Heaven Help Us All

1972

Jackson Free Press

September 24, 2008

In post-World War II American history, 1968 was a seminal year. It began with a brutal awakening with the Tet Offensive in Vietnam and culminated in the election of President Richard Nixon. Between these benchmarks were the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, a riotous Democratic convention in Chicago and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia to put down a growing political liberation.

It was a momentous year in history, and the artists of the day delivered a comparable musical soundtrack. There were songs reflecting the fatigue overtaking the country providing the strength to endure (“Mrs. Robinson,” “Dock of the Bay”), and there were songs calling for unity (“People Got to Be Free,” “Everyday People”). Then there were songs that combined the mood and the message. The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” is the best example. It pulls off both without resorting to heavy-handedness, a trait that enables it to live on through strife and prosperity.

In ’69 and ’70, conditions did not markedly improve abroad or on the homefront, and the music of the time reflected this impasse. “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival and “Heaven Help Us All” by Stevie Wonder were two indispensable social-awareness songs released in those years. Both reached Top 10 status on the Billboard charts.

Marvin Gaye released his classic “What’s Going On” in 1973, and Stevie Wonder released a series of albums with recurring global- and domestic-conscious themes through the ’90s.

Yet singles and albums of this sort have all but disappeared. Why?

Say what you want about radio, but one thing has never changed: Top 40 stations have always tripped over their heels to play the newest single by the biggest artists. If you present the new Miley Cyrus song, it gets four plays an hour on the local station in 2008, just as the newest CCR song did in 1970.

But credit goes to record labels and artists who refused to let the non-threatening, asinine singles topping the charts intimidate them. (“Happy Together” and “I’m a Believer” were both Top 5 songs of 1967.) The increase in social awareness of the late ’60s was a result of their refusal. Labels and artists today have yet to take this step.

The vast majority of Americans agree that we’re headed in the wrong direction, and the country has never felt so divided. One feels a growing market for a song attempting to reduce this simmering acrimony. Where are the songs reminding us that a Republican family going through foreclosure in rural Texas is just as tragic as a Democratic father losing his job in urban Boston? A straightforward song reminding us of this could prove very profitable, and at the very least would be therapeutic for the nation’s battle-weary soul.

Instead, though, the music industry has ignored America’s growing quandary. We now find ourselves in the deepest depths of a post-Sept. 11 world, and the No. 1 song is about a girl enjoying kissing another girl. Even Kanye West, once so incensed about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, seems to have lost the fortitude to apply a catchy hook to a socially meaningful song.

The parallels between 1968 and 2008 continue to grow. However, artists’ gustiness of those days has been replaced by an apparent redoubled effort to keep the people apathetic.

Something needs to change.

It would be a shame if when history is written on this era, we were embarrassed by the soundtrack.

Original Article