This is the epilogue to the book I wrote a long time ago. I’ve just put it out to publish again in a smaller format – the coffee table size was about £14 – too big and too expensive. This new one should be around £5 and be a standard size.
LOOKING BACK
So what happened to all that idealism, counter-culture, and the new world we were building? What happened to all the new societies? What happened to the dreams, hair, colour and freedom? – All that dropping out?
We grow old. A lot of it was obviously silly, man, affected, pretentious. We did change the world, briefly and in some ways permanently.
Well some are dead. They maybe didn’t have long enough to sell out. Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, even, maybe John Lennon. I often wonder what Hendrix would be doing now. Would he be doing cabaret stuff like Clapton? I like to think not.
Then there were so many who seemed to drift into happy clappy Christianity. I guess they needed it – some purpose. I guess that upbringing is hard to overthrow – But Country Joe McDonald? Roger McGuinn. It makes you fucking wonder.
Some were obviously Acid Casualties – Syd Barrett and Pete Green. Maybe, to some extent we all are.
Some – like Harper and Beefheart went on with their poetry and painting and stayed true to most of it.
Some veered off into Right wing politics – Dylan and Young? – for a while but seemed to get it back together.
Some went for the cash – Clapton, McCartney, Dylan, and just about everybody? – Jerry Rubin included.
Some just got disenchanted with trying to do anything about the monster that is the global society we are all subscribing to.
Some became the ultimate in posers – Bowie but then he always had been.
Still there are those who plug away to make things better, freer, fairer, less violent and destructive, those who value love, friendship, peace, creativity, music and building a world based on equality and wonder. There are those who smile a lot, enjoy themselves, see nothing wrong in sex or getting a little stoned occasionally and would value experiencing a little awe and wonder through whatever means instead of greed, cruelty, possession, power and abuse.
Perhaps it’s too late to change it.