Well, here's how. You play the music. First, it was a great year. But second, music is like canned or bottled emotions, more so than any art form. Especially with rock 'n roll, where half the time you can't fully understand the lyrics. The intellectual content is stripped away and there it is. Raw emotion.
So, 1968. Here's how it felt to be alive in 1968.
Best LPs
1. Electric Ladyland--Jimi Hendrix. An easy choice. From the shorter form "All Along the Watchtower" to the long meander of "1983 (A Merman I Should Be)/Moon Turn the Tides...Gently Gently Away," this record was unlike anything ever heard before. The sound of that guitar, I mean, how did he do that? OK, "Burning of the Midnight Lamp," hey, that sounded like a guitar. "Crosstown Traffic," yeah, that was rock 'n roll. But "1983"? "Moon Turn the Tides"? Mind-bending. To me, the Hendrix legend boils down side 3 of Electric Ladyland. Everything else is just an appetizer, a warm-up. This is it.
2. The Beatles. You know, the White Album. We had no idea at the time that Let It Be had already been recorded and this was a last-ditch effort, unsuccessful as it turned out, for the Beatles to function like a real band rather than as 3 soloists and some sidemen. All we knew was here were 30 great songs, or a great collection of 30 songs, or in reality about 15 great songs, about 7 1/2 pretty good songs and about 7 1/2 throwaways. But who the hell put 15 great songs on a record album, then or ever?
Me? I'm more of a Paul guy than a John guy, so the highlights start with songs like "I Will" and "Martha My Dear" and "Blackbird" and "Mother Nature's Son." But then there's George's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," and John's "I'm So Tired" and, of course, "Revolution." So it didn't hang together, that wasn't what it was about. It was about 30 songs, 15 of them truly great songs, and that was enough.
3. We're Only In It for the Money--Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. You had to be there. I mean, to really understand the power of Frank's lyrics--"All your children are poor unfortunate victims of systems beyond their control/a plague upon your ignorance to the great despair of your ugly life/all your children are poor unfortunate victims of lies you believe/a plague upon your ignorance that keeps the young from the truth they deserve"--you just had to be there. Or, "Take a look around before you say you don't care/shut your fucking mouth about the length of my hair/how could you survive if you were alive/shitty little person/let me take a minute and tell you my plan/let me take a minute and tell who I am/how could you survive if you were alive/shitty little person." And the thing is, he meant it. He really meant it. Dick and Ron, he continued to mean it.
4. Bookends--Simon and Garfunkel. The sound was soothing, but the lyrics...not so much. "Kathy, I'm lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping/I'm empty and aching and I don't know why..../I've gone to look for America." Then, of course, there was goofy stuff like "At the Zoo" and "Punky's Dilemma." Thank goodness. It didn't do to spend too much time pondering "America."
5. Beggar's Banquet--The Rolling Stones. I wasn't a big Stones guy but, seriously, "Sympathy for the Devil." "Street Fightin' Man." The Stones don't get any better than this, not even on Let It Bleed though, OK, that's splittin' hairs.
6. Music from Big Pink--The Band. The who? Well, you know, they played with Dylan. No, not on any of his records, but they played with Dylan. In a big pink house and a few live gigs. That makes them THE BAND. Well, they paid it off. "Tears of Rage," especially, is a classic. But to some extent, the reputation of this record in later years rests more on their second record, The Band. That one rubs off on this and makes it better. But some of what seemed so cool at the time, "The Weight" and "Chest Fever, " for example, didn't age so well.
7. The Songs of Leonard Cohen. His very first record, and some of what are seen as his signature songs, "Suzanne" and "So Long, Marianne" don't appeal to me a whole lot. But "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong," now, that's the kind of twisted, raunchy Leonard that I can get into. And "The Stranger Song," not from the twisted, raunchy category, but one of his enigmatic meanders that also appeals to me. And "Sisters of Mercy" works, too.
8. Shine On Brightly--Procol Harum. I guess they recorded "A Whiter Shade of Pale" and were totally caught unawares when it became a hit. So they quickly threw an LP together to capitalize. But, hey, their first LP has "Repent Walpurgis" on it, so all is forgiven. But this was their first real effort to product a coherent long-player. Well, guess what. It still comes down to tunes, and "Magdalena (My Regal Zonophone)" is a classic of existential angst and "In Held Twas in I" (what?), which filled all of side 2 with 4 musical parts, engaged the philosophical imagination. The closing to the 1st part, the lyrics spoken by Matthew Fisher, especially. "They say that Jesus healed the sick and helped the poor/And those unsure believed his eyes/A strange disguise/Still, write it down, it might be read/Nothing's better left unsaid/Only sometimes/Still, no doubt, it's hard to see/It all works out." Otherwise, it seems to be too much a collection of novelties, but the substance that there is buoys everything up.
9. Wheels of Fire--Cream. Ah, some mainstream bombast. At last. If rock is overstatement (and it is), then this really rocks. Though, let's be honest. It's really "White Room" and couple of worthy live cuts, the signature "Crossroads" and "Spoonful." Everything else is filler, but it's exactly the kind of filler that really FILLS, if you see what I mean. It reeks of significance and profundity, and it's only later that you realize it's just heavyweight lightweight-i-ness if, again, you see what I mean. It's just that, as insubstantial as most of it is, they pull it off with such a swagger. You gotta admire that.
10. Mixed Bag--Richie Havens. Note that this is pre-Woodstock, before Richie Havens became a parody of himself. "High Flyin' Bird" is just great classic folk music that Richie, with his weird guitar tuning and raspy vocal, has made so totally his own as to make it brand new. And everything else is so tasty as to be irresistible.
11. Did She Mention My Name--Gordon Lightfoot. More folk music, but while Havens was covering other people's songs in an intensely personal way, Lightfoot wrote his own material and then tried to sing it like he imagined that anybody would. What set it apart was that bee-you-ti-ful voice (I am not kidding) and, occasionally, the songs, like the title track. I mean, who hasn't wondered that, "Did she mention my name?" And, in a similar vein, "Last Time I Saw Her," and then in the social commentary bag, "Black Day in July."
12. Waiting for the Sun--The Doors. The decline had set in though "Hello I Love You" was a big hit. It didn't particularly appeal to me. "The Unknown Soldier" was more my speed. I had forgotten that "Waiting for the Sun" is not on Waiting for the Sun.
13. Any Day Now--Joan Baez. As has been said many times, this record came too late to be SIGNIFICANT. But it had some beautiful versions, especially "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," but also "Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word."
14. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. Surprisingly, this stands the test of time though, like many LPs of the day, it's a bunch of stuff wrapped around one popular hit, "Fire." But my point is, there's other really good stuff here.
15. Children of the Future--Steve Miller Band. Oh, if this band--with Boz Scaggs and Jim Peterman on keyboards--could have hung together. But you could plainly hear that Scaggs was leaning in a different direction on the blue-eyed soul of "Baby's Calling Me Home" versus Stevie with the psychedelia of "Children of the Future" and "In My First Mind." All great stuff, but make no mistake, it was the psychedelia that drew people to Stevie in those days.
16. Disraeli Gears--Cream. Actually released in late 1967, but people were listening to it in '68. "Sunshine of Your Love" anchored the disk, and a good thing, too. A lot of the rest of it was novelty.
17. Sweetheart of the Rodeo--The Byrds. Larger in legend than on the turntable, there are nevertheless some nice songs here, especially Gram Parsons' "One Hundred Years from Now" and "Hickory Wind." The Dylan covers were more prominent then but haven't aged real well.
18. In Search of the Lost Chord--The Moody Blues. Understood today to be lightweight, but in 1968 they were seen as just the opposite. Those mellotrons made the music of the cosmos.
19. Sailor--Steve Miller Band. Pretty much of a piece with their 1st record (above), this one featured "Quicksilver Girl" and "Gangster of Love." Solid stuff.
20. Odessa--The BeeGees. If the Stones could do Their Satanic Majesties Request, well, why can't the BeeGees go "psychedelic," too. Basically it's just great BeeGee-type songs, but these guys, or at least Barry, was good enough to wrap all the bric-a-brac of the day around it and call it a thingamabob. So we did, call it a thingamabob, and buy it. Whether we actually listened to it is another question. Actually, yes, enough to hear that "You'll Never See My Face Again" was a fine song.
21. Feliciano!--Jose Feliciano
22. Who Knows Where the Time Goes--Judy Collins
23. Lady Soul--Aretha Franklin. Some people might have her a little higher.
24. More--Pink Floyd
25. Blood Sweat and Tears
Best Songs
There's commentary on most of these songs above.
1. "All Along the Watchtower"--Jimi Hendrix
2. "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands"--Joan Baez. One of the great Dylan covers ever. And, since I really enjoyed it, then the fact that it went on for 14 minutes was a good thing.
3. "1983 (A Merman I Shall Be)"--Jimi Hendrix
4. "Someday Soon"--Judy Collins
5. "Did She Mention My Name?"--Gordon Lightfoot
6. "Tears of Rage"--The Band
7. "I Will"--The Beatles
8. "Theme from 'Valley of the Dolls'"--Dionne Warwick. I kid you not.
9. High Flyin' Bird--Richie Havens
10. "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?"--Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention
11. "Street Fightin' Man," The Rolling Stones
12. "Burning of the Midnight Lamp"--Jimi Hendrix. "Loneliness is such a...drag."
13. "You'll Never See My Face Again"--The BeeGees
14. "America"--Simon and Garfunkel
15. "Classic Gas"--Mason Williams
16. "Hey Jude"--The Beatles
17. "Magdalena (My Regal Zonophone)"--Procol Harum
18. "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong"--Leonard Cohen
19. "Let's Make the Water Turn Black"--Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention
20. "Tuesday Afternoon"--The Moody Blues
21. "Moon Turn the Tides...Gently Gently Away"--Jimi Hendrix
22. "Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word"--Joan Baez
23. "The Stranger Song"--Leonard Cohen
24. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine"--Marvin Gaye
25. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"--The Beatles
26. "Cry Like A Baby"--The Box Tops
27. "Martha My Dear"--The Beatles
28. "White Room"--Cream
29. "Revolution" (fast or slow, your choice)--The Beatles
30. "Mother People"--Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention
31 "This Wheel's on Fire"--The Band
32. "I Shall Be Released"--The Band
33. "Sympathy for the Devil"--The Rolling Stones
34. "Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance"--Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention
35. "The Sisters of Mercy"--Leonard Cohen
36. "Abraham Martin and John"--Dion
37. "The Boxer"--Simon and Garfunkel
38. "Fire"--The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
39. "Sunshine of Your Love"--Cream
40. "Wichita Lineman"--Glen Campbell
41. "Shine on Brightly"--Procol Harum
42. "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay"--Otis Redding
43. "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye"--Leonard Cohen
44. "In My First Mind"--Steve Miller Band
45. "Black Day in July"--Gordon Lightfoot
46. "Light My Fire"--Jose Feliciano
47. "Born to Be Wild"--Steppenwolf
48. "Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing"--Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
49. "For Once in My Life"--Stevie Wonder
50. "Magnificent Outpouring"--Gordon Lightfoot
Artist of the Year
1. Jimi Hendrix
2. Frank Zappa
3. John Lennon/Paul McCartney
4. The Band
5. Mick Jagger/Keith Richards
6. Leonard Cohen
7. Gordon Lightfoot
8. Eric Clapton
9. Paul Simon
10. Richie Havens
11. Judy Collins
12. Aretha Franklin
13. George Harrison
14. The Doors
15. Joan Baez
16. Bob Dylan
17. The Moody Blues
18. Steve Miller
19. Marvin Gaye
20. Procol Harum
21. Otis Redding
22. The BeeGees
23. Arthur Brown/Vincent Crane
24. Dionne Warwick
25. Jose Feliciano
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