A Top Ten Memoir: 1969 - "What happened to the world we knew?"
In June 1969, my father passed out at work after experiencing double vision.
He was rushed to the hospital and was soon diagnosed with terminal cancer. This news devastated the whole family although I’m not sure I really understood what was happening. He had been a smoker for many years and the cancer spread quickly throughout his body. Since my father was a veteran of World War 2, he received his treatments at Hines Veteran’s Hospital several miles from our house. I remember going to see him once. He looked quite thin and sick. It was a sad period although you’d never know it from our home movies that year – or the lack thereof. The last film of him is walking off with my brother Mike to his 8th grade graduation.
That fall I entered first grade at St. Monica Catholic School, which was several blocks from our house. Due to my father’s illness, mom took an office job at Plastic Industries near O’Hare Airport to help the family out financially. My sister Judy, being a 7th grader at the time, walked with me to school. Along the way we would stop at her many girlfriends’ houses (I remember their names distinctly: Jean, Nan, Beth, and Jeanine!) making the journey longer than it probably needed to be. These girls were all very sweet and I generally enjoyed going to pick them up every day with Judy. School was a different experience though. I enjoyed it but my first-grade teacher, Mrs. O’Leary, began to grow impatient with my seemingly unruly behavior in class. After the first quarter, I received a check on my report card for bad conduct. I don’t really remember what I did or what I was feeling. Was I acting out because of the drama enfolding at home or did I just need some of that attention I so craved? Dancing in front of my mother’s movie camera started to subside a bit, as there weren’t as many joyous events in which to strut my stuff.
As the holidays drew nearer it was clear that things were not looking well for my father. Less than two weeks before Christmas, at the age of 43, he passed away. A couple of my mother’s co-workers took my brother Jeff and I to their home to stay for a day, perhaps to give the rest of the family time to grieve at home. Family friends bought all of our Christmas presents that year so we’d still experience some kind of joy in what was clearly a very tragic period for our family.
I don’t remember much about the funeral except that St. Monica gave us a mass and many people attended, including my sister’s 7th grade class and my own 1st grade class. As my mother gripped the hands of Jeff and I, I remember waving to my friends in the church pews as we walked out. Everyone had such sad looks on their faces, including Mrs. O’Leary. My father was buried at St. Adalbert’s Cemetery on Chicago’s Northwest side. This was where my mother’s father was buried along with other relatives.
Sometimes I wonder if it is because of all the emotions going through our lives at that time that I now find 1969 to be one of the best years for music. So many of these songs pull at my heartstrings to this day.
My Top Ten of 1969:
1. My Cherie Amour – Stevie Wonder
2. Wedding Bell Blues – The 5th Dimension
3. Hot Fun in the Summer Time – Sly & the Family Stone
4. You Can’t Always Get What You Want – The Rolling Stones
5. Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In – The 5th Dimension
6. Gimme Shelter – The Rolling Stones
7. Workin’ On a Groovy Thing – The 5th Dimension
8. Yester-Me, YesterYou, Yesterday – Stevie Wonder
9. Marrakesh Express – Crosby, Stills, & Nash
10. Put a Little Love in Your Heart – Jackie DeShannon
Stevie Wonder’s Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday begins with the line “what happened to, the world we knew…” As the Pals were now heading into uncharted territories, the innocence was gone and the joy of the past decade was seemingly coming to an end. Wonder’s voice is pure and emotional reflecting on his own passed young life.
Of course, he continued to corner the market on young desire with My Cherie Amour. I’ve always viewed this as one of the most romantic songs ever written: “In a café, or sometimes on a crowded street, I’ve been near you but you never noticed me. My Cherie Amour, pretty little one that I adore, you’re the only girl my heart beats for, how I wish that you were mine…” The vocal performance, arrangement, melody, and lyrics have always collided in the best possible ways for me. I remember really feeling this song when my hormones were raging in my late teens. As time went on I felt this music and lyrics on many occasions when thinking about unrequited love: “Maybe someday you’ll see my face among the clouds. Maybe someday I’ll share your little distant cloud…”
The Fifth Dimension released three classics in ’69. The biggest of these was Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In from the musical Hair. The song was everywhere and I always considered it one of “my” songs being an Aquarian. Mom used to love to tell fortunes and even delved into astrology for a while so I guess it meant something to me at the time even though later skepticism overcame any of those early beliefs.
Working on a Groovy Thing was another romantic song using a very 1960s expression: “groovy.” This dates the song considerably but I always felt pangs of desire when I heard it even as a kid. One of my earliest crushes was a neighbor girl whose family moved into a home that once housed a small grocery store between our part of the block and “the bumpy street” (mentioned in my introduction.) There were four daughters in their household. I spent most of my time with Debbie who was a year younger than me. Her older sister Robin was a knockout though! I remember finding her so attractive that I couldn’t speak around her. She had long brown hair and would wear it in very stylish (for the time) ways. Something about this really affected me! I even started recording how she’d wear her hair each day I’d see her! Not long ago, I surprisingly discovered that a Facebook friend of mine is the daughter of Robin. Apparently, she remembers babysitting us but I have no memory of that. On the other hand, I may have blocked it out because she was so beautiful I wouldn’t have been able to take it! Here are some of the lyrics to the song, “When I saw you I knew that I was gonna love you, and every day I thought of how I’m gonna love you…” That’s a lot of emotion for a six-year old!
Late in the year the group’s version of Laura Nyro’s Wedding Bell Blues became another huge hit. Even more than Groovy Thing this song reflected pure desire for a permanent union together: “Bill!” Marilyn McCoo belts in the opening line, “I love you so, I always will. I look at you and see the passion eyes of May, but am I ever gonna see my wedding day?!… “C’mon and marry me Bill! I’ve got the Wedding Bell Blues!” It’s quite the traditional cry for marriage! Still, the emotions and pleading in the song always got me on a gut level.
In 2019, Morrissey released a version of the tune without changing the gender. What a pleasant and contemporary updating even though the arrangement was very much the same!
Another emotion packed song was Jackie DeShannon’s Put a Little Love in Your Heart. This was another song that felt very bittersweet to me: “Put a little love in your heart and the world will be a better place for you and me.” On the surface this seems very positive and uplifting until you think about the fact she sings, “the world will be a better place…”
Given the song’s release in the late 1960s it clearly represented a dark time where differences concerning civil rights and the Vietnam War were front and center throughout our culture. I remember seeing images of the war on television and it frightened me deeply for many years. The song though offers some light in this dark tunnel we were in and perhaps on some level the tunnel our own family was going through in ’69.
No matter how bleak things got though, there were always family picnics and trips to Lake Waconda, Honey Hill Beach, and Cedar Lake. Hot Fun in the Summertime certainly reflects these happy times. The summer has always felt like a time of fun and freedom to me. Sly & the Family Stone created a hot atmosphere of reflection on those sunny days.
Marrakesh Express also reflects an escape: “all on board that train!” I’ve always loved the arrangement, the chorus, and lyrics. Getting on some kind of “love train” filled with happy people has always been very important to me.
The Rolling Stones songs are much darker in arrangement but also offer some form of hope. You Can’t Always Get What You Want was yet another song I only really discovered after its inclusion in The Big Chill. In that film the song reflects the disillusionment these former idealistic 60s college students feel in the early 1980s. Adding the title line is the follow-up “but if you try some time, you just might find, you get what you need.”
This may be the ultimate lyric I’ve believed true throughout my life. Desire has been mentioned more than once already in this retelling of my past. There have been SO many things and people I’ve wanted that I haven’t always got. The older I get the more I realize how profound the Rolling Stones lyrics really are. We want, but if we try we’ll get what we need instead. This has certainly been true in my relationships and jobs at many points in my life. In the 2010s I’d make a trilogy of short films where this would be the running theme. The Scotty trilogy examines one particular character’s own dichotomous wants and how those get met in his life.
I think on some level Gimme Shelter works in the same manner. With its outstanding haunting production and powerful backing vocals, the song is a desperate cry for shelter.
Do we ever really want to be thrown out to sea without anyone guiding us? That could take several meanings but for me it’s always been a cry out to other people, to my hobbies, career, and of course music. All of these things give me shelter in some way. Certainly in 1969 with the death of my father, I know that need for protection and guidance was prevalent within our family.
As the 1960s drew to a close so did a significant part of my childhood. The shelter of my family life had been rocked. A bit of innocence was gone but life moved on.
Links to my Top Ten of 1969:
Up Next…1970…”There’s nothing sadder than a clown when there’s no on around…”
I was born in 1969...this post makes me think what my own 1969 playlist would be. It would probably by default have to open up with The Stooges, "1969!" 😊
On a side note and touching on yours and Kevin's comment, when my sister passed away we flew to her small city in upstate, NY and I was taken aback by the number of kids who showed up at her funeral. Her children (my nieces and nephews) ranged in age from elementary to HS when she died, and several of their friends were there in support. I assume, however, it's because they lived in a smaller city.
What memories! I don't remember class coming to the funeral mass. I think the trauma blocked out the memories. So many great songs in your list. Many of my favorites especially The Fifth Dimension and Stevie Wonder. I remember Robin's name but can't remember what she looked like. She had an impact on you though!