In the minds of readers, the 1960s often appeared as the "turbulent sixties", during which rock music, civil rights movements, women's movements, and artistic revolutions have profoundly affected today's life. Youth were the main force of that movement. The climax of the "turbulent sixties" seems to be 1968, the year of the May Storm in France and the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.
However, few people know the beginning of the "turbulent sixties" - 1963. In 1963, youth culture was ready to shake the curtain on the Western world. The following is an excerpt from 1963: The Year of Change, with slight deletions, with permission from the publisher.
The original author | Robin Morgan [English] Ariel Lev
Excerpts | Xu Yuedong
1963: The Year of Change, by Robin Morgan / [English] Ariel Lev, translated by Sun Xue, Xinmin | Guangxi Normal University Press, January 2021.
1963 was the "opening year" of the 1960s
It was a rare coincidence, as if prophesied, that had been overlooked for more than fifty years. On 13 January 1963, in Birmingham, England, a charismatic band made its debut on National Television with a lively song called "Please Please Please Me". That same night, viewers at the BBC— the only channel in Britain at this time except for national television— witnessed an even more percussive feast of reason, and an obscure, disheveled American musician sang a song called "Fluttering in the Wind" as his television debut.
Neither the Beatles nor Bob Dylan knew about the coincidence, but in that year, their voices simultaneously captivated millions of ears around the world. The Beatles will later become the exponents of a revolution, and Bob Dylan will be the prophet of that revolution.
The Beatles.
In 1963, the post-war economy flourished, adolescents rebelled, society was extremely turbulent; class, money, and power collided like crust plates, and social and religious rules were crumbling.
It was in that year that major countries pursuing Cold War policies sought truces, the space race went into a tug-of-war, feminists and civil rights activists rose to prominence on the political stage, a pornographic espionage scandal swept through the British government, and the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy shocked the world. While these historic events dominate the headlines, a scoop is untouched and almost forgotten: the world is witnessing a youth jolt.
In January 1963, teenagers picked up musical instruments, cameras, brushes, pens, and scissors and challenged the routine. A band calling itself the Rolling Stones interviewed a new bassist and drummer. Eric Clapton, Steven Knicks, David Bowie, and Elton John are fiddling with the strings and pressing the keys. On the West Coast, a veritable beach boys band made a name for themselves on Radio Los Angeles. In Detroit, a women's group changed its name to "Supreme Female Vocal Group" and attracted much attention.
In London, a lawless Irishman, using piracy, broke the monopoly of radio waves in the middle of the music industry; he bought a trawler and tethered it to international waters so he could play his favorite music without permission or interference. A designer named Mary Quandt cut the hem of the dress six inches, or longer; an ambitious hairdresser named Vidal Sassoon used the principles of architectural aesthetics to design a hairstyle that complemented Mary Quandt's miniskirt.
In just one year, our lives, preferences and appearance are permanently changed. Musicians, fashion designers, writers, journalists, and artists challenged the existing order, allowing respected predecessors not only to share political and commercial power with a new generation of elites, but also to win their support. The blueprints for the new world's societies, cultures, politics and technology are being sketched out, and every day is different. For the first time in history, young people have dominated the design of the New World.
The establishment of a new world has been brewing for half a century. The generation that was born in the early twentieth century and experienced a devastating war has put the world in the hands of another generation that was deeply affected by another war. By the middle of the twentieth century, the world was ready to be reborn. Returning soldiers, traumatized by the war, are more in control of the situation because of the war; women, from housework to bomb-making, want to fight for a better life for themselves and their children. People demand that their desires, expectations and rights be taken into account. Many well-informed, ill-informed people, who previously respected authority and were content with a fixed salary, are now beginning to reject rigid cultural, social and political divisions.
Baby boomers grew up in a postwar era of economic prosperity: rebuilding the world spurred economic expansion. Income poured in like a fountain of water, and people bought cars, televisions, clothes and refrigerators. A vinyl record the size of a plate can be played on a moderately priced, home-style box. It soon replaced the piano and radio as a major source of entertainment for the family.
In the early sixties, baby boomers waited for the opportunity to soar. Their stage was built, opening night in 1963.
How did 1963 change the world?
Television spreads the ever-changing world to every household, democratizing knowledge and public opinion; In 1963, baby boomers witnessed Martin Luther King Jr. "have a dream" amid the fury of the Mississippi people, and the march of the civil rights movement in Washington grew. They witnessed the young and handsome President John Fitzgerald Kennedy proclaiming in German, "I am a Berliner," doubling budget investment in NASA's lunar landing program to save the world from the brink of nuclear war; the ultimate fate of such a president was to be assassinated in an open-top car in Dallas.
They witnessed the fall of the imperialist flag, the disintegration of European empires, and the birth of new states. The first television programs were broadcast by satellite, and the first polio vaccine was given free of charge. Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystery, where married women can buy something short of "pills" by prescription. Young single girls only need to wear a gold ring on their ring finger and lie to the doctor that they are married, so that they can get such a pack of contraceptives, which allows them to indulge in experiments with their bodies without worrying about accidental pregnancy.
Young people want to make their own history. In the 1950s, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Richard Jr., Howling Wolf, Moody Waters, and Chuck Berry had established faith in the world, but it was Bob Dylan and the Beatles who became saviors in 1963.
In just one year, the 1960s successfully bred a group of young talents. A student named Reginald Kenneth Dwight, sixteen years old, majoring in piano, was a student at London's much-admired Royal College of Music, who practiced Chopin during the day and sang his original songs in London's bars and clubs at night; he was later Elton John. Another boy named Eric Clapton was expelled from art school and subsequently joined a band.
They were followed by an American soldier named Jimmy Hendricks, who had just been expelled from the 101st Airborne Division, and a film student named Jim Morrison, from UCLA, who had begun writing songs. In 1963, Carly Simon began her singing career. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards produced their first albums. Paul Simon's performance at the New York Club was mediocre, so he traveled to England to reflect on his music. 1963 was the year of college, the time of apprenticeship and the outbreak of the immortal idols, and their reputation has remained undiminished since 1963.
Jimmy Hendricks.
In 1963, young men and women grew the ranks of aspiring musicians. A young girl named Barbara Huraniki couldn't buy clothes to wear, so she used her sister's nickname to build a brand store called Bíba. Women abandoned garter belts and stockings because Mary Quandt's miniskirts were too revealing, so there was a market for pantyhose. Young people like David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Alan Jones and Ronald Brooks Kitay are also experimenting with things outside of their art school curriculum.
This unorganized new aristocracy came mainly from the working class and the lower middle class, who represented the ideals and aspirations of the baby boomers; their idols had been sanctified. Music, fashion, art, challenge, despise and even transcend class, politics and religion. In this way, human nature also began to be redefined.
Family background, formal education, connections accumulated in school, and long-term commitment to a career are no longer the only ways to succeed. How fast vinyl records are pressed, how fast radio and television programs are played, and how quickly the field of vision expands. Music and fashion revolutions were followed by movies, books and art. The young people broke away from the norm and expressed themselves in a subversive riot that raided the barricades built by the reactionary and confusing Old Order, which thought it could use laws, customs and the police to imprison the counterculturalists.
In the first wave, in 1963, young Andy Warhol moved into the fire station on East Eighty-seventh Street in New York City, extending the boundaries of the Temple of Art; young David Hockney drew up a distinctive palette. Coca-Cola launched its first low-calorie drink, Tab, taking advantage of the business opportunity of women's body shape changes; now, women no longer aspire to be Marilyn Monroe, but Jackie Kennedy and Joan Schlimpton. A clothing company called Levi's saw the trend and introduced pre-shrunk jeans; the Monterrey Pop Festival and the Newport Folk Music Festival provided a new model for the mass carnival of young people.
In the film industry, the frustrating Hayes Code, which subjected film content to censorship, began to unravel under pressure from filmmakers ready to fight for the arts. Jean-Luc Godard's "Defiance" and Billy Wilder's "The Girl emma" ignored the impending ban, and the British film "Tom Jones", which openly talked about the affair, won four Oscars. Most importantly, for the first time in mainstream film history, the actress was seen naked, and the actress also joined the censors to see if they dared to stop her or Sidney Lumet's "Pawnbroker." The fate of a serious Hayes Code is thus a foregone conclusion.
Jean-Luc Godard.
The publishing industry has realized that the time is ripe to fight against authority and maintain its prestige. The "yellow novel" "Fanny Hill," written in debtors' prisons—george Washington was only a seventeen-year-old border inspector at the time—was first published in the United States and Britain, violating obscenity laws and challenging legislators directly.
These things happened in 1963. The facts gathered around this timeline in 1963: The Year of Change confirm an indisputable declaration that this year changed our world.
Why was 1963 the "year of youth shaking"?
Our interviewees (or contributors) were the ones who witnessed 1963. From this, we learned that in the winter of 1963 the Beatles were refused entry to a nightclub in the north of England because they were wearing leather jackets. A year later, they were the center of attention for 73 million viewers in the United States. We found that the young men who had formed the Dave Clarke five, who had sung the rites of passage and raised money for football games, had begun singing in a ballroom in north London in 1963, with a pay of twenty-five pounds a week. More than two years later, they were invited to board Air Force One to shake hands with President Lyndon Baynes Johnson: the world's most influential people want their signatures.
We interviewed this extraordinary woman. In 1963, the woman, who had almost nothing but looks and sexual desires, unknowingly found herself having fun with the nobility and politicians, and then became the central figure in a sex scandal, the Profumo incident. The scandal brought down the British government at the time. She found herself being tracked down by Scotland Yard and dragged to the British High Court. In the presence of the supreme power and figures in this field, the seventeen-year-old girl dressed up, combed her hair, and when she arrived at the court, she waved her neck to the crowd of people who stretched their necks to watch the liveliness; this kind of carelessness was the performance of the young people of the time.
Veteran politician Lord Astor denies having sex with her. But in court, in the face of his denial, she reprimanded the defense lawyer— arguably one of the finest lawyers of the time— with a simple but contemptuous "Hmm, he would, wouldn't he?" This phrase quickly became part of popular culture. In addition to the girl, many young people began to speak up. It was these voices that prompted Vogue editor-in-chief Diana Freeland to label 1963 a "year of youth shaking."
Many world-renowned celebrities have contributed their precious time to us and have given us great support. The inspiring Vidal Sassoon, despite knowing that his time was running out, hosted us for lunch at his home in Mulhollandau. Looking out over Hollywood, the castle of fame in the distance, he shared with us his exclusive memories of 1963 in the last interview of his life. Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Jeff Lynn and Carly Simon, top minds who don't like exposure, realized the need for a book that would be fair to their youth and generously dedicated their precious time to it.
Some people say that if you can think back to the 1960s, you haven't experienced it. This universal belief is debunked by the stories of those of us who were interviewed. This is nothing more than a cliché.
Edited | Luodong
Source: Beijing News