Eve of Destruction, Barry McGuire (1965)

Yeah, my blood's so mad feels like coagulatin'
I'm sitting here just contemplatin'
I can't twist the truth, it knows no regulation.
Handful of senators don't pass legislation
And marches alone can't bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin'
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin'

And you tell me over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

I've been wanting to write about this song for a while, and I won't wait any longer. Eve of Destruction blew the doors off people's complacency when it was released and caused a firestorm of controversy in the culture - was Barry McGuire the ultimate patriot or an enemy of the people, someone to be ostracized for having the gall to speak truth to power? Rarely has a song tried so little to sugarcoat what was happening in the world.

McGuire was working as a young pipefitter when he stumbled into a cafe in Laguna Beach, saw someone singing his heart out, and decided to pursue the musical life. After leaving the New Christy Minstrels in early 1965, McGuire found himself at a Byrds concert where he met P.F. Sloan (the song's composer) and the legendary producer Lou Adler.

One thing led to another, and Adler offered to produce a McGuire solo album. With only 20 minutes left in that recording session, McGuire pulled out the crumpled lyrics to Eve of Destruction, found them hard to decipher in places and delivered a roughish first take, fully expecting to perfect the vocal track later. Through a chain of events described on McGuire's website, that never happened, and the memorable raw version was on the radio just days later and exploded onto the charts. Few people who heard it could look the other way. The rage Sloan put onto the page and into which McGuire breathed life was palpable.

Let's see: what's changed in nearly a half century? Well, it took five years, but the voting age was eventually lowered to 18 so that the kids who put their lives on the line for us could also select the people who run the country they're fighting for. In fact, somewhere I saw that the lyrics to Eve were read on the floor of Congress when the legislation was enacted.

But the truth of the matter is that the times are, in many respects, even more frightening now than they were then, and sadly, Eve of Destruction doesn't feel all that dated to me. Who'd have predicted just 8 years ago that the United States would have devolved into a shadow of its former self, a house of cards mortgaged to the hilt, its citizenry plagued by social and economic problems that have been utterly ignored while a neocon agenda was unleashed on the world?

Hang On Sloopy, The McCoys (1965)

Everyone's all in a lather today about football, and I understand that Eli's Coming has enjoyed quite a workout thanks to the New York Giants, but the only football I know about is Ohio State football, so I'm going to give a shout-out to one of the goofiest songs to go to the top of the charts during the 60s, Hang on Sloopy.

One of those songs that you jive to whether you really want to or not, and I know I did, it had such a feel-good vibe to it that I guess it was only a matter of time before The Ohio State University, my alma mater, decided to make it the unofficial fight song of Buckeyes football. I still laugh when I hear it, the more so because the State of Ohio went one step further in 1985 and made it the official state rock song, of all things, after Columbus Citizen-Journal columnist Joe Dirck wrote a column about a proposal the State of Washington was considering to make Louie, Louie its state rock song.

The actual legislative resolution, which can be read in its entirety here, includes this remarkable language, to wit:

"WHEREAS, Rock music has become an integral part of American culture, having attained a degree of acceptance no one would have thought possible twenty years ago; and

WHEREAS, Adoption of "Hang On Sloopy" as the official rock song of Ohio is in no way intended to supplant "Beautiful Ohio" as the official state song, but would serve as a companion piece to that old chestnut; and

WHEREAS, If fans of jazz, country-and-western, classical, Hawaiian and polka music think those styles also should be recognized by the state, then by golly, they can push their own resolution just like we're doing; and

WHEREAS, "Hang On Sloopy" is of particular relevance to members of the Baby Boom Generation, who were once dismissed as a bunch of long-haired, crazy kids, but who now are old enough and vote in sufficient numbers to be taken quite seriously; and

WHEREAS, Adoption of this resolution will not take too long, cost the state anything, or affect the quality of life in this state to any appreciable degree, and if we in the legislature just go ahead and pass the darn thing, we can get on with more important stuff; and

WHEREAS, Sloopy lives in a very bad part of town, and everybody, yeah, tries to put my Sloopy down; and

WHEREAS, Sloopy, I don't care what your daddy do, 'cause you know, Sloopy girl, I'm in love with you; therefore be it Resolved, That we, the members of the 116th General Assembly of Ohio, in adopting this Resolution, name "Hang On Sloopy" as the official rock song of the State of Ohio; and be it further Resolved, That the Legislative Clerk of the House of Representatives transmit duly authenticated copies of this Resolution to the news media of Ohio."

Regardless of its other merits or lack thereof, Hang On Sloopy's ability to rev up a stadium crowd is undeniable. With lead vocals and guitar by 16-year-old Ricky Zehringer, later to become known as Rick Derringer, its catchy rhythm and ridiculous lyrics perhaps exemplify as well as anything that last gasp of innocence before things got too serious in our world. It wouldn't last long - the week that Sloopy was #1, right behind it on the charts was Barry McGuire's Eve of Destruction, a strident cautionary protest against racism, Vietnam and the nuclear arms race.