Snow And Peace: A Night To Remember

1972.  While I had been a music junkie from the 60s, seeing my first live show always seemed like my rebirth.  No other passion has consumed me more.  In a previous post "A Chestnut from The Byrds,"   I talked about my first concert and mentioned that my second show was two weeks later.

Now in 1972, the Vietnam War was still an ever present factor, though starting to wind down.  Across the street from my house, two next door neighbors...one black and one white (the war knew no color lines) came home in caskets, forever changing the touch football games that were played on the street.  One of my brother's friends had the same fate.  Luckily my brother's number in the draft lottery was high (remember the draft) and he never had to serve. And as always, there was the music. Protest songs were everywhere.

"We were so close, there was no room
We bled inside each others wounds
We all had caught the same disease
And we all sang the songs of peace."


An unlikely protest song came from the singer Melanie. Now on February 19, 1972, I had four tickets to see Melanie, again at the Capitol Theatre.  It snowed all day and into the evening. I didn't have a drivers license yet, and the girls I was going with, were not gonna get their parent's car that night..no way, no how. Determined to go, it was less than three miles away, I needed to come up with Plan B.
Call Up The Crush.


As a junior in high school, I was mad for one tall, long blond haired, big mustached, drop dead gorgeous, dumb as a doorpost senior, who lived a few blocks away...and he loved Melanie and he had his own car. We were good friends, that's all we would ever be, but that one night is still a memory I treasure.  Great seats, down front, great friends and great music. One night I was on top of the world.

"Some came to sing, some came to pray
Some came to keep the dark away."

A song that was heard everywhere in the early 70's, one we all sang along with every time it was on  the radio...float back in time for "Lay Down."

"Let your white bird smile up at the ones who stand and frown."

The Civil Rights Movement: The Times Were A Changin'

“You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say”...Martin Luther King Jr.

The time of the civil rights movement was also the time of Vietnam war protests.  A lot of the music from that time was interchangeable between the two, in the ideas put forth.

In "Blowin' in the Wind," Bob Dylan wrote "How many years can some people exist before they're allowed to be free. How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see."  The song also contains the line "How many times must the cannonballs fly, before they're forever banned."  

A song that was sung on the steps of the Washington Monument along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., perhaps one of the greatest songs ever written...listen to "Blowin' in the Wind" performed by Peter, Paul & Mary.

For a personal view of a moment from the civil rights movement era, read "Martin Luther King Jr.: Defining a Life" on Kat's Theory of Life.