Jimi Hendrix and the Star Spangled Banner

   

When one thinks of Jimi Hendrix's rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner," one instantly thinks of Woodstock, the concert that defined the generation of the counterculture.  Woodstock was a three-day concert event that touted communal living, peace, free-spirit, and, above all else, music.  There were numerous performers, but the one that really defined Woodstock was Jimi Hendrix, who closed the show.  Hendrix performed on Monday morning, delayed due, in part, to inclement weather.  In fact, his audience was small in comparison with the throes of youngsters who had stayed through the weekend.   Over half a million people had been in attendance during the event's peak, but only about 30,000 were there when Hendrix took the stage. Even as Hendix played, the audience continued to thin, as people had weekday commitments and real lives to return to.  But those who stayed heard a version of "The Star Spangled Banner" that would become a symbol of a generation.

       It is interesting to note that Hendrix rendition was not planned.  Hendrix even admitted to the crowd just before breaking into that song: “You can leave if you want to. We’re just jammin’, that’s all.” The song was an impromptu jam session, but it really meant so much more to so many people, including Hendrix himself.

        The Hendrix version of "The Star Spangled Banner" was representative of the time.  It not only highlighted the reactions to the perceived immorality of the Vietnam War as a protest song, but it appropriately broke from tradition.  If we think about the concept of a "counterculture," it implies just that - a break away from traditional norms, values, and expectations.  Hendrix did that and so much more by playing his own artistic version of the traditionally American anthem.  Aside from the obvious war references, including the sound of bombs falling, fighter jets overhead, people screaming, and the infusion of Taps, the song represented a break from tradition because it was not played traditionally.  No one had thought to do this before Hendrix.  Whether or not you like the interpretation, it cannot be denied that Hendrix made a statement about the sociopolitical atmosphere of the time that goes way beyond that of an anti-war statement.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience

        For Hendrix himself, the song appropriately made another statement - that of Civil Rights.  Jimi Hendrix was a very successful African American rock singer who had been backed by an all-white band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, which had recently broken up and was playing for the first time with his new, mixed-race band, Gypsy Sun and Rainbows.  Hendrix included black performers, bassist Billy Cox, guitarist Larry Lee, and percussionist Juma Sultan in the new ensemble he called his Gypsies.  Hendrix also performed songs from his early years, songs including Gypsy Woman and Aware of Love, which were written or co-written by Curtis Mayfield, with whom Hendrix had performed with in the early 1960s. It was the only Hendrix concert that included these songs. It would seem that Hendrix wanted to point out that he was a successful rocker, but also that he was African-American.  "The Star Spangled Banner" performance only served to highlight this point.  Hendrix himself even drove that point home when interviewed about his rendition of  "The Star Spangled Banner" on Dick Cavett a few days after the performance:

“I don’t know, man. All I did was play it. I’m American, so I played it. I used to sing it in school. They made me sing it in school, so it was a flashback.” Cavett interrupted the interview to point out to the audience, “This man was in the 101st Airborne, so when you send your nasty letters in …” Cavett then explained to Hendrix that whenever someone plays an “unorthodox” version of the anthem, “You immediately get a guaranteed percentage of hate mail.”

Hendrix then respectfully disagreed with Cavett’s description. “I didn’t think it was unorthodox,” he said. “I thought it was beautiful.”

Hendrix underscored the fact that he played the song because he was an American.  In that instance, Hendrix explained so much in so few words as did his artistic rendition of an American anthem.

We Gotta Get Out of this Place

       "We Gotta Get Out of this Place" has become a symbol of the Vietnam War.  In fact, the song, recorded by the Animals, was used as the intro for the television series Tour of Duty, a dramatic series set on an American base stationed in Vietnam that ran from 1997 through 1990 when there was a resurgence of Vietnam War-themed shows and movies. At first glance, the song appears to be just that, a Vietnam War anthem demanding the U.S. government to withdraw from the Vietnam conflict.  But, at closer look, the lyrics tell a different story.  The song was written by husband and wife team Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, a productive Brill Building team that started with popular "fluffy" songs such as The Drifters' "On Broadway" and The Crystals' "Uptown."  Examination of the lyrics of "We Gotta Get Out of this Place" reveals that this song really is not much different than "On Broadway" or "Uptown" in that "We Gotta Get Out of this Place" is about a young couple caught in a working-class city slum, trying to make a better life for themselves before the working-class lifestyle literally kills them, like the narrator's father who worked himself to death at a young age.  "On Broadway" and "Uptown" also refer to finding a better life in a better place.  Although "We Gotta Get Out of this Place" resonated with soldiers deployed to Vietnam during that conflict when the song was released, the song generally is more about finding a way out to pursue a better life.  It is understandable that the song became an anthem, and arguably the most requested song on Armed Forces Radio during the Vietnam conflict.  The song clearly relates to the soldiers' need to "get out of that place."  But, this song is a perfect example of the numerous offerings from this time period that were not specifically written as anti-war anthems, but were successfully re-purposed as such.

We Gotta Get Out of this Place

In this dirty old part of the city
Where the sun refused to shine
People tell me there ain't no use in tryin'
Now my girl you're so young and pretty
And one thing I know is true
You'll be dead before your time is due, I know
Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin'
Watched his hair been turnin' grey
He's been workin' and slavin' his life away
Oh yes I know it
(Yeah!) He's been workin' so hard
(Yeah!) I've been workin' too, baby
(Yeah!) Every night and day
(Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!)
We gotta get out of this place
If it's the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
'cause girl, there's a better life for me and you
Now my girl you're so young and pretty
And one thing I know is true, yeah
You'll be dead before your time is due, I know it
Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin'
Watched his hair been turnin' grey, yeah
He's been workin' and slavin' his life away
I know he's been workin' so hard
(Yeah!) I've been workin' too, baby
(Yeah!) Every day baby
(Yeah!) Whoa!
(Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!)
We gotta get out of this place
If it's the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
Girl, there's a better life for me and you
Somewhere baby, somehow I know it
We gotta get out of this place
If it's the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
Girl, there's a better life for me and you
Believe me baby
I know it baby
You know it too

Writer/s: COOPER, ALICE / EZRIN, ROBERT A. / HOOD, PATTERSON 
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group, EMI Music Publishing

Consumerism and Country Music

Country music, as well as rockabilly which was notably influenced by country western, portrayed American values in their music, presenting an America of which they were proud.  As patriotic as they were, however, there were a few particular values of which the country music community were critical, of particular interest was the consumerism that, well, consumed the post-World War II era.  Country songs reminded listeners that wealth was not all it was cracked up to be.  Songs such as Johnny Horton’s “North to Alaska,” Bill Anderson’s “Mama Sang a Song,” Lefty Frizzell’s “Saginaw Mountain,” Marty Robbin’s “Ruby Ann,” and most notably Flatt and Scruggs’ “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” which accompanied the hit television show The Beverly Hillbillies (but we will go into depth about The Beverly Hillbillies next time), all show that wealth was not the most important of the American values.  In fact, it was the least important.

Written by Mike Phillips, “North to Alaska” topped the Country Billboard Chart for the year 1961.  Johnny Horton’s rendition reminds us that the gold in Alaska is nothing without companionship, especially the love of a woman:

George turned to Sam with his gold in his hand
Said, "Sam, you're lookin' at a lonely, lonely man
I'd trade all the gold that's buried in this land
For one small band of gold to place on sweet little Jenny's hand"

"'Cause a man needs a woman to love him all the time
                                        Remember, Sam, a true love is so hard to find
                                        I'd build for my Jenny, a honeymoon home
                                       Below that old white mountain, just a little south-east of Nome" 

Along those same lines, Bill Anderson penned and performed “Mama Sang a Song,” which topped out at Number Eight on the 1962 Country Billboard Chart.  This song describes in great detail the poverty in which the singer grew up, but manages to highlight the importance of family and faith over material things:

Of the old home place where I grew up
Of the days both good and bad
My overalls were hand-me-downs
My shoes were full of holes

I used to walk four miles to school every day
Through the rain, the sleet and the cold
I've seen the nights when my daddy would cry
For the things that his family would need

But all he ever got was a badland farm
And seven hungry mouths to feed
And yet and yet our home fire never flickered once
'Cause when all these things went wrong

Mama took the hymn book down
And Mama sang a song
(What a friend we have in Jesus)

             “Saginaw Michigan,” also written by Bill Anderson, with Donald Choate, was released by Lefty Frizzell and peaked at Number Three on the 1964 Country Billboard Chart.  This song is more a tongue-and-cheek dig at consumerism as the narrator, who is in love with a girl in his hometown of Saginaw, Michigan, leaves home in search of Alaskan gold to prove himself worthy of her love.  The girl’s father was a “wealthy, wealthy man” who did not feel that “the son of a Saginaw fisherman" was good enough for his daughter.  The narrator claims his stake in Alaska, exclaiming he has struck it rich and comes home to marry his girl, and sells his new father-in-law his claim in the Klondike, but his father-in-law is in for an unexpected adventure:

Now he's up there in Alaska digging in the cold, cold ground
That greedy fool is a looking for the gold I never found
But it serves him right and nobody here is missing him
Least of all the newly-weds of Saginaw, Michigan

            Marty Robbins’ version of the Lee Emerson and Roberta Bellamy penned “Ruby Ann” is a love song which notes that the “poor, poor man” wins the girl’s heart because he is a better man, not because he has money.  Robbins’ “Ruby Ann” was the Number One song of Country Billboard’s 1973 chart.  The lyrics pull no punches and bluntly, even bordering on anger, tell the wealthy man that he has nothing of importance compared to the narrator:

Ain't true love a funny thing?

Big man, you got money in your hand,

So what?

You're at a table for two, but still there's only you,

Big shot!

Well, your money can't buy if your power can't hold,

You can't romance your fame

Ruby Ann took the hand of this poor, poor man,

           These songs reveal that money and wealth are the least important values, reminding us that consumerism that is running rampant in this time period is of little importance in the bigger picture.  Though country music was, and still is, patriotic, promoting American values and pride in the American way of life, the writers and performers did not promote consumerism. In fact, in this respect, the values that were truly important were not that different than those of the counterculture, especially the “hippie culture” that revered in communal and simple lifestyles. The parallels in the value system based on a simple life prove that consumerism sparked a rebellion against capitalist consumerism which ultimately led to rock music’s most iconic counterculture symbol, Woodstock, but it was not a purely “rock-n-roll” idea that consumerism was destroying American values as it would seem from remembering Woodstock as the ultimate communal experience.  It seems that those singing the peace songs and the anti-war songs had a similar viewpoint to the more patriotic country singer/songwriters when it came to American values steeped in the idea of community over consumerism.