"Glad Day" or "Albion's Dance" by W. Blake (1793) symbolizing awakened revolution
Folk music reached its zenith in the 1960s. This became known as the "American Folk-Music Revival." Contemporary folk music is of a type that includes fusion genres such as folk rock, folk metal, electric folk, and others.
Folk rock came onto the scene as a popular genre in the mid-sixties and much of it grew out of the protest movements against the Vietnam War. Lyrically, a lot of folk rock music contained protest messages. Bob Dylan became one of the most prominent song writers of the decade with many popular groups, such as Peter Paul and Mary and The Byrds, covering his song successfully. Howver, it was Joan Baez, already a famous folk-singer, who gave Dylan his start, and who became his constant musical partner.
Nietzsche's view of the folk-song tradition as an elemental phenomenon and the perfect union of "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" artistic principles seems to anticipate the "60s Folk Revival".
Rock-n-Roll is the music of a (counter-culture) generation. The music of the Sixties had a magic about it; it spoke to our generation. But that's not all of it; not just the music, but the music plus the philosophy. Along with the dancing and the magic of the beat, our generation had something very important to say. Rock-n-Roll was its voice. It was about sharing ideas about our times; a medium to talk to each other in a tribal way. Rock-n-Roll was "the soundtrack of our lives."
Folk-rock and rock musicians served as singing prophets for the generation of the Sixties. Orpheus—bard, prophet, rhetorician, and musician ("singer of love-songs”)—is the archetype for musicians of the Sixties, who joined the prophetic ranks of the new singer songwriter, and created the music that defined the whole idea of the confessional songwriter, with his or her introspective style: "the sound of an introverted, troubled dreamer, with this sort of tremulous angelic voice."
It was as if the social theorist Herbert Marcuse became the prophet of what was to come in the late Sixties. (Marcuse advocated replacing the dominant reality-principle ruling socio-political relations with the values of the pleasure-principle—"play, enjoyment, sensuousness, beauty, contemplation, spiritual liberation." Thus, real social/spiritual transformation is inspired not exclusively by the spirit of Marx, but primarily by the archetype of Orpheus—“the image of joy and fulfillment; the voice which does not command but sings.” And, therefore, who knows? maybe there's a role for the scholar (the itinerant- or "gypsy scholar") to be the warm-up act for the Rock singer(or band).
“Herbert Marcuse, while he lived, made these arguments and, as I say, looking back on them from this point in history—this point in time—it’s hard not to feel a little nostalgic for them. But I have a feeling that they’ll come back, along with tie dyes, Jimmie Hendrix, and the rest. And who knows, they may even have someone like me tour and denounce the System—as a warm-up act for Rock-n-Roll. I mean, who knows?” —Prof. Rick Roderick, 1993. (Posted, 8/24/7)
Yes, an Orphic Scholarship as warm-up act for hot Rock-n-Roll.
Therefore, Re-Vision Radio's Essay-with-Soundtrack mixing of philosophy & song (introspective "chords of inquiry") creates a Musekal Philosophy; that is, Philosophy synaesthetically heard/seen through the magic prism of Rock-n-Roll.
“As I discovered music, especially Rock 'n' Roll, new territory was opened to me. I was lured by the unbridled rhythm of its art form. It was like gasoline on the fire of my youthful spirit." —Taylor Hanson
“There are many fans of hard rock music that have been wrongly pigeonholed as apathetic. This music is not music for the elitist coffeehouse culture in SoHo. It's rock 'n' roll music for kids across the land, and I think that makes it much more subversive in a way, in that it has the form and function of a powerful, populous music, but it can carry very incendiary messages.” —Tom Morello
“I love rock-n-roll. I think it's an exciting art form. It's revolutionary. Still revolutionary and change people. It changed their hearts. But yeah, even rock-n-roll has a lot of rubbish, really bad music." —Nick Cave
“It's what's missing, I think, from most music—the rebellious part. That rebelliousness is part of great rock music or great literature or any great creative stuff.” —Glenn Danzig
“To me, rock music was never meant to be safe. I think there needs to be an element of intrigue, mystery, subversiveness. Your parents should hate it.” —Trent Reznor
“Rock 'n' roll is not red carpets and MySpace friends, rock 'n' roll is dangerous and should piss people off.” ―Gerard Way
“We imagined ourselves as the Sons of Liberty with a mission to preserve, protect, and project the revolutionary spirit of rock and roll. We feared that the music which had given us sustenance was in danger of spiritual starvation. We feared it losing its sense of purpose, we feared it falling into fattened hands, we feared it floundering in a mire of spectacle, finance, and vapid technical complexity.” ―Patti Smith
"The fact is that music and social change have always gone hand-in-hand in America. “These are singing movements. They have songbooks; Earth First, just like the Wobblies.” —Utah Phillips (Folk singer and activist.)
"Music has always gone along with great movements; there are no great movements that do not have music. Even as early as this song was, it was helping to create the music for a movement." (Introduction to documentary, Strange Fruit)
"From LBJ to Nixon on, there was no shortage of material. The unreal and wild events of that period inspired the most amazing rock music ever, and we were there to provide it a much needed venue." —John Gorman (Head of operations for WMMS-FM)
"I think that in times of great unrest music becomes a more important thing, you know." —Charlie Hunter (Jazz musician.)
"Rock and Roll music is higher than rebellion." —Peter Townshend (The Who)
"You start out defending a rock band and you end up bringing down a dictatorship—and who could have predicted it?" —The Plastic People of the Universe (Rock band of Czechoslovakian Velvet Revolution)
“Rock and roll music—the music of freedom—rightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms." —Salman Rushdie
"Some may find them merely diverting melodies. Others may find them incitements to Red revolution. And who will say if either or both is wrong? Not I." —Pete Seeger
“Music can change the world because it can change people.” ―Bono
“I'm not saying I'm gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world.” ―Tupac Shakur
“Whenever society gets too stifling and the rules get too complex, there’s some sort of musical explosion.” —Slash (Lead Guitarist, Guns ‘n Roses)
“If we are in a general way permitted to regard human activity in the realm of the beautiful as a liberation of the soul, as a release from constraint and restriction, in short to consider that art does actually alleviate the most overpowering and tragic catastrophes by means of the creations it offers to our contemplation and enjoyment, it is the art of music which conducts us to the final summit of that ascent to freedom.” ―Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
“Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.” ―Plato, The Republic
“Music is more powerful than reason in the soul. That is also why Plato made music the very first step in his long educational curriculum: good music was to create the harmony of soul that would be a ripe field for the higher harmony of reason to take root in later. And that is also why he said that the decay of the ideal state would begin with a decay in music. In fact, one of your obscure modern scholars has shown that social and political revolutions have usually been preceded by musical revolutions, and why another sage said, 'Let me write the songs of a nation and I care not who writes its laws.'” ― Peter Kreeft (Philosopher)
"Music was a driving and defining force in the sixties. It actually had a part in altering the path of history. It was a phenomenal time, and we were doing phenomenal radio." —Raechel Donahue (Wife of underground radio pioneer Tom Donahue and member at KMPX-FM and KSAN-FM)
For more on Sixties music and rebellion--the medium through which it was propagated--go to the "Underground Radio" page
“What excited me when I first came into it was the performing aspect and doing blues-oriented material, rock/blues oriented stuff, basic stuff, basic what they call rock 'n' roll.” —Van Morrison
“Like I said, basically I'm a rocker. That's about it. Things that I've done away from that-branches that I've gotten into off of that—are just other streams, other things that I can do.” —Van Morrison
“We might think that we're really intellectual and we're going to check out the library to research the meaning every time somebody puts out a new record. It's still primitive stuff. It's the same now as it was at the beginning. It's no different now. Rock 'n' roll is spirit music—it's just coming through people.” —Van Morrison
“It's the same thing as a primitive of Africans, Indians, nomads or whatever—when they start getting up and doing their ritual and doing the dance, it's just what's coming through. It's the spirit. Rock 'n' roll is still primitive.” —Van Morrison
“[Rock 'n' roll] is still a primitive form and there's no way you can get away from that. It's one of the primitive art forms and that's why it's good and that's why it's lasted ... you know, it hasn't become sophisticated and it's not in the opera house.” —Van Morrison
“Rock is gut level and it just gets to people. I think there's far too much emphasis on intellectualization, especially in rock 'n' roll which is a primitive form.” —Van Morrison
“I can see more naturalness in basic blues, basic R & B, basic rock 'n' roll.” —Van Morrison
“If you want to put your rock 'n' roll into mythology, it’s from the Daddy Cool school.” —Van Morrison
“Rock ’n’ Roll came from the slaves singing gospel in the fields. Their lives were hell and they use music to lift out of it, to take them away. That's what rock 'n' roll should do—take you to a better place." —Meat Loaf
“The way I see it, rock ’n’ roll is folk music.” —Robert Plant
“And nobody conducting, it's all up to you. It's really jazz—that's the big secret. Rock and roll ain't nothing but jazz with a hard backbeat.” ―Keith Richards
“Rock and Roll” Music for the neck downwards.” —Keith Richards
“Until I realized that rock music was my connection to the rest of the human race, I felt like I was dying, for some reason, and I didn't know why.” —Bruce Springsteen
“Rock ‘in’ Roll is the sound of angels telling the truth.” —Jim Morrison
“Do you believe in rock 'n' roll? Can music save your mortal soul?" —Don McLean
“As I define it, rock and roll is dead. The attitude isn’t dead, but the music is no longer viable. It doesn't have the same meaning. The attitude, though, is still very much alive—and it still informs other kinds of music." —David Byrne
“Rock and Roll has no beginning and no end, for it is the very pulse of life itself.” —Larry Williams
“Rock and Roll is here to stay.” —Neil Young
Rock is dead they say Long live rock … Long live rock! I need it every night Long live rock! Come on and join the line Long live rock! Be it dead or alive. —The Who, ‘Long Live Rock’
The Gypsy Scholar has always thought that the music of the Sixties—folk-rock and rock—was a neo-Romantic phenomenon; that is, the sixties generation of musicians represented an Orphic revival of the 19th-century "Romantic Movement" (Romanticism: "the spirit of an age") in Europe and America (and, by extension, the Romantics were the spiritual ancestors of all those who came of age in the sixties). Prof. Partrige seems to agree!
"Real dancers are the ones who can hear the music in their soul." -Nietzsche
“There is nothing stable in the world; uproar's your only music.” ―John Keats
I'll tell you about the magic, and it'll free your soul But it's like trying to tell a stranger 'bout rock and roll . . . How the magic's in the music and the music's in me
Yeah, do you believe in magic . . . Believe in the magic of rock and roll Believe in the magic that can set you free Ohh, talking 'bout magic
Do you believe like I believe Do you believe in magic Do you believe like I believe Do you believe, believer Do you believe like I believe Do you believe in magic.
(The Loovin Spoonful)
“The real trouble with reality today is that there’s no background music.” — Anonymous (As in the the Psychedelic Sixties with "the soundtrack of our lives.”)
"Like so many of my generation, I can landmark my life with songs." —Sting
“Music’s the soundtrack of my life and has been since I was a teenager. There’s always music. If I’m not playing it, I’m listening to it. With my writing ... sometimes it inspires a story, sometimes it highlights something I’m working on, sometimes it simply helps me stay in the narrative mood.” ―Charles de Lint
“Every life has a soundtrack. If you ask me, music is the language of memory.” ―Jodi Picoult, Sing You Home
“The beautiful thing is, music can be like a time machine. One song—the lyrics, the melody, the mood—can take you back to a moment in time like nothing else can.” —Lisa Schroeder
"Take me back, take me back, take me back / Take me way back, take me way back, take me way back …/ Take me, do you remember the time darlin' / When everything made more sense in the world (yeah) / Oh I remember, I remember / When life made more sense / Ah, ah, take me back, take me back, take me back, take me back …” —Van Morrison, ’Take Me Back’
"We need magic, and bliss, and power, myth, and celebration and religion in our lives, and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it." —Jerry Garcia
If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung, Would you hear my voice come thru the music, Would you hold it near as it were your own?
Its a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken, Perhaps theyre better left unsung. I dont know, dont really care Let there be songs to fill the air.
(Grateful Dead, 'Ripple')
Whoa-ho what I want to know How does the song go?
Thus the Orphic Essay-with-Soundtrack
"Three-cord rock merging with the power of the word." –Patti Smith
Song-haunted Essay-with-Soundtrack
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