The Lucky Generation?

I recently listened to a keynote speech by Dr John Izzo, an American thinker, speaker and organisational consultant that ‘s getting pinged around the blogging world at the moment. Its a talk about the challenge to the baby boom generation. He describes us as as the lucky ones, born just after one bad load of shit (the world wars) and just before the next load (terrorism, the meltdown of global capitalism, over-population ………….). Here it is. Now in this aspect, of course he is right. We have been very fortunate. As a matter of fact I can’t think of many other times in world history when such a flowering of economic prosperity, consciousness and cultural growth all coincided. Maybe the Renaissance. Then again, maybe not. Thinking about it, Harold Macmillan was right. In many ways we really had “never had it so good”.

Izzo then describes the challenge to the baby boomers. We have a small window of opportunity to use this good fortune to help the next generations out, to leave a legacy. After all weren’t we the ones that bellowed about creating a better world than the generations before us. We had the education, the tools of wisdom, the expanded consciousness and the moral high ground. Do we want to be remembered as the generation that creamed our own pockets (fat wages, pensions), raped what was left of the earth’s resources (heating, cars, air travel), waged war on those that didn’t share our beliefs (Iraq, Afghanistan,) or, perhaps there’s still a chance to do something radically different, to leave a better world behind?

Izzo doesn’t give, at least in this talk, much of a sense of how we do that, but it’s an interesting question he raises, albeit in a typical American quasi-preaching (he used to be a minister), gung-ho, call to arms kind of way. In fact its become something of a fashionable swipe. Let’s blame the baby boomers.

But just hang on. Life is rarely this simple. After all we were the generation that broke out of the stifling gloom of fifties England, lifted the lid on racial and sexual discrimination, raised consciousness of environmental issues, brought an increased awareness of spirituality, created vast cultural growth in all aspects of the visual and media arts including music and oh yes – we won the World Cup!

Besides there’s a fundamental error in thinking that we, the human species, can alter things that much. We are only a tiny speck in the unlimited universe. Why should we think we can sort out the mess we have made? It is the ultimate expression of human self-delusion to believe we are able to save the world from the awaiting disaster. War, perhaps, famine, maybe, disease possibly – but human will. No way hozay. Obsessed with vanity to the point of building our own ark. That’s not going to happen. The end of the world is nigh. And you know what – it  maybe won’t be the end. Perhaps we are living in a film going backwards. Spinning destined towards our beginnings, in the vastness of galaxies unimagined. Or maybe we’ll just hand the baton on to the next breed of sun-worshippers. But whatever we do – it won’t be the fault of the sixties generation.

St James Haslingden

Growing up in the Lancashire textile town of Haslingden during the 1950’s going to church was an inescapable aspect of my childhood. Trussed up in my Sunday best I was marched off with sister Valerie to the nearest church to be bored scared witless by a man in a big white frock and purple collar promising eternal damnation or salvation based on your personal behaviour. Now, for a naughty wee lad like moi, this horror show was guaranteed to turn me off established religion for ever and a day. Much rather would I be listening to the cowboy serials on the radio or trying to split an apple with an arrow from my trusty toy crossbow.

A little sand passes through the glass and I’m carrying my guitar case along Blackburn Rd with a Beatles tune in my head. One of the early ones – maybe ‘Ticket to Ride’ or ‘Help’. Thinking about the chords and how to shape them on a cheap gloss white f-hole guitar with an action like pressing hawser wire onto a steel girder, bought from the legendary Mary’s Music in Accrington. Mary’s Music was run by a kindly, knowledgable yet not-to-be-messed with lady. Walking with rhythm guitarist Ian Brown and singer Chris Hardman past the imposing walls that held the churchyard up off the main road to the lead guitarist John Cowpe’s house. Lucky John whose dada had fixed up their mains radio to act as a guitar amplifier, lucky John who owned a Selmer Futurama a guitar that closely resembled the mythical Stratocastor, lucky John who was deeply musical and who could play lead like Hank Marvin. Steven Proctor bashed out the drums with an uncanny sense of timing whilst Ian and I laiked about trying to work out the difference between E7 and E9. It was great. We never played any gigs, but we did carry on for what seems like a couple of years regurgitating the hits of the day by the Beatles, Stones, Yardbirds, Byrds et al, playing from old fashioned sheet music in the days before guitar tablature and internet.

All of this within shouting distance of St James’s church whose churchyard walls were once breached by the floodwaters of a local storm. A landslip ensued leading to the loss of  a few coffins out of the cemetery slipping on to the road.  Someone had the job of sorting out the remnants!
Painting the picture evoked these and other memories, including one of drinking cheap Woodpecker cider in the churchyard before miming to the latest Manfred Mann tune at the end of term school dance, sneaking the bottles into the hall within our guitar cases. Ah – that good old rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle!

So that’s it ………

So that’s it. Right through the sixties you were on one side or the other. There was no middle ground. The Beatles fans generally viewed the Stones as rough and uncouth whilst the followers of the Stones saw the Beatles as middle of the road and commercial. The Beatles were the darlings of the Press and high society whilst the Stones were dealers in demonics. My sister was a Stones fan through and through. She loved the scruffy long-haired upstarts which left me fawning over the Fab Four and their Cuban heels. As the decade progressed I grew to love the Stones too as the unhinged sway of their drilled down R&B grabbed hold of my adolescent longings. Stick Fingers came out and along with Exile on Main St it remains one of my all time favourites. Listening to the London singles recently released I’m struck by how good the early records still sound. Brilliantly recorded and performed this band was, and is something very special. Jagger’s supreme rock/blues vocals, the rhythm section powered by Charlie Watts and the coruscating grinding uumph provided by Keith Richards. Others have added to the sound too of course. The loping bass of Bill Wyman, the tasteful meanderings of Brian Jones, the muscular blues style keyboard playing of Ian Stewart, Ronnie Wood’s immaculate timing etc. But the heart is the heart and the three constant members are the ones. As they mark their fiftieth year in business I’m in doubt that the Rolling Stones are the greatest rock band of all. Bless their little cotton socks.