My teachers are getting weird...any ideas to help me with this?

[johnjohn320]

I have to write some journal entries from the point of view of a musician in the 1960s. It's a sparse set of entries, 4 pages minimum and covers the entire decade. From the description:

Write a journal of what that person witnesses during your decade and their personal action, views of his life, and how he will face the rest of his life in America after his decade is over. Your journal should be expressive of the time period, but not overly long. Minimum of 4 pages.

Maybe that's just me, but it sounds like a really weird assignment. Oh well, nobody asked me.

So I'm trying to think of major things I can write about. So far I've written about Elvis's change(s), British Invasion, Woodstock, Miles Davis/the concept of Jazz Fusion. Now I'm running out of ideas. There were obviously a lot of great artists, but I can't just sit here and do a bunch of biographies. I think maybe I can say something about music's role in protesting the Vietnam War.

I dunno, any other ideas? Thanks guys.

 

[NuclearFusi0n]

scribble illegibly and draw crazy pictures. tell the teacher your musician liked LSD.

 

[HappyPuppy]

Drugs, sex and rock 'n roll. That was the '60's.

 

[TheChort]

you could talk about music's role in politics in general, not just the war. Also, how musicians can promote or go anti to social norms.

Edit: tape some cash to the back of your paper. And call yourself john "the bee" john, or something cool like that

 

[johnjohn320]

Originally posted by: TheChort
you could talk about music's role in politics in general, not just the war. Also, how musicians can promote or go anti to social norms.

Edit: tape some cash to the back of your paper. And call yourself john "the bee" john, or something cool like that

Well, my real name is Scott, so that doesn't work.

 

[sciencetoy]

I was a musician during the 60's. For one thing, we were born shortly after the atom bombs dropped on Japan, and we had the nuclear proliferation during our childhoods in the 50's (we had "civil defense" drills where we had to line up in the school halls, or put our heads under our desks, in case of nuclear attack). So,

we we sure the world was going to end in horrible nuclear disaster and we'd never grow up.

That explains a lot about drugs, free love, weirdness, etc. If you know you're going to die, what would you do? Sex, yeah. No AIDS, either.

Also, Nam: it would take too long to explain all of that, but let me put it this way: I went to a lot of funerals. How many of your classmates have you buried so far? It ain't fun. Think about how nasty people got about the anti-war-protests about Iraq, and multiply that nastiness by a million, that's how popular anti-war protesters were back in the 60's. We took a lot of abuse back then. You have no idea. It wasn't like the movies at all.

I went to Woodstock, and the biggest thing about Woodstock is that at that time, rock-and-roll was NOT mainstream music (look at Billboard's top lists). I remember looking out at all of the people and being amazed that there were other people like me, who liked the same kind of music. Up until then I was a total social outcast. At last, I had a few other people of my own to socialize with.

Well, have fun with your paper.

 

[johnjohn320]

Originally posted by: sciencetoy
I was a musician during the 60's. For one thing, we were born shortly after the atom bombs dropped on Japan, and we had the nuclear proliferation during our childhoods in the 50's (we had "civil defense" drills where we had to line up in the school halls, or put our heads under our desks, in case of nuclear attack). So,

we we sure the world was going to end in horrible nuclear disaster and we'd never grow up.

That explains a lot about drugs, free love, weirdness, etc. If you know you're going to die, what would you do? Sex, yeah. No AIDS, either.

Also, Nam: it would take too long to explain all of that, but let me put it this way: I went to a lot of funerals. How many of your classmates have you buried so far? It ain't fun. Think about how nasty people got about the anti-war-protests about Iraq, and multiply that nastiness by a million, that's how popular anti-war protesters were back in the 60's. We took a lot of abuse back then. You have no idea. It wasn't like the movies at all.

I went to Woodstock, and the biggest thing about Woodstock is that at that time, rock-and-roll was NOT mainstream music (look at Billboard's top lists). I remember looking out at all of the people and being amazed that there were other people like me, who liked the same kind of music. Up until then I was a total social outcast. At last, I had a few other people of my own to socialize with.

Well, have fun with your paper.

Straight from the source. PM sometime to yak about music if you like, I'm a musician myself. Your thing about not growing up makes sense, I hadn't really thought of it that way before. Kinda neat in a sad way. As for burying my friends, sadly I've buried 3 so far (2 from car wrecks, one from heart failure/drowning). I heard some # some where that more people died in Vietnam protests than US soldiers died in the war itself? Any truth to that?

As for rock and roll not being mainstream, I'm assuming you mean *that* kind of rock and roll, Janis, Country Joe, etc. Cause I mean, Beatlemania and all that stuff, you won't convince me that that didn't exist.

 

[Cyberian]

Originally posted by: sciencetoy


I went to Woodstock, and the biggest thing about Woodstock is that at that time, rock-and-roll was NOT mainstream music (look at Billboard's top lists). I remember looking out at all of the people and being amazed that there were other people like me, who liked the same kind of music. Up until then I was a total social outcast. At last, I had a few other people of my own to socialize with.

If you remember Woodstock, you really weren't there.

 

[Zrom999]

When I got a stupid assignment, I let them know it and I either not do it or do it in such a way to piss them off. Too bad they took it out on my grades.

 

[johnjohn320]

Originally posted by: Zrom999
When I got a stupid assignment, I let them know it and I either not do it or do it in such a way to piss them off. Too bad they took it out on my grades.

Yeah, I used to do that, but then I just realized that you have to do some stupid crap in life you don't want to do (and/or shouldn't really have to, but you do).