The Turbulent 60s as Reflected in the Song "Get Together" by the Youngbloods

Whenever I listen to the song "Get Together" ("Let's Get Together") by the Youngbloods it brings back memories of the 1960s. A major part of my youth was lived during this turbulent decade when I never felt prouder to be an American. There was so much happening both good and bad, and San Francisco seemed to be the center of the new cultural order. In this hub I will comment on one song of the folk rock group, The Youngbloods, along with a monologue preceding the song. The song, of course, is "Get Together." The monologue and the song itself pretty much sum up what was happening in America and the world in the 1960s.

According to Wikipedia, "Get Together" aka "Let's Get Together" was written in the early 1960s by an American singer and songwriter, Chet Powers, aka Dino Valent. "Get Together" was first recorded and released by the Youngbloods in 1967. The tune never made the music charts; however, when it was re-released by the Youngbloods in 1969, the song rose to number five on the hit charts. Basically, the song appeals for peace and brotherhood and talks about the polarity of love versus fear. To understand why this song so fittingly sums up the turbulent 60s, I will first interpret the meaning of the monologue preceding "Get Together," and then I will interpret the lyrics of the song.

In the 1969 version of "Get Together" presumably one of the Youngbloods gives a short monologue immediately preceding the song. I have transcribed this monologue which appears below as follows:

"San Francisco in the middle 60s was a special place to be a part of with no explanation. No mix of words, music, or memory can touch the knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time in the world whatever it meant. There was madness in any direction. At any hour you could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right: that we were winning. And that I think was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil not in any mean or military sense. We didn't need that: our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum. We were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west. And with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

In reflecting on this monologue, I would have to say that, yes, San Francisco in the middle 60s was definitely a special place to be a part of. I first visited San Francisco in the fall of 1967 while serving a military tour at Monterey. At that time the City on the Bay was known for its liberalizing attitudes, and yes, I did experience some of that when I visited the famed "hippie" mecca of the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. There was a new drug culture, changes in popular music, and a relaxation in sexual mores, just to name a few liberalizing attitudes. There was a madness in any direction as reflected by the widespread use of psychedelic drugs like LSD, psychedelic music by such groups as Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead, and the opening of topless and bottomless bars. The youth of America seemed to be shedding its Victorian standards.

The monologue also points out that "There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we (the United States) were doing was right: that we were winning. And that (there was) an inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil." In the middle 1960s Lyndon Johnson had just been elected president by a landslide. Actually, he succeeded President Kennedy following his assassination in November of 1963. While Johnson was president, the U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which ended segregation and gave African-Americans (Blacks) equal rights with whites. President Johnson's Great Society programs were also passed by Congress. They were aimed at the elimination of poverty and racial injustice in America. Present day Medicare, Medicaid, and federal education funding are some of the legacies of the Great Society programs today. During the mid 60s the United States had also started escalating its role in the Vietnam War. The thinking of the country at that time was that Ho Chi-Minh's evil Communists of North Vietnam were trying to overthrow and take control of democratic South Vietnam. If North Vietnam with the assistance of the Vietcong succeeded in doing this, other countries in Southeast Asia like Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia would also fall to the Communists as in a domino effect. "Better dead than red" was definitely a feeling of the times.

Finally, it is noted in the monologue that if you go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, "you can almost see the high water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back." Since the end of the Korean War in 1953 the United States had not really suffered any significant military or domestic setbacks. Starting in 1968 a series of events started to unfold which caused America's wave of momentum to finally break and roll back. One of these events was the Vietcong's Tet Offensive of 1968 which exposed the futility of supporting South Vietnam and winning the war. More and more U.S. soldiers were being killed and along with a corrupt South Vietnam government there was no end in sight to the war. Other events were the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy which demonstrated that there were still problems with race relations and liberal economic policies.

The lyrics of "Get Together" are very beautiful and go as follow:

Love is but the song we sing,

And fear's the way we die.

You can make the mountains ring,

Or make the angels cry.

Know the dove is on the wing,

And you need not why.

C'mon people now

Smile on your brother

Ev'rybody get together

Try and love one another right now.

Some one will come and some will go

We shall surely pass

When the one that left us here

Returns for us at last

We are but a moments sunlight

fading in the grass

C'mon people now,

Smile on your brother

Ev'rybody get together

Try and love one another right now.

If you hear the song I sing,

You must understand,

You hold the key to love and fear

All in your trembling hand.

Just one key unlocks them both

It's there at your command.

C'mon people now,

Smile on your brother

Ev'rybody get together

Try and love one another right now

Right now

Right now!

What do the lyrics literally mean to me? Well, first we can see that this song is appealing for peace and brotherly love. Another interesting part of the song shows the polarity of love versus fear. The song is telling us here that fear and love have to be dealt with together. If we can deal with them together, we will be at peace during our brief stay on earth and when we die.

By 1969 when "Get Together" was re-released, there was a lot of fear and hatred not only in the United States, but in other places around the world. In the United States there was a lot of fear and hate towards all Communists, especially the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Communist soldiers who were our enemies. Remember at that time of history, the U.S. was locked in a bitter cold war with the Russian and Chinese Communists. Domestically, there was fear and hatred between the races, and also between the establishment and war protesters as evidenced by racial riots in American cities and the Kent State student shootings in 1968. in 1969 America definitely needed to get together and and try to love one another.

There was also a lot of fear in other places around the world. China was immersed in a Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution led by Chairman Mao and his followers against Mao's enemies who were supposedly following western capitalistic ideas. How can we forget the fear and hatred between the Arabs and the Jews which was manifested in 1967 War? The song "Get Together", however, undoubtedly is directed towards the United States and primarily concerned with ending the fear, hatred, and killing between the Americans and the Vietnamese Communists.