Just another year?

1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything

Documentary - 8 episodes

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14544732/

1971 could have been merely a non-discrete year, but the creators of this docu-series believed it marked a watershed moment. They considered it the year when the carefree values of the 1960s began to shift. It represented the onset of revolutions. The generation born in the post-war years, once content, has aged, and their offspring now find themselves in a world rife with turmoil and uncertainty. 

In the late 1960s, America witnessed its sons returning in body bags from defending a country that did not wish to be defended. The Americans saw no reason to uphold the free world against a perceived communist threat. 

The hippie movement created a new cocoon for disillusioned youths to escape into weed, and rock and roll. In relation to that, the cult killing by the Manson family took centre stage. 

The hierarchical and patriarchal order of society was shifting. The introduction of oral contraceptive pills provided women, for the first time in their lives, an opportunity to control their fertility and potentially their sexuality as well. This was particularly significant, as they gained more self-confidence after emerging en masse to support the economy when men went off to fight in World War II. 

1971 must have seemed meaningless. With the Beatles breaking up, Lennon and Yoko engaging in their eccentric activities, and the great musicians Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix having passed away, the youth must have felt that music was dead. A new wave of performers emerged, bringing fresh messages and revolutionary ideas. 

Marvin Gaye belted out protest songs with 'What's Going On?'. Aretha Franklin joined the movement of Black Consciousness, and Tina Turner became an icon of female empowerment following her publicised abusive relationship with Ike. The Rolling Stones attempted to fill the gap left by the Beatles, but were often busy rolling dope in the South of France. David Bowie was making his mark on the scene with his androgynous appearance, dressed in a full gown. 

The Black Power movement was in full swing. Angela Davis, a UCLA professor and an unapologetic, card-carrying member of the US Communist Party, was in the spotlight. The gun she had acquired was used in the courtroom killing of a judge. Numerous musicians rallied behind her. James Brown's soul music empowered Black men and women. 

1971 was also when the world realised that our minds can be fickle and suggestible. The Stanford Experiment taught us an invaluable lesson that remains relevant today—anonymity caused people to behave in a despicable manner. The Charles Manson trials revealed how impressionable, naive young minds can be manipulated into committing outrageous acts. The US Army massacre at My Lai in Vietnam demonstrated that the Americans were no different from the Germans in Auschwitz and the Japanese in Nanking.

It was a time of political awareness, social change, and musical experimentation. It was also the birthplace of many fantastic singer-songwriters, such as Carole King and Joni Mitchell. Music was explored using electronic devices, such as synthesisers, as exemplified by the band The Who.

1971 witnessed the UK's longest obscenity trial, which involved a 1960s counterculture publication, Oz. In one of its editions, schoolchildren were invited to edit the Schoolkids' Issue, which included pasting a cartoon mascot from the Daily Express into a sex strip illustration. The editors received jail sentences. John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who were themselves embroiled in controversy over nude album covers, came to their defence by organising protest marches and dedicating a song to this cause.

Logically, not everything changes in a year. Many of the things mentioned evolve over time.

 

1971 could be merely a random year. Every year contributes slightly to the transformation of our life on Earth. 1971 might serve as just a talking point, much like the story of how the Hardy-Ramanujan number came about. When visiting mathematician Ramanujan in the hospital, Professor Hardy, unsure of how to break the ice, mentioned that he took a taxi with the number 1729, which he considered dull. Ramanujan responded by stating that the number was interesting because it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. [1729 can be expressed as 1³ + 12³ = 10³ + 9³]

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Times were a'Changing!

A Complete Unknown (2024)

Director: James Mangold

Clip from Youtube

One of my earliest memories from the late 1960s is of my uncle spending weekends at my house. He was a university student, a rare sight in Malaysia then. I was fascinated by the shaving cream he and his friend, who accompanied him, applied to their faces and skillfully shaved off. What intrigued me even more was the fragrant aftershave lotion they put on afterwards. I was captivated by the lovely containers it came in. I later discovered it was 'Old Spice'. Its logo, a pirate ship, left a lasting impression on me. They spoke a great deal in English, and I often wonder what they discussed—perhaps the societal changes about which Bob Dylan wrote in his songs? I could not comprehend the messages as they were mainly in English, the lingua franca of the educated lot in the country.

As we know, the 1960s were tumultuous times. The Americans were the de facto leaders of the free world, whilst developing countries struggled to free themselves from the yoke of colonisation. Communist ideology gained popularity among young rabble-rousers who believed Marx's teachings could save their nations and the world from annihilation. The US viewed it as its moral duty to curtail leftist ideas and promote the message of a free world. The Americans, however, wised up. Seeing the devastating effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, the inhumane expulsion of tribes from Bikini Atoll and seeing bodybags returning from Korea and later Vietnam, in the carefree times of rock and roll, people started expressing their discontent.

At about this time, a young Bob Dylan packed his guitar and landed in New York to meet his ailing idol Woody Guthrie. He soon got into the folk music scene there. The film tells about Dylan's rise to stardom and the opposition he got as he decided to introduce electric guitar and other band instruments into his presentation. The folk music purists feel that he was damaging the essence of folk music by going electric. The movie ends in 1965 when Dylan finishes a stunning performance by introducing his electric make-over, performing on his acoustic guitar, and riding into the sunset on his motorbike.

https://www.motorcyclistonline.com/bob-dylan-motorcycle-crash/

The movie is not a full biopic but a part of Dylan's life. I was looking forward to knowing about his most talked about alleged bad motorcycle crash that cracked several vertebrae, a concussion and facial lacerations, but it was not included. Upon researching, I discovered that it happened a year after the timeline where the story ends. Like many of Bob Dylan's great stories, famous for half-truths, and outright lies, the motorcycle accident is shrouded in mystery. There is a possibility that the accident never took place as there was no record of hospital admissions for an injury so severe. Dylan could have just burned out. Possibly, such an accident never took place; he just wanted to be 'out of the rat race'.

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Sure you didn't!

We didn't start the fire (History Podcast; 2021-2023)

Hosts: Katie Puckrik & Tom Fordyce

In the mid-1980s, a young person commented to Billy Joel. In the young person's mind, the world of the 1980s was plagued with tumultuous events. In passing, he said, "I bet the world must have been a more peaceful place when you were growing up."

That got Billy Joel thinking. He started jotting down all the significant events from his birth in 1946 throughout his time growing up in New York till the summer of 1989.

Like that, he came up with close to 119 incidences that impacted him at least. He started arranging the list, like a good composer would, and wrote a record-smashing hit that everyone in the 90s would know.

Billy Joel realized as he reminisced about the years that went by that the world had always been a restless place. Looking back on the events, one thing is clear: It was as unsettled then as it is now.

The list he came up with became a narration of all the events that happened in post-war America and even the rest of the world. It even became the history syllabus for many schools in a few states. Katie Puckrik and Tom Fordyce decided to make a podcast out of the whole thing. They interviewed experts relevant to the subject for each of the 119 events, personalities or political events mentioned in the song. What transpired at the end is close to 90 hours of banter and history lessons that are excitingly interlaced with wisecracks and jokes.

Completing all the podcasts makes me feel like I'm in slumber while everybody else is doing the stuff. Many things were below the radar, and time is the best teacher for what happened in the past and will happen in the future. Many more things happened in the background without the rest of the world's knowledge. Some events still remain enigmas, which the world will never know, like whether Oswald's bullet really did kill JFK on the fateful day in Dallas.

Starting with Harry Truman and his questionable decision to drop the nuclear bomb in Japan, the podcasters dissect Doris Day. And we soon discover that her life was not like the 100-watt sunshine smile she flashes in her movies. Her life ambition was crushed when she was involved in a motor vehicle accident early on life. She had to switch careers. Married with a child by 22, life was not easy. Married four times, in the later stage of her life, she had fought court case after court case to retrieve her life savings from her lawyer, who had swindled her.

Like that, we learn about what has been happening in the background beyond the glitz of neon and what is printed in the media. It ends with the late 1980s staged Cola War between Pepsi and Coke—a fake war started to create publicity while the fizzy drink makers laugh all the way to the bank. Perhaps if the song had been written a bit later, he would have written about the fall of the  Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism.

We didn't start the fire, It was always burning

Since the world's been turning

We didn't start the fire, No, we didn't light it

But we tried to fight it

The Imperialists, specifically the Americans, in the post-war era, can deny all they want that they did not start the chaos that is rampant around the world. The sad truth is that the turmoil we are in has its roots deeply planted by the actions of people before us, intentionally or otherwise. For one, the current Middle East Crisis originates from the Imperialists' interference in the regional exploration and usurping of black gold and strategic power control of local politics. They fanned fires to appear as peacemakers akin to pinching the baby's bottom and singing lullabies simultaneously. While they were at it, they decided to sell arms to both warring sections. Why not? And sing 'We didn't start the fire, it was always burning...'

(P.S. Highly recommended for history geeks.)

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Deep down we want some masala!

Amar Singh Chakila (Hindi, Punjabi; 2024)

Director: Imtiaz Ali

Whilst self-proclaimed intellectually minded individuals peruse the internet for minute-to-minute updates on the situation in Gaza, the masses are pretty contented sneaking into the WhatsApp communication between Aliff Aziz and Ruhainies, the latest two-timing pair of the Malaysian showbiz scene. Netizens feel for the wounded wife, Bella Astillah, who used to be Ruhainies' bosom buddy. 

Neither party, the 'intellectuals' or the regular people, can do anything to change the trajectory of the event. In no way do these events bring them their bread or make their lives more fruitful. But it allows the masses to divert their attention from their mundane lives. They do not want their lives to be complicated, but they find solace in finding how much muck goes on in people's lives. And how virtuous is theirs, until, of course, the readers' own story becomes the topic of the day…

Look around us at regions ruled by regimes which promote religion as their bedrock of creating a 'sinless' society. Paradoxically the regions turn out to be the ones with the most subscribers of Porn Hub, of rape, drug abuse, incest and domestic disharmony. 

My Malaysian Punjabi friends had not heard of this singer until this movie was shown on Netflix. Sure, they had heard that many Punjabi singers get killed, promote gun violence, and are misogynistic and vulgar, but somehow, Chamkila missed their radar. Now they know that he was once the highest-selling musician in Punjab and was even more popular than Amitabh Bachchan. Someone even referred to him as the 'Elvis of Punjab'. Sadly, he was gunned down while arriving for a show. He joined the now famous 'Club 27' - the talented musicians who conspicuously died at 27 - Cobain, Winehouse, Morrison, Hendrix and more. This was in the 80's.

Chamkila's story was that his songs were liked by the majority but no moral guardians of society. The moral guardians felt that Chamkila's vulgar, immoral song lyrics were not what the public wanted to hear. Funny, if that is not what the public wants to hear, how come his records are the highest grossers?

Chamila is not even his surname. It was given or maybe mispronounced by the introducer. Amar Singh started life in a lowly Dalit family, growing up in feuding families amidst a rather 'not-so-refined' neighbourhood. Caught in an unsatisfying job making socks, he composed songs to the tune of his musical instrument, the tumbi, during his free time.

A singer, Jinda, picked up his talent, and Amar Singh started writing songs for him. When Jinda failed to appear on time at one of his shows, Amar Singh had to fill in. The audience was so taken up by his rendition that they did not want Jinda when he eventually appeared later. Amar's singing career started then. After partnering with a few female singers, he stuck with Amorjit.

Amar and Amorjit became romantically linked. They got married. Only later did Amorjit find out that Amar was already married before.

The duo found success after success. Appointments were pouring from villages, towns and even overseas. There were criticisms regarding their overtly vulgar lyrics and crass tone of songs, but the money that came with the shows seemed to sanitise everything. When Amar's father got furious seeing that Amar had cropped his hair, his anger simmered down when Amar presented him with a stack of cash he earned singing. When his first wife and family got crossed when they discovered his clandestine marriage to Amorjit, everything was squashed with a promise of fat alimony and compensation.

Things became complicated when the Sikh elders and Kahalistani members accused him of corrupting the youth. Amar then started writing devotional songs and the call for freedom. The police construed these as dog whistles for the general public to rise up to the call of the Kahalistani movement. After all, this was the heady time after Indra Gandhi's assassination and national discontent with the Sikhs. Chamkila was confused. When the police and the religious people forbade him to sing his songs, the general public wanted more and more of his songs with raunchy lines about peeping toms and promiscuous MILFs. 

There was a strong suspicion that Khalistani hitmen killed Amar Singh Chamkila and Amorjit as they were getting down from their car for a performance at a small village on 8th March 1988, but nothing was proven. The killers are still at large.

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Small window of opportunity!

101 Albums You Need To Hear Before I Die (2023)
Author: Martin Vengadesan


There used to be a time, back in the 90s, when I used to wait eagerly for the weekly entertainment pullout from a mainstream newspaper. Martin Vengadesan’s fortnightly article on rock and roll music and juicy titbits behind the people and bands that hit the charts and excited music enthusiasts are a sure pull factor. Infused in the writings was his apparent political leanings towards the left.

It must have had quite a following as the column went on for quite a while. Then, out of sight and out of mind. I went on to do other things in life and just remembered all about the articles when I met the author a few years ago in a reading group.

Who better person to narrate the juicy little backstories behind the singers and bands of generations that passed? This must be the quintessential go-to book to remind us and travel us back to the era when music was religion, politics, freedom, empowerment and expression. Now, it is consumerism, exhibitionism and short-lived.

Going through the various doyens over the years in the book, from the blues singers of Neesie Smith and BB King to the 60s heartthrobs of Bob Dylan, Beatles and Doors to heavy metal heavyweights of Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and Led Zeppelin, one thing seems to be a recurrent theme.

With the author

Flashes of brilliance only manifest occasionally. Good times do not last forever. Happy hours come with a closing time. In the correct ambience, with the right company of similar-minded lunatics, magic can materialise. The radiance has a window period. Within that short chance of opportunity, one has to churn out materials that would define his legacy.

With success, attention and the intoxicating lure of being in the limelight, the drive to stay on top of the game intensifies. In trickles in intoxicants and stimulants to numb the pain and stir creativity, respectively. The result is always the same: the higher the rise, the harder the fall.

On a personal note, I would vouch for a similar experience. At that time, of course, with the raging endorphins and stupor of self-satisfaction, I thought good times would never end. It is funny how man never learns from history. In hindsight, everybody is Ramanujam, and the hindsight vision is 20/20. We had a good thing going. We scaled hills, scurried through foreign country sides and were the envy of many. We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun. Who would have thought a minuscule of a wrong step would have brought the whole house of cards crumbling down? We were all too blind to see.

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How one prospers the other!

Wham! (Documentary; 2023)
Director: Chris Smith

This documentary is a poignant one. It plucks the heartstrings of many a child of the 80s. Those who grew to appreciate British Invasion music of the 80s of pop-sync, thick hair days and gaudy attire will indeed have wet eyes reminiscing the times when the duo Wham! hit the airwaves and the night market compilation cassettes.

It was a time when young girls used to go gaga over George Michael (aka Georgio Panayiotou @Yogh) 's hair, musculature and Colgate white dentition and Cypriot looks. Die-hard fans of Wham! or rabid fans of George Michael's would all be too familiar with the genesis of their collaboration; for me, this knowledge comes 40 years too late.

This Netflix documentary is done in a captivating way, avoiding too many current interviews of famous reminiscing about the good old times. Instead, it uses scrapbook format and old footage of Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael in the 80s and 90s when they slowly climbed the ladder of superstardom.

Their friendship started at 12 when George landed as a bespectacled shy immigrant student who found it hard to get into the school crowd. George somehow found the company in Andrew, also partially immigrant, the happy-go-lucky frequent prankster. George looked up at Andrew and slowly built confidence. Over the years, they found commonality in music. One thing led to another. George started composing songs, and the free and easy Andrew just tagged along. Unlike Andrew, George had big ambitions and somehow grew too big for a duo teen bop band and started a solo career.

This documentary ends with their 1986 amicable and emotional farewell concert in Wembley Stadium. George Michael's issues with his sexuality and brushes with the media and police had not surfaced then. Afar as the world was concerned, here was a young, highly talented music composer - songwriter and performer dying to unleash his talents to the world. He was a darling of the press and paparazzi until they came and bit his behind in years to come.

Imagine from Andrew Ridgeley's point of view. There was an awkward new boy, George, who used to look up at him and follow him around in and out of school. Slowly George built confidence and found his footing in what he wanted to do in life. Maybe it was Andrew's prodding. Together, they had a jolly good time. They went places and did things. They reached heights that low, middle class boys like themselves in the grey, economically gloomy Thatcherian times can dream of. They had it good when the going what was good. He unleashed the superstar buried within George, and the bird had to fly off the nest to explore newer pastures.

P.S. Wham!'s first record stirred the interest of the British public when their song 'Wham! Rap!' spoke about the ludicrous British welfare system, which could not create jobs for the youngsters but paid them dole instead to enjoy life. They expressed their grief in a piece of then-controversial music called 'rap', which was banned in many radio stations in America.

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Race, Religion and Rock N' Roll!

Blinded by the Light (2019)
Director: Gurinder Chadha

Maybe it is the slave mentality at work. The slaves looked up to their masters and wanted to be like them very much. They see them as the proof of success, the pinnacle of achievement, and yearning to walk in their shoes. That is where the buck stops. The slaves chose what was 'good' and what was not acceptable.

Many middle-income Malaysian Indians who were teenagers in the late 70s and early 80s had to endure this, yours truly included. The parents worked hard to provide their offspring what they missed growing up. What they thought they missed most was the ability to acquire education, pass examinations and the remunerations that came with it. They wished to achieve what they did not get, like the opportunity for education, freedom by their standards and academic achievements through their children.

They did not, however, want the Master's idea of independence. Their idea of children is to be seen but not heard. The last thing they wanted was children talking back to their parents. They did not appreciate the parents' shortcomings in parenting to be pinpointed. No matter how high the children flew, they had to display Asian values, filial piety and show unwavering loyalty to the clans till their dying days. 

One peculiar thing about my mother is she was not too keen on us, the children, listening to Western songs. They wanted us to be conversant and proficient in English, but Tamil songs on RTM Red Network were the only songs blaring over the family radio. When my parents were away on errands, we heard English songs clandestinely over Radio RAAF and the RTM Blue Network. She feared we would be wild kids, showing disrespect and forgetting our roots. That was what she thought of the Masters - only substance but no soul. She wanted us to learn the things that would pull us out of the clutches of poverty but keep the Indian values.

Fast forward to the 21st century. A few of the family members have uprooted themselves from this country, seeking greener pastures in the land of the Masters. In their minds, their children would be more assured of a comfortable lie ahead.

With the children now at rebellious ages, these parents face the same dilemma as my parents. Like my parents, they wanted their kids to absorb what they viewed as 'good' qualities and reject the 'bad'. Of course, life is never so easy.

Boy George

That is what Malik, a Pakistani immigrant to the UK, had to encounter bringing up his children in Luton in the 1980s. On one end is Malik, who uprooted his life for a better life for his family. He has big plans for his family, things he never had in Pakistan. On the other hand, he wished his host country could be more cordial with their arrival. It was the 80s at the heights of unemployment and Thatcherism. Malik's son, Javed, has a mind of his own. He wants to experience life, be a writer, enjoy music, and not follow the uninspiring path that a typical Pakistani teenager is made to follow. Somewhere along the way, Javed is introduced to Bruce Springsteen's music. It just blew his mind. He finally found someone who reads his mind.

The rest of the movie is a musical galore for teenagers of the 80s who grew up with liberal doses of synthesisers-filled Brit new-wave music. It is a long trip down memory lane with the likes of 'Pet Shop Boys', 'A-ha' and an overdose of Bruce Springsteen. Sadly, I never grew up appreciating his type of shouting melody. It was a time when girls dressed up like Boy George with pleated hair, thick make-up and chequered dress, and Boy George was not a boy. But nobody made a fuss about it.

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