Dirk Dunbar, Director of the Interdisciplinary
Humanities AA to BA program
Okaloosa-Walton Community College and University of West Florida,
Niceville, FL
Abstract
The evolution of messages in rock and roll, diversity and disparity
included, offers unique insights into an emerging ecocentric paradigm.
The contagious affirmation of the gift of life that began with Rock's
primal beat became a revolt against and a questioning of authority's
values and, ultimately, has led to a quest for new forms of identity
and spirituality. This essay examines the evolution through three
particular lenses - the cultic forms of old-time rock and roll, the
countercultural messages of folk and classic Rock, and the ecofeminism
of contemporary singer-songwriters - as a means of elucidating the
evolution of rock and roll's religious and ecological themes.
Some social historians may not take this claim seriously, but
I believe rock music is an archivist's wish fulfilled. I intend
to prove that rock parallels this [countercultural] revolution of
sensibilities and so gives us unique insights into our recent history
(1984, 8).
-Herbert London
The Evolution of Rock and Roll
[1] A self-confessed child of the 'Sixties, which to me meant mostly
music, I was "counterculturalized" without knowing it. My older sister
and brother always had their 45s spinning and, while I liked Dion
and Brenda Lee, it was Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman" that hooked me.
I bought the record at a grade school fun night and listened to it
constantly for a week. But it was not until years later when I experienced
the Beatles' "Within You Without You" wafting through the bedroom
window of a friend's sister while we were shooting baskets in his
driveway that I was fully impacted by the significance of lyrics.
Ever since I have been seeking messages in rock and roll, which has
been a mainstay in my academic and personal life and makes this essay
a product of passion. Although I do not profess to have discovered
any all-encompassing messages, I do hope to at least challenge the
reader to listen closely to what artists are saying and to, at most,
show the urgency of Rock's religious and ecological messages.
[2] Rock and roll's oldest
and most compelling message is primal and contagious. Long before
artists started consciously delivering countercultural messages the
relentless beat issued a call of the wild. The drums, cymbals, tambourines,
and electric instruments along with the loud and repetitive chant-like
refrains served as an invocation to the nature gods of the ecological
unconscious. As Dionysian song and dance spread mania through
prehistoric and ancient Greece, Rock moved the ids that moved the
bodies that instinctively embraced the revolt.[1]
Driven by African-American slave songs, gospel, soul, funk, and rhythm
and blues, the beat impelled Rock's original devotees into dance-induced,
altered states of consciousness, which is why Eldridge Cleaver proclaimed
that black music gave whites their bodies back. With the help of 45s,
the transistor, and business, the youth of America turned the black
affirmation of suffering and release into Dionysian euphoria, the
ecstasis and enthousiasmos that erupted through suddenly
opened doors of perception. In the beginning, words didn't matter;
the beat was the message. So was the dance. Like the music, the dance
didn't follow any rules. Both were unregimented, improvised, and spontaneous,
taking their lead from "jazz" - slang for fornication in
the African‑American culture that produced the music. Vulgar
to adults and exalting to kids, the dance was purposely revolting:
felt more than learned and more erotically group‑oriented than
romantic, the motion extended beyond partners and aimed at communal
liberation. To the shock and horror of parents and other authorities,
rock and roll's new modes of expression defied convention, tradition,
and social mores. Moreover, youth's new communal identity demanded
some sort of divinity, a "magical mystery," and Elvis-then-Beatle
mania offered it all - fun, unbridled sex, and a path to the collective
unconscious. To share in the madness made sensible the howls and the
sha‑la‑las of old-time rock and roll.
[3] Despite the evocative choruses, Rock's early themes demonstrated
that young white Rockers were impervious to a countercultural role:
most songs - including "Teen Angel," "Book of Love," "Ten
Commandments of Love," and "Heaven and Paradise" -
celebrated home, school, heroes, Christian values, and courtship and
marriage. The continually "unacceptable" lyrics came from
the rhythm and blues field (originally regarded as "race music").
Although the industry attempted to filter out value‑threatening
lyrics, songs were banned by government legislation, Elvis was burned
in effigies, and the payola hearings helped convince many people that
rock and roll was a communist plot and/or the work of the Devil. Blatantly,
the black beat made kids "twist and shout," which Chuck
Berry pronounced loudly and poignantly. In "School Day (Ring
Ring Goes the Bell)," he codified the revolt: the teacher is
ugly, certain classmates are pests, and when school's finally out,
reality erupts in song and dance at the local juke-joint. Berry ends
the song hailing rock and roll, praising the beat of its drums and
its power to deliver the body and soul. And deliver it did. Much like
the ancient "wild women" of Dionysus, whose cultic ritual, oreibesia,
involved percussion instruments, wild dancing, and loud and repetitive
chants that invoked the earth god's presence, Rock's original devotees
found an identity that, partly because it was vulgar to authorities,
captured their souls. While the ancient Greek rite allowed the women
to celebrate and fuse with their god outside the auspices of patriarchal
control, early Rockers embraced the possessive, orgiastic forms of
revolt with little or no need for conscious articulation of revolutionary
import.
[4] The conscious use of lyrics for defined
countercultural aims began for the most part with folk rock artists.[2]
Rock's first poets and heirs of the 1950s revival of the folk music
tradition, artists such as Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan shared
messages in their medium in a way that influenced fundamentally the
social function of rock and roll. No single figure rises higher in
the tradition than Dylan, who, armed with a blues harmonica and acoustic
guitar, not only professed that the times were changin', he helped
change them. Traveling from cafes to colleges spreading their anti-war,
human rights, and environmental themes and causes, Dylan and cohorts,
unconcerned with rock and roll's cult, sang directly to concerns of
a growing student left and a rapidly forming counterculture composed
of activists of all sorts. Dylan's success in particular helped make
countercultural, message‑oriented songs a business enterprise.
[5] By merging the mass-cult formula of old-time rock and roll with
the message-oriented medium of folk rock, the Beatles and Rolling
Stones made sure the revolt became a revolution. They led the 1964
British invasion, initiated the "classic rock" genre, and divided
Rock groups into two categories (a dichotomy that still applies to
a variety of genres as well as artists): the "good boy" spiritual
side and the "bad boy" satanic side. Most groups crossed and still
cross lines. The Beatles had a number of "Helter Skelter"
statements; however, melodies such as "Eleanor Rigby" and
"Penny Lane" share tendencies with the Apollonian paean,
Christian hymns, and classical music, while lyrics in songs such as
"The Word (Is Love)" and "All You Need Is Love"
preach a better way.
[6] The Stones, with raucous voice and syncopated beats, employed
Dionysian shock to expose the dark side of nearly everything. They
pronounced the inevitability of nuclear destruction in "Gimme Shelter"
and the pleasure and power of drug addiction in "Sister Morphine."
They solicited unbounded hedonism in "Some Girls," conveyed
the inevitability of alienation in human relations ("Angie"),
pronounced the impossibility of cosmic identity ("2,000 Light
Years from Home"), vindicated Lucifer ("Sympathy for the
Devil"), and promoted violent revolution ("Street Fighting
Man"). Forged in a distinctive blues approach, the Stones' lyrics
fiercely challenge the viability of Western values and attempt to
unleash the oppressed. While the Stones flaunted pain and existentialism,
the Beatles sought resolutions through self-discovery, by calling
for peace and tolerance, and by exploring ways - including drugs and
Eastern philosophy - to expand consciousness. Rock's original super-groups,
the Beatles and Stones helped turn the cultic forms into spiritual
principles, parties into festivals, and lyrics into scripture.
[7] Obviously, there is no consummate message in Rock, but what Wilfred
Mellers calls "a music of necessity" - born of the rhythm planted
in all creation - started as an affirmation of life and inevitably
became a questioning of authority (1975, 23-30). As artists recognized
the power of their medium, that questioning led to more and more consciously
directed messages. Again, ancient Greek culture provides precedents.
The dithyramb - a direct descendant of the oreibesia - was
performed by the lower classes as a means of revelry and revolt. Originally
a satire of the wild women's rite, the dithyramb was a rural drinking
bout that involved music, dancing, and lyrics. As the performance
became increasingly planned and the actors more articulate, the country
farces not only gave birth to drama, they became so popular that the
emerging Greek social order had no choice but to legitimize the dithyramb
as the State cult in 522 B.C.E. The culmination and synthesis of the
political aims of the State with the religious and social aims of
the consolidated lower classes produced a powerful aesthetic expression
of societal needs, spiritual as well as economic. That secularization
process led to dramatic festivals and an avenue to vent against oppression
as well as express hopes and dreams in sanctioned, mainstream social
events. Although the social context was very different, the evolution
of rock and roll follows, at least in terms of the use of words, similar
patterns to that ancient art form.
[8] That evolution is marked clearly in the music and messages of
the Beatles. As Johnathan Cott contends, "[T]he Sixties impulse
to bring us back to where we once belonged was almost single-handedly
delineated and symbolized by one rock group from Liverpool" (1977,
43). The reason, as Robert Pielke explains, is clear:
The set of values pointed to by the Beatles includes more than
those inherited from the tradition, and just as important, it omits
some traditional values. . . . Included among the additional values
were a pantheistic form of spirituality, anarchism, pacifism, pleasure,
individuality, mysticism, sensuality, emotionality, and eccentricity.
Eliminated were such values as individualism, nationalism, militarism,
imperialism, and traditional religiousness (especially Western)
(1988, 170).
[9] The evolution of the Beatles' lyrics
can be described in terms of five stages.[3]
The first stage bursts in joy, as witnessed by the compelling yeah-saying
that roars through "She Loves You." The heart-pounding boom
of "I Saw Her Standing There" carries erotic overtones and
shares the ecstasy of life's gift - as does the mysterious, impossible-to-hide
"something" they scream about in "I Want To Hold Your
Hand." Just as intensely, but with more direction, the second
stage assails society's obstacles to spiritual development - such
as money in "Can't Buy Me Love," conformity in "Nowhere
Man" and "Think for Yourself," and alienation in "You've
Got to Hide Your Love Away." Nevertheless, they remain inescapably
hopeful that "We Can Work It Out." In the prayerful cry
for "Help," John Lennon captures the primal need for the
"Other" - a universal as well as personal theme. Similarly, Paul McCartney's
"Yesterday" is less a lamentation of lost childhood than
it is a supplication for a return to the primal beginning - a theme
that runs throughout their lyrical archive (which began with their
rendition of "Bring Back My Bonnie"). Although the Beatles
were unaware of it, their early themes contained archetypal metaphors
and messages that symbolize the union of humans and nature. A potent
example is "I'll Follow the Sun," where the sun signifies
more than a pleasant day or a rain-free life, but a way to follow,
a metaphor grounded in later works.
[10] The third stage of the Beatles' lyrics, reflective of the drug-induced,
surreal visions of utopia that characterized the hippies, attempts
to mythologize a new worldview that they believed would help direct
the counterculture. The group of friends and neighbors assembled on
the submerged "Yellow Submarine" - which became the free-speech
anthem of Berkeley's original protesters - is the counterculture.
They sail to the sun and, surrounded by the sea of green, psychotropically
envision the place of Eastern philosophy and peace and love that centre
the band's explorations on their Summer of Love concept albums. Sergeant
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band wants to take us home, to turn
us on, to fix the hole in our vision of reality - suggesting that,
with help from friends, things will start getting better. The pantheistic,
Eastern‑inspired "Within You Without You" attacks
the technocratic wall that hides the spiritual truth that, recognized
by enough people, could "save the world." The Magical Mystery Tour
also arrives in hopes of taking us home. "The Fool on the Hill"
(who's calling for change but nobody is listening) could be a guru,
God, or even the counterculture, but the walrus could be interpreted
as Dionysus and the eggmen as fertility practitioners. Lennon's cry
that we are one at the beginning of "I Am the Walrus" serves
as an invocation to the earth god. That identification, described
more calmly in the Hindu-influenced "Strawberry Fields Forever,"
transcends all problems of the material world and leads to the record's
concluding message, "All You Need is Love."
[11] An acceptance of life in the mainstream, the fourth stage of
the Beatles' lyrics negates their hallucinogenic visions of utopia
in favor of individuality and political and spiritual freedom. That
secularization process is very clear on the musically eclectic White
album, where songs such as "I'm So Tired" and "Yer
Blues" - in which Lennon screams that he wants to die - reflect
the group's inner turmoil and the painful end of their surrealistic
dream. "Glass Onion" is an autobiographical dismissal of
the Beatles own myth (you cannot fix a hole in the ocean by looking
through a glass onion). In John Lennon's words, "If the Beatles
of the sixties had a message, it was to learn to swim. Period. And
once you learn to swim, swim. The people who are hung up on the Beatles
and the Sixties dream missed the whole point" (Wenner, 1987).
No longer propagators of the "turn on, tune in, drop out"
edict of the hippies and the drug culture, the Beatles called for
an apolitical, nondenominational "Revolution" of the spirit.
The constitution or institution need not be abandoned, but an inevitable
transformation of consciousness - the result of evolution or simply
a growing awareness of the need for peace - is going to ensure that
everything will be all right. Their apolitical agenda is apparent
in "Back in the U.S.S.R.," wherein the verbal play on "back
in the U.S., back in the U.S.S.R.," suggests that returning home transcends
the ideology of any particular nation. Their spiritual agenda is clearly
nature-related - as "Mother Nature's Son" testifies. The refrain between
"Cry Baby Cry" and the senseless "Revolution #9" implores "Mama" -
or Mother Earth - for a "way back."
[12] The use of home and sun to depict a cosmic return centers the
group's ecological lyrics and culminates on their last albums, Abbey
Road and Let It Be. While home is referred to literally
in earlier works such as "A Hard Day's Night," in the lullaby
"Golden Slumbers," finding the way back home refers to both
sleeping and rising and the primal place to which - as professed in
"Get Back" - we once belonged and need to return. The joyousness
of returning home is redundantly expressed in the refrain of "Two
of Us," which describes two friends embarked on life's journey,
standing alone in the sun, going nowhere in particular, but having
fun getting there. Similarly, the sun possesses various levels of
meaning in earlier works such as "Good Day Sunshine," "Yellow
Submarine," and "It's All Too Much." But the million
suns in "Across the Universe" shine limitless love and in
"Here Comes the Sun" and "Sun King" the sun is
the cosmic force that issues in a reunion of humans and nature. The
light that still shines in "Let It Be" mirrors the light
in the earlier songs such as "Tomorrow Never Knows" and
"The Inner Light" (taken from verse forty‑seven of
the Tao Te Ching) and further illustrates the Beatles' cosmic
emphasis.
[13] The use of "home" and "sun"
as metaphors of an archetypal return resonates with writers and poets
from all ages and cultures. The journey and return home from a place
of exile or alienation is often aligned with conscious or unconscious
transformations. "One of the most universal" claims of mystics who
encounter a cosmic consciousness is, as Ralph Metzner explains, "the
experience of Ôcoming home'" (1980, 58). Returning to a state of paradise
was a conscious goal of the youthful counterculture, and there are
hundreds if not thousands of such metaphors in Rock songs, many of
which are unequivocal.[4] No artists have used
those metaphors more consistently than The Moody Blues and Van Morrison.
The Moody Blues, who had the fortune to serve as the opening act for
the Beatles' 1965 American tour, merged classical music with rock
on their first record Days of Future Passed. The band expanded
in many ways (including members) and amplified the orchestral accompaniments
with, ˆ la Sergeant Pepper, mysticism and the "high tech"
mellotron. Unlike the Beatles they really went Eastern. Hinduism permeates
their 1968 In Search of the Lost Chord. While the record's
jacket cover shows an animated yogi reaching toward enlightenment,
the inside supplies a yantra and a brief discussion of the mantra
Om, which is described as God, Being, the answer, and the lost chord.
Nearly all of the album's lyrics focus on how re-identifying with
nature can help transform the self. By listening to "Voices in
the Sky," glimpsing "Visions of Paradise," and reaching
the lost chord, we are able to see that the real "Actor"
is nature, a living, thinking being.
[14] From 1969 to 1972, the Moody Blues recorded five albums and
all of them call for peace, social harmony, and a communal‑consciousness
awakening. The notion of a journey through life, the cosmos, and back
home permeates each album; and home, the sun, and a sacred earth serve
as dominant themes and/or metaphors. To Our Children's Children's
Children (1969) asks us to see life through "The Eyes of a Child"
and to revive the awe and trust with which we were born. "Higher and
Higher" conceives of heavens flourishing on Earth while "I Never Thought
I'd Live to Be a Hundred" and "I Never Thought I'd Live to Be a Million"
bespeak a self beyond space and time. "Out and In" looks beyond the
planets as part of "the journey" toward the "total view" where outside
and inside become one. "Sun Is Still Shining" imparts the new "view"
in terms such as "heart," "rebirth," "Earth," "universe," and "mind"
- "of which we're a part." A Question of Balance (1970) is
a legacy of classic Rock's environmental focus that, first, indicts
the enemy as those who destroy nature in the name of progress, legislation,
and consumerism and, then, proclaims as necessary the awareness that
the earth is sacred, fragile, and in need of care. "How Is It (We
Are Here)" warns against man's "mine-machines" that tear at Mother
Earth and men who would create concrete wombs to hide her precious
gems. To understand that the world is not a commodity, that the cost
of progress includes polluting the seas and rivers, and that change
begins inside are the themes of "Don't You Feel Small." Both "Dawning
Is the Day" and "The Balance" identify the human journey as leading
toward a revelation and acceptance of nature's way.
[15] Much like the
Beatles, Van Morrison's first hits, such as "Gloria" and
"Brown Eyed Girl," focused on fun. The first five "unreleased
takes" from The Lost Tapes - "Twist and Shake," "Shake and
Roll," "Stomp and Scream," "Scream and Holler," and "Jump and Thump"
- testify that Morrison was infused with the beat. From Astral
Weeks on, his message becomes cosmic.[5]
Morrison uses a great variety of metaphors to convey his recurring
"return-to-the-beginning" theme. The "garden wet with rain" is repeated
in a number of songs, both early and late, but always refers to a
sacred place from whence we come and return. The moon is often associated
with the primal feminine that, in "Daring Night," is explicitly aligned
with the Mother Goddess and her consort, the Lord of the Dance. Many
of his lyrics have Christian overtones, but there are constant references
to the ancient ones, ancient times, pagans, and - most particularly
- concepts of Eastern philosophy. Morrison uses the concept of "one"
or "oneness" to relate mysticism's perennial philosophy
and to aim life's journey. The zen-koan filled "Enlightenment"
describes the fruits of the experience but bemoans his inability to
reach it. Songs such as "Hymns to the Silence," "Some
Peace of Mind," and "When Will I Learn to Live in God"
convey his wish to integrate nature, self, and God as the aim of his
own journey, while numerous others employ the sun, moon, home, earth,
and garden as metaphors that aim at healing, transforming, and bonding.[6]
[16] Many of Rock's
more explicit ecological messages do not need metaphors. Joni Mitchell
despises the paving of paradise in "Big Yellow Taxi," claiming
that we do not realize what we have until it is gone. In "Out
in the Country," Three Dog Night sing of nature's value and her
man‑made destruction, while the Guess Who ask us to "Share
the Land" before greed destroys everything. Midnight Oil's "Beds
Are Burning" and The Traveling Wilburys' "The Devil's Been Busy in
Your Backyard" echo similar environmental concerns and The Who want
to leave society and its conventions and get back to nature - away
from the wasteland and into the fields - in "Baba O'Riley."
Stevie Wonder proclaims in "As" that only the love of nature
will sustain human existence, while Marvin Gaye's "Mercy Mercy
Me (The Ecology Song)" and the Temptations' "Ball of Confusion"
bespeak the need for ecological awareness. There are literally hundreds
of songs in which nature purifies and heals the body and the soul.[7]
That healing power could be, as Joni Mitchell decrees in "Woodstock,"
guiding us toward a new, healthy relationship with nature. Spirit
implies in "Nature's Way" that nature is provoking ecological
awareness and action by showing us that something is wrong, and the
Guess Who profess in "No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature"
that the new Mother Nature is taking over. Led Zeppelin in "The Battle
of Evermore" pleads for us to bring the balance back and, in "Down
by the Seaside," they aver that "Lady Nature" will return if we revere
her. There are also numerous songs that make direct reference to Mother
Earth.[8]
[17] One of the most unique ecological slants
is apocalyptic, which portends that human and even planetary survival
is under threat. According to these rock prophets, one potential future
is annihilation: doom‑and‑gloom songs such as Bob Dylan's
"A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall," Barry McGuire's "Eve of
Destruction," and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon
Rising" leave little room for hope. A second possibility is that
a chosen few will survive the holocaust, the ultimate ecological disaster.
The classic example is Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower"
(which Jimi Hendrix, Dave Mason, the Grateful Dead, Michael Hedges,
and Dave Matthews have covered masterfully): the hour is late, but
only the joker and the thief (who are making their way to the princess)
recognize that it is the technocrats who, regarding life as a joke,
mindlessly destroy the environment. Other such songs prophesy that
a chosen number will survive the apocalypse via boats, islands, or
spaceships.[9] Much like the bombs of death turning
into butterflies in Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock," this survival
of the few could be viewed, to quote James Harris, as classic Rock's
"romantic utopianism in its most naive aspect" (1993, 102).
In any case, the symbolic return to a state of peace and community
remains the goal.
[18] Of course, not all Rock artists aspire to a sacred return. The
return for demonic rockers equals the abyss, universal nothingness,
or "The End" as Jim Morrison screams in his Oedipal torment.
The Stones also want to "Paint It Black" and the experience
that Jimi Hendrix championed remained in "Purple Haze."
The goal of demonic rockers was and is to "break on through"
regardless of what exists on the other side; hence, "sex, drugs,
and rock-n-roll" remains the battle cry for many rockers - from
Alice Cooper to Marilyn Manson - who assault Judeo‑Christian
theology, value-free science, and Western institutions more for the
sake of rebellion than anything else. There is no question that rock
and roll has done its share of encouraging confusion and a loss of
values as well as disseminating venereal disease, drug abuse, divorce,
Satanism, suicide, and violence. That is part and parcel of Rock's
legacy. The utopia of the Aquarian dream is counterpoint to the fact
that business runs Rock. As Altamont negated Woodstock, Vietnam and
Watergate debunked flower power and classic rock fell victim to disco,
punk, and the disparity that now constitutes the various genres. While
genres such as rap, reggae, ska, grunge, alternative, speed metal,
rave, techno, industrial, hip‑hop, and house (to name a few)
emphasize the disparity, Rock's diversity may prove to be its unifying
strength. As Jann Wenner explains:
Without question, rock and roll - like America itself - is a great
cultural assimilator, drawing upon myriad influences, integrating
them into an ever-expanding inventory and yet maintaining that connective
thread to the spirit that set it off in the first place. The adaptability
of rock and roll in an era of blinding changes in the way we live
is nothing short of a miracle (1986, 11-12).
[19] I believe that Rock's power and flexibility owes to its ability
to assimilate and express new forms of identity that accompanied the
1960s Zeitgeist - the connecting thread of not just rock and roll,
but countercultural thinking as a whole. The euphoric communal identity
of early Rockers has dispersed into countless genres and cults, but
as those expressions have evolved, the awareness of a planetary and
cosmic identity has remained defining as well as crucial. That identity
began with the beat, which committed artists and devotees alike to
Rock as a music of necessity. A music of necessity "does something,"
as Mellers insists. For primal cultures, that "something" involved
influencing the gods and affirming the sacred dimensions of being
alive. If Rock is a music of necessity, Mellers asks, "what necessity
does it commit one to? How valid is the parallel between the Ôrituals'
of pop and those of genuinely primitive cultures?" (1975, 28). The
sense of commitment has evolved, in my opinion, with the use of words.
The early, seemingly meaningless chants in Rock songs served, in Mellers'
words, as "magic talismen," as attempts to invoke a communal, sacred
presence. First and foremost, the magical, non-intellectual import
of Rock's earliest message filled the medium with power and set the
stage for its revolutionary role.
[20] While it easy to trace when, where, and even why the words became
message oriented, could there be a "magical" unconscious function
that drives the changing sense of identity that accompanies the rise
of new genres and messages? I think so. Most linguists agree that
humans sang thoughts and feelings before speaking them. Recent research
suggests that the convergence of words and melody occurs in the brain's
right hemisphere, that they mutually generate each other. Unlike the
left hemisphere's logical ordering of words to create rational statements,
the right hemisphere generates words in a spontaneous, emotive, and
intuitive manner - particularly when aligned with melody. Could that
unconscious process, where words are linked to the power of rhythm
and melody, also be part of Rock's function as a music of necessity?
Could the meaning of words in songs be linked to a source beyond human
origin? If there really is an ecological unconscious, a psyche the
size of the earth, could it be at work in rock and roll, creating
new identities that began with cultic communities and is leading toward
planetary consciousness? However reasonable or unreasonable that may
sound, if Rock is to continue to evolve, to expand into new and relevant
forms, so are its prescriptions for human, planetary, and cosmic identity.
[21]
One of Rock's most significant prospects in creating that kind of
identity owes to the recent insurgence (beginning primarily in the
1990s) of ecofeminist singer-songwriters. That insurgence, of course,
owes to a long line of female artists, many of whom have delivered
fervent feminist messages.[10] Even Madonna's
reversal of sexual dominance (which Brittany Spears and other youth
have further commercialized) defies the kind of sexual stereotyping,
if not discrimination that typify traditional values as well as the
themes regarding sexual relations of many or most male Rockers. Women,
far more often than not, have been regarded in rock and roll as objects
to be lured, possessed, and manipulated. That is, one of the last
holds of patriarchal consciousness that has plagued the industry and
art form is gradually disintegrating: women are not only breaking
the business barriers, they are dismantling the demystification and
objectification that has dominated the majority of romantic themes
from Elvis to rap. Obviously, many women have had momentous careers
in Rock.[11] However, the rising number of female
artists and their propensity for integrating alternative, socially
provocative themes has given new life to the medium and the revolution
that it helped instigate. As Pielke submits, "It is no exaggeration
to say that the success or failure of the revolution will depend largely
on the support given to it by the women's movement, and the clues
will be found in the role of women in rock and roll" (1988, 194).
That role has become so prevalent that ecofeminist rock has not only
become a legitimate genre, it may be Rock's most spiritually significant
development.[12]
[22] More than ever, female Rock artists
are conscious of their revolutionary role. In the tradition of concerts
for Bangladesh, MUSE, No Nukes, Farm Aid, Band Aid, Live Aid, and
Tibetan Freedom, concerts involving Lilith Fair tours and the Indigo
Girls' 1997 Honor the Earth Tour, for instance, have infused social
concerns with a female perspective. The concerts also affirm that
there is a market for thought-provoking music rendered in amiable,
sensitive venues. Furthermore, many female artists have songs that
indict patriarchal consciousness as the source of abuse of both women
and nature and also sing songs that empower women, give hope, and
call for change.[13] Natalie Merchant's "Wonder"
asserts that women emulate the mystery of creation and that only through
peace, love, and faith can we address the lack of balance that constitutes
Western culture. Sara McLachlan intones that we can transform the
West's reason-as-virtue paradigm by "Building a Mystery," which is
done at night with the energy of the dark side's light and the help
of a faith (presumably Mother Goddess worship) that died before Christianity.
Sinead O'Conner asserts her faith in the Goddess as "Universal Mother,"
who will share the green earth's beauty and teach the secrets of the
mysterious waters under the full moon. More and more female artists
are using the moon, gardens, rivers, darkness, and plants and animals
as metaphors of the mind in nature that grounds their earth-centered
spirituality.
[23] Tracy Chapman's New Beginning is a definitive ecofeminist
CD. Her song "Rape of the World" begins with the recognition
of the sanctity of Mother Earth and challenges people to care and
help stop the mining, bombing, pollution, and over-development. In
"Heaven's Here on Earth," she pleads for peace, love, and
ecological awareness, convinced that we can make a "New Beginning."
Jewel's "Pieces of You" (her first CD's title song) attacks
sexism, bigotry, and anti-Semitism. "Who Will Save Your Soul"
confronts the mentality that produces and promotes fast food, TV,
war, lawyers, and sends girls to the streets and "Pieces of You"
lashes at "Daddy" (a Klansman). In "Amen" she
condemns authority (including the Bible) for teaching children that
we have fallen from God and that desires of the flesh are evil. Calling
for angels and sensitivity, Jewel celebrates love and companionship
in "Morning Song" and - reminiscent of Prudence - asks "Adrian"
to come out and play. On Spirit, Jewel questions traditional
interpretations of religion, God, and Jesus and affirms love as the
reason we are here.
[24] Perhaps the most prolific ecofeminist singer-songwriter, Tori
Amos, directs a barrage of accusations against patriarchy, as in Boys
for Pele, Little Earthquakes, Under the Pink, and
from the choirgirl hotel. Songs such as "God" (who
needs a woman's touch), "Father Lucifer," and "Crucify"
not only attack sexist and anthropomorphic concepts (political as
well as spiritual), they attempt to remythologize Christianity by
integrating a feminine impulse. She equates "Girl" with
a shadow who has been everybody's girl but her own, for which - in
part - she arraigns the traditionally domesticated "Mother"
for clouding her dream with a bride's veil and using conventional
advice to poison her against the moon. Amos prophesies the earth's
rage and unimaginable power to avenge the damage done to her in "Muhammad
My Friend," and in "Horses," she sings that we could
collectively heal mother earth if we could pacify patriotic armies,
adding that the relationship between women and nature is strong and
sacred. In "Spark," Amos refutes the idea of perfection
in the so-called divine master plan, which, she suggests, is part
of the circus of social convention. Her song "iieee" calls
for love and grace in place of fear and sacrifice in America's chapels
and cathedrals and suggests that there is more to being religious
than following dogma.
[25] Clearly, rock and roll has delivered all kinds of messages.
The originally incisive one simply affirmed through the beat the celebratory
dimension of being alive. The percussion, rhythm-driven melodies of
early Rock provided - as Mellers asserts - "a trigger for magical
release" (1975, 27). If it is true that humans sang thoughts
and feelings before speaking them, then, perhaps, the beat evoked
the words. Perhaps the "unconscious" process that blends
music and lyrics is as much a part of cosmic ecology as cultural evolution
and more synchronistic than accidental. Perhaps rock and roll, the
loudest, if not most influential voice of the counterculture, emanated
from sources that extend beyond human origin. Like the music of primal
people who beat sticks and sang to and worshipped the earth, perhaps
rock and roll is a "music of necessity" that expresses a long lost
impulse to embrace and revere nature. Perhaps Rock artists are prophets
of our time who - as instruments of the earth's primal rhythms - are
expressing her anguished call, our social pathos, and the need to
re-identify the human in nature. Maybe their search for the days of
old (where the spirit is there body and soul) emerges from an ecological
unconscious that is necessary to our survival. What cannot be denied
is that from Elvis to Dylan, the words became more important and,
in the process, the kind of hysteria changed: forms of revolt related
to the beat and the body were transposed into articulate principles
of revolution. In the process, rock and roll became an indispensable
force in the movement toward an emerging ecocentric paradigm.
[26] In sum, Rock themes - embedded in rhythm and blues and old-time
rock and roll and articulated in folk, classic, and ecofeminist genres
- vocalize in clear and distinct terms many of the ecocentric sensibilities
that are being integrated into popular culture. The affirmation of
life that began with Rock's primal beat became a revolt against and
a questioning of authority's values and, through an evolution of genres,
has helped amplify the quest for new forms of identity and spirituality.
That quest, shared in the theories of civil rights activists, feminists,
environmentalists, and ecopsychologists, to name a few, was born of
a Zeitgeist that characterizes the turbulent changes of our time.
An umbrella term that is part of a profound social and, perhaps, even
evolutionary movement, rock and roll continues to have a prodigious
impact on the ways in which contemporary society views and evaluates
issues related to nature, religion, and gender. What a long, strange
trip it's been.
Notes
[1] For a discussion
of the ritualistic similarities between ancient Greece's Dionysian
worship and rock and roll as well as ways in which they generated
common patterns of revolt, protest, and assimilation into culture,
see Dunbar (1994).
[2] Rock
and roll is a slippery term as is indicated by its profuse, ever-changing
genres. Even within the genres with which I am most concerned here
- old-time rock and roll, folk rock, classic rock, and ecofeminist
rock, lines are not always clear and distinct. For instance, some
Rock historians claim that folk rock did not start until artists in
the genre employed drums and amplified guitars.
[3] Mellers
(1975) describes the Beatles' stages in rather technical musical terms
with rather arbitrary references to lyrics, but those stages - constituted
by the Departure, Contest and Death, Rebirth and Return, and Exit
and Lament - have admittedly influenced the ones that I am proposing.
Similarly, Herbert London (1984) recognized (but did not develop)
particular stages of the Beatles' music: "The evolution of the
Beatles from 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' to 'Magical Mystery Tour' to
'Revolution' to 'Let It Be' to 'Get Back' represents the entire revolutionary
cycle they both reflected and helped to spearhead" (111).
[4] Home
and/or sun are recognized as a place of sacred return in, for instance,
Steely Dan's "Home at Last," Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury
Hill," Grateful Dead's "Eyes of the World," Fifth Dimension's
"Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In," Donovan's "Sunshine
Superman," the Door's "Waiting for the Sun," Police's "Invisible
Sun," and Jackson Browne's "People of the Sun."
[5] The following
album titles confirm the cosmic nature of Morrison's themes: Moondance,
Wavelength, Common One, Beautiful Vision, Sense
of Wonder, Enlightenment, Hymns to the Silence, Healing
Game, and The Philosopher's Stone.
[6] "The
Mystery," "Brand New Day," "Till We Get the Healing
Done," "In the Garden," "In the Forest,"
"Into the Mystic," and "Before the World Was Made"
are other Morrison songs with eco-spiritual metaphors.
[7] The healing
power of nature is expressed in, to name a few, Otis Redding's "Dock
of the Bay," Joni Mitchell's "Ladies of the Canyon,"
Bruce Springsteen's "The River," Sting's "Fields of
Gold," and Van Morrison's "Did Ye Get Healed."
[8] The songs
in which Mother Earth is addressed usually fall into two camps: one
that simply praises her, such as James Taylor's "Gaia," and one the
ponders her potential destruction at the hands of men, such Ozzie
Osbourne's "Dreamer."
[9] Jackson
Browne's "Before the Deluge," Crosby, Stills, and Nash's
"Wooden Ships," Neil Young's "After the Goldrush,"
Peter Gabriel's "Here Comes the Flood," and Supertramp's
"Fool's Overture" all describe the post-apocalyptic survival.
[10] Janice
Joplin, Joan Jett, Chrissie Hynde, Pat Benetar, and other artists
with a hard edge have clearly influenced - for instance - Melissa
Etheridge, Alanis Morrisette, Liz Phair, Annie DiFranco, the Cranberries,
and Bikini Kill, who have transmuted much of that "edge" into angry
feminist tractates.
[11] Artists
such as Joan Baez, Aretha Franklin, Joni Mitchell, Carol King, The
Supremes, Tina Turner, Janis Joplin, and Bonny Rait are just a few
renowned female Rock artists.
[12] Ecofeminist
rock is partially heir to the folk rock tradition, but stems clearly
from feminist and environmentalist sensibilities. Although it is part
of the business industry that old-time rock and roll and classic rock
helped establish, its themes transcend both.
[13] Artists
such as Joan Osborne, Sheryl Crow, Joan Armatrading, Annie Lennox,
and Fiona Apple all have songs that attack patriarchal consciousness
and proffer a better way.
Works Cited
Cott, Johnathan. 1977. "Children of Paradise: The Sixties Generation."
Rolling Stone (December 15).
Dunbar, Dirk. 1994. "Rock and Roll's Twist and Shout for Dionysus."
The Balance of Nature's Polarities in New-Paradigm Theory.
New York: Peter Lang.
Harris, James. 1993. Philosophy at 33 1/3 rpm: Themes of Classic
Rock Music. Peru, IL: Open Court.
London, Herbert. 1984. Closing the Circle: A Cultural History
of the Rock Revolution. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
Mellers, Wilfred. 1975. Twilight of the Gods: The Music of the
Beatles. New York: Schirmer.
Metzner, Ralph. 1980. "Ten Classical Metaphors of Self-Transformation."
Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, Vol. 12(1), pp. 47-62.
Pielke, Robert. 1988. So You Say You Wanna a Revolution: Rock
Music in American Culture. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
Wenner, Jan. 1986. "Introduction." Rock of Ages: The
Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll. New York: Rolling Stone
Press, pp. 11-14.
_____. 1987. "Lennon Remembers: The Rolling Stone Interview."
20 Years of Rolling Stone. New York: Friendly, pp. 101-116.
