'60s History Through Music

You'll never forget that day in 1965 when Shmoop went electric.

  • Course Length: 3 weeks
  • Course Type: Short Course
  • Category:
    • History and Social Science
    • Humanities
    • High School

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Get ready to tune in, turn on, and drop out—we're going back to the 1960s. This course will teach you about the history and political movements of the days of hippies and Vietnam—not through statistics or Supreme Court cases, but through popular music.

The '60s gave us (and your grandparents) some of the most memorable hooks and biggest stars in rock 'n roll history, and we'll use these tunes to explore everything from the Civil Rights Movement to the death knell of Haight-Ashbury. And much like the Beatles, the activities in this course are here to please all types of learners, from the John Lennon-style expository writers, to the primary source-collecting George Harrisons, to more visual and creatively minded Pauls and Ringos.

The best part? In addition to all these rigorous history lessons, you'll get a chance to learn the stories behind some of your favorite classic rock songs and learn lots of new ones along the way.

In this course, aligned to 11th grade history and informational reading standards, you'll

  • analyze song lyrics like an 11th grade history teacher and a Rolling Stone journalist combined.
  • watch powerful historical clips and musical performances.
  • interpret how pop music represents cultural ideals, both good and bad.
  • finally "get" what baby boomers are talking about when they wax poetic on how Katy Perry will never be as good as 1969 rock 'n roll.

So what are you waiting for? Give Shmoop—uh, we mean peace—a chance.


Unit Breakdown

1 '60s History Through Music - '60s History Through Music

The 1960s were a time of incredible, volatile change, and luckily it's pretty much perfectly captured in the music of the times. Luckier yet? Shmoop's here with a project-based, rigorous, and crazily high-interest course on everything from George Wallace to Kinks' B-sides. (Uh…one being way cooler than the other.)


Sample Lesson - Introduction

Lesson 1.01: Beatlemania!

Right to left: the cute one, the smart one, the quiet one, and the, um, other guy.
(Source)

The Beatles.

The Fab Four.

The Lads from Liverpool.

Perhaps you've heard of them?

Right. Not only did the Beatles record some of the most recognizable songs of all time (ever heard of a little ditty called "Hey Jude"?), their career is also a perfect allegory for the 1960s themselves.

Huh?

Allow Shmoop to clarify. The Beatles formed in 1960, hit it big stateside in 1964, and released their final album in 1969. During those ten years, they reinvented themselves constantly, encapsulating the rapidly changing fashions, social norms, and political ideals of the times.

Generally, people divide the Beatles' career into "early" and "late." The early Beatles were a teenybopper band—sort of the One Direction of their time. They sang catchy songs for teenage girls that didn't have a particularly strong political or social message.

But, midway through the decade, the Beatles started "getting weird." They began incorporating psychedelic, Eastern sounds into their music, and they also started taking a lot of drugs and growing their hair. Here's a picture of them in 1962. Here's one taken in 1967. Big difference, right?

So what happened that made them change so dramatically? Well, the '60s happened. The '60s were a time of rapid social change and experimentation: a shifting political climate (war and international unrest, combined with the demand for increased rights for women and people of color domestically) translated into a culture of freedom and experimentation. In this lesson, you'll get an overview of the 1960's changes by seeing how they were realized through the Beatles' sound and aesthetic.


Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 1.1.01a: Beatlemania! Songs

Okay, Shmoopsters, here's the drill:

Before you head to each history-based reading, we're going to send you off to listen to a few songs. Each of the songs will be crucial to understanding the other readings, as well as the activity. So give them a listen, either on YouTube, iTunes (to which we almost always link you to, as YouTube admittedly tends to be somewhat flakey), or anywhere else you can find the song. And if you want to be a really good '60s scholar, read the lyrics while you listen for a psychedelic, next-level experience.


Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 1.1.01b: Long Hair: It's a Metaphor

Beatlemania

Much like your eighth grade yearbook photo, "I Want To Hold Your Hand" reminds us of a more innocent time. This song was one of the Beatles first big hits, and helped to establish them as superstars in America. It's a catchy pop song, with simplistic and parent-friendly lyrics. Here's a sample:

Oh yeah, I'll tell you something
I think you'll understand
When I'll say that something
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand

Nothing too crazy, right? Musically, it sounds like a lot of the early rock 'n roll that was popular at the time: simple chords with memorable lyrics (although the lyrics, admittedly, aren't very "deep").

But despite its simplicity, this song was a massive hit and historically very important to the Beatles' career. They performed it on the popular late-night show Ed Sullivan, which helped launch their U.S. career and start Beatlemania, the name given to the fan frenzy surrounding the band. When the Beatles made public appearances or played shows, it wasn't uncommon for girls to scream, cry, or even chase them down the street (in fact, The Beatles parodied this tendency in their movie A Hard Day's Night.

So, uh, what does this have to do with society as a whole?

Let's take one example: long hair. If you look at pictures of the Beatles from this time period (the early '60s), they tend to dress in matching dark suits and look relatively clean-cut. No one could find fault with a look like that, right? You could visit your Nana and Pop-Pop like that and they'd be relieved you'd finally stopped wearing those dang basketball shoes.

But America and Britain were so conservative at this time that the Beatles' bowl-cut hairdos were considered excessively long (for males, not females, obviously). When the band became popular and teenagers started copying them, many schools began enforcing strict limits about how long boys' hair could be. Some boys even got suspended from school for having mop-tops. Seriously.

We can't even imagine what they'd think of Lil Wayne.

Let's Backtrack...The 1950s

As you can probably tell, the 1950s (and, to a large extent, the early '60s) was a deeply conservative time. In America, the South was segregated, and race relations were strained all around the country. Women, who had made some social advancements during World War II, were regulated back to the kitchen and out of the workplace. More generally, the political climate was one of nationalism and paranoia about communism. During this time, Joseph McCarthy conducted his famous "witch hunts" for secret Communists (a.k.a . McCarthyism). In particular, McCarthy targeted Jews, artists, activists, and gays and lesbians, all of whom the average American saw as "different" and, therefore, dangerous. But the 1960s was when all that tension began coming to the surface. In 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected. Kennedy was young, handsome, charismatic and dedicated to social justice ideals like public service. He was way different than his Republican predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower, and his election signaled the American public's desire for the rigid social constraints of the '50s to ease up.

Like, chill out, 1950s. Seriously. Take a chill pill.

At the same time, the Civil Rights movement for racial equality was gaining in strength, and second wave feminists were beginning to write and organize. (In fact, it's called "second wave" because this was really the first time there'd been such large-scale feminist activism since the suffragettes in the early 1900s.) This demand for civil rights, coupled with public fears about nuclear war with Russia and the sheer number of young people (there were so many births after WWII that the population was said to experience a "baby boom"), set the stage for drama.


Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 1.1.01c: Grow Your Hair

In 1969, Beatles guitarist John Lennon and his new wife, the performance artist Yoko Ono, spent their honeymoon participating in a "bed in" as a protest to the Vietnam war. (Don't worry, the picture is pretty SFW.) The images from this time are famous: Yoko and John, both wearing pajamas and both with really long hair, sit upright in a large, hotel room bed with signs reading "BED PEACE" and "HAIR PEACE" taped above them.

The press, of course, had a field day. "Why are you doing this?" they asked. "What do you want to achieve?" John and Yoko said they only have one demand: "Peace!"

The latter half of the '60s weren't the antic-filled days of A Hard Day's Night and JFK idealism. A lot changed.

  • For one thing, Americans were at war with Vietnam (more on that later, trust us), and rumors were circulating of a draft (forced military service).
  • Many Americans were furious with the war and mainstream politics, especially young people. They let off their frustrations at protests and demonstrations, many of which turned violent. 
  • Segregation in the South had ended, but much had not changed, so black nationalist movements like the Black Panthers gained in popularity. 
  • Recreational drug use was common, with rogue psychiatrists like Tim Leary praising the therapeutic effects of LSD and marijuana.
  • Casual sex was also in vogue, thanks in part to the legalization of birth control. 
  • Youth culture—what teenagers think, do, wear, and listen to—had suddenly gone from a minority interest to a major cultural force. Thanks, Beatles.

You can probably hear these changes in the music you just listened to. "Tomorrow Never Knows" was released in 1966 and was directly influenced by the Beatles' experimentation with the hallucinogenic drug LSD. The lyrics were inspired by Eastern religion ("Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream"), and some are downright kooky (What does "listen to the color of your dreams" mean, exactly?).

The song appeared on the album Revolver, which is seen by many as the "gateway" album for the Beatles—the album that marked their change from moptop teenyboppers to serious musicians and participants in hippie culture. This change is even more apparent in "All You Need Is Love" and "Revolution," which have strong political messages. "Revolution," in particular, is notable because it critiques the political subculture of the time. "You say you want a revolution," John Lennon sings, "But when you talk about destruction/Don't you know that you can count me out!" The tension between the happy, feel-good aspects of hippie culture and its occasionally violent dark side is something we'll explore in the course.

Anyway, far too much happens during the '60s for us to explain it in one lesson (that's why we have this whole course!), but, luckily, Shmoop has broken down some of the most important stuff. Head on over to Shmoop's guide to the '60s and read the following sections:

  • Intro
  • Summary & Analysis
  • Timeline
  • Photos

As you read, think about the following questions. No need to write anything down, just have a ponder in your brain-box:

  • What were the major political events and figures of the '60s?
  • Why do people describe the cultural attitude of the '60s as "idealistic"? In your opinion, is "idealism" a good or a bad thing?
  • How did people in the '60s think about social equality, such as Civil Rights, justice for the poor, and rights for women?

Now get to it!


Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 1.01: Beatles Scrapbook

Anyone feeling crafty?

(Besides Shmoop, anyway. We're always in the mood for some cutting and pasting.)

In this activity, you'll show us what you learned about the '60s, the Beatles, and the way they intersect by making two Pinterest boards. One will represent the world of "early" Beatles (1960-65), and one will represent the world of "late" Beatles (1966-69).

Both of your boards should include representative pictures of the Beatles, but both must also include:

  • Three photos representing important events. For example, a photo of JFK's inauguration would be one of the five event pix on the "early" board.
  • One more "abstract" photos representing a concept or mood. For example, a psychedelic print would go on the late board.
  • One photos of the Beatles that represents each era. (Would a Yoko Ono picture go on the early Beatles board? No way.)
  • One-sentence captions for each photo explaining what it is and why it belongs there.

When you're done, screenshot each board and upload a 150-word expository paragraph in which you explain what you think the differences between the early and late '60s are (this will go in a separate document, not on the board). Happy pinning, from John, Paul, George, and that other one.