Woodstock and Aquarius
How confident was the youth-culture of the later 1960s? We were going to change the world! Victory seemed inevitable. Reigning at # 1 on the US charts for six weeks in the spring of 1969, “Aquarius” by The 5th Dimension promised:
Then peace will guide the planets,
and love will steer the stars.
This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.
The Age of Aquarius reached its zenith on a 600-acre dairy farm near Woodstock, New York. There 400,000 experienced “the greatest love-in of all time!” Whether you were there or not, we of The Woodstock Generation were convinced we had briefly tasted how the world ought to be — free of prejudice, hate, and violence.
The crescendo of we-can-do-it optimism was best expressed by Joni Mitchell in “Woodstock”:
We are stardust. We are golden.
We are caught in the devil's bargain,
and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.
Do you remember those days? How hopeful were you back then? Did our dreams materialize? I invite you to explore those questions at my YouTube playlist Rock Foundations Rockumentary, a unique trip through the history of early Rock.