Sunday, April 25, 2004

Synchronicity, Music History and the dichotomy of being PC



I was thinking of the music of my youth, when KANU started playing some of the tunes.

Right after my favorite radio show, is a very eclectic show called The American Past. You never quite know what to expect, and most Sunday's I am too busy to stay and appreciate the music and commentary. This week, I happened to be on an errand picking up dinner at Sonic. This evening's selections were the direct antecedents of many TrailMix artist's tunes. How synchronistic, given what I had just read.

That got me thinking of the '60s crowd, all grown up now and PC as can be.

Now, my youth was spent camping with my family, in an Apache tent trailer. Also, from the time in the mid-'60s when I started playing guitar, I was never without it on all those trips. And during that time, most every campground had a big bonfire every night where all the guitar-players (and there were always several) would gather and play for group sing-alongs.

Ok, I know it sounds hokey, kind of a 'ruffing-it' version of Mitch Miller. (You can look him up yourself, if you are too young.) In a suburb of canvas and sheet-metal and sometimes, even aluminum. And OH! How we would sing and play.

And a lot of it was Peter, Paul and Mary, which was tonight's retrospective on The American Past.

Now, I never did subscribe to the politics, I just liked the tunes and the comradeship. Not to mention the praise from my 'elders'. (The 16, 17 and 18 year olds who led these 'hootenanys'.) And they usually had these real 'artsy' girlfriends... ;-)

Now, of course, all the members of the 'Flower Power' generation have grown up, at least physically. And whatever percentage of them are unchanged politically would certainly be anybody's guess. I do think it is a reasonable to assume that subset of the PC set that includes the baby-boomers of the age-group I am describing is as close to a 100% PP&M fan base as exists on the planet. Further many of the follow-on generations of the same political ilk are probably fans, especially with the various 'reunion' albums and the nineties releases.

So, I think it a reasonable conclusion to assume that any concert that featured the acoustic music I prefer playing and included a set of PP&M would have a large percentage of PC audience members. I started playing around in my mind with what I would include in my set.

On the way home from the burger joint, I saw a for-real by-damn honest-to-creator Corvair! White, no less!

I took this as a sign, and here we are.

So, here is the set.

If I Had My Way
This Train
Go! Tell It On The Mountain
All My Trials
Early In The Morning

Oh, but wait! There is a test. There is an underlying common thread in all these selections.
What is it, and what does it say about the PC crowd who loves them so much?

E-Mail Me your answer.



The best part of it is, they would all clap and sing along and never get it...

And no, the answer is NOT blowing in the wind... ;-)