Back to The Garden

Like, peace man. Of course today we might add "woman" or substitute "persons." No, "peace persons" just doesn't cut it. Forty years ago this weekend hundreds of thousands of young people descended on Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York (it wasn't actually Woodstock) for a wallow in the mud and to listen to some of the top bands of the era. The decade of peace and free love was getting long in the tooth, and there had been too much social unrest during those years to argue that the Age of Aquarius was even close to dawning. Still the poster featured a white dove perched on the neck of a guitar.

The event was remarkably, well, peaceful, for such a huge gathering. Regrettably, two people died, one of an overdose, but two were also born that weekend. You have to wonder how many were born nine months later.

One of the songs written about Woodstock was by a young Canadian folksinger. Joni Mitchell. She wasn't actually there because she didn't want to cancel her appearance on the Dick Cavett talk show. How bourgeois. Her version was a little too ethereal for my tastes. I liked the rocking Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (another Canadian) version.

I came upon a child of god He was walking along the road

And I asked him, where are you going And this he told me

I'm going on down to Yasgurs farm I'm going to join in a rock n roll band

I'm going to camp out on the land I'm going to try an get my soul free

We are stardust We are golden

And weve got to get ourselves Back to the garden

Then can I walk beside youI have come here to lose the smog

And I feel to be a cog in something turning

Well maybe it is just the time of year Or maybe its the time of man

I don't know who l am But you know life is for learning

We are stardust We are golden

And we've got to get ourselves Back to the garden.

A bit corny and idealistic. Very corny and idealistic and strangely biblical in its overtones or undertones or whatever they are. I suppose the ideal of a better world isn't so bad.