I Suppose That You Had To Be There

There’s been a lot of hullabaloo regarding the 40th anniversary of Woodstock and there’s been no shortage of fascinating stuff to read and view. Personally, I wasn’t even walking, yet, when the boomers threw that bash.

Until I was nine or ten, Woodstock was a bird, a Sundance Kid to Snoopy’s Butch Cassidy.

It was in the late ‘70s – maybe on the 10th anniversary – that I saw the documentary of the festival. I was only beginning to care about music, but I had little knowledge of the performers. I might have known the name Jimi Hendrix.

(and, given that admission of ignorance I am inclined to not belittle the cops in Jersey who had no idea that they had apprehended Bob Dylan, but, then again, what kind of cultural vacuum do you have to be living in to not know who Bob Dylan is?)

Anyhow, I do remember coming across Woodstock (the film) surfing through the half-dozen or so channels one Saturday night as a kid. Like Soylent Green, it was tagged with some kind of “mature audiences” disclaimer which, to state the obvious, made it must-see viewing.

(I suspect that whoever thought that those disclaimers would protect the children from potentially perilous material most likely wouldn’t be able to pick Bob Dylan out of a line-up)

So, I watched the movie and I might as well have been watching a National Geographic special on the indigenous people of New Guinea. No one really looked like anyone I knew and the music was equally inscrutable to my young ears. Through the years that followed, I learned more about the lore of Woodstock and the acts that performed that weekend.

But Woodstock never really connected to me. As for the legacy of the festival and what it all meant, there are folks far more qualified to comment on that subject.

I suppose, like most things in life, Woodstock was something for which you had to be there (and I wasn’t).

Here are a few songs by acts that were invited to perform but, for various reasons, weren’t there, either.

The Doors – Break On Through (To The Other Side)
from The Doors

The Byrds – So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star
from Younger Than Yesterday

Bob Dylan – Maggie’s Farm
from Bringing It All Back Home

Joni Mitchell – Woodstock
from Ladies Of The Canyon

And Then There Was Maude

So Bea Arthur has moved on. She was 86 and she had a good run – as good as a human could hope (I would think).

I wasn’t even yet in grade school when she showed up as the title character in the television show Maude. As JB astutely notes, the show did have one of the funkiest themes of all time. Even at four or five, I knew there was something about it.

The show was incredibly topical, or so I’ve read. The subjects that the show addressed – abortion, racism, alcoholism – were not on my radar. I remember watching the show as a kid, but I had little idea what most of it was about.

I’m sure that I was amused by Maude’s brassy persona and sarcasm.

And I do most definitely remember Adrienne Barbeau.

Like Donny Hathaway’s theme and Maude herself, there was something that I found compelling about Adrienne Barbeau (even if I didn’t quite understand it).

So, bon voyage, Bea. You seemed like swell dame.

Some of the songs that were hits when Maude debuted in September, 1971…

Paul McCartney – Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
I don’t recall hearing this song in 1971. If I did hear it, it didn’t register.

It is a wonderfully jaunty little tune. I mean, would it be considered a shanty?

What makes a song a shanty – a certain musical style or lots of nautical references? And with the Somalian pirates making headlines (or are they losing their audience?), could shanties be the grunge of this decade?

John Denver – Take Me Home, Country Roads
I do remember John Denver on the radio and he was one of the first acts to catch my ear. Of course, those television specials were some of the first music performances I probably viewed. At the age of five, this long-haired fellow in the floppy hat, traipsing around the Rockies with bear cubs and denim-clad hippie chicks was, in my mind, The Man.

I still love Take Me Home, Country Roads. Every time it pops up on shuffle Paloma and I wonder if Emmylou Harris sings on the song (and, each time I make a mental note to research that and, each time, I forget).

The Carpenters – Superstar
Like John Denver, The Carpenters hits in the early ’70s are some of the first songs I vividly remember hearing on the radio. If I had to make a short list of favorites by the duo, Superstar would most definitely be on there.

As someone who listens to a lot of music, I probably should receive demerits for not knowing songwriter Leon Russell’s version (actually, I confess to not really being familiar with Russell at all (although I’m sure I’ve read about him at Whiteray’s blog).

All of that aside, Superstar is pretty glorious.

The Doors – Riders On The Storm
Even though Jim Morrison had been dead for well over a decade, The Doors were one of the bands among most of the students in my high school. The band’s hold was taken to an extreme by two sisters who were rather adamant that they were illegitimate hatchlings of The Lizard King.

Apparently, it was the last song that The Doors recorded as a band, from sessions in December of 1970. Three months later, Morrison would move to Paris.

Riders On The Storm would have to be considered one of The Doors’ signature songs and it is one cinematic trip.

Godzilla, I Can't Stay Mad At You

The first movie that I can recall seeing in a theater was Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster.

(simply typing the title makes me as giddy as when I was four)

Yes, perhaps you’ve seen a Godzilla flick or two, but there’s none of them like his match with the Smog Monster.

It has an early ‘70s environmental bent to it, blending psychedelic rock music, cartoons, Japanese hippies, and a Godzilla that could fly.

It truly was everything that a child’s first big-screen experience should be.

Some of it did, admittedly, frighten me (I was four).

Through the years, it was always like Christmas to stumble upon a Godzilla movie on late, late night TV. I must doff my chapeau to the Japanese for enriching my life through a man in a giant lizard suit.

Godzilla, sushi, and providing inspiration for Styx’ Mr. Roboto – the Japanese have greatly contributed to who I am today.

I thank you all (seriously).

So, I bought into the hype for the Godzilla remake in ’98. I remember checking out some trailer for the movie which arrived on the internet a year ahead of the flick.

The movie eventually did come out and did so while I was traveling in the UK with a couple friends. So, it had been in theaters for a week or so before I managed to see it. If I recall correctly, I went with some friends the evening of my first day back in the States.

Undone by jet-lag and crushed by the weight of expectations, Godzilla left me angry, disappointed, and hurt. You can’t CGI the inestimatable charm of a man in a fake suit (and the Puff Daddy song that came out the week before I left for the UK should have been taken as a very bad omen).

I’ve caught it on cable a few times in the last year, though, and I’ve learned to love it for what it is and not lament what it isn’t. I do think that the opening credits work well.

And the first twenty minutes or so do a good job of building suspense. His arrival in Manhattan, though, is where Godzilla and I part company, but it’s with much more mutual respect now than there was a decade ago (we both are older and more mature I suppose).

But it sure would be cool to stumble upon his predecessor – hanging with the hippies and saving the world from pollution – while channel-surfing.

There simply aren’t enough songs about Godzilla and I’ve already posted the Blue Oyster Cult classic, so here are a handful of songs that were popular in the spring of 1971 (when Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster was released)…

Keiko Mari – Save The Earth
OK, this wasn’t a hit, but, by God, it should have been. Save The Earth plays over a montage which opens Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster and truly sets the tone. It was actually kind of creepy – lava lamp graphics, images of pollution-choked harbors filled with manikins and such.

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On
To state the obvious, What’s Going On needs no comment from me.

The Doors – Love Her Madly
In high school, The Doors were arguably the most popular band amongst the general population (despite the fact that Jim Morrison had been dead for more than a decade). So popular were they that two sisters were adamant that they were the illegitimate daughters of The Lizard King (Morrison, not Godzilla – although going with the Godzilla angle would have been equally as believable).

Lobo – Me And You And A Dog Named Boo
This is the one song in the bunch which I actually remember hearing on the radio at the time. I imagine the fact that the singer had a dog appealed to me (my brother and I had to make do with a hamster and hamsters, if no one has ever told you, don’t fetch).