It was forty years ago today (well, sort of).
This past weekend was the fortieth anniversary of the release of the Beatles' cataclysmic offering to the budding culture of psychedelia, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I tuned in to several radio programs reflecting on the times and the immediate impact of the album on popular culture, but I realized this morning that I hadn't actually played the thing for several months. And I did so as I was getting ready. Although I'm more partial to Rubber Soul or Revolver, it's interesting to hear the culmination in Sgt. Pepper of the influences of world music and sound experimentation that the group had only begun to utilize so recently.
And while listening to NPR this evening, I heard the announcer mention that Robert Kennedy was assassinated on this day in 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel. Divisive opinions still linger over the incident, with many seeing his death as the end of the idealism of the Sixties, and others pointing to the fact that Bobby was just as much of a politician as the next. No one can say for sure what he would have done about the war in Vietnam. No one can say how he would have acted to progress with the civil rights legislation begun by Lyndon Johnson. To point to his death and say that with him died youth and hope for a better future is a mistake, I think, but I would not hesitate to say that it was one tragedy in the downward spiral that characterized the smoldering unrest in the streets of America at this time.
Interesting times, indeed.