WMCA – September 10, 1965 – Rob Frankel Collection –
Things happen fast, especially when you’re growing up. What happened in February is a million miles and two light years away from what’s going on in September. You’re starting to feel serious – you don’t feel like laughing so much or making stupid jokes or being the class clown anymore. Your life feels like a black-and-white movie with shadows everywhere. You start reading the newspaper every day – you know who Arthur Goldberg is and you know where Saigon is – you didn’t in February – it’s September now and the world has changed – or maybe it’s you. You smoke a lot – you don’t dump a pound of sugar in your coffee – you drink it black. Your friends have started reading books and can recite Gregory Corso’s Bomb by heart.
The songs you liked in February you don’t think so much about in September. Even the Beatles are changing – you have a whole new appreciation for Bob Dylan, but you hardly ever hear him on the radio. Gary Lewis and The Playboys isn’t quite making it for you anymore – songs about rings and going steady feel weird. Life feels serious, but you still want to fall in love – even if none of the girls you know think of you as anything other than “a good friend” or worse, “like a little brother’. You have discovered life is intense and urgent and everything about it is interesting. You just wish it would slow down a bit.
Radio was starting to change in 1965. Changing in subtle ways, like the rest of the world. The Vietnam War was slowly creeping onto the front page of the newspaper – reports from Saigon were becoming more frequent – the Sunday news programs became more involved in what was going on Southeast Asia, as well as the growing Civil Rights Movement. And even Top-40 radio was starting to change – and like everything else; slowly. Protest songs were creeping on to the charts – Barry McGuire’s Eve Of Destruction caught some people by surprise; not only by its content but by its sudden surge in popularity.
So it wasn’t just being a teenager in 1965, it was being on the planet in general in 1965. Changes happening with more changes on the way – but there were still the WMCA Goodguys holding court, as they did this September 10th in 1965.
