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What is the quintessential 60's song?


qwertyu1234

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4 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Nothing sums up the 60's for me more than

 

Having grown up in the 60's and 70's, this could definitely be considered one of about 5 maybe 6 songs that are the 60's IMO.  There are a handful of songs that give me goosebumps when I hear them and am transported back to those days immediately.

There's a sound, a tone and a quality to those few defining songs that capture that special sound of the 60's that echoes today whenever I hear them, and All along the watchtower doesn't have them (IMO). It's a great song, but it's just another great rock and roll song like so many of the era.

Having said that everyone who grew up then has their own special interpretation of the sound of the 60's and how it was a part of their life experience.. 

 

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To me the quintessential 60's song has to be in the mid to late 60's, so in my best John Cusack voice:

Top 5 quintessential 60's songs:

Buffalo Springfield-For What it's Worth

CCR-Fortunate Son

Animals-House of the Rising Son

Simon & Garfunkel-Mrs. Robinson

Bob Dylan-Blowing in the Wind

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52 minutes ago, DCA_HORN said:

To me the quintessential 60's song has to be in the mid to late 60's, so in my best John Cusack voice:

Top 5 quintessential 60's songs:

Buffalo Springfield-For What it's Worth

CCR-Fortunate Son

Animals-House of the Rising Son

Simon & Garfunkel-Mrs. Robinson

Bob Dylan-Blowing in the Wind

So this is interesting.  I don't disagree with your list, but let's consider what's missing:

 

  • The Beatles
  • The Rolling Stones
  • Led Zeppelin
  • The Who
  • Jimi Hendrix
  • Cream
  • The Yardbirds
  • The Beach Boys

 

Others would put certain songs by these artists in their Top 5, but it's a telling exercise, to be sure.  What it says to me is that folk had a bigger foothold than many of us might want to admit, and protest songs tend to dominate our collective memory (Viet Nam war).

 

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2 minutes ago, Mole said:

Both of your lists need more Motown.

The question wasn't what are the best songs of the 60's. I agree with jimmy's list of top bands that were left off the list, but when you think of the quintessential 60's songs it mainly has to do with the war and what led up to it during our "advisory" period there. When one thinks of the 60's the biggest things that stick out are JFK, the war, and the political strife at home. 

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1 hour ago, Mole said:

It's not a question of the best, but when someone says 60s music, the first sounds in my head are the Funk Brothers. If the question is what's the best, my vote is with Coltrane's A Love Supreme.

See this is where the personal touch comes in. The 60's were like an advanced 80's. So many different genres from the beginning to end of the decade. Motown and early Beatles, etc. morphed into the Vietnam era stuff, and finished going into the 70's rock era. it's a tough question to answer.

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7 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

What says to me is that folk had a bigger foothold than many of us might want to admit, and protest songs tend to dominate our collective memory (Viet Nam war).

This is a solid point, highlighted by the first two lines of For What It's Worth, which capture the political turmoil and uncertainty of the 1960s—

There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear.

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I think there's a bit of confusion or different angles on "quintessential."  Some are aiming for the "musically quintessential" song of the 60s, whereas some are aiming for the song that embodied the essence of the decade more broadly.

 

I believe jimmyjazz was aiming for the latter.  And even the video is perfect: some rednecky looking guys singing a country-psychedelic sounding song with ironically retrograde idealistic lyrics.  It rather perfectly straddles the "clean cut" early 60s and the "dirty hippy" later 60s, musically, lyrically, visually and just about every other way and is kind of disturbing or unsettling in the same way the 60s were.

 

 

Edited by TwiceHorn
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5 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I think there's a bit of confusion or different angles on "quintessential."  Some are aiming for the "musically quintessential" song of the 60s, whereas some are aiming for the song that embodied the essence of the decade more broadly.

 

I believe jimmyjazz was aiming for the latter.  And even the video is perfect: some rednecky looking guys singing a country-psychedelic sounding song with ironically retrograde idealistic lyrics.  It rather perfectly straddles the "clean cut" early 60s and the "dirty hippy" later 60s, musically, lyrically, visually and just about every other way and is kind of disturbing or unsettling in the same way the 60s were.

 

 

That's how I took it.  There's a sound I hear in a few songs that just take me back immediately to those days.  

There are a couple refrains and sections of The Moody Blues Days of Futures past that are uber 60's haunting, and uniquely that captured soundtrack to the decade. 

 

Edited by Onboard 2.0
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Some things that make "A Change is Gonna Come" the most sixties song, IMO:

- Written in response to an incident of racial discrimination

- Embodies the hope and also agony of the civil rights era

- Was inspired partially by Bob Dylan

- Written and recorded by an artist whose life was tragically cut short

- Has the Phil Spector-ish orchestra thing going

- Is in the Library of Congress / National Recording Registry

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It's got to be summer of love type stuff and LSD psych right? Itchycoo Park, San Francisco, The Rain the Park and Other Things, Get Together (Youngbloods), White Rabbit and Somebody to Love, Jumpin Jack Flash, Incense and Peppermints

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Glad to see the Animals getting some run - House of the Rising Sun ticks all the boxes.  It's a folk song that bridges the setting of the folk movement and predictive of the arrival of the psychedelic rock movement which will come to typify 60's music for me.

 

God Only Knows is the only better love song, but since the Association hasn't been mentioned, check out Never My Love.  I mean, come on.

 

 

So many things going on here that are hallmarks of 60s music making.  The Association were wizards in the studio.  They were way ahead of the curve - Jimmy Page before it was cool to be a production nerd.

Another 60's gem, which captures the decade's fascination with creative vocal syncopations is Along Comes Mary.  Is anything MORE 60's than this?

 

 

But for my money, Tommy James and the Shondells Crimson and Clover is so perfect it's almost anachronistic.  It's everything we knew about making music in the 60's perfected.  The complex guitar strums and mutes, highly experimental use of tremolo effects, openly interpretable lyrics, a break down for the ages, and probably about drugs or maybe illicit sex.  

 

 

How stoned must they have been?

 

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