1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music (46 page)

BOOK: 1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music

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With the prevalence of the Pill and other contraceptives such as IUDs and spermicides, there was a sharp increase in the number of women who both attended and graduated college. Only 8 percent of pre-baby boom women graduated from institutes of higher learning; 20 percent of boomer women did.
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In 1966 the National Organization for Women (NOW) took up the struggle for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and the fight to end the wage gap between men and women. The ERA would not be achieved, but legalized abortion (
Roe v. Wade
) would, as would a gradual cultural reeducation on issues ranging from sexism, domestic violence, date rape, and the new lifestyle choices available to women. By the end of the 1960s, the civil rights movement had also paved the way for movements for gays, Native Americans, Chicanos, environmentalists, and others.

Today, freedom of speech in politics and art is largely secure in the United States, as is the right to criticize government and demand increased transparency. As of this writing, more than thirty states allow gay marriage. At some point in the 1970s, even white working-class southerners grew their hair long.

Originally, musicians seemed to be having more fun than anyone else and inspired others to emulate their freedom in thought and appearance. They ended up becoming walking science experiments for the wholesale reconsideration of values in Western society: which limits were worth breaking (racism, sexual repression, homophobia) and which perhaps made sense (restrictions against harder drugs). In the end, most baby boomers reaffirmed the consumer lifestyle, and “Satisfaction” was used for a 1990
Snickers
commercial. But now people were free to pursue the way of living that suited them, economically, spiritually, and sexually.

In 1965, the combined forces of mass media, the Pill, and hallucinogens took the Western world on a roller-coaster ride that was both exhilarating and fearsome, which was why the paradoxical “Like a Rolling Stone” was the anthem of the year, as it captured both extremes in the same chorus. Those forces stirred demands that the musicians gave voice to on a flood of records—“Respect,” “Let Me Be,” “It’s My Life,” “People Get Ready,” “A Change Is Gonna Come,” “Think for Yourself,” “Go Where You Wanna Go,” “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere,” “Freedom Highway,” “I’m Free”—that chronicled and propelled a social reformation as the old world forged its uneasy synthesis with the new.

Notes

Citations without page numbers are from the e-book version of the book.

INTRODUCTION