From Innocence to Experience

Finishing the trilogy of 60’s songs revisited, we turn to the change from innocence to experience. William Blake set the groundwork with his two poems, “The Lamb” and “The Tyger.” The innocent puts flowers in the gun barrels of soldiers, the experienced bring leaf blowers to blow away the tear gas. Two points on the same spectrum of dreaming toward our more compassionate and life-loving selves, but one understanding that the tyger is real and that the lion will never lie down with the lamb. And acts accordingly.

I was in the March on Washington against the Vietnam War in 1969 and have attended various marches in 2019—50 years later!— and the shift from long hair to grey hair is significant. The folks that neither sold out nor just let their dreams peter out, but like jazz musicians, kept the song playing through all the inevitable changes, with new nuances and scales and phrasing and harmonies. And there’s lots of us.

I thought I had another clever list of 60’s songs changed to reflect this population, but truth be told, only came up with one and it’s late at night. So I’ll start you off and those who are intrigued can make the list. Good luck! 

Here’s mine: 

From Light My Fire to Fight the Liar.