The Origin Of "The Fifties"

[2jakes]

Halloween 1950s & other stuff...

In the world of kid-dom, I don’t recall buying costumes at the store.
Everything was home-made with what ever we could find.
We were out on the streets without a chaperone.

“Sandlot” baseball was strictly for kids, no grown-ups allowed!
The only uniform we had was an old baseball glove which was
rare. It was mostly a stick & anything that came close to a ball
was used.

Lakes & rivers were my "public swimming pools”.

Saturdays was usually a trip to the flicks!

And Gene & Roy are still my heroes!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Halloween as we know it today in the US didn't really exist until the 1920s and 1930s. It had been a rather rowdy holiday oriented to young men at the turn of the century, to the point where public drunkenness, violent vandalism, and sexual assaults were becoming commonplace. Religious reformers set out to defuse the hijinks by trying to overwhelm the old image of the night with wholesome-type Halloween parties in church halls, and this movement gravitated more and more of the attention on the holiday toward kids and families. This escalated considerably during the twenties, and ready-made cheap cambric or paper Halloween costumes for children were on sale in drug and department stores by the end of the twenties. By the mid-thirties, they were extremely common, and by the end of the thirties they were dominated by popular licensed characters like Mickey Mouse, Snow White, the Lone Ranger, and Charlie McCarthy. It was also during the twenties and thirties that the custom of organized trick-or-treating by children became institutionalized, aided by a marketing boost from candy companies.

This trend dominated for about forty years until the craze for "adult" Halloween parties escalated in the 1970s and 1980s, giving us "sexy nurses" and "sexy lawyers" and "sexy certified public accountants" and similar such debauchery.

 

[Steve27752]

And unfortunately, here in the U.K. Most people now celebrate Halloween rather the Guy Fawkes.

 

[BlueTrain]

I had a couple of store-bought Halloween costumes but I think it may have only been a mask. Sometimes I went with a friend but usually alone but never very far from home, maybe one block in each direction. Living in a small town then was much more like living in a big city than living in a suburb. Even then, in West Virginia, I knew people who were immigrants, though not recent immigrants, either from Italy or Syria.

Playing baseball was popular among the boys but there were few good places to play. I didn't know any adults who were interested in sports. Perhaps they didn't care to watch grown men playing games, which is all it amounted to. But auto racing, wrestling and boxing were very popular and were things to be seen in person if at all possible.

There was a city pool open all of three months out of the year and no private pools at all, at least not in town. The country club outside of town had one but my father wasn't of the sort that joined clubs, not that he could have afforded the membership fees to begin with. There were no decent places to swim except for the pool at the park unless you went as far as the New River, which was over ten miles away, further to the good places. And alas, there was no skinny-dipping. Halloween remained a high point of autumn all through my childhood. Christmas was easily as commercialized as it is now, as I recall. Easter wasn't much different either but Thanksgiving for us was probably the most important family get-together of the whole year for a while. It was a long time before I realized that these big family get-togethers were finite in number and one day there weren't any more of them. Even visiting home after someone had died was the strangest thing. Even though it was obviously what it was, there was something wrong that you couldn't quite put your finger on. Something essential was missing and it would never be the same again. After that, visiting the cemetery where most everyone I ever knew 60 years ago was buried would be the first thing I did when I went back. There was almost no place else to go.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Interesting bit of cultural difference there. In our town, and in most of the Northeast, baseball was a substitute for religion for a very great many people, kids and adults alike. You were born in a family of people who rooted for a particular team, you were raised to root for that team, and it was simply an inescapable part of who you were. In my family we were Red Sox fans the same way we were Methodists.

And it wasn't a gender-segregated thing, either -- the most ferocious baseball fans I knew, without exception, were women. My grandmother, a militant, aggressive fan, became a fan from listening to the games on the radio -- a common phenomenon that had its roots in the 1930s. The Boston Red Sox and Braves were among the first teams to broadcast their entire home schedules -- when the Sox were home, they'd be broadcast, when the Braves were home, they'd be heard -- and by the mid-thirties those broadcasts were more popular with housewives than soap operas. She was still a regular listener right thru my own childhood, and she and I passed many an afternoon listening to The Game. One of the last things she said to me before she died was "why in the hell don't they get rid of Bob Stanley?"

My mother, raised in the 1940s and early 1950s, has her whole life set up to revolve around professional sports. She follows the Red Sox obsessively -- watches every game on television, listens to all the sports-talk radio shows, and calls me regularly, often in tears, to complain about some player who isn't living up to expectations. (Right now she is very very upset about David Price.) In the fall and winter, she moves to football, and is equally obsessive about the Patriots.

We played a lot of baseball, and substitutes for baseball, as kids -- once again, no sex segregation existed. There were only about half a dozen kids in my neighborhood, all the same age, and we didn't have the luxury of separating into boys and girls. So we'd make up short-team adaptations of baseball and we'd play it in the street, or in one or another of the empty lots in the neighborhood. But following the professional game was the dominant way we participated in sports, and there wasn't a single person on the street who couldn't tell you the Sox' current lineup -- or the lineup of the 1912 Red Sox. We really were that obsessive.

 

[HudsonHawk]

"Growing up in Florida, baseball was huge among us kids, more so than every other sport combined. Of course, we played year round as we had no real winter, and got really excited every spring when the Big Leagues were getting ready to start. We didn't have a local team, but we got the Braves on the radio, so we were mostly fans of them. The local low Class A team was a Reds affiliate, so some rooted for them. And I know exactly what you mean about women of that era and baseball. My grandmother was a died in the wool Tigers fan, because they trained in her town (Lakeland). Every other team in the American League had at least one player simply referred to as "that little [urine] ant".

Football...well the only thing that mattered was The University of Florida Gators, and the only thing that really mattered then was beating those hated "worm heads" (another of my grandmother's colorful descriptors) from the University of Georgia. Other sports like racing and boxing were popular among the older gents, and I still like boxing today, though it's seemed to fade in popularity quite a bit over the years.

And then there was "rasslin". Which of course isn't really sport, though it certainly stirs fierce emotions and loyalties. Grandmother was also a fan, if you couldn't guess. She was quite the character.

 

[Edward]

With respect, I believe you're missing my point.

I'm not suggesting there is no/little artistic merit in an interpretation of an original song.

I'm saying there is more artistic merit in the creation of the song in the first instance than there is in any, and I do mean any, subsequent interpretation.

Oh, no - I vompletely get what you're saying, I just don't agree.

Is Elvis' interpretation of Amazing Grace possibly of greater merit than its composition in the first place?

No, but is it equally important? For me, it is.

No composition - no Elvis cover (no composition, no Elvis songs period - he couldn't write a bloody note, and any "credit" he got was at Colonel Parker's insistence).

Sure, but even Shakespeare's words don't truly live without the interpretation of a performer. That Elvis never wrote a note is uncontested - and leads back to my original point, which is that the over-fetishisation in serious popular music circles of being the writer has completely overshadowed and devalued being a performer - a direct contributing factor to live music dying out, because lots of folks would rather listen to a recording of the writer performing it than a great, live performance.

My last point on this is to emphasize that word again - cover. As in, copy...

It can be. but not necessarily so. Saying that any cover is merely a copy is like saying that any of the great performances of Hamlet is only acopy, because the director didn't write it. Or The Godfather is of lesser value than Home Alone because it's merely a copy of Mario Puzo's novel...

 

[LizzieMaine]

Sure, but even Shakespeare's words don't truly live without the interpretation of a performer.

Indeed. Which would you rather hear -- John Barrymore reading Hamlet's soliloqy, or your Uncle Louie?

 

[Fading Fast]

Interesting bit of cultural difference there. In our town, and in most of the Northeast, baseball was a substitute for religion for a very great many people, kids and adults alike. You were born in a family of people who rooted for a particular team, you were raised to root for that team, and it was simply an inescapable part of who you were. In my family we were Red Sox fans the same way we were Methodists....

My father, in particular, had no truck for religion, but definitely had a passion for sports, so in many ways, sports was my religion growing up as well. The only thing is he was basically cynical and disaffected by people and life in many ways, so while he was a fan, he also held the teams at arms length. I think his own mind did battle with his passion for the team and his experience with life.

I just knew growing up not to disagree with whichever way his passion was blowing - more of a fan most days, cynical to the team occasionally - and my life went on reasonably undisturbed. Staying off his radar was survival rule number one in my house - learned it early, applied it everyday and things were mainly okay even if always on eggshells. Maybe no different than a kid growing up in a Catholic household where the faith was mainly supported, but occasionally questioned.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Sometimes the interpreter is remembered way better than the originator. As far as I know, Janis Joplin never wrote a song by herself (she co-wrote a few) but many songs are irrevocably associated with her. Kris Kristofferson wrote "Me and Bobby McGee,"but it's Janis's version everyone remembers. Erma Franklin first recorded "Piece of My Heart" but guess whose cover is remembered? Incidentally, if there is a single justification for capital punishment, it should be inflicted on whoever played Janis's "Mercedes Benz" over a Mercedes commercial. The song was meant as an indictment of mindless consumerism and it was used to sell product and poor dead Janis had nothing to say about it.

 

[Stearmen]

Sometimes the interpreter is remembered way better than the originator. As far as I know, Janis Joplin never wrote a song by herself (she co-wrote a few) but many songs are irrevocably associated with her. Kris Kristofferson wrote "Me and Bobby McGee,"but it's Janis's version everyone remembers. Erma Franklin first recorded "Piece of My Heart" but guess whose cover is remembered? Incidentally, if there is a single justification for capital punishment, it should be inflicted on whoever played Janis's "Mercedes Benz" over a Mercedes commercial. The song was meant as an indictment of mindless consumerism and it was used to sell product and poor dead Janis had nothing to say about it.

Don't forget Bob Dylan wrote All Along The Watch Tower, But it was Jimi Hendrix that made it legendary!

 

[Fading Fast]

Don't forget Bob Dylan wrote All Along The Watch Tower, But it was Jimi Hendrix that made it legendary!

Jimmy's version does sort of rip through you in a way that Dylan's doesn't. Sheryl Crow, IMHO, does a much better job with the Dylan-penned "Mississippi' than he does.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Don't forget Bob Dylan wrote All Along The Watch Tower, But it was Jimi Hendrix that made it legendary!

Lots of Dylan covers are more famous than the original....Peter,Paul and Mary's version of Blowin' in the Wind, The Byrds' Mr. Tambourine Man...how many people have covered Knockin on Heaven's Door? Personally, I'm a fan of Jason and the Scorchers' version of Absolutely Sweet Marie.

But to the original point...lost of great interpretations of songs, even by great songwriters themselves. Dylan's a great example of someone who's been covered by other songwriters...Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Bruce Springsteen, Jerry Garcia, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Bryan Ferry, Elvis Costello, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young...it's a who's who list.

 

[sheeplady]

Incidentally, if there is a single justification for capital punishment, it should be inflicted on whoever played Janis's "Mercedes Benz" over a Mercedes commercial. The song was meant as an indictment of mindless consumerism and it was used to sell product and poor dead Janis had nothing to say about it.

That song has always been a point of reflection for me that Janis herself was done in by the consumption of drugs, fueled by her aassociates use and her own addiction. The heroin epidemic was about mindless consumerism, or rather consumerism to be mindless. There's a tragic irony in that: some one concerned with mindless consumerism was so addicted to consuming.

At least you can drive a Benz.

(This is not to make light of addiction. Addiction is tragic.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

There are few things more counterrevolutionary than drugs.

 

[Edward]

Sometimes the interpreter is remembered way better than the originator. As far as I know, Janis Joplin never wrote a song by herself (she co-wrote a few) but many songs are irrevocably associated with her. Kris Kristofferson wrote "Me and Bobby McGee,"but it's Janis's version everyone remembers. Erma Franklin first recorded "Piece of My Heart" but guess whose cover is remembered?

Absolutely. She breathed a life into those numbers that noone else matched, really raised them to something else.

Incidentally, if there is a single justification for capital punishment, it should be inflicted on whoever played Janis's "Mercedes Benz" over a Mercedes commercial. The song was meant as an indictment of mindless consumerism and it was used to sell product and poor dead Janis had nothing to say about it.

I completely agree. I often wonder whether this sort of thing might not justify completely removing the posthumous copyright term.... Sure, then everything's up for grabs, but at least no such great art would end up being prostituted by money-grubbing inheritors of the art.... That ad did and does sicken me; it's certainly plausible that whichever soulless ad exec commissioned it didn't undestand the original song.... though it's also at least possible that they did and just didn't care. Animals.

Don't forget Bob Dylan wrote All Along The Watch Tower, But it was Jimi Hendrix that made it legendary!

To this day, when Bob performs that number live, he uses Jimi's arrangement (albeit altered for a larger band) rather than his own. Of the Dylan songs which Jimi covered, Bob has said "What surprises me is not that he did them, but that he didn't do more of them. They were his songs."

Another one in that ilk is Jeff Buckley's cover of halleluljah, which Leonard Cohen himself has called the definitive version.

 

[Edward]

There are few things more counterrevolutionary than drugs.

Damn right. You're no threat to the establishment if you're incapacitated.

 

[Fading Fast]

Damn right. You're no threat to the establishment if you're incapacitated.

Rationally, could not agree more, but at least in the '60s, drugs were seen as being revolutionary as they were against what the establishment publicly stood for. Dress, hair, drugs, etc. - it was all about doing the opposite of or breaking the rules of the establishment. When enough high-profile young people died from drug use (and enough families and communities got sick of losing their young), the wheel turned, but for a brief moment - irrational as it was - drugs did seem revolutionary to many.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Some sixties radicals had the sense to reject that belief. Malcolm X preached uncompromisingly against drugs from the beginning of his career in the public eye, and both Eldridge Cleaver and Stokely Carmichael took up the same argument. "Revolution is about love. If you love your people," Carmichael declared, "you fight to save them."

Most of the members of the Old Left who were still active in the 1960s clashed strongly with the drug-oriented factions of the "New Left," but they were fighting an uphill battle against those who were just in the movement for the "sex, drugs. and rock-and-roll." The drug movement did more to discredit the legitimate issues raised by the Left in the 1960s than any other force, and working-class disgust at this movement did much to push that class into the arms of the Nixon right.

But you can't just blame the kids for it. Timothy Leary was born in 1920, a bona-fide member of the GI Generation, and his experiments with psychedelics including LSD and psyilocybin were conducted under the auspicies of Harvard University in partnership with Sandoz Pharmaceuticals -- the very belly of the Establishment beast. After he was fired from Harvard in 1963, his research was subsidzed by members of the Mellon family. Kids who followed his teachings thinking they were defying the Establishment were being conned -- they were, instead, allowing themselves to be used as guinea pigs by a well-funded charlatan with ties both to big business and the CIA.

Many other kids who were experimenting with drugs in the 1960s learned to do so from the members of the Beat Generation who had picked up the habit in the postwar years. Or, they might have even picked it up from eminently "respectable" sources deep within the Establishment itself. The myth of "The Fifties" assumes that period was free of the drug culture, but the actual 1950s were quite a different story. The May 13, 1957 issue of "Life" even published an article in its "Great Adventures" series extolling pyschedelic mushrooms, which kicked off something a mushroom fad among youths, and added the term "magic mushrooms" to the language. What's most interesting about this article is that it wasn't written by a radical, a beatnik, a proto-hippie, a cultist, or an academic crackpot: it was written by a fifty-nine-year-old upper-middle-class executive of J. P. Morgan & Company -- and it was this very article that led Leary himself to add mushrooms to his own field of experimentation.

 

[BlueTrain]

The fifties were a lot of things, although it may not have been so obvious at the time. Things always look a little different after fifty years of thinking about it anyway.

The 1950s were, to me, more progressive than conservative, which is not to say it was liberal, which it was not. They were conformist more than individualist, which sure enough came later, in the second half of the 1960s. They were also a strange combination of hopefulness and optimism about the future combined with a fear of communism and atomic war. Even then they had their (or rather, we had) economic issues and problems. Most of that seemed to continue into the 1960s, too. Change was on the horizon, too. The country was progressively becoming more violent, too, for one reason or another.

People joined organizations more than they do now, which is one way they were conformist. There was drugs and alcohol, to be sure, and laws were beginning to make more drugs illegal, which didn't seem to make any difference except in the prison population. In some circles there was a lot of drinking. In my own working class neighborhood, a couple of men were known as weekend drunks but they didn't drive when they had been drinking. They could barely walk either. Not everyone smoked, of course, but it seemed like it. A parent could send their child to the store to buy cigarettes then.

Overall, I guess it wasn't such a bad decade.