description:
January 19, 1968-THE SKYSCRAPER - Page Three Clown princes turn on youth Beatles' music grows with generation of today (Con I in iied from page 1) Turned-on Generation. John says, in the distance of a taped echo chamber. Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes, And she's gone. Lucy in the sky with diamonds. Although the underground cult claims a strike for LSD in Lucy with her plasticine porters and rocking horse people ', they do not gel much support on ihe whole. As Ron Riley of pop radio station WLS says of the move ment and the Beatles them selves. I don't believe all the ideas and references to LSD and drugs are written into all the songs they're supposed to be in. People interpret and see what they want to see. A d the Beatles aren't all that wrapped up in drugs they couldn't be. and still play and create Ihe way they do. Remain Innovators With enough wealth to with draw from the pop scene al together, the Beatles remain innovators and forerunners of the music of today. Why? Ren Riley talks again of them from the aspect of one who knows them personally. They are four guys without a religion. They don't have the stability and back-drop of the Catholic mass or the Protestant service to fall back on. They are con stantly searching. I don't know, but this could be one of the reasons for their tremen dous creativity. As for the love movement, no. they didn't start it. But again, ihey got swept up in it. George went to San Francisco and saw the movement there. He didn't like what he saw and came home. But like I said, they're constanily searching. Maintain Sensitivity Their searching has pro duced a music of the times that aligns and identifies with today's youth whose loneliness and lack of content with the establishment predominates their lives and actions. Main taining loo their delicate sen sitivity to the absurd, the Beatles present the world with music so complex and sophis ticated that interpretation is endless. Probably the song closest to genius lhat the Beatles have produced to date, is the final cut on Sgt. Pepper called A Day In the Life. The nar rator is the youthful Every man of today whose loneliness, frustration. Inability to cope with life, and yet acceptance of it reverberates through the electronic masterpiece. ' / read the news today oh boy Four thousand holes in Black burn Lancashire And though the holes were rather small They had lo count them all Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall. Til Uive to turn you on. The final line that caused the song to be banned by the BBC. expresses the youth's concern, despair, and hope of escape. It is followed by an overwhelmingly powerful and frightening building of co-ordi nated sounds that trail off into prebend anil see n lot more than we give them credit for. Sure, their grasping of the lyrics to a song like 'A Day in ihe Life' will differ from what I get out of it. But then their experiential knowledge differs from mine. But don't underrate them. They've seen more and done more at their age than I ever conceived pos sible when I was 14 or 15 years old. But it ls the college-aged or older group who really ident ify with the Beatles. They are release of Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever they found their footing and were well on the way to Sgt. Pepper and their latest. Mag ical Mystery Tour . With the recent release of the album Magical Mystery Tour, a whole new horizon of discussion has opened. Speaking of the new album and ihe Beatles' music in gen eral, rhythm guitarist Steve Titra says. As it is technical ly produced, there are so many elements to it. The Beatles JOHN LENNON. PAUL McCARTNEY and RINGO STARR, secure in their rennovated image, revert to an old English custom eat ing fish-'n-ehips. Thr Beatles have revolution ized the recording industry with their musical treatises on Hindu mysticism and contempor ary man's boredom and alienation. have become much more than four or five musicians. They do so much technically with double tracking and elec tronics. They're approaching per fection when they have all the time and money to spend in a recording studio taping a song. Their music becomes a wider art form. It is now a more complete kind of art form in itself. They're produc ing the kind of music that you can't do live, but can create only in a studio. Blend Traditions Their lyrics are open to in finite interpretation, much like contemporary poetry. They are no longer simple and open to only one interpretation. Now the Beatles have and are full of all kinds of new Ideas, blended with the traditions of society today. The complexity of these songs and of most of the Beatles' ensuing works are open to endless possibilities. For not only are thev involved, they are also enjoyable. The Beatles hive Indeed be come the Poet Laureates of today's generation. Constantly opening new horizons of vis ions, the obvious Question seems to be. where will they go next? Ron Riley answers. Where's today's generation go'ng? Where are the Beatles goine? You'd have to be anoth er Brian Epstein to answer that. But I believe in them both chords of music, hypnotic-like in its duration. A song of such complexity and multiple meaning defies all laws of commercial suc cess. Yet the album sold one and a half million copies with in two weeks in the United States alone. And the pur chasers ranged from age 8 to 88. Ron Riley feels that al though the pre-teens and those in their early teens might not understand the Beatles, they are following the lead of the older young people. He said The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper songs have never been re quested at a hop I've been at. I've heard a few bands play, say, A Day in the Life.' and the kids really listen to it and dig it. Bui they don't request them they're not danceable now. Joel Sebastian of WCFL how ever feels differently about the music of the Clown Princes, as he calls them, and the younger generation's attitude toward them. Let's face It. he smiles, leaning back in his chair, the kids today are really on the ball. They com- Urban workers, students debate church relevancy ICcniinui'd irom page ll dale residence is to work with the people. The men help organize groups, but new decisions come from the people of the Com- m unity, while in previous years, actions and activities were determined by outsiders and the opinions of the people were never sought. George Bergerson discussed the effectiveness of the Con fraternity of Christian Doc trine's work in relation to the Inner City struggle. His work is directed toward receiving Christians into the Catholic Church by meeting with small groups of people weekly. Jack Arnold's work is con cerned with poverty in the sub urbs. He stated that he en deavors to set up organizations through which the deprived people can voice their needs and determine possible solu tions to their problems. A question and answer pe riod followed during which the four speakers were available to elaborate on their particu lar organization. The evening closed with an inter-faith pray er service at which a re-evalu ation of the evening and its re lation to self took place. the ones who screamed to I Wanna Hold Your Hand and have grown up with the Beatles to I'd love to turn you on . This ls one of the reasons why the Beatles' mu sic is so popular in the bars and discotheques of Chicago's night people on Rush Street. His long blonde Prince Vali ant hair wet from perspiration, fingering the beads around his neck. Dave, the organist tor a top Rush Street band called the Predikktors talks about why his band plays the Beatles' music. Most of the kids who come In here were B e a 11 e fans In '63 when they first made It big. Now they're old enough to drink and either in college or graduated and working. They come here to Rush to drink and meet people. They're not interested in dancing and they'll stand and listen to the music we're playing. We play the Beatles because they're ob viously great and they're what's happening now they're great and all we can hope to do is imitate them. Drop Image But the Beatles' entrance into the psychedelic world has not been instantaneous. Grow ing in sophistication and com plexity, Sgt. Pepper was only a natural progression of their development. Gone is the cherubic image created with songs like P.S. I Love You, That Boy , and Love Me Do. They widened their topics to include Yellow Subma rine , interpreted as a refer ence to drugs and the obvious ly sensual double talk of Baby You Can Drive My Car , referring to a whore. But their songs got not only gamier, but improved tremen dously musically. Beginning with Yesterday from the Help album, they next pro duced Rubber Soul and then Revolver, where the first rath er poor attempt at psychedelia was heard in Tomorrow Never Knows . But with the Lynd cites values of U.S. radicalism American society is in a state of crisis, according to Staughton Lynd. visiting professor of history at Roose velt University and co-editor of Liberation magazine. Speaking at the Loyola campus center Jan. 12, Lynd asserted that in present U.S. society, socialist orders are growing at a more rapid speed than its own economy. Because of a desire to preserve the present order, re pression of any variant factions seems inevitable. Consequently, one alterna tive for the future of Ameri can radicalism is its growing violence in order to survive re pression by the government. The other, and more opti mistic alternative is that U.S. radicalism will follow the Eu ropean pattern, that the goals of brotherhood and freedom will be intensified because of repression. Present fundamental values of American radicalism, ac cording to Lynd, are freedom and fraternity. There seems to be a feeling in American so ciety, Lynd believes, that com petition is Inseparable from freedom, thus excluding fra ternity. In a similar vein, a preva- alent American idea is that community cannot exist out side of a dictatorship. Ameri cans fear, according to Lynd. that under the establishment of a communal feeling, com munism will gradually usurp the democratic system. Yet the radicals feel that the sys tem Americans strive at heart to protect is in need of drastic reform. Lynd offered three areas in which renewal is most desired: education, par ticipatory democracy and eco nomics. In education, Americans do not come together to solve a common problem as they should, said Lynd. Solutions are sought, side by side, sub urban style, with much com petition because of qualitative grading. The authoritarian fig ure of the teacher would also change in a radical reform of the system so that the rela tionship between teacher and pupil would be master-ap prentice rather than officer- private. Representative government also incurs the criticism of the radical left. People do not be come really involved with the true issues that the nation faces under the present sys tem, and the radicals are sug gesting that democracy be car ried out personally; if each citizen must vote on each is sue, he will become aware of what is happening from bu reaucracy. In the field of economy, rad ical values demand freedom. Lynd cited examples of eco nomics in the Student Non-vio lent Coordinating Committee, where the distribution of funds was not a mechanical measur ing of the treasury against the contributions or needs of the individual. It involved a per sonal encounter with each member and a readiness to support one another. American society, as a whole, because of the competition value, con siders success in economic ventures a personal responsi bility. Lynd commented.
title:
1968-01-19 (3)
publisher:
Women and Leadership Archives http://www.luc.edu/wla
creator:
Mundelein College
description:
Student newspaper for Mundelein College
subject:
Newspapers
subject:
Religious communities--Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
subject:
Students
subject:
Universities and colleges
subject:
Women's education
relation:
Mundelein College Records
type:
Text
language:
English
rights:
This image is issued by the Women and Leadership Archives. Use of the image requires written permission from the Director of the Women and Leadership Archives. It may not be sold or redistributed, copied or distributed as a photograph, electronic file, or any other media. The image should not be significantly altered through conventional or electronic means. Images altered beyond standard cropping and resizing require further negotiation with the Director. The user is responsible for all issues of copyright. Please Credit: Women and Leadership Archives, Loyola University Chicago. wlarchives@luc.edu
coverage:
Chicago, Illinois
coverage:
Mundelein College