The Congregation of Rock-n-Roll
“Rock ‘n’ roll was a celebration of congregation. But we don’t have the brains to answer the question of what it was that rock ‘n’ roll tried to start and has failed to finish: Who are we? What is our function? What is our worth? Are we disenfranchised or are we able to take society over and guide it?”
~ Peter Townshend
Peter Townsend, one of rock ‘n’ roll’s leading musicians, gave a great interview that was published in the New York Times Magazine this past Sunday, December 1. His claim that rock ‘n’ roll was trying to carry a great social vision struck me as deeply true. I am not sure that I believe that it has altogether failed, which was his second, pessimistic claim.
“There is a subset of living musicians who are trying to carry whatever it is that we garnered from the 1960s. We’re carrying what we each decided to share of the load. And the load was this massive question: Who are we? What is our function? What is our worth? Are we disenfranchised or are we able to take society over and guide it? Are we against the establishment? Are we being used by it?”
As someone trained in the subtle shifts of the collective psyche - the shared mythos of the times - it seems to me that the torrents of music let loose upon the land when the genius of rock ‘n’ roll struck its staff upon the rock in the desert of the American wasteland of the 1950s, watered seeds deep in the heart of America. Parched from the trauma of the great depression in the 30s, traumatized by a second world war in the 40s, then shocked and jaded by McCarthyism and the social regression of the 50s, much of our lively citizenhood had gone dormant. Rock ‘n’ roll music awakened those youthful and rebellious springs of visionary hope that are supposed to arise in the breast of every generation.
It would be a mistake, in my opinion, to read the signs of the times solely in the politics of the moment. Politics seems the most volatile of our social institutions since every 2 to 4 years things are being turned over and the players are coming and going from the stage. That makes it subject to every whim and windy sentiment of the populace.
The deeper shifts across a wide spectrum of social mores is a much better reflection of how far we have come. To my mind the three most telling the signs that we have undergone a metamorphoses lie in these arenas:
1) The voice of women being heard and respected as never before;
2) The social acceptance and legal protection of same-sex love and marriage by the majority of the population;
3) The eruption of tens of thousands of individuals making the journey from binary gender identity to non-binary identification.
All three of these telltale signs speak of a fundamental shift in how we see ourselves as human beings and as members of community. I don’t think that any of these would have been possible without the ecstatic, free love movement that accompanied the rock ‘n’ roll music of the 60s and 70s.
Psychologically, addressing the contra-sexual energy in the self is the last and most difficult task of the inner journey. This was noted by the psychologist CG Jung and confirmed by Joseph Campbell’s comprehensive study of world mythology and the stages of the hero journey from all cultures. After the hero has met his shadow and mastered that figure he must still go on to the fateful meeting with the goddess. Only when he is able to meet her demands can he receive the boon and return to redeem his kingdom.
The return of Aphrodite to Western consciousness - which has been dominated by a shaming Catholicism and a punitive puritanism - can hardly be overstated in its importance. In fact, it is the liberation and honoring of all the goddesses that is behind so much of what we are seeing in our social movements of the past 50 years:
• The Athena woman has stepped into the male worlds of business and politics and has taken up her rightful place there;
• Demeter has reemerged as the urgent earth goddess provoking grassroots protests and resistance all over the planet;
• Hestia, the self-partnered goddess, is giving new stature and solidity to the idea of the solo woman as a complete human being;
• Hera’s wrath, meted out by an avenging Nemesis, can be felt in the “Me Too” movement where the notion of woman-as-booty to satisfy male lust is being challenged by a force equal to that of the old Zeus.
“What we were hoping to do was to create a system by which we gathered in order to hear music that in some way serve the spiritual needs of the audience. It didn’t work out that way. We abandoned our parents church and we haven’t replaced it with anything solid and substantial. But I do still believe in it.”
Townshend may be feeling his own failings and unfinished business as an individual, but his contribution to the new consciousness cannot be denied. The WHO and the thousands of other musicians, songwriters, and performers who made up the vanguard of the rock ‘n’ roll movement were cultural pioneers who did lead us to a new promised land.
The invisible congregation of music lovers still exists. The songs that blew our minds, touched our hearts, and opened our eyes and arms to the new possibilities of community are still flowing in our blood. The songs have not lost their power to move us and no religion is dead whose congregation can still rise up and sing in unison.
The tide has turned and the waters are still rising.
Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth saving
Then you better start swimmin' or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin . . .
Bob Dylan
Pete Townshend, of The Who, interview with David Marchese in the New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/25/magazine/pete-townshend-the-who-interview.html
Bob Dylan, For the Times They Are a Changin’
Peter Townshend, Won’t Get Fooled Again
