Everything is about to change - 1966

Something was stirring in 1966. The British Invasion was going strong. I was still into the Young Rascals, but my tastes began to broaden.

The previous year, all I had known of the Rolling Stones was Satisfaction, but in '66 they came out with Aftermath: Mother's Little Helper, Stupid Girl, Lady Jane, Under My Thumb, Dontcha Bother Me, Going Home, Flight 505, High and Dry, Out Of Time, It's Not Easy, I Am Waiting, Take It Or Leave It, Think and What To Do.

The Beatles came out with Revolver: Taxman, Eleanor Rigby, Love You To, Here, There and Everywhere, Yellow Submarine, *She Said She Said, Good Day Sunshine, For No One, I Want to Tell You, Got to Get You into My Life, Tomorrow Never Knows. The UK release had some amazing cuts: And Your Bird Can Sing and Dr. Robert (banned no doubt because it was a veiled critique of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara)

*Interesting note about She Said She Said: Peter Fonda was visiting the Beatles (who were on an LSD trip at the time) and talking about the time he shot himself and was clinically dead for several minutes. John remembered "I know what it's like to be dead" and "when I was a boy" and made them part of the song.

It was also the year that John Lennon wryly commented on the pervasiveness of pop culture saying, "We're more popular than Jesus now," which was promptly taken out of context by many fundamentalist groups in the United States as a slur against their Saviour. (Never mind that John was a Christian and was actually speaking about the irony that a pop group was known even in places where the Bible was banned). Later that year he apologized saying, "I didn't mean it as a lousy anti-religious thing."

Other memorable tunes that hinted at what was to come were, California Dreamin', Eight Miles High, Wild Thing, Walk Away Renee.

Although it hadn't hit the papers just yet, LSD was making its way through the academic community and around the music circuit.

At school, I was a lonely and somewhat troubled teenager and attended the Chaplain's after school discussion group. It started out as Bible study, and I befriended some of the Jewish kids and we started and Israeli folk dance club. I already had some ears for it since I recognized hava nagilah. I soon learned others such as Mayim, Mayim.

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Next Installment: The Summer of Love