77. Summer of 69 &...

Lyrics

I got my first real six-string
Bought it at the five-and-dime
Played it till my fingers bled
Was the summer of '69

Me and some guys from school
Had a band and we tried real hard
Jimmy quit, Jody got married
I shoulda known we'd never get far

Oh when I look back now
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Ya - I'd always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life

Ain't no use in complainin'
When you got a job to do
Spent my evenings down at the drive-in
And that's when I met you

Standin' on your mama's porch
You told me that you'd wait forever
Oh and when you held my hand
I knew that it was now or never
Those were the best days of my life
oh yeeaahh

Back in the summer of '69 Ohhhhh

Man we were killin' time
We were young and restless
We needed to unwind
I guess nothin' can last forever - forever, no
Yeah

And now the times are changin'
Look at everything that's come and gone
Sometimes when I play that old six-string
Think about you wonder what went wrong

Standin' on your mama's porch
You told me that it last forever
Oh the way you held my hand
I knew that it was now or never
Those were the best days of my life

Ohh yeeaahh.... Back in the summer of '69
uhh huh...it was the summer of 69
Ohhh Yeeaahh....me and my baby in 69
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh...ho....
it was the summer....the summer, the summer of 69
YEAH

I quite like this song, but I can understand why some rock fans hate Bryan Adams. He really is one of the most generic, middle of the road, rock artists. The mysteriously popular Everything I Do is his nadir. We'll find that song later on in the list, which also means that there will be a movie connected to that song. It should not be a surprise which one it is. And also that it is just as dull and dreary as Everything I Do. That cannot be said about the movie I connected to Summer of 69, which is a very recent movie about a bunch of youngsters in the 60's who form a rather unsuccessful band.

The Movie: Not Fade Away (David Chase, 2012)

Not Fade Away opens with archival footage of early rock, followed by a television test signal. We hear a siren on the soundtrack after which a voice tells us that this is a test of the emergency broadcast system. It's 1963 so you can guess what emergency they are talking about. This image is followed by the actual opening scene of the movie, a scene shot in black and white that's completely unrelated to the rest of the movie's plot. It shows us a meeting of two kids happening to be on the same train. Turns out these kids are Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and what we are seeing is a fictionalized version of the birth of The Rolling Stones. The movie wasn't even three minutes old by then and I knew I was gonna like it a lot. Chase makes immediately clear that this is gonna be a movie about the way society and popular culture shape and influence each other, a theme I find greatly interesting. Chase follows up on his promise, although it is fair to criticize him for being too blunt about it. His framing device (the story is narrated by the hero's sister, who actually narrates from her term paper on American rock culture and society in the 60's) makes clear that he knows this and he doesn't really care. It shows that one reason he made this movie, was because he explicitly wanted to explore the relationship between society and popular culture. I did not mind this (in fact I liked it a lot), but I can see why it could bother people. What stopped this movie from being really great for me was the fact that the hero's story wasn't all that interesting. The events happening to him are the typical things you usually see in a coming of age movie.       

Coincidentally just before watching this movie, I read a blog post by the great film critic Glenn Kenny in which he discussed an idea I wasn't familiar with. Namely, that after the assassination of John F. Kennedy the 'depression' of the American people was only 'cured' when The Beatles arrived for the first time in America to give a concert there. It's probably a far-fetched idea; The Beatles are probably the most important pop band, but not that important. Still, it's not surprising how this idea came to fruition. We all like to believe that the popular culture of our time has some importance to society, beyond merely entertaining us. In any case this idea is quite directly expressed here by David Chase. Only in his version The Beatles 'save' America much faster. America here awakens from its depression only three weeks after the murder of JFK, when the Beatles first record comes out and can be heard on the radio. At around the same time The Rolling Stones also arrive at the scene and (main character) Douglas and his friends decide to form a band and be just like the Beatles and the Stones. They are not successful, because they don't really have the talent and because they don't really get these bands.

I don't know to what extent Douglas is modeled after Chase himself, but he is of the same generation of Chase. And although Chase portrays the popular culture of his time in a very positive, nostalgic light, he is very critical and cynical about his generation, or at least about Douglas and his group of friend. Douglas, played by the unknown to me John Magaro is pretty much an asshole, and also not very intelligent. He does not really get the popular culture he worships. There is a fun scene in which he watches Antonioni's Blow Up (a movie I haven't yet seen), one of the most influential movies of its time and doesn't get it. There  have obviously been many movies in which a character watches an art film and doesn't get it, but here this scene is used in a different way than in many other movies. Douglas is someone who aspires to be a great artist, and who sees himself as a potentially great artist. Blow Up is the kind of movie someone like him, living at that time should connect to. Or at least understand why/what others like him see something in that movie. In other words, he doesn't understand what the values of that movie are and why they are important to the like minded people of his generation.   

Chase absolutely believes that bands like the Beatles and the Stones, and directors like Antonioni, criticized the 'old' values because they sincerely believed these to be conservative and regressive. Douglas only sees that they fight the old generation, but at no point in the movie does he truly seem to realize what the fight exactly is 'for' or 'against.' He just believes that its cool to turn against your elders and your parents, but doesn't really know why. If his father (played by a great James Gandolfini) calls people 'niggers' or 'faggots' he protests against it. But he doesn't really understand why those words are racist or homophobic, nor does he really care that they are. They are simply wrong because his father uses them. And in a late conversation with his son, it turns out that it's actually the father who better understands what the 'new freedoms' are supposed to entail. He is not very happy about it, but hopes his son will understand his problem. When he realizes he doesn't he is more disappointed with his son than ever before.