Music has meant different things to different generations since probably the first people thumped a stick on a log or clapped two rocks together. Perhaps, though, no generation more than mine defined itself through its music (or was it the other way around?). I love to sing, but I cannot. I love to pluck strings on a guitar or tickle keys on a piano, but I certainly cannot play even a random note on any instrument.
Nonetheless, songs of the ‘60s and ‘70s were a huge part of my life then. Still are, if you ask my son Steven. Complicated or simple, they expressed my emotions, thoughts and even some activities growing up in junior high school, high school, college, and my early time in the Air Force. I understood most of the lyrics, or at least I interpreted them to mean something to me.
These five songs and their selected lyrics told my story of my first year in Viet Nam.
Leaving On a Jet Plane
So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go.
Don’t know when I’ll be back again.
Oh babe, I hate to go.
When I come back I’ll bring your wedding ring.
Any Time at All
If you need somebody to love, just look into my eyes
I’ll be there to make you feel right.
If you’re feeling sorry and sad, I’d really sympathize.
Don’t you be sad, just call me tonight.
If the sun has faded away, I’ll try to make it shine
There’s nothing I won’t do
If you need a shoulder to cry on, I hope it will be mine.
Anytime at all, anytime at all, anytime at all,
All you’ve gotta do is call and I’ll be there.
We Gotta Get Out of this Place
Little girl you’re so young and pretty
And one thing I know is true.
You’re gonna die before your time is due.
Girl, there’s a better life for me and you.
Yes, I know.
We gotta get out of this place
If it’s the last thing we ever do.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
I look at you, see all the love that’s sleeping.
I don’t know why nobody told you
How to unfold your love.
I don’t know how someone controlled you
They bought and sold you.
I look at the world and I notice it is turning
With every mistake we must surely be learning.
Here Comes the Sun
It’s been a long, cold, lonely winter.
It feels like years since it’s been here.
The smiles returning to faces
I see the ice is slowly melting.
Here comes the sun, and I say it’s alright.
Leaving On a Jet Plane
So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go.
Don’t know when I’ll be back again.
Oh babe, I hate to go.
When I come back I’ll bring your wedding ring.
Does this bus go to the train station? 
Comments
The night the Bridge Over Troubled Waters album came out I was in Big Willie recovering from having four wisdom teeth taken out. The local radio station played the whole album late that night. The hospital staff kept it on over the intercom for us even after lights out. My favorite was El Condor Pasa:
“I’d rather feel the earth beneath my feet,
Yes I would.
If I only could,
I surely would.”