(Art - Thrybergh, Chris Bilton)
“High in the sky, is a bird on the wing; please carry me with you” (Dusty Springfield)
I’m not one to complain, but - we all tend to reflect certain views. And I can hardly be alone in seeing that there are many writers ‘clicking’ in on the popularity of anything 1960s. Many were there and have bona fide stories to tell. Just as many have a WWII or Covid story… But it’s getting harder to sift them out.
I find it irksome that many are claiming to have started this or influenced that. Or purely aggrandising themselves by piggy-backing on something. Moreso the ones who say ‘if you can remember it you weren’t there’. What tosh. We perhaps recall more as we age. If something is obvious, and the writer underlines it anyway, putting themselves at the heart of the matter, my mouse reflex has me gone anyway.
Other gripes are such things as those claiming to invent ‘world music’ or ‘experimental art’ - methods that have been around as long as those art forms have - just not perhaps recorded digitally or otherwise at their inception. Many of us were having the same ideas, as we always have and will in one form or another. No doubt some bastard is writing this article almost verbatim… regardless, this is a celebration of the warmth many of us felt when we believed times were changing…And how many of us felt changed - and still feel that way.
So we take an impartial look from a world that seems ecologically as well as spiritually doomed - and no-body cares. We might just grasp the right straw by exploring the paths society has taken since the likes of Guthrie and Leadbelly handed over the indescribable task of carrying the light forwards to other bards; or indeed since Ghandi left us blinking in bewilderment…
If I may keep myself safely in obscurity, I have an example of convergent dissonance. Let me explain - In his autobiography, Donovan Leitch professes a love for his emblematic bird, the gull. In 1972, I demonstrated a song I’d penned in the 6th form common room of Mexborough Grammar. I hadn’t envisaged it getting any more use. It was for amusement. Neither was I then aware of how Donovan felt about said bird - I simply picked up on a theme that other ‘folkies’ mimicked - and took the Micky. It has survived in various forms through until now. Shortly after that, on my arrival in St Yves, Cornwall, I also didn’t realise I was on the well-trodden trail of bohemia…
Might we assume I and others like me were cosmically picking up on vibes left by those who chased Celtic histories and lore, among other heady stuff like Buddhism? Unbeknownst to me, so many artisans had chosen St Yves - Hepworth, Donovan - and the hoards of nutters who camped up at Clodgy Point. They welcomed me like a lost pillock. It may be coincidental, but human minds operate along similar lines, even when generations clash. That clash drove my peers to the same refuge, where at least The Blue Haven cafe and a few pubs accepted us as arty travellers. How long have we said we are all the same? Sadly the problem is, how do you inform a closed mind of anything enlightening? There was one bloke there who posed as a hippy - I’ll swear he lived with mum n dad locally - and just cadged off people. Turned up at meal times, never gave back what he borrowed. That belt had sentimental value, you little twazerk. Still, who looked coolest with a piece of tatty blue rope holding up his jeans? Yeah…
Where was I? By the time you’ve got one person to catch on, ten more are robbing, stealing and beating. Are both these approaches human nature? Just as the brain is a dual functioning - dare I say matrix - so it is in what we do and say. We are creatures of science (business) and sentiment. But where exactly has it got us, from Shelley to Morrison to Bowie to Bruce to Mitchell and any other outspoken cult hero you might name - all we/they seem to do is hand on the baton with more problems attached.
There will now be a pause from reading for a moment, during which you can enjoy my old tune in instrumental form. After which you can see the farcical original lyrics… It’s titled ‘Gull’, though I changed it about in later years…
Just as I’d written the song as a parody (of a bloke who’s music I still love to this day), so too it could be rationalised and made into something, that I consider beautiful. Here than, as you wallow in the aftermath of musical ecstacy, are the lyrics. There are two sets - one fits the old pattern of tune. Long story, but I dropped it - it will be back when/if I re-record - but probably still as an instrumental…
GULL
Schooning stooker-winged
surf-skied pop-eyed gull
scouring each sluice
for a skerrit of fish
gull
Have a holiday in Lisbon
go to Cleethorpes - but not Kuwait
and lo oily and forlorn
or feathery white and great…
gull
(there were other lines, probably mentioning underpants or other childish laugh-fodder, one verse ending:
staining a rooftop or splashing for a dish - gull)
The second set of lyrics I actually sang in placces and it went down well - and I think it captured the St Yves vibe that was there by the time I wandered onto its ‘Undesirables not welcome’ streets.
Painters and poets and people
were renting sea-sprayed cottages
up on the wildering cliff tops
we slept out with the stars
Red-tiled and screaming and rolling
the gulls they rake the air
and travellers on back roads
had eagerly promised to be there
Chorus
Spring was turning into summer there
and friends were turning into lovers there
You know that one moment
is all that we have beneath the stars
and all that becomes yours
is only and ever truly ours
Ignited excited connected
and we are all alive
by backwater rivers
and enchanted fires - we all had the same dream
Ch
Jewels and bright eyes and bangles
all glittered in the sun
tattered, yet hopeful
our meaningful lives had just begun
Ch - slightly altered
Spring was turning into summer there
and lovers still remained the friends that care
***
Well, strange things had happened there, no stranger would it be, sang the blue-jay about the hanging tree, but the battle-cry of the Districts in The Hunger Games reflected something that perhaps, only Hell’s Angels had previously voiced. “Cut One, We All Bleed” they stated, whereas the mocking jay yelled “If We Burn, You Burn With Us”. Right on indeed. The dream flies today, albeit in tatters. The mocking-jay is another bird association as it were, beyond the gull Donovan took to heart and which I disparagingly mocked - but eventually realised I’d loved writing poetry about a wild creature. Perhaps not surprisingly, by giving myself permission to mock, I do come across some lines that get me away from the trite. They can be modified to be more incisive and accurate. Set yourself free, as they say.
My times reflected the changes within hippy society, with ‘turned on’ people becoming freaks and heads, who along with Mr Leitch, had harked back to the formulation of The Big Idea. This was conceived somehow from the beat poets, jazz musicians and societal leaders of youth in America. In the UK and Europe, workers unions, community enterprises (often started on allotments, squats or in inherited gardens) were the impetus. The trans-Atlantic notions that had shared the blues, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and pop culture became the open channel of revolution. It’s outpourings were embodied in Easy Rider - the influential biker-hippy film. It drew closer to the real biking world than such as The Wild Ones had. The Wild One’s posturing rebellion had put the bikers in a bad light; whereas Easy Rider put ‘the man’ in his place. There’s quite enough written already about such things, including the films and books that became must see/read (en of Motorcyle Maintenance etc). But it’s all grist to this mill. They are the materials in this hippy haberdashery of fabrics…
Bookwise, The Tibetan Book of The Dead for example, ran alongside The Karma Sutra, though both were off kilter in many Western perceptions. The harsh realities of the Tibetan book about death were hard to stomach and didn’t really ease the Suez Crisis or the tension between Mods and Rockers let alone hippies and government/police/society at large. Buddhistic teachings were still couched in religiosity rather than philosophy - but when understood as the latter, it served all purposes better. Meanwhile of course China waded into Tibet , with explanations re improving the people’s lot. Yogic teachings were of course intended to work at spiritual levels. However the media as ever cheapened ideals into low-brow hedonistic headline grabs. So there was always somebody or something widdling on the peace parade.
There was something to be said Buddhistic thought. Indeed, a love for Martin Luther King and John F Kennedy are now also well-documented factions in the big idea. Singers like Baez, Donovan, Dylan and even the Beatles and Rolling Stones all put forwards idealistic notions and for little teen hippies like me the dream was very real. Ever since Scott Mackenzie crooned “If you’re going, to San Francisco” I have dreamed of it. I thought everyone my age felt the same way - the same as these older kids who appeared on telly smoking reefers and saying how uncool the man was. Which sadly included my parents, they seemed very pro-man. I was rather a twit I realise, to think that of people who had stood up and fought with and beaten the biggest bastard out of Europe so far in history.
The Grateful Dead - The Flowerpot Men, Jefferson Airplane - the whole West Coast scene appealed to me. Flower Power. How the older beats felt about this directive I’m not sure; I think back then generation divides were less distinct and immediate - as an example things stayed in the music charts longer. Not as long as old time music hall had, but longer than in the 1970s. There was a commingling of culture that smiled to see kids like me turned on. We liked Pentangle, Mucha, we read Crowley, Celt Histories, Irish folkies became ‘The Children Of The Gael’ and it was way more fab than some brass tootling Liddypool stuff - though as they split, Lennon, before he got too Yoko for public taste (when he only insulted Jesus and HM QEII) seemed to be into the same bagism/shagism and all they were saying we were thinking too… Even though in school the kids a year above or below you were aliens, we all dug similar ideals within the art/music we loved (just not The Bay City Rollers or Sweet but to be fair they didn’t croon about Masters of War either).
Even the staid performers brought out songs that described swinging Engerland, while the Mamas and Pappas more or less kept a log of the folk-cum-blues blend that lifted us beyond Lonny Donegan’s skiffle and into blues-pop (and LA you know about that; And no one’s gettin’ fat, ‘cept Mama Cass). A blend into which Donovan and Pentangle among others brought jazz/folk fusions, with a blues tinge. In the UK many bought imported records in many styles, which helped cook up what we exported back. Not so new in a sense, when you think how Eupropean folk had commingled with work hollers, African folk and spirituals - not to mention the then new blues forms. And back then, everyone moved to the big cities and knew everyone else. Those of us who wanted world peace but preferred to stay in the provinces had to endure Ted Heath, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and other non-peaceful war mongers like those who took American to war in Vietnam and hated communists (eh?) across the pond. Even a knock-out puncher like Mohamed Ali protested the Vietnam war. I recall riots in Paris and how they spread. One avidly read the underground press (in blighty it was International Times and Oz) looking for leads on the state of the global hippy nation. Under the baton, same as it ever was, even beofre it got dubbed ‘hippy’.
I get a lot of info about social history - and the facts behind it - from biographies. What the authors (in the auto sense) felt, understood or believed regarding humanity moving forwards chime with the very same stuff I still get scorn for in the 21st century. Marianne Faithful, Bruce Springsteen, Keith Richards, and others all reflect similarly yet differently on the 1960s and on what they did/were perceived to do. The Brian Jones issue is a never-cooling potato. I do wonder if Donovan Leitch hasn’t hit the nail on the head, stating that management preferrred - even enforced single performing artistes, as young girls I.E. the record buying public weren’t as passionate about married stars - or so they said. I think it depends which end of the spectrum fans lived at. In more sincere less corporate art forms, it is the art that matters.
Of course there were mass audiences seemingly consisting of girls who fainted and lost bladder control. Pop was a new daring phenomenon which neither performers nor audiences were fully prepared for. Certainly not management, who treated their stables as stock in trade rather than sensitive creators - with even less regard for the emotional or any other state of their consumers. Up North where I was, the only way to get on was to head south. And it wasn’t a gaurantee. I did hitch-hike south for an audition, which was fun, sort of. I’d set off the night before thinking it’d take ages but arrived early. Slept on a bench in a railway station and got a Mars Bar for breakfast once the kiosk opened. Auditions started at noon…
It was a reggea band (wha? well, after yonks of trying to get a band together up north I was getting desperate - and liked reggae - just didn’t live n eat it) called Ozo. Sort of not quite Bob Marley. Although I managed OK on a borrowed Telecaster (my Eko Ranger was smiled at), I obviously wasn’t deep in dubland. It launched me on another European grape-picking trip with busking highlights, but I digress. The social, employment and political divide in England was enough to try to bridge without wanting/needing to join with the rest of the world who had their own fights. Ohio, Paris, Vietnam, (its nam as in bam not narrm BTW) - everywhere has it’s own trip before you can get to the bit where nations join in a global peace campaign.
People theorise about illuminati, governmental or rather corporate control as if Oligarkys, misguided communists, organised religions (not all) and other mental brick bats pounded freedom into dust. And yet world wars were fought and won. These wealthy families should be eternally grateful for not losing everything (to Hitler, Pol Pot and other luminaries tearing the world apart). Nay, it is inner change that most profess to be the way forwards. I have felt that in so many ways, as not doubt many reading this will have. Perhaps it’s our age that sets us singing, writing and painting about that big dream, big idea. As a player of music that fits the period(ish), I often get approaches from very young people who recognise stuff from their grandparent’s record collection (it used to be parents! :) It restores my faith in humanity, as they seem to have inherited so much more than a love of rock, folk or whatever.
They have their own vibe going on, which as an old bloke I have no right to try to understand, but I love them for it. How that contrasts with the music of my parents - though, more closely examined, despite it seeming what we all seem to call lame, it still has undercurrents of what they called Dunkirk Spirit. That gets hijacked as a clarion call for less deserving enterprises, but when big trouble strikes it does emerge among those big enough to endure without preying on their neighbours. Perhaps this is how we’ll bumble forwards, always dreaming of some triumphant golden dawn while we rake through the crap of a wrecked, over-populated planet for a scrap of food or drink.
As I sit here pondering my wishes to move to this or that place, I hear neighbours out mowing the couch grass that passes for lawns on a council estate. Other less fortunate households emit screaming matches and have junk and rubbish piled outside. I can’t even get “friends” of the local park to agree to wildlife-friendly planting. They want swings, grass cut, less dogshit. Fair do-s. You ask some if they stop to think about the bigger picture. Whether munching that wrap between meals when they are already over-insulated is such a good idea. Do they realise that sycamore and ash spread almost as fast as the rats we see our neighbour’s cat trotting home with? Who needs post-apocalyptic? And yet, those few that care, they keep their own end up as we say round here. And it’s probably as much as you can do on a state pension with biscuits costing as much as a second hand car once did.
They are out there. These torch bearers who want to get away from the norm. Sadly, we are perpetually out-numbered by the norms. Nothing wrong with that until you reached that paradoxical nub, that cosmic hinge, that trips and swings into the abyss of ignorance. As someone who suddenly one day thought for himself - when I was still yet naiive and maybe considerably stupid, I am dumbfounded by people who dump litter then moan about the state of their town - blaming immigrants. It’s an effing shit-heap they growl, wallowing in racist juices and harping on the negative. It is perhaps compassionate to keep open doors, but surely that involves a duty to point out what is soically acceptable? well, maybe so, but when we cannot get our own act to be more adult… And, mean as it sounds, when a life boat is full, it’s full…
Gosh, there’s a black picture, if I’m still allowed to say black. people fuss over their interpretation of how others speak - and it’s all pathetically unimportant. I have friends who have been persecuted for their colour - but they know that I was presecuted for the length of my hair and my belief in something better for people. Like many my age, we endured insult and ostracisings naming us as drug addicts, dirty squatters (oh who made people homeless!?) and other insults. It had been decided before we met with local councils or whoever that we were going to lose the argument - whichever it was - saving a neighbourhood, an historic building or site, a wildlife sensitive area. Commerce grinds on and I’m trying to drag the end of this article up into some ‘everyting gonna be alright’ vibe.
It’s a sunny day, so I’ll get out on the bike. Band rehersals are going well. The garden is looking fab and finally some bees are making an appearance. My partner and I are making it happen in our own lives and I’m sure once again that should anyone read this they’ll think, yep, we’re doing what we can too. Maybe more than some old goat bleating on like a troll. I’m not a bragger but I’ve been in and founded a good few good causes too; just meeting local needs as they arose. Comes a time when you have to hand the reins over. And maybe do that retirement thing. Trying to change the world singlehandedly will only stress and tire - so I’ll just keep nibbling at bits and thank you, enjoy the rest.
Of course, things seem to have changed. I haven’t mentioned Greta Thunberg, Green Peace, or Wild Justice. Battles are more convoluted and we can’t seem to simply halt bad practice with any immediate effect. My belief is that the planet is overcrowded. People say there’s room - but at what cost? What are we going to eat/breath and where? I don’t want to get into a lengthy mess here, but I’m sure there’s plenty who understand why stop oil should be gradual not immediate - think hospitals and wildfare welfare and all the things we need to survive - that need oil. Have we not learned to come up with answers not complaints? One can only hope that enough good can be done to sustain the planet for the rest of it’s natural life. Which could be centuries, millenia even - or a few nano seconds.
Cheery-bye
Beautiful tune and the words really do have a St Ives feel.