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #76784   Message #1364679
Posted By: GUEST,Sidewinder
24-Dec-04 - 01:53 AM
Thread Name: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
I believe spirituality means hope in a hopeless world i.e the spiritual songs sang by the slaves on plantations in the Mississippi Delta. Therefore I would argue that you cannot define any song from the 60s as spiritual as most were written by failed art students and sycophantic millionaires as opposed to penniless immigrants and despairing souls far from glory without any notion of chart placings and royalty cheques. Tomorrow Never Knows is merely an aural experiment given a "throwaway title" as Lennon stated (it was originally titled "The Void") to spare the song any intellectual or spiritual or avante garde analysis. There are far more admirable pretensions of Eastern mysticism in George Harrisons work if you choose to go down that road. Personally I think the 60s was a time when bubblegum pop music collided with high idealism and poetic whimsy to furnish pseudo intellectual dropouts with a quicker way to die. As a massive Beatles fan I do think their music epitomises the whole field of 60s creativity, the highs and the lows, far more comprehensively than any other artists work but I would never argue for any spiritual aspirations within the body of work; as I'm sure none of the group would.As Lennon also said "It's just music you either like it or you don't".I would add to this that the only 60s track that comes close to spiritual in my humble opinion is Sam Cookes " A Change is Gonna Come ".

Regards.

Sidewinder.