Today, or whenever it actually was posted in FB, someone posted about the song "War" and talked about the relevance and energy of the song. How it was written during Vietnam, but not just about Vietnam, but about the racial battles in the United States. Then the poster wondered what it was like during my time as a youth and if the song was still relevant.
My response was this:
Totally relevant...but to share the feelings, the energy... I don't think I can make it real to anyone born after the advent of music videos (MTV). I know, right. But if you consider it, music videos started removing the general innocence of our youth and the willingness to learn, grow, and develop the imagination that built real, attainable dreams.
However, I think that doesn't even cover it. For me, growing up during Vietnam and the social evolution of the 60s and 70s, I honestly can say that, because of my father's beliefs and where we lived, racism was always something crazy people from the south and California and New York did. We did not. How can you hate someone for their skin? That sounded insane to me. In fact, all of it sounded like the News people had lost their minds, because real people didn't act like that...did they?
Maybe I was like that because my mother kept us dialed down about violence - no hitting unless you were getting spanked for your naughty behavior. She also didn't allow violent television (except Gunsmoke and another western my dad liked). She read to us; we read to each other. We looked at people as people - not skin, money, brains or whatever.
So, what the energy felt like to me - until I was 9 years old and with the exception of my mother and I, I always felt like it was a cool adventure.
