Music of the fifties and sixties in the United States often directly mirrored the historical sentiment, culturally and politically, of the times. The fifties were generally a period of calm after World War II that produced very simple, light-hearted music with doo-wop and the teen idols infiltrating mainstream music. This period of good-feeling music actually continued until the mid-sixties. The mid-sixties is when all the music that is now generally associated with the sixties as a whole decade broke out, beginning with the British invasion and Woodstock. Rock and roll was transformed from a light and non-offensive mood in the fifties to a rebellious and hard message in the sixties because of the social atmosphere that characterized each era.
The post-war fifties was a time when the white American middle class prospered. The interstate highway system connected America and led to a boom in new businesses such as fast-food restaurants and motels. When the soldiers came home, they were ready to put the war behind them and start new lives. The rates of employment for middle-class America went up, higher education under the G.I. Bill was offered to veterans, and the “baby boom” increased the size of families. As the middle class thrived, they moved to the suburbs, where teenagers started looking for an outlet of escape from the mundane life of suburbia that they found in music. However, this movement to the suburbs left the black population to live in increasing poverty and unemployment in the inner cities. This led to the beginning of the Civil Rights movement in the mid-1950s when Rosa Parks started the boycott of public transportation in Montgomery Alabama, the Supreme Court ruled “separate but equal” schools unconstitutional, and Little Rock Central High School was integrated. This also led to the spread of early rock that was predominantly black artists. They were further spread by television which came into its own in the fifties when America’s youth began watching more hours of television than they spent at school. All of these events produced unique traits in music that targeted teens.
The music of the sixties also targeted younger audiences but these audiences were more tempered by the turbulence of the society around them. There was a storm of assassinations of influential leaders such as John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. Race riots, most notably in the Watts section of Los Angeles, plagued the country. The U.S. military invaded Fidel Castro’s Cuba in the Bay of Pigs Invasion, which proved unsuccessful and led to the Cuban Missile Crisis with the Soviet Union. Soon after an agreement was met, America was thrown into war in the Southeast Asian country of Vietnam when U.S. ships were attacked leading to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution declaring the country’s new involvement in the conflict. The war was greatly opposed, leading to a “counter culture rebellion.” The youth of the sixties was prosperous because of their parents’ material gain in the fifties and began looking for ways to rebel against their parents’ society and express themselves and their newly attained beliefs through music.
Characteristics of fifties music could best be summed up in the word “simple.” The lyrics were non-offensive and were not very important to the music itself. Musicians very rarely, if ever, wrote their own music in this era. Songwriters hit it big with simple lyrics that were generally concerned with light-hearted boy/girl love. Such songwriters were Leiber and Stoller. Despite the rhythm and lyrics being unimportant, it was the melody that was important.
Sixties music, especially towards the mid-sixties, was characterized by meaningful lyrics. Some of the lyrics made statements, especially anti-war, that enticed their audiences to question the world around them and reveal the evils of society and politics. Bob Dylan’s lyrics from “Like A Rolling Stone” exemplifies this:
“How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?”
A lot of the music was very experimental. Musicians began writing their own material and were more group oriented, rather than the soloists of the fifties. Overall, the artists were more talented and left a more lasting impact on the procession of American music.
Rock and roll was one of the biggest styles of the early fifties, which began as a black dominated style. Such artists as Chuck Berry and Fats Dominos broke out in the early fifties. Their music drew younger white audiences from middle-class suburbia who were searching for adventure and excitement, which they found in this rock and roll. Their parents’ disapproval of this black music only added fuel to the fire. Soon, new white artists began to imitate this style of music and make it their own, producing rockabilly. Elvis Presley was the epitome of this movement. His popularity was spurned on by television, which used his good looks and provocative dance moves to appeal to the masses.
Television also led to the break-out of teen idols. Such artists as Frankie Avalon and Rickie Nelson appealed to people not because of their talent but because of their looks. Their music was very fluffy and bland. In Frankie Avalon’s song “Venus” the lyrics are simple and in retrospect are a bit cheesy:
“Venus if you will
Please send a little girl for me to thrill.
A girl who wants my kisses and my arms
A girl with all the charms of you.”
However, for most audiences of the fifties, they were not looking for heavy, idealistic artists who would challenge their belief systems. In the music of the fifties they found respite and comfort in light, meaningless music. When rock and roll took a turn towards the teen idol market it began to loose its rebellious edge and essentially its identity.
Girl groups, which in actuality came out in the early sixties, were a continuation of the light-heartedness of the fifties. They did, however, set the trend for artists to make groups, while still hanging on to the mood that was set in the fifties. These girl groups were completely dissolved by the British invasion.
The Beatles embodiment of the shift from what was typified as fifties music to sixties music. They began appealing to the teen pop market with such hits as “Eight Days A Week” were very simple songs with uncomplicated lyrics and rhythms. Additionally, the group wasn’t writing all of their hits. As the group gained popularity and began to mature their music reflected their changing personalities and growing talent. This change is most marked by Paul McCartney’s introduction to Bob Dylan who turned him on to a new, more introspective market. Paul began to write more music and carried more of a message, while John Lennon followed him into more experimental styles such as psychedelia. They transformed pop music and reflected the change of music and audiences of the sixties.
The Woodstock Music Art Fair was also an epitome of popular sixties music. I was held in August of 1969 on a farm property of Bethel, New York. It featured rock acts such as Jimi Hendrix, the Who, the Grateful Dead, and Janis Joplin. The festival lasted four days and was a site for a “countercultural mini-nation” in which drugs were a huge part of the experience, music was plenty, and love was free. It was a perfect escape from the social turmoil and pressure the youth of the sixties thought they felt.
Overall, the transition from the fifties into the sixties marked a turning point in American music, because these two decades marked a transition in American society and the attitude towards the world around them. Music like history comes in waves. During the fifties, after World War II was resolved, music began to crest and peaked in the mid-sixties. However, as music went through the eighties and American society regained a sense of calm and has reached a low in the nineties. Even today it hasn’t began to crest again. However, many of the better artists today were influenced by the legends of the fifties and especially the sixties. They had a lasting effect on American music and therefore American history.
Works Cited
“Fifties Music: Oldies But Goodies.” 6 May 2004. .
Goodwin, Susan. “American Cultural History.” 6 May 2004 .
Kennedy, David. The American Pageant. Houghton Mifflin: New York, 2002.
“Lyrics.com: Music for Your Head.” 6 May 2004. .
Skiba, Laurie. Literature and the Language Arts: The American Tradition. Paradigm Publishing: Saint Paul, 2001.
Smith, Ronald. “Oldies Music.” 6 May 2004. .
“Teen Idols.” 6 May 2004. .
