Flower Power Sucks
Having the unfortunate luck to be in National Public Radio’s target demographic, I occasionally wind up hearing stories that clearly are pandering to what I will with all due sarcasm refer to as “my generation”. Actually, I’m in the one after that, but I recognize the pandering.
Lately, not just on NPR but on my local “Timeless Rock” station, I’ve heard wistful mentions of this summer being the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love. In fact, today is the 40th anniversary of the start of the Monterey Pop festival.
Well, I like sixties tunes as much (probably way more) than the next guy, but I want to take this opportunity to plug an album that was recorded in 1967 and was decades ahead of its time. It had the unmitigated temerity to ridicule Sergeant Pepper’s, to mercilessly excoriate the vapid, privileged denizens of the San Francisco scene, to call Ronald Reagan a fascist who wanted to create a police state, and to attack narrow-minded parents for strangling their childrens’ curiosity and wonder in the cradle (and much, much more). It also laid withering scorn on mindless, superficial hippies and (accurately, alas) predicted a Kent State-type event.
That record is The Mothers’ “We’re Only in it for the Money“.
(BTW, the ’86 remastered version is worthless. You want the original vinyl (good luck), or the Rykodisc CD based on the original Verve master.)