Masarykova univerzita Filozofická fakulta
Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky
Bakalářská diplomová práce
2020 Anežka Schreibová Masaryk University Faculty of Arts
Department of English and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Anežka Schreibová
The Influence of the 1960s Counterculture on Bobby Darin's Artistic Transformation and Political Activism Bachelor's Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: Jeffrey Alan Smith, M.A., Ph.D.
2020 / declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
Author's signature Acknowledgment I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Jeff Smith for his guidance and valuable advice. I am also grateful to my family and friends for their patience and support. Table of Contents Introduction 1 1. Counterculture of the 1960s 4 2. Music as a Tool of Social Criticism 6 2.1. Protest Song 6 2.2. Music as a Means of Mobilization and Collective Action Framing 9 3. Early Darin 10 3.1. Bobby Darin: The Early Influences 10 3.2. Walden Robert Cassotto Becomes Bobby Darin 13 4. Bobby Darin Becomes Bob Darin: Darin's Protest Period 16 4.1. Personal Transformation 17 4.2. Professional Transformation 21 4.3. Analysis of Selected Songs (1968 - 1969) 25 4.3.1. "Jingle Jangle Jungle" 26 4.3.2. "The Proper Gander" 30 4.3.3. "Me & Mr. Hohner" 36 4.3.4. "Simple Song of Freedom" 41 5. Fake vs. Authentic: The Compromise 45 Conclusion 50 Appendix 53 Works Cited 58 Summary 64 Resume 66 Introduction
The 1960s was a turbulent decade for the United States. It was an era of great historical events and changes that very much affected many levels of political, social and cultural life and many of which still resonate today. As a result of a deep disagreement with mainstream materialistic society, the counterculture emerged and quickly spread mainly to white, middle-class young people. Members of the counterculture used various social channels to convey their frustration with the older generation's conformist way of life, be it literary works, fashion, overall appearance or lifestyle. One of the most powerful means of expressions, however, was music. Music and musicians contributed to social mobilization, helped create collective identity and spread the message inside as well as outside the youth movement. The relationship was reciprocal. Not only did music play an important part in the form of expression of these people, but the counterculture itself had a fundamental and extensive influence on many, if not all, areas of popular culture.
One of the artists whose varied career and personal life were heavily affected by the events and protest atmosphere of the 1960s was all-around performer Bobby Darin. The aim of this thesis is to trace and examine how and to what extent the counterculture was reflected in Darin's artistic shift, performance style and political activism. Cursed by ever-failing health, Darin was condemned to an untimely death, yet rocketed to stardom, was constantly changing shapes and covered all the show business bases he possibly could. As a successful, award-winning singer, actor, composer, musician, songwriter, bandleader, entertainer, record producer, publisher and businessman he also tried his hand at dancing, directing and screenwriting. In this thesis, however, the main focus is put on his music career. Darin's versatility made it impossible to classify him professionally, he defied categories and in his short life, he managed to redefine himself many times. Still, none of his transformations had
1 ever been so shocking and apparent both in his professional and personal life as the one following the assassination of his friend and idol Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.
The theoretical part of this thesis starts with a brief insight into the key concepts of the counterculture and comments on the clash of two generations amidst a changing society. The next chapter puts a special focus on the music scene in general, and theory and power of protest songs in particular. As a non-violent form of opinion statement, music played a crucial role in the expression of disapproval with the values of mainstream society characterized by social conventions, materialism and discrimination.
The next part of this thesis gives a comprehensive overview of Darin's participation not only in the music industry, but in show business as a whole. To be able to emphasize the contrast between his former and latter persona and workstyle, it is necessary to provide a broader context. Tracing key events in his life that have proven influential and shaped his way of thinking allows to gain a better understanding of the motives for Darin's career steps and his sudden change of mindset. The first subchapter of this section summarizes the most critical aspects of Darin's childhood, and looks for what formed him both as a person and an aspiring artist. The next subchapter observes Bobby Darin at the peak of his professional and personal life, focusing on all the branches of the "business of show" he covered. Attention is paid especially to his breakthrough and rise to stardom, his most notable achievements, performance style and portrayal in the media.
The theoretical part is followed by a reflection on Bobby Darin's transformation from a teenage heartthrob to a top nightclub attraction to a folk/protest singer-songwriter and an avid social activist. It depicts his soul-searching journey accompanied by an abrupt and dramatic change of appearance, lifestyle and name, and looks for the way these changes further manifested themselves in Darin's work and activism. Since Darin's views are very much reflected in his own lyrics, the next subchapter comprises an in-depth analysis of
2 selected Darin songs, self-penned during his protest period between 1968 and 1969 and published predominantly by his own record label created specifically for this purpose. They were chosen for their clear emotional charge and the candid commentary on the tumultuous events of the 1960s they provide. Darin was confusing the public, one moment setting a
Guinness World Record by driving the most expensive custom-made car in the world, the next insightfully attacking materialism and war. The analysis focuses not only on the social and political issues the singer tackles but also on topical connections to his personal life, lyrical controversy at the time of release and the overall structure, style and literary devices used to express discontent, rebellion and the need for change. Emphasis is also put on how the musical elements and album cover support the overall tone of the text, and how the songs and albums were received by critics. The last chapter concentrates on Darin's decision to take the middle way, allowing him to separate his political and social activism from his nightclub and
TV appearances.
Apart from looking into representative song lyrics, the author also makes use of biographies dealing with Bobby Darin's life and work, and of audiovisual recordings of his public performances. Books and articles on cultural and sociopolitical background of the time period concerned are also a relevant source of data, as well as newspaper and magazine articles, reviews, letters, photographs and interviews with the singer himself, his colleagues, friends and family. All these sources combined can provide a complex image of both the person and the performer and subsequently of the actual protest as it was intended by Darin, thus enabling to fully understand all motives and reasons for making the music he did. An in- depth analysis of protest songs can be valuable for both cultural and political studies, as they capture not only an artistic viewpoint but also authentic opinions of a representative of a particular subculture.
3 1. Counterculture of the 1960s
The American counterculture of the 1960s was comprised predominantly of white, middle-class, well-off young people who, disillusioned with the American dream, condemned mainstream society for being conformist and uptight, and turned their backs on the traditional value system, social conventions and pursuit of material wealth as the ultimate goal. Goffman and Joy summarize counterculturalists as people who "represented a synthesis of the hippie movement - dedicated to mind-expanding drug experimentation and going with the flow, and the New Left/peace movement - dedicated to challenging authority, ending imperialism and war, and an ill-defined communalism" (26).
Among the various groups that made up the 1960s counterculture, hippies and the
New Left stood out the most. The New Left represented mainly political opposition to the dominant culture, while hippies exemplified more of a cultural opposition. Although their ideals and views intertwined and complemented each other in some ways, they were nonetheless distinct groups with different goals and different tactics to achieve them. In his book The Making of a Counter Culture, Theodore Roszak describes the relationship between hippies and New Leftists as one where hippies "seek to invent a cultural base for New Left politics" (66). Hippies felt alienated from mainstream materialist society, embraced the sexual revolution and new styles of clothing as a form of self-expression. They listened to psychedelic music and used psychedelic drugs to explore altered states of consciousness. In times of the Cold War, technocratic Establishment and environmental pollution, hippies wanted to create a society based on principles such as peace, harmony, love and equality.
Flower children sought radical social change in the form of a return to nature, and mystical and intuitive kind of thinking that Western society had abandoned. Roszak goes on to characterize hippies as "young bohemians" who want "to discover new types of community, new family patterns, new sexual mores, new kinds of livelihood, new esthetic forms, new
4 personal identities on the far side of power politics, the bourgeois home, and the consumer society" (66).
The decade brought about many social and to some extent political transformations, and its legacy is still apparent today. As Brownell points out, "the Sixties witnessed the most widespread and sustained social activism in American history" (82). Above all, the counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s had a significant influence on just about all spheres of popular culture, be it literature, fashion or various kinds of visual arts. New artistic ideas emerged, new art forms were created. But perhaps the ultimate form of creative expression for the young generation was music. "Music was present at almost every march and rally, in the background of nearly every organizational meeting," Levitin writes (72). The
1969 Woodstock festival remains one of the most iconic events in music history. It featured a number of prominent performers, including Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, The Who,
Tim Hardin and many others, and in addition to "3 days of peace & music" it also provided an opportunity to merge art with politics. In the words of political and social activist and Yippie co-founder Abbie Hoffman, the music "was in conflict with mainstream society - with the police, who were working for mainstream society; with the war in Vietnam; with racism being practiced by society. ... [W]e wanted the festival to be seen ... in a context not removed from the politics" (qtd. in Lang 94). Michael Lang, one of the organizers of the festival, shares a similar view. He, too, wanted Woodstock to be "a cultural event, not devoid of politics" (97). As he recalls, "[i]t was a chance to see if we could create the kind of world for which we'd been striving throughout the sixties: That would be our political statement - proving that peace and understanding were possible and creating a testament to the value of the counterculture" (53). This goes to show that music was a very powerful element that not only shaped the thinking of the counterculturalists, but also very much reflected it.
5 2. Music as a Tool of Social Criticism
Looking back at history, we can see that music as such has been used since time immemorial not only as a means of cultural expression, bearer of tradition or a form of entertainment, but also as a way of expressing opinions, including a political stance. It is text set to music that has a great potential to reach wide masses, since it is not limited to language as is the case with written texts or speeches, nor to sensory perception alone. Instead, it offers a combination of both. This creates a potentially very powerful way of political communication, because it has the ability to reach a wide audience and thus represents a possible tool for changing the prevailing state of public opinion. Music alone does not have the power to overthrow regimes and governments or to end social injustice, but it enables a certain message to penetrate the subconscious of a large number of people, and thus can serve as a catalyst for thought, action and even social change.
2.1. Protest Song
According to John Street, the research on the effect of music on politics is interdisciplinary, combining political studies and musicology ("Breaking" 322). In his book
Music and Politics, he then writes that music becomes part of politics when it "inspires forms of collective thought and action" and "forms a site of public deliberation, rather than private reflection" (8). Therefore, in order for a song to be political, it must first and foremost become a part of the public realm and thus be accessible to the masses, so that the public has the opportunity to identify with the content and possibly reevaluate their opinions.
6 The arguably bigger part of political songs as a whole consists of protest songs. Louis
Haynes states that "protest music may be defined as songs whose lyrics convey a message which is opposed to a policy or course of action adopted by an authority or by society as an institution" (248). Protest songs are thus the kind of works that critically comment on social, political or cultural topics. The thoughts are more often than not linked to the attitudes of a certain social movement or dissent. Their authors and performers express dissatisfaction with the established regime or social conditions, and call for a change or at least a discussion of the issues they address. In democratic societies, these people are usually accepted as a kind of political opposition; in the non-democratic ones, their work often becomes a target of censorship.
Logically, songs of persuasion work both ways, meaning there are songs that side with the establishment and/or the political regime, advocate the status quo, political representation and social conditions. Essentially, their purpose is to strengthen the position of the government, defend its actions, or they can be created in reaction to protest songs.
In his article "Songs of Persuasion" R. Serge Denisoff outlines the goals an effective
"folksong of protest" should meet. These include:
1. ... support and sympathy for a social or political movement.
2. ... [reinforcement of] the value structure of [its] active supporters.
3. ... cohesion, solidarity, and high morale in an organization or movement supporting
its world view.
4. ... [recruitment of] individuals into joining a specific social movement.
5. ... [invocation of] solutions to real or imagined social phenomena in terms of action
to achieve a desired goal.
6. ... [pointing] to some problem or discontent in the society, usually in emotional
terms. (582)
7 Denisoff then proceeds to categorize political songs according to the target audience and the manner in which they fulfill their function. He divides them into two groups - magnetic and rhetorical. The magnetic political song of persuasion tries to attract new supporters to the movement that promotes the goals expressed in the songs. It is also supposed to further strengthen existing ties, and enhance commitment and a feeling of solidarity within the movement. Such pieces of music symbolize unity and community, something each member can identify with. The rhetorical political song, Denisoff argues, is characterized by individual protest stemming from resentment, and aims to offer a clear political message designed to change the prevailing political stance. These compositions are written to identify and describe a certain social condition, but offer no ideological affiliation with any specific movement and do not have the ambition to create wider support for any collective action ("Songs" 584-585).
This kind of songs offers more opportunities, as the songwriters are in no way limited by membership in any organization whose ideals they would stand behind and defend through their work. Unlike magnetic songs, these do not need to build on existing collective mindset, and are primarily an expression of the author's inner feelings and thoughts.
The singer and/or songwriter plays a crucial role, among other things, in terms of engaging the target audience, since he or she is directly related to the above-mentioned categorization. With regard to political communication, when presenting an idea during a performance, a band consisting of young, liberal-minded musicians will create a different impression than an artist who is known to subscribe to conservative beliefs.
What seems to be of less importance when it comes to the effectiveness of a protest song is the music genre. Although Street admits that "certain genres of popular music ... are viewed almost exclusively as political" and that "[f]olk provides home for political sentiments in ways that dance music does not," he nevertheless believes that genre classification is purely a matter of musicology and is not very relevant for political research (Music 43, 56-57). For
8 the purpose of a song as a functional element of political communication, it is of little account whether the communicator is a folk musician or a rock band. However, this only applies when we talk about the message alone, in other words about what is communicated in the sense of
Lasswell's model of communication1.
2.2. Music as a Means of Mobilization and Collective Action Framing
The tradition of protest music in the United States is as old as the nation itself. It dates back to the War of Independence and since then, songs of social complaint have been
"associated with virtually every political cause, and most presidential elections" (Weissman
36). However, "[gjenerally when people mention protest songs today they are thinking of ... the music of the civil rights movement, the protests against the war in Vietnam, or ... the New
Left movements of the 1960s" (Weissman 36). During the late 1950s and 1960s, the so-called
"folk music revival" peaked in popularity and contemporary folk began to dominate the protest music scene.
Looking at the term "folk song" from an etymological point of view, rather than from the musicological one, we can see that the word "folk" is strongly emotionally colored and used mostly when talking about a particular group of people a person belongs to. As Denisoff contends, one of the major functions of such songs is to create "a 'we' feeling in a group or movement to which the song is verbally directed" ("Songs" 583). Protest music is a crucial means of so-called collective action framing. "Collective action frames offer strategic interpretations of issues with the intention of mobilizing people to act" (Johnston & Noakes
1 Lasswell's communication model is a framework for analyzing the elements involved in mass communication. The model asks 5 questions: Who? (communicator - artist) Says what? (message) In which channel? (medium) To whom? (audience) With what effect? (impact on society) (Lasswell 37). 9 5). Frames thus shape the participants' collective identity defined on the basis of "us" vs.
"them" and emphasize their immediate social and political environment. Folk music conveys that sense of belonging, as well as unity of the performer and the audience. Throughout history, protest songs have frequently been created by setting new lyrics to popular or familiar tunes, which places emphasis on a commonality of experience. "Music as experienced and performed within social movements," Eyerman and Jamison argue, "is at once subjective and objective, individual and collective in its forms and in its effects. Through its ritualized performance and through the memories it invokes, the music of social movements transcends the boundaries of the self and binds the individual to a collective consciousness" (163). The solidarity between the audience and the singer and/or songwriter allows the latter to position themselves as a spokesperson for a certain social group or movement and guarantees them both authenticity and a certain authority to equate their individual viewpoint with a general social statement. Denisoff claims that folk music became "a primary vehicle [for creating]
Folk Consciousness" and was inherently the bearer of social criticism (mostly associated with left-wing political orientation), because it was most comprehensible to people and spoke their language ("The Proletarian Renascence" 52).
3. Early Darin
3.1. Bobby Darin: The Early Influences
"There's no one, ever, in the history of this business who covered all the bases that he did. Whatever he did, he did well" ("Bobby darin biography" 01:55-02:04). This is how
Bobby Darin's manager Steve Blauner liked to summarize the versatile artist. In an attempt to properly describe Darin's many-faceted career, Cashbox magazine called him "a composer-
10 lyricist-actor-singer-publisher-arranger-record producer-record executive-scenarist-film director" ("The Hyphen-Ator" 24). They still left out a few fields. Darin set his mind on becoming a successful all-around showman, and that is exactly what he became. Elvis Presley used to sneak into theaters to watch him work. Frank Sinatra would encourage his own audience to go see Darin. And Sammy Davis Jr. called him the only performer he would not follow on stage; Darin was just too good. But before all that, he was Walden Robert Cassotto, a sickly kid from Harlem, New York. He was born in 1936 and thus caught between two generations. He grew up in a tough Italian neighborhood in the Bronx, his family was poor and on home relief - a fact he would later use as an excuse for his former pompous, materialistic lifestyle. One of the childhood stories he often recounted on the Johnny Carson
Show and various other talk shows was about having "a cardboard box in the bottom drawer of a dresser for a crib" when he was a baby ("The Tonight Show" 00:41:02-00:41:16).
Poverty became not only a motivation for him to make something of himself to be able to get out of the "slum," as he called his old neighborhood, but it also became the central theme of his autobiographical 1969 song "City Life." In 1968, when he was campaigning for Robert
Kennedy, Darin told Life magazine that RFK "has a spiritual understanding of what it means to be poor" ("The Star-spangled Look" 66). It is apparent that his poverty-stricken beginnings were always in the back of his mind, which may well have been a driving force regarding him fighting for social change.
Young Bobby suffered several bouts of rheumatic fever, which permanently damaged his heart and left him having to take sulfa drugs daily for the rest of his life. "The disease racked his body and left him with the ruined heart that would both inspire his success and kill him," Bobby's son writes in his book about his famous parents (D. Darin 11). His imminent untimely death was another topic he later confronted in several of his autobiographical songs.
The long months the disease kept him bedridden gave Bobby a lot of time to read, think,
11 listen to music and soak up inspiration. He taught himself to play the piano, guitar, drums, vibes and harmonica, and formed a band with four of his high school classmates. It was during their first professional gig at a Catskills resort that Darin got really bitten by the bug.
He would play the drums, put on little shows, sing, dance, tap and do comedy skits. One particular night, he performed a song and dance routine reminiscent of his great idol Donald
O'Connor. "All his innate gifts for singing, mimicry, comedy, dancing - for being the consummate showman - came electrifyingly alive. The response at [the hotel] was tumultuous. The applause came in waves at a grinning Bobby. That was the night that Bobby got snagged," Darin's biographer describes (Evanier 21). Impressions were something he would incorporate into his act throughout his whole career and he also did them during interviews every now and then.
Despite the Hollywood glamour he would soon become a part of as a high-profile celebrity, Darin had always had a strong sense of social conscience, only his priorities shifted as the years went by. Having grown up in unfair conditions, he was very compassionate to those living amidst an unjust society, especially when it came to black people. It was the same quality that later drew him to Robert Kennedy. Dick Lord, one of Bobby's closest childhood friends, recalls: "[H]is compassion for the underdog was always there. If you were Black, if you were in trouble, if you were poor, if you were disfigured, his heart went out to you, really" (qtd. in D. Darin 58). He then goes on to tell a story from their teenage years:
"[Bobby] gave a shoe shine kid a dollar. We had thirty cents left. That Black kid who shined the shoes got the dollar. We got thirty cents. ... The kid looked at Bobby as though he were made of gold" (qtd. in D. Darin 58).
Darin soon gained a reputation as a very talented, but also brash and arrogant young man, and the media nurtured this image of him they had created early on throughout much of his early career. With his high IQ, Darin was a member of Mensa (Evanier 49), but at the
12 same time had lots of insecurities, ranging from his looks to the death sentence that was constantly hanging over him. When he was eight years old, he overheard a doctor say that he would not live to see sixteen. That is why he was so driven. He needed to make it big fast, because he simply had no time to waste. "[F]rom that point on he started running," Bobby's son says, And yes, I'm brash, and yes I'm in your face, but not because I'm rude, but because I gotta get somewhere. You may have an extra ten years to get there, I don't. I'm going there now'" ("Beyond the Song" 00:06:01-00:06:16). And he did.
3.2. Walden Robert Cassotto Becomes Bobby Darin
Robert Hilburn, pop music critic of the Los Angeles Times, wrote in retrospect that
Darin "may have been the most versatile, ambitious and misunderstood artist of his time"
(142). He was still using his real name, Bobby Cassotto, when he started out - first as a songwriter, then as a demo singer - at the famous Brill Building on Broadway. There are two stories regarding the choice of his stage name, but in any case, it was Bobby Darin who began his recording career with Decca Records in 1956. He first found fame at ATCO Records two years later, though. Darin always claimed to have written his first rock 'n' roll hit "Splish
Splash" in twelve minutes, and a string of hits immediately followed. He composed around two hundred songs, both for himself and for other artists, including many of his greatest hits, such as "Dream Lover," "Things," "You're the Reason I'm Living" and "18 Yellow Roses."
He also wrote the score for four of the thirteen movies he acted in as well as for another motion picture. All this despite the fact that he never learned to read and write music.
By 1958, Darin had become a teen idol, but he did not like being pigeonholed and wanted to escape being labeled a teenage heartthrob. His goal was to broaden his appeal to adult audiences and be the quintessential performer. Against virtually everyone's advice he
13 recorded an album of standards. It contained "Beyond the Sea" and his signature classic
"Mack the Knife," which won the 1959 Record of the Year Grammy. Darin won the Grammy for Best New Artist the same year. "Mack the Knife" rocketed to number one on the charts and stayed there for nine weeks. Currently it is number three on Billboard's "Greatest of All
Time Hot 100 Songs" chart.
Darin covered many different styles and genres - rock 'n' roll, jazz, ballads, R&B, swing, folk, country, blues, pop standards, even gospel and soul. His sister Vee said: "He could do things with his voice that no one else could do. You could hear ten of his records and think they were sung by ten different people, he had that much range" (qtd. in D. Darin 16).
He also recorded songs in multiple languages, often accompanying himself or others on one or more of the five instruments he played. Neil Young told Rolling Stone: "I used to be pissed off at Bobby Darin because he changed styles so much. Now I look at him and I think he was a fucking genius" (Young).
Darin began headlining at major nightclubs, including the most prestigious ones in Las
Vegas, LA and at the famous Copacabana in New York, setting all-time attendance records.
At the age of twenty-three, Bobby was the youngest person to ever headline in Las Vegas, and not long after that, "he made television history on NBC as the youngest performer to headline his own prime-time special" (Starr 52; DiOrio 105). He was now popular with adults and teenagers alike. Music critic and editor of Down Beat, Gene Lees, reported that "Darin almost literally has to sweep the girls off the doorstep" (17).
Bobby Darin was a bona fide star by his early twenties and began guest-starring on popular TV shows, working with many of his idols and show business veterans such as Bob
Hope, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, and his mentor and father figure George Burns, among many others. Although he is known primarily as a singer and entertainer, his greatest passion was acting. Darin appeared in thirteen feature
14 films, ranging from drama, comedy and musical to western. He was nominated for an
Academy Award for his performance in Captain Newman, M.D., won a Golden Globe in
1962 and was nominated for the award three more times. "This is my first love, acting. As much as I love to sing and perform, ... to act, to be another character, to be another person ... gives me the greatest sense of satisfaction and accomplishment," Bobby said in 1961 ("A personal interview" 02:28-02:44). He starred opposite Hollywood royalty like Steve
McQueen, Gregory Peck, Rock Hudson, Gina Lollobrigida, Sidney Poitier, Tony Curtis and, of course, his first wife Sandra Dee. In addition to his singing, acting and songwriting career, the entertainer embarked on a business career and by 1963, he had his own successful music publishing and TV and record production company.
Despite having to use an oxygen tank backstage between shows from the late 1950s on, he was brimming with energy onstage, so the audience never knew. His personal magnetism, polished stage presence and impromptu style made him, in the words of Peggy
Lee, "totally captivating" (qtd. in D. Darin 117). He would dance. He would hold the final note with his body arched backward, arms spread wide, hands twitching in rhythm. Or he would lift the microphone high in one hand, drop it and catch it suavely with the other to add punch to the end of a tune. This, combined with his trademark finger snapping, shoulder shrugs, head bobs and leg kicks, made him "probably the most fascinating singer to watch on this side of the Atlantic" (Lees 18).
But the times were changing, and so was Darin. And not just artistically. In 1961, he purchased what became known as the "Bobby Darin Dream Car." In addition to its many futuristic features, it had thirty coats of paint with crushed diamond dust, and at the time it was listed as the most expensive custom-made car in the world by the Guinness Book of
Records ("Bobby Darin 'Dream Car'"; Janicki 18-19). While Darin admitted that he was trying to compensate for the poverty he had grown up in, later he would also blame show
15 business itself for essentially forcing celebrities to keep up the glamorous lifestyle in order to maintain their status. But as the 1960s progressed, all the money, houses, cars, boats, oil wells gradually became less important. "There's nothing I couldn't write out a check for. But that's not everything in life," Bobby stated in 1965 (Bowers). By 1969, affluence and material possessions had lost all their importance.
4. Bobby Darin Becomes Bob Darin: Darin's Protest Period
Darin took many bold career steps in his life. He tried his hand at everything he found challenging and artistically fulfilling, and managed to redefine himself many times. But none of his transformations had ever been so striking and complete both in his professional and personal life as the one he went through in the late 1960s.
During the first half of the decade, he became more politically aware and started paying attention to the changing political landscape. Darin strongly opposed the Vietnam War and became active in the civil rights movement. He went to a number of demonstrations, participated in and spoke at the March on Washington in 1963, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, and according to Darin's FBI file, he sang and entertained during the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965 ("Marlon" 01:45-01:59;
Freedom). As a staunch Democrat, he also performed at New York's birthday salute to
President Kennedy and at Lyndon Johnson's Inaugural Gala three years later ("Remarks"
05:32-05:42; "Looking back"). But up until then, he had mostly kept his personal life separated from his professional life. On the stage, at a recording session or on a movie lot, he was Bobby Darin. At home, he was Walden Robert Cassotto. And that is who he was when he took part in activism. Now he felt it was time to bring these two together.
16 In March 1968, a month before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King Jr. came to
Darin's show at the Copacabana. Bobby introduced him to the audience, expecting enthusiastic applause, but instead was met with awkward silence (DiOrio 161). Darin found himself not only stuck between two generations, but also torn between two conflicting sets of values. Social justice issues and the world of show business did not go well together. What the audience expected from an entertainer was entertainment. The crowd paid to hear "Mack the Knife," "Beyond the Sea" and other Darin classics, not to listen to lectures about civil rights. The problem was that Darin did not fit in with the counterculturalists and folknics either at that point, because they considered him a hypocrite and questioned his authenticity.
He sang about poverty, yet he owned four houses. In a late 1967 interview, Darin mentions a folk album he recorded a few years prior and how well it was received until the listeners realized who the singer was: "Before [the folknics] knew who it was, they dug it. When they did know who it was, they qualified. ... To be good and poor is all right. To be good and successful - somehow or other you're out" (Gilliland 02:10-02:30). The importance of his own success began to recede into the background, though and what he was singing about meant suddenly more to him than how he was singing.
4.1. Personal Transformation
Surrounded by the upheaval of the 1960s, Darin began considering running for public office and the California Democratic Party was ready to sponsor him. In early 1968, seeing that he was serious about going into politics, Bobby's mother became concerned that his opposition would find out the truth about his parentage and use the information to cause a scandal and discredit him. Since she did not want him to find out from the media, she finally decided to tell him herself. Little Bobby was told that his father had died in prison before he
17 was born, so he was raised by a woman he believed to be his mother. In fact, the woman he thought to be his older sister was his biological mother, while his "mother" was actually his grandmother. The revelation of the long-kept family secret shattered him and he turned his attention to Robert F. Kennedy. "[My] goals have been changed and what I aspire to now is a more meaningful contribution," he said (Wilson, "Bobby ... Guy?" 25). In 1967, Darin had volunteered at a fund-raising telethon organized by the Kennedys and in 1968, he became actively involved in Bobby Kennedy's presidential campaign. Darin traveled with him, barnstormed around the country and made many appearances on the candidate's behalf. He was not only RFK's ardent supporter, but also his close friend. When Darin co-hosted The
Mike Douglas Show in July 1970 and was asked to name five people, living or dead, he admired the most, Robert Kennedy was Darin's first choice, followed by historical figures like Michelangelo and Gandhi ("THE MIKE" 08:52-10:01).
Kennedy's assassination in June 1968 devastated him. He attended RFK's funeral at
Arlington National Cemetery, refusing to be photographed and interviewed. Due to the late hour, Kennedy's coffin was not covered until the next morning, so Darin slept on the ground by his grave and claimed to have experienced a "metaphysical revelation" there that enabled him to "see things with a peace and a calm [he had] never had before" (Wilson 2). The headline of the article read: "Bobby Darin Underwent Spiritual Renaissance" and the entertainer talked about the experience and his new self. "It was as though all my hostilities, anxieties and conflicts were in one ball that [was] flying away into space, farther from me all the time, leaving me finally content with myself," Darin described and further added: "I've already reshaped me and I'd like to take a part in reshaping the universe" (Wilson 2).
The deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, coupled with his recent divorce, the shocking revelation about his biological mother and unanswered questions about his real father, pushed Darin over the edge. He felt lied to by both his family and the
18 government. These events turned his life upside down and made him reevaluate his past, but even worse, he perceived Robert Kennedy's assassination as a serious blow to America's future. He had not only lost his friend, but also a symbol of hope. Later that year, he wrote a mournful song about Kennedy's death and funeral entitled "In Memoriam," which finds Darin singing in a half-whisper, accompanied only by his acoustic guitar. Each verse ends simply with the words: "They never understood him / So they put him in the ground."
Bobby Darin was called a "hippie" as early as 1960, when columnist Earl Wilson wrote about the singer's debut at the Copa that "Bobby Darin, a hippie from New York City,
Tonsil No. 1 in the 'New Noise' sweeping America, completely conquered all the New
York hippies. He gave the gals the jiggles - not the giggles - the jiggles. They jiggled in their chairs" ("Broadway" 17). But back then, the meaning of the word was quite different. Less than a decade later, Darin, in the words of the legendary host of American Bandstand and
Darin's dear friend Dick Clark, turned into a "latter-day hippie" (261). According to DiOrio, tabloids soon started spreading rumors about Bobby's "acid trips and orgies" and implying that he "had turned into a freaked-out hippy, undergoing one psychedelic experience after another" (181). His friends and family refuted this, as he was suspicious of drugs. He did not turn on, but he certainly tuned in and dropped out.
In the fall of 1969, Darin gave away and sold all his possessions and moved to a small trailer in Big Sur, California - a stretch of coastline in the middle of nowhere - where he lived in near seclusion for almost a year. Shortly after he arrived, he sent a letter to his family: "I am now a turtle. Virtually everything I own is on my back and suffice it to say I am one ton lighter and therefore 2,000 pounds happier. ... All houses are gone. All extraneous
(everything except LPs, tapes, books and personal doodads) items have been sold and I am out from under. I wish all of you the serenity of this area and the peace of these mountains"
(B. Darin).
19 His near-reclusive existence was an effort to get in touch with nature and especially himself. His internal conflict stemmed partly from trying to bridge the generation gap and suddenly finding himself with one foot in one generation and one foot in the other. Born in
1936, he was too old to belong to baby boomers, yet too young and open-minded to identify with the social and moral conformity of their parents. On the one hand, he created an image of a clean-cut, clean-living family man, took on the role of a loving and responsible father and strived to give his son everything he felt he himself had lacked and missed out on as a child.
On the other hand, he relished living in the moment and embraced the sexual revolution.
Darin was known to have an extremely active sex life. In addition to his many affairs with glamorous celebrities, girlfriend swapping and one-night stands with fans, he also participated in anonymous orgies. "[H]e would go to a house called Sandstone up in the hills of Malibu.
He would sneak in the back way to conceal his identity and enter a room that was totally dark with writhing bodies on the floor" (Evanier 213). Darin was certainly no stranger to free love.
While in Big Sur, he embarked on a soul-searching journey and underwent a midlife crisis of sorts, which in his case is not much of an overstatement, since he did not expect to live long. When he returned in 1970, he explained the reasons behind his transformation on
The Mike Douglas Show:
The changes that I felt were necessary could only come from me, from within. I had to
do something about the way I was living, my approach to things, my values in general,
[because] practically everything I was surrounded by was alienating me from myself.
... [I had] an incredible excess. ... Just a lot of garbage. ... Nothing you could really
hold and that could make you feel good and warm. ("Bobby Darin Interview" 01:56-
03:25)
After years of being in a hurry to get somewhere, he not only slowed down, he literally stopped. He stopped to look for direction in life. Bobby spent the months in Big Sur trying to
20 figure out who he really was, wandering, chopping wood, writing, reading books, working on his new music and on his own film project called The Vendors. It was about a prostitute who falls in love with a heroin addict, who is also a folk singer-songwriter forced to take any political comments out of his lyrics in order to make the songs more commercial. Darin not only wrote, scored, directed and produced the movie, but also financed the whole production.
The picture was completed, but never released. Putting all his money into the movie left him completely broke and with no choice but to get back on stage.
4.2. Professional Transformation
As a result of Darin's introspection, his musical direction, repertoire and style underwent major changes. Suddenly, his former nightclub routine, slick appearance and smooth dance moves seemed insignificant and superficial. His social concerns and newly acquired values led him to believe that his stage act was phony and pointless, nothing but shallow glitz. The changes he went through internally manifested themselves externally as well. Not only his lifestyle but also his appearance changed dramatically. He replaced his expensive tuxedos with denims, his big band with harmonica and guitar. The polished, flashy performer the audiences knew and were used to turned into a folk and protest singer, social and political commentator of sorts. He grew a mustache and long sideburns, and stopped wearing his toupee, shoe lifts and stage makeup. "I don't wanna be plastic anymore," he explained plainly to Frankie Avalon ("Music - 1960s" 06:53-06:56). As far as he was concerned, the old Bobby Darin was gone. He had to make way for Bob Darin.
However, major record companies were hesitant to be associated with controversy and thus reluctant to sign the "new Darin." So in 1968, he formed his own record label, Direction
Records, to be able to put out message and protest material. The vocalist said of his label that
21 its purpose is to "seek out statement makers" and that its launch "is based on a desire for artistic freedom" and "artistic control over his product" ("'New' Darin" 10). He told the press that the "events of the past months have affected him and it is through his music that he feels compelled to express himself ("'New' Darin" 10). In 1968 and 1969, Direction Records issued two Darin albums - Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto and Commitment.
Both were written, arranged and produced by Darin himself, the first one also designed and photographed by the musician. Darin said of his new compositions that they are "designed to reflect his ... concern for a troubled society," especially his "thoughts on [its] turbulent aspects" ("'New' Darin" 10). Thus a whole new phase of his career began. It presented a much deeper, thought-provoking side of the singer. Genuineness was now the goal, not an act.
Darin's determination to be real and true to himself is also evident in how often he spoke about his real name at this time, even using it as the title of his debut Direction album. "That was a very hip thing to do, you see? You had to change your name. Truth was not so important in those days. Then I discovered that truth is never important," Darin semi-joked at the Troubadour nightclub in 1969 ("Monolog" 01:58-02:14). Moreover, the catalogue number for Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto is Bobby's birthdate and the album cover pictures little Bobby Cassotto overshadowing grown-up, tuxedo-clad Bobby Darin - another example of just how personal the project was.
In late 1968, Bobby added his protest and message songs to his stage act, and his audience, for the most part, did not respond well to it. The Vegas crowd and the Copacabana crowd stared in consternation at the former show business sensation who now looked like a balding, overaged hippie in rather strange attire comprised of a denim suit and tie.
Consternation turned into dissatisfaction. People were walking out. He was booed off stage.
The crowd-puller turned into the exact opposite. In 1961, Darin told the press: "What my audience likes is the excitement I project. My personality. I don't know what it is, but it's
22 there" (Miller 81). As of 1968, it was not really there anymore. One of the elements that had made Darin's shows so popular was the electrifying energy, his ability to move with a song and really sell it. Once he sat on a stool, strumming his guitar, the thrill was gone. In spite of that, Darin believed that what he had to say was way too important not to be heard, and he would deliver his compositions with genuine conviction and integrity. Billboard called his first Direction LP "controversial in the sense that it establishes a new image" and the administrator of the new company elaborated on this by saying that even though "the public has an image of his client as a finger snapper," his new work is "to show the singer as a person with deep beliefs" ("'New' Darin" 10). The audience did not particularly care about his beliefs, though. They had paid to see the finger snapper.
Darin now concluded his performances with a peace sign and his correspondence with
"Peace, Bobby Darin." His political commentary also confronted the prevailing conservative attitudes in the business. In early 1969, Darin was supposed to appear on The Jackie Gleason
Show and sing "Long Line Rider," his politically charged song based on the true story of inmates murdered by those in charge on an Arkansas prison farm. Just before taping, he was told he would have to censor several lines, specifically: "That's the tale the warden tells / As he counts his empty shells / By the day, by the day" and "This kinda thing can't happen here /
'Specially not in an election year." The network called it "objectionable material," even though Darin had gotten prior clearance to sing the whole number. He insisted that he would sing his song uncensored or not at all, and walked off the set. In a statement he subsequently issued, the singer said: "Failure on the part of CBS to define the 'objectionable material' puts me in a very precarious position. I am accused of doing something wrong but refused an explanation as to what it is. ... I regard CBS's actions as an infringement upon my rights as a performer" (Robinson 19). A CBS spokesman stated in response that "protest and anti-
Establishment material is out of place" on the program (Robinson 19).
23 As of 1969, Bobby went by and insisted on being billed as "Bob" Darin. Some
suggested he had changed his name yet again as an homage to Bob Dylan, but a more likely
explanation is that he simply wanted to draw a distinct line between his old glossy, swinging
persona and his new, deep, socially conscious self. In late 1969, "Bob" Darin made his TV
debut on This Is Tom Jones, where he performed one of his new Commitment songs while
sitting on a chair in his Levi's jacket and jeans, wearing a cowboy hat, strumming his guitar
and playing harmonica. He also dueted with Jones on "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In." The
next time Bob Darin played at a fancy nightclub, he had a life-size cutout of himself in his
denim outfit and cowboy hat placed at the entrance so as to forewarn his audience. But people
did not seem to understand what the poster and the different billing on the marquee meant.
They still expected to see the suave showman and instead got peace songs and a biting
political commentary on Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. There were requests from the
audience for "Artificial Flowers," "Mack the Knife" and other Darin classics. He turned them
down. And by doing this he virtually turned his back on everything he had achieved. Darin
was done with compromises.
Although his countercultural metamorphosis and decision to focus on folk and protest
music was bordering on career suicide, it displays his determination and perseverance. He
believed he was doing something more important than singing standards in posh hotels.
Frankie Avalon summed it up nicely when he said: "When you look back at it today, Bobby
Darin was way ahead of his time" ("Music - 1960s" 06:34-06:39). Since the public mostly
failed to appreciate his new style and repertoire, there could be no doubt that the musical
chameleon was not just trying to cash in on the folk revival. Some people had accused him of jumping on the bandwagon of any musical trend of the day, but it is crucial to note that Darin
not only sang but also played and wrote songs in all those different genres and styles. His
innate musical understanding drove him beyond the limits of one musical approach and he
24 searched for more authentic and suggestive compositions to interpret. Darin did not change his music for career reasons; it was him who changed and the music did not reflect him anymore.
Most of Darin's work from this period can be best described as social commentary, a reflection on the counterculture. In a number of his songs there are no signs of revolt or even criticism per se. Although many are political both in content and overall tone, not all of them are strictly protest songs. A protest song seems to be a too narrowly defined concept, as it refers more to songs that are directed against one particular event or issue, such as the
Vietnam War, or a specific social problem like segregation. Even though Darin did address and set himself against both of these as well as other controversial topics, the use of the term
"protest music" would significantly reduce the number of songs suitable for analysis. Some of
Bobby and Bob Darin's lyrics refer to specific incidents and historical events, some reflect the value system of our society and the state of things in general, while others merely focus on personal experiences, views and feelings in connection with the aforementioned.
4.3. Analysis of Selected Songs (1968 - 1969)
Darin wrote a great number of songs in his short life. But up until his early thirties, most of them had been revolving around what he now perceived as superficial, meaningless issues. The late 1960s witnessed Darin's artistic shift towards politically oriented and generally more eloquent songs. He refused to keep on writing corny lyrics about love and began to focus on topics such as war, environmental damage, capitalism, commercialism, identity, materialism, race relations, manipulation, police brutality, corruption, and the assassination of RFK, whose death affected him profoundly. Cashbox called him "a brilliant songwriter" ("Steve" 64) and in 1999, Bobby Darin was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of
25 Fame. The two albums released by his own record label in 1968 and 1969 are the only ones containing all-Darin compositions.
Even though both Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto and Commitment were commercial failures, both albums were highly acclaimed by critics. Cashbox gave them particularly glowing reviews, calling them "dominant social documentaries of our time, ... shattering songs of social consciousness that belong in the mainstream of our new American revolution" ("Hits" 110). The magazine also praised the artist and his metamorphosis: "Darin is seeking a new truth, both as performer and as a member of society. ... His songs of '69 prove him a major voice in helping to possess and chart our nation" ("Hits" 110).
Furthermore, they voted Darin's Commitment number one LP of the year, calling Bobby
Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto their second choice, since they "both cover our traditions and tragedies and should be illuminating the literature of song for years to come" ("Hits"
110).
4.3.1. "Jingle Jangle Jungle"
Darin's first album on his own Direction label is largely made up of songs that comment on issues that are as relevant today as they were in the 1960s. In "Jingle Jangle
Jungle2," Bobby Darin adds his voice to the criticism of capitalism and consumerism. The song is meant to make people open their eyes and see that we are prisoners of our own wallets, credit cards and bank accounts. Affluence expands our possibilities, but also ties us down at the same time, because, in Darin's words, "If you can't earn it, you ain't free."
In fact, he tackles the question of finances in numerous songs. While "Bullfrog" is more of a tale than a song about the history of money, his autobiographical Commitment piece
2 See Appendix 1 for the complete lyrics. 26 "Song for a Dollar" is the singer's self-reflection on having been a fame-motivated, money- driven sell-out. Throughout the song, he asks his younger self rhetorical questions like: "But how many steaks can you chew, boy? / How many cars can you drive?" and "But how many suits can you wear, boy? / And how many homes can you own?" In "Jingle Jangle Jungle," he looks at the big picture and generalizes the obsession with money to the whole society.
The atmosphere of the 1960s was largely characterized by intergenerational conflict that partly stemmed from young people's resentment of conformity and of "Getting' green ink thumbs / From countin' / While it's mountin'." The previous decade was a time of unprecedented prosperity in America. Giant Levittown suburbs were created and mass- produced cookie-cutter homes built to house thousands of war veterans. All houses were identical and left little room for customization and individuality. Uniform suburbs produced a uniform lifestyle. Not only did watching TV become a joint family activity, but the programs and commercials constantly showcased the advertising industry's idealized image of the modern nuclear family everyone felt the need to resemble. The goal was to get the newest home appliances to "keep up with the Joneses." "Jingle Jangle Jungle" critically comments on this tendency to clutter our lives with material possessions. The love of money and the status that comes with it is so powerful and the pressure to maintain this standard of living so immense that we keep on buying things just to have them, without really needing them. The same was true sixty years ago and many baby boomers thus grew up in relative luxury. Darin mocks the emphasis placed on external appearances when he sarcastically sings: "You're only worth what you can buy / So keep on workin' hard / To keep your own back yard."
The lyrics also stress how fleeting affluence is. We commonly worry about and hoard up worldly possessions that we cannot take with us when we die. The singer pokes fun at the whole society, including himself, for investing so much of our time and energy in the pursuit of things that do not have lasting value. "All the things you own / Are only here on loan,"
27 Darin reminds the listener. It actually took him over thirty years to come to this conclusion.
Wealth is deceptive.
In his attack on materialism, Darin mentions one intangible asset, faith. He goes on to point out the irony of the contradictory sets of values of the mainstream American public - the urge to accumulate material possessions, and faith in God: "Teach your kids that God /
Ain't fiction / Contradiction." This kind of lifestyle revolving around profit turns into modern religion. Money becomes God. It manages our everyday lives. High salary is what we strive for, paycheck is what we work for and look forward to while we "Wait till payday comes."
Darin presents our goal of getting money for the sake of money as one of the greatest ills of modern society. We chase after goods without realizing that the things we own end up owning us, because we let them determine our self-worth: "You're only worth what you can buy."
Parents may have preached to their children about becoming rich spiritually, but baby boomers grew up seeing their parents try to become rich externally.
"Jingle Jangle Jungle" is not the only song that calls attention to what has become of religion. In "Sunday" Darin speaks against the church as a hypocritical organization and institution that has long lost its spiritual essence. In "Hey Magic Man" he questions God's very existence, but at the same time asks him why he has abandoned his children, why he lets the wrong people win elections and innocent people die in unnecessary wars:
Come, show your face
Any old place
You can erase
All this killing.
In fact, Darin mentions the Vietnam War or war in general in a great number of his songs. No matter the main topic, he often finds a way to incorporate this subject into the lyrics. In
"Jingle Jangle Jungle," he turns his attention to the war in Vietnam in the final verse:
28 I live in a jingle jangle jungle
Where people die to make some green
Turnin' men to boys
Makin' new war toys
Dancin' to the noise
Of ticker
Can't get much sicker
In this jingle jangle jungle we call home.
The album is smartly sequenced in that the final verse of this song refers to the subject of the track that follows. Like many of Darin's Direction tunes, "Jingle Jangle Jungle" has no real chorus, unless one wants to call the slightly modified first and last lines of each verse a chorus. Emphasis is placed on the lyrics rather than musical complexity and vocal delivery.
According to Denisoff s classification, "Jingle Jangle Jungle" is closer to a rhetorical song of persuasion ("Songs" 584-585). Even though the opinions Darin puts forward are identical with those of an existing movement, the text is intended to promote personal reflection; it is not meant to initiate collective action nor does it try to enhance a feeling of unity. Darin's later magnetic political song "Maybe We Can Get It Together" then basically sounds like a response to the issues he deals with in "Jingle Jangle Jungle:"
Banker, when you stop counting money
Soldier, when you lay down your gun
Everybody dies without honor
In the world that nobody won.
29 4.3.2. "The Proper Gander"
"The Proper Gander3" thematically picks up where the last verse of "Jingle Jangle
Jungle" left off. On the face of it, this song is one of Darin's many criticisms of the Vietnam
War. But unlike most of his other war-related songs, here his condemnation is not directed at the war itself or at wars in general, but at those who initiate them and keep them going - the government. "The Proper Gander" conveys its message in a sophisticated, fairytale-like way, employs intertextuality and is full of witty wordplay. It is an allegorical fable about a nation of mice manipulated by their leader into going to war against a Siamese cat that does not actually exist. The song's main topic is thus manipulation and, more generally, any lie told by a government in order to win trust, support and votes. In fact, Darin hints at this with the song's title. "The Proper Gander" is a homophone or rather an oronym that, when pronounced quickly, sounds like "The Propaganda," which is a form of manipulation.
Darin seems to have been inspired by two of George Orwell's works, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The similarities between "The Proper Gander" and Animal Farm are minor and basically limited to the fact that both are fables and, to some extent, to the social stratification of the characters. The parallels with Nineteen Eighty-Four are more numerous, however. While throughout the novel the very existence of both the leader - Big
Brother - and the enemy - Emmanuel Goldstein - is questioned, in the song the same is true only of the leader - Supermouse. The non-existence of the enemy is revealed at the beginning of the story, but the same cannot be said of the mice's ruler, whose existence is never confirmed or refuted. The authority figure here is represented by the "muckidy muck," the embodiment of the Party, who speaks (and screams) on the leader's behalf, reassuring the nation that "Supermouse is on our side." The muckidy muck tells the gathered mice about an
3 See Appendix 2 for the complete lyrics. 30 alleged enemy, the demonized three-eyed Siamese cat, whom no one has ever seen, but who must be killed anyway:
You see, the muckidy muck, he was speakin'
Tellin' them where it was at
He said hear, hear there ain't nothin' to fear
Except a three-eyed Siamese cat
And the crowd was stunned
See, no single mouse had ever seen one
Whether Big Brother and Goldstein exist is disputable, but the concepts of what they represent are nonetheless given a face in Orwell's book. In "The Proper Gander," the muckidy muck shows the mice a picture of the supposed great evil as well, and all of them make themselves believe they actually see one, despite there being nothing to see:
Then he held up a great big picture
So every mouse could see
What a three-eyed Siamese cat looked like
The face of the enemy
And the crowd let out such a shudder
As they lined up file and rank
Starin' at a twenty-foot picture frame
Surroundin' a twenty-foot blank
Just empty space
But every single mouse
Swore he saw a face
Darin is arguably trying to point out that there is no such thing as an inherent enemy; rather it is someone we artificially create. The muckidy muck says enthusiastically that they have
31 ... a million of our best young mice
To go out and volunteer
To give up what they're livin' for
To make the cat disappear in the name of Supermouse. Here Darin goes back to the more specific theme of the Vietnam
War. In several of his songs, the singer criticizes how, during violent conflicts, the government deprives individuals of their fundamental right to decide their own destiny. He uses the word "volunteer" somewhat sarcastically here, as there is often nothing voluntary about being sent to war. He also frequently argues in his lyrics that war serves as a tool for politicians to make themselves rich and others suffer:
Then the muckidy muck said line up here
Everybody give a buck
To fight the three-eyed Siamese cat takes money
And a little bit of luck
"The Proper Gander" presents a scenario where the country's leaders lie and incite fright and rage solely for their personal gain, as there is literary no one to fight and the whole fabricated war is just a form of corruption.
In order to mobilize the crowd, the muckidy muck uses one of the most effective propaganda techniques - the politics of demonization. Demonization of the enemy is based on the tactic of creating an atmosphere of fear and hatred that helps to shape collective identity and mobilize allies. The target's image is a social construct. It does not reflect reality, but rather collective ideas about reality. Everyone creates their own image of the enemy, hence the empty frame. "[I'm] gonna tell you what he's all about," the mouse in charge addresses the crowd, and he does so while "... screamin' / Yellin' till his voice gave out." This is no different from the kind of speeches modern politicians often make as if the truthfulness of
32 their claims increased in direct proportion to the intensity of their voice. The muckidy muck's
attempt to induce fear of the unknown, or rather fear of "the other," is successful, even though
he does not mention anything that could be considered threatening to the nation. The mice are
told that the enemy:
... don't eat cheese on Friday
And he goes around lickin' his paws
He's awful mean and he loves to keep clean
And believes in changin' laws
None of the Siamese cat's habits that the leader denounces are in any way dangerous to the
mice, only different from theirs and yet, as a result, "... the crowd went wild / And every
mouse began to fear for his child." Once fear takes over the nation, the authority figure
succeeds in inciting hatred toward the cat:
And the three-eyed Siamese cat's a plague
From which nobody can hide
And the mice all cringed
The whiskers of that cat would soon be singed
This is essentially the song's equivalent of the routine "Two Minutes Hate" in Nineteen
Eighty-Four (Orwell 14). Here, the threat evoked by the constructed image of the enemy justifies taking defensive measures and thus provides an excuse for violent collective action,
which is perceived by the group as mere self-defense. This displays the true art of
manipulation, which is not really about making people do what one wants them to do, but
rather getting them to want to do what one wants them to do.
There is another parallel with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, which concerns those in
charge creating their own twisted logic and facts as they please. In the novel, two plus two
33 make four only when the Party says so. Mathematics works similarly in "The Proper Gander," and overall, the truth in the song is whatever the government says it is:
Now two times two is forty-five
The muckidy muck explained
And the flat side of the moon is green
And the farmer don't need no rain
And the night is light and might is right
This is again Darin's take on the Vietnam War - on the US government's concealment and systematic lies about the war and American chances for victory, to be exact. Darin was one of those who felt betrayed by their government for not being honest about the war, and perceived it as a fraud on the American people. In the mid-1960s, resentment of America's involvement in Vietnam began to grow mostly among youth, leading to mass anti-war demonstrations across the United States. But despite the dramatic rise in the number of casualties, "polling conducted at that time indicated that a majority of Americans, including people under thirty, actually supported the war effort" (Brownell 53). It took a long time before public opinion began to turn against US involvement. The difference is that in the song, the outright absurdity of the leader's statements is obvious at first sight and yet the mice are gullible enough to think that the government knows everything better and is always right.
The song stands on rhythm rather than melody, and the singing here becomes more of a laid-back rhythmic speech. As a matter of fact, "The Proper Gander" is not far from being a one-chord song. Darin certainly keeps his word in terms of concentrating on the message rather than the singing technique and form of delivery. "The Proper Gander" itself is a rhetorical political song ("Songs" 584-585). The composition describes a specific social problem, but it is written primarily as an expression of the songwriter's viewpoint. However,
Darin wrote a magnetic song of persuasion within this rhetorical song as a kind of parody of
34 other works. The muckidy muck starts singing "through his great paternal grin" and soon "All the patriotic mice / Everybody chimed right in." The song within the song starts with: "... this land is mice land / Mice country, 'tis of thee," which are references to Woody Guthrie's famous folk song "This Land Is Your Land" and to the former unofficial American national anthem "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" respectively. Both are inclusive magnetic songs that symbolize unity and strengthen group solidarity. Darin even specifies that "... the mice all cheered / The sound that they were makin' sure was weird."
Even though "The Proper Gander" relates to any propaganda, manipulation and lies told by any government, Darin uses several allusions that make it clear that this is his comment on the USA in particular. Apart from the two American patriotic songs, he touches upon the relationship between Americans and Native Americans. The short song about mice land continues with: "Well, my father took it from the beaver rat / Nobody's gonna take it from me" in addition to the singer specifying at the very beginning that the gathering is for white mice only. Race is also one of the aspects of collective identity formation and provides a basis for potential demonization. Even today, minorities are at times demonized by governments themselves. The power and destructive potential of demonization lies in the intensification of the most primitive explanatory models, such as stereotypes, cliches and prejudices. These are molded into "general truths," the collective acceptance of which establishes a group membership and generates strong bonds within the group. Later in "The
Proper Gander," the crowd chants: "We don't want that cat invadin' our land / No way," which signifies the impact of the magnetic song within the song in that it successfully formed the "us" vs. "them" identity.
The moral of the story is that it does not to pay to lie. The black-humored cautionary narrative ends with the muckidy muck being found out in a poetic kind of way and with the
35 frenzied mob, filled with terror and rage he had created, turning against him. Darin calls this course of events fate, arguing that accumulated hatred becomes an uncontrollable force:
You see, a gust of wind blew the picture frame down
And it landed on the muckidy muck's head
And the mice they all went crazy
For the first time they saw the lie
It was all a hoax on just simple folks
And the muckidy muck must die
And die he did
In addition to demonstrating the fragility of trust and that incitement of fear, hatred and war brings nothing but misery, Darin also mocks the people in charge and their leadership skills, or better yet, the lack thereof. Once again, the song has basically no chorus, except for the reassuring "Don't be scared / We're prepared" and its variations at the end of each verse. The final verse, however, concludes with the songwriter's perspective:
The members of his staff they just fled
They were scared
Hah
Just not prepared.
4.3.3. "Me & Mr. Hohner"
Many of Darin's Direction songs are a reaction not only to general issues of the day, but also to individual episodes, specific incidents and people, and yet their topics remain timeless. "Me & Mr. Hohner4" is one such example. It was released as a single and it is a
4 See Appendix 3 for the complete lyrics. 36 black-humored look at police harassment and brutality. Even though it is based on specific individuals, the overall theme is still very much relevant.
Hohner is a company that manufactures musical instruments, specializing in harmonicas. The titular Mr. Hohner, the narrator's faithful companion throughout the song, is thus his harmonica that the singer here anthropomorphizes. Darin half-sings, half-talks - almost raps - about being harassed by a couple of police officers simply for "Standin' on the corner / Not doin' nothin' to no one." The song offers a biting criticism of discrimination by law enforcement in general, but the constant references to South Philadelphia at the end of each chorus indicate that this is Darin's political commentary on a notorious Philadelphia police commissioner and mayor named Frank Rizzo. Rizzo and his entire Police Department were infamous for their brutal policies toward African Americans, hippies and the LGBTQ community, which included public humiliation, "shooting nonviolent suspects, beating people while they were handcuffed, and ... [ensuring that] civilian complaints didn't go far"
(Gambacorta & Laker).
In "Me & Mr. Hohner," having long hair and a mustache is reason enough for policemen to accost the narrator. Throughout the story, he is stopped by the police several times, forced to stand facing a wall or a fence, and arguably searched. He keeps on thinking to himself: "Wonder what I said" and addressing the officers directly: "Tell me, what did I do?" and "Whatcha gonna do two against one?" but in neither of the cases is he given a straight or reasonable answer as to what he did wrong or what they plan on doing to him. Seeing he is a hippie, they conclude he must have and probably even be selling drugs on the street. It is not clear whether the officers actually believe the young man sells drugs, or whether they are simply looking for an excuse to bully him:
Up against the wall, says the tall one.
That's a cute mustache
37 Have ya got any hash?
I'd like to make a buy, says the small one.
The last two lines show the police employing a technique commonly used in sting operations, only without the pretense, given they are not undercover, came in a squad car and presumably are wearing their uniforms. It is therefore more likely that they are just trying to insult the narrator by assuming he does sell drugs based solely on his looks. Later he is told: "You have picked a bad spot / To smoke your pot," which makes it clear that he indeed is a marijuana user, but there are nonetheless no indications of him being a drug dealer. Despite the false allegations and the fact that the narrator finds the situation absurd, he does not try to argue or defend himself out of fear of getting beaten up:
Now the whole thing's silly
But I'm starin' at the billy
Quietly askin' myself now will he
Use that thing
To make my eardrums ring
It's all a bad dream
The situation repeats itself while the main character is, again, minding his own business, when suddenly "... out of a toll / Comes the highway patrol / To check up on my gender."
This is presumably a comment on hippie fashion. Both men and women in the hippie movement often dressed very similarly and maintained long hair. Besides, casual clothes became generally more unisex during the late 1960s. Another possible explanation is that the story is told from the point of view of a homosexual. The verse continues with the policemen wondering contemptuously: "Is it her or him? / Or maybe Tiny Tim?" Tiny Tim was an eccentric singer and musician known for his distinctive quavery falsetto vocal delivery, effeminate mannerisms and long, curly hair. By comparing the protagonist to Tiny Tim the
38 officers seem to be implying, in a derogatory way, that they think he is gay. In addition, the policemen sneer at the protagonist: "You're one of them if I ever saw one," which may mean that, due to his appearance, they classify him as homosexual, a typical hippie, a drug user, or all three together.
As usual, Darin does not forget to include references to the Vietnam War. Once again, the young man is merely relaxing, "When a pair of MPs / Yell out, freeze!" and accuse the narrator of being "a draft card burner." Draft card burning was an antiwar gesture, a symbol of protest performed by thousands of young American men as part of the antiwar movement
(Brownell 50). More war-related insulting remarks by the policemen follow: "We can tell by your looks / That you read too many books of wars / And that's because ya ain't been in one."
While the chorus keeps bringing us back to "South Philly," the lyrics mention multiple cities and states, where the cops get tough on the man for no obvious reason as well. This is arguably supposed to emphasize that although the song is based on a real person, excessive and/or unnecessary use of force by law enforcement is not particular to one place or specific people. After all, the opening track of Darin's Commitment album is not the only one where he addresses police violence and abuse of power by authorities. "Sausalito (The Governor's
Song)" is another protest piece, this time about Ronald Reagan, and highlights the 1969 battle for People's Park in Berkeley and what became known as "Bloody Thursday." Then there is, for instance, the aforementioned "Long Line Rider." Darin's reasoning seemed to be that we cannot attain peace and equality unless we call out injustice when we see it.
Billboard's review of "Me & Mr. Hohner" stated: "Darin comes up with another strong message lyric set to an infectious beat [with a] top arrangement and vocal workout"
("Spotlight" 77). It is, again, an astonishing diversion from Bobby Darin's usual output. The single is not very melodic and neither is the singer's vocal style. There is no sign of Darin's rich, vibrant voice typical for his swing and rock material. Here, his voice comes across as
39 raw and flat with a certain grit to the tonality. It sounds a lot like a precursor to rap or a kind
of talking blues. Darin basically takes this near-spoken combination of folk and country, and
makes it rhythmically even tighter, which results in a sound that was rather ahead of its time.
According to Cashbox, "this saga of police brutality" has "brilliant lyrical lines," and
"topical strength" ("Record" 22). However, due to the use of the words "hash" and "pot," the
track was banned from mainstream radio stations. Billboard reported: "As expected, Bobby
Darin single "Me and Mr. Hohner" [is] getting widespread airplay turn-downs because of
lyric content" (Yorke 74). Even though Bobby did not do drugs, except for an occasional joint, he makes references to them in a number of his Direction songs. "Jive" basically starts
with Darin singing that he has "been stoned since half past none," in "Bullfrog" he believes
he is hallucinating, saying "Now I thought I was stoned so I started walkin' /1 mean, whoever
heard of a bullfrog talkin'," while the meaning of "Sugar Man" is somewhat hard to decipher,
but it appears to be about drug addiction.
"Me & Mr. Hohner" is a rhetorical political song, in which Bob Darin points to a
specific problem in the society without attempting to attract new supporters to any social
movement ("Songs" 584-585). It is an individual protest, an expression of discontent.
Although the song's protagonist is most likely fictional and Darin did not base the story on his
own personal experience, he nevertheless sings alternately in the first person singular and
from the perspective of the various police officers. Thanks to this, the single essentially
becomes an embodiment of the social issue Darin tries to underline. Moreover, the back cover
of the album pictures Darin in his hippie, "Bob" persona - sporting a mustache, long
sideburns, longer hair, denim jacket and no toupee - which fits in with the picture the song
paints, and gives it an authentic feel.
40 4.3.4. "Simple Song of Freedom"
Although "Simple Song of Freedom5" appeared on neither of his Direction releases,
Darin penned this anti-war anthem during his soul-searching period - along with the majority of his protest and social commentary pieces - and from 1969 on, it would remain an integral part of his live shows. The song would also find its way to Woodstock. Bobby Darin scored hit last big hit in 1966 with Tim Hardin's "If I Were a Carpenter." Three years later, it was
Hardin who recorded Darin's "Simple Song of Freedom" first, which, in turn, turned out to be a hit for him and he would sing them both at the famous festival.
Similarly to "The Proper Gander," here, too, the main theme revolves around war, but the song is nonetheless structured very differently and invokes different connotations. It is exactly what the title says it is - a simple song. Despite its catchy melody, the structure of the tune is indeed harmonically simple and the lyrics are mostly very straightforward. Darin has a powerful, yet plain statement to make, and he does so using everyday words. "Simple Song of
Freedom" lacks the figurativeness, wit and sophisticated wordplay of "The Proper Gander," but in that very simplicity lies its appeal and potential to reach and resonate with a wide audience. After all, it remains Darin's best-known piece from his folk-rock phase.
The song starts, somewhat unusually, with the chorus, in which Darin speaks to everyone and at the same time for everyone:
Come and sing a simple song of freedom.
Sing it like you've never sung before.
Let it fill the air
Tell the people everywhere
We the people here don't want a war.
5 See Appendix 4 for the complete lyrics. 41 Throughout the whole composition, he urges people to "come," "sing," "let fill," and "tell."
According to Denisoff s protest song categorization in terms of their function, this persistent encouragement to join in and get involved makes "Simple Song of Freedom" a magnetic song of persuasion ("Songs" 584). It is directed towards everyone, people of every skin color, from all social classes and walks of life. Darin sings the whole tune alternately in the first person singular and first person plural and in doing so, he speaks both for himself and on behalf of the general public. The last line of the chorus starts with "We the people," which not only represents the solidarity between the lyricist and the audience, but it also refers to the opening phrase of the preamble to the US Constitution. There, too, the goal is "to form a more perfect
Union," just like Darin tries to motivate his fellow Americans to stick together and work together. The inclusive "We the people here don't want a war" induces collective consciousness and symbolizes unity - another characteristic of magnetic protest songs. At the same time, this line is a perfect example of the song's straightforward message.
The singer's sentiments regarding equality and racial prejudice, influenced by years of active involvement in the civil rights movement, are also expressed clearly when Darin specifically mentions African Americans. He stresses that all he wants is brotherhood, not their "diamonds or [their] game," as when the colonial powers exploited Africa's natural resources. Not only that, he addresses them individually, not as a crowd. Thereby he brings it to a more a personal level and simultaneously points out that everyone wants to be and should be considered, thought of as individuals: "I just want to be someone known to you as me /
And I will bet my life you want the same."
"Simple Song of Freedom" has a similar feel to Darin's other magnetic political number, "Maybe We Can Get It Together," where the songwriter attempts to shake people out of apathy and encourage them to take action: "Come on all my brothers and sisters / Now's the time to become involved." Both songs send out a message of hope for a better tomorrow
42 and idealistically ask everyone to join together against prejudices and for peace, the latter literally: "Reach out so your brother can feel you / Form a human wall."
"Simple Song of Freedom" is often deemed as an anti-Vietnam War song, but in fact, it denounces war in general while hinting at several particular wars. Apart from the war in
Vietnam, there are also obvious allusions to the Cold War. Darin mentions Soviet writer and dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, calls him "brother" and himself his "friend" - not exactly the words an American would commonly use during the Cold War when referring to a citizen of the rival superpower. Darin then asks him: "Tell me if the man who is plowin' up your land
/ Has got the war machine upon his mind." Perhaps to make the rhetorical question more clear, he would answer it himself during some performances by adding "no way" to this line.
"The man who is plowin' up your land" symbolizes farmers and more generally the common people in the USSR. Darin suggests that ordinary Russians have as little interest in fighting and conflicts as ordinary Americans. He believes we are all fundamentally the same in that we wake up under the same sun: "But speakin' one to one, ain't it everybody's sun / To wake to in the mornings when we rise?" The song calls for peaceful coexistence at both the national and international levels.
The antagonists here are thus political authorities of the day. The song criticizes them for being the instigators of war. Darin once again expresses his belief that the ones in charge only protect their own interests, not the best interests of the people, and that if the leaders are willing to sacrifice human lives in wars, they should only have the right to sacrifice their own:
Now, no doubt some folks enjoy doin' battle
Like presidents, prime ministers and kings.
So let's all build them shelves
Where they can fight it out among themselves,
And leave the people be who love to sing.
43 This verse, together with the chorus, particularly evokes the "we" feeling of collective identity that is typical for protest songs, and it works as a means of collective action framing.
Moreover, the sense of "us" vs. "them" is enhanced by Darin commenting on the credibility gap and mainstream press, warning the audience: "Most of what you read is made of lies." By
"leave the people be who love to sing" the singer seems to be pleading with the officials not to impose censorship or other sanctions on protest singers for expressing their anti-war and anti-establishment convictions. Given the fact that Darin was prohibited from singing specific songs on TV and that earlier he mentions Solzhenitsyn, who was sentenced to eight years in the Gulag and then exiled for his anti-Stalinist views, this line may very well be an attack on the suppression of freedom of speech. This protest song criticizes not only the whole concept of war, its message is to give up all forms of violence and oppression for the sake of the people.
"Simple Song of Freedom" starts gently, quietly, just vocals and guitar, and then builds up in intensity with each successive verse, yet each of Darin's renditions is considerably different. Sometimes he slips more into his Bob Darin persona, wears casual slacks and shirt, no toupee and performs in a lively fashion, totally wrapped up in the song, moving to the beat enthusiastically, frantically shaking his head towards the end ("Bobby
Darin simple Song of Freedom"). Other times, he is almost motionless, only gesturing with his hands sporadically, as if immersed internally in the composition or as if he felt that the way he sings should match the content of his message, no dramatic shouting ("Bobby Darin -
Simple Song Of Freedom - LIVE!"). There are some seeming contradictions in this kind of delivery, however. The song is meant to evoke strong emotions, but the performance seems detached and wooden at times. Darin's failing health and the fact that he was having serious trouble breathing at this point might be the reason behind it, though. Still, it feels somewhat unusual when the clean-cut singer stands still on the stage, dressed neatly in a tuxedo and bow
44 tie, sporting his hairpiece while performing an anti-war song. This discrepancy is also noticeable in press ads for Darin's first overtly political single "We Didn't Ask to Be Brought
Here." The posters promise that the song has a "great message" but then picture Darin dressed up sharp in a white shirt and tie, which is hardly the image associated with protest singers in the mid-1960s (Atlantic Records).
Certain versions of "Simple Song of Freedom" are pure folk, while others have a gospel-like outro, where Darin improvises and engages the audience with the back-and-forth of "Freedom" and "Got to have" between himself, the audience and, if present, his backup singers. "Simple Song of Freedom" made for a fitting conclusion to Darin's live shows of the period and, no matter the genre, venue, country and clothing, he would never leave out the peace sign.
5. Fake vs. Authentic: The Compromise
By mid-1970, Darin was making a national comeback. He missed the feeling he only got in front of a live audience and he needed to earn enough money for his expensive medical treatments and soon-to-be half-orphaned son. Darin met his audiences halfway, and the shows he put together now reflected both sides of his identity. His social conscience and political views remained strong, but to the public, the old Bobby Darin was back - clean-shaven, toupee and bow tie in place and wearing a tuxedo. His old billing was back and so were his old hits, but he found a way to incorporate some of his folk and social commentary material as well as brand new songs into his repertoire. "When I'm entertaining, I wanna do what you want, but I would like it to have some kind of a meaningful me. In fact, I insist on it now," he said of his newfound attitude toward performing ("Bobby Darin Interview" 10:46-10:53).
45 Darin's return to the Las Vegas stage was triumphant. Cashbox called him "America's most protean musical performer," and overall gave him a glowing review, mentioning his
1950s hit while doing so: "Darin was in spectacular form, ... he managed to compromise without dissipating integrity. ... Darin continues to illuminate America's traditions and tragedies. And this time around without alienating his 'plain jane' establishment fans.
Extended standing ovation was not unexpected and richly deserved" (h.g. 22). Bobby finally came to terms with the fact that people hear what they see, and that what they want and pay to see on stage is an actor. Darin had always thought of himself first and foremost as an actor, and knew very well that actors have to put on their makeup and costume, go out and do their scene. His costume just happened to be the tux and the hairpiece.
Soon Darin was in demand again, playing to sold-out houses, making big money, earning excellent reviews and getting standing ovations. After his successful Las Vegas comeback, Bobby wowed the crowds at the Copacabana again as well. This time, Cashbox were even more enthusiastic, stating that Darin is "better than ever," "the master of rhythm" and "a better comedian than 99% of the comics featured at the Copa" (m.o. 21). They wrote about the "cheering, standing, screaming-for-more crowd" and detailed the entertainer's performance, saying that "he completely wins over the audience. Darin is also a sensational comic... and his timing is absolutely brilliant; almost as good as his delivery. ... I can't think of anyone who has a better rhythmic sense than this pro" (m.o. 21).
The main reason for the audience's non-acceptance of Darin's protest material in the late 1960s thus seems to lie not so much in the content, not even in the form of delivery, but in the quantity. Darin began to incorporate a folk segment into his stage act as early as 1963 and people mostly went with it as long as the crowd-pleasers in the form of "Mack the Knife,"
"Splish Splash" and the like were there. Had he avoided extremes and stuck to diverse
46 material, he might have found more acceptance. Once he became uncompromising, so did the audience.
Although he never fully recovered from the emotional turmoil of the late 1960s, Darin emerged from a midlife crisis a reborn entertainer, free of his inner arguments and having bridged the generation gap his fellow lounge singers could not. While returning to being
Bobby Darin onstage, he remained true to his beliefs offstage, was very vocal in his political persuasions and continued to speak out and fight for the political and social causes he believed in.
His criticism of the Vietnam War was now stronger and louder than ever. In May
1970, appalled at President Richard Nixon's orders to invade Cambodia, Darin first sent him an indignant telegram and then took out newspaper ads denouncing Nixon's decision. That same month, Darin's eighty-page FBI file grew a bit thicker again when he attended an anti• war demonstration protesting against the US military action in Cambodia. The demonstrators, mostly University of Southern California students, marched to the Los Angeles City Hall, carrying 50,000 letters addressed to Nixon. The FBI further noted in its surveillance report:
"Entertainer Bobby Darin addressed the crowd and said he was starting a project called
'Phone For Peace.' He urged the crowd to telephone the White House in Washington, D. C, and leave a peace message for President Nixon. Darin expressed the hope that a tie-up at the
White House switchboard would cause the President to take notice" {Freedom).
Darin also started organizing marches in Washington and Hollywood protesting the
US intervention in Cambodia. The Miami News, for instance, published an article titled
"Bobby Darin gives a warning to Nixon." The article read: "Bobby Darin has warned the
White House that American troops had better be out of Cambodia by June 30 or he'll March upon Washington. ... [T]he White House asked him to be patient. ... Darin will give Mr.
Nixon the chance to live up to his word" (Kelly 4-B). The entertainer canceled his planned
47 June 13 Washington protest march after Nixon's press secretary, Ron Ziegler, called him and personally assured him that Nixon would withdraw American troops from Cambodia by the deadline set.
It was not just the President's steps regarding the war in Vietnam that aggravated the performer. In 1972, when the Nixon administration was threatening to deport John Lennon and Yoko Ono from the US, Darin was one of the artists who fought against such attempts.
Instead of sending a letter, he took out a full-page ad in The Hollywood Reporter arguing that
"America could use more people like the Lennons" and encouraging readers to send "a note to your representatives in Washington, D.C." As usual, he signed off with "Peace, Bobby Darin"
(Let).
Actor Efrem Zimbalist made scathing comments in the press about Darin and other actors steadily airing their political convictions, saying: "The Lord in his infinite wisdom ... endowed actors with talent, [but] took it away from their brains. I wish to God all actors would remove themselves from politics" (Beck 18). Darin was quick to respond. Aside from pointing out Zimbalist's hypocrisy, he retorted: "Please tell him that this actor will remove himself from politics the moment all politicians remove themselves from acting" (Beck 18).
Whether he had Ronald Reagan specifically in mind when making this comment is up for debate. Darin was articulate and well-spoken, gave speeches, wrote letters, made numerous political comments in the press and expressed his opinions on television. On The Mike
Douglas Show, he decried film censorship, criticized cases of privacy invasion by the media, debated Frank Sinatra's switch to the Republican Party after having been a staunch Democrat his whole life, and he argued passionately against police brutality and Ronald Reagan's handling of the People's Park protest, which are the subjects of "Me & Mr. Hohner" and
"Sausalito (The Governor's Song)" respectively.
48 During the early 1970s, Darin continued to record and act, remained a top draw in Las
Vegas and made numerous TV guest appearances, including on The Flip Wilson Show. In fact, Darin had given Wilson his first big break years before. Throughout his career, Bobby insisted on African American performers being his opening act, and if he was refused, he would not perform. "He would tell the club owners: 'If the black kid don't open, the white kid don't close'" (qtd. in Evanier 109). The nightclub management would always object, but because Darin was a big name, his requests were grudgingly granted. Thanks to this, he helped comedians like George Kirby, Nipsey Russell, Richard Pryor and Flip Wilson get their start. In 1970, when Wilson got his own show, and TV networks were not exactly fighting over Darin, Flip returned the favor by having Bobby as a guest on the show as many times as the singer wanted to, even though he could not particularly help Wilson's ratings at the time.
Later, Flip in turn guested on Bobby's show a couple of times. Several episodes of the Flip show feature comedy sketches where Darin and Wilson tackle the subject of race and skin color, make fun of the dark side of American history and even role-play husband and pregnant wife.
Bobby Darin had always been one of the highest paid performers in the business. But in 1973, he signed an unprecedented deal with the MGM Grand Hotel, surpassing Frank
Sinatra as the highest paid entertainer on the Las Vegas Strip (DiOrio 198). Darin died a few months later though, at the age of thirty-seven, following his second open heart surgery.
Between 1972 and 1973 he also starred in his own TV prime time variety show, which was designed to show off Darin's versatility in both music and comedy. Moreover, it gave him the opportunity to let his hippie self show on stage once again - one of the regular characters he portrayed in comedy skits was "Dusty John Dustin," a long-haired hippie poet.
49 Conclusion
The "long sixties" were turbulent times for the United States, and the emerging counterculture had a fundamental and extensive impact on many, if not all, forms of art as well as on the development of a number of social movements. The aim of this thesis was to trace the influence of the 1960s counterculture on Bobby Darin's professional and personal transformation, and to examine how this influence is manifested in the entertainer's musical output, performance style and political activism.
Bobby Darin was a musical chameleon who ventured into just about every genre of music and part of show business, with a music career that saw him transform from a rock 'n' roll teen idol to a sophisticated swinger to a socially conscious folkie to a combination of all of these. More than that, Darin essentially embodied the generation gap that was one of the hallmarks of American society in the 1960s. As the decade progressed,
Darin found himself torn between two different worldviews and thus two conflicting lifestyles. His search for acceptance and recognition as a legendary performer turned into a search for realness and a deeper meaning. As he came into conflict with his own mindset,
Bobby Darin dropped out, changed his whole way of life and work, appearance and values, and in the process reshaped himself into Bob Darin. As a result, the consummate showman the public came to know and love turned first into a virtual recluse and then into a humble folk singer with a lot of things to say, but few people to hear them. He could not even find a label that would release his new music, and had to create his own.
In a way, this is the true essence of his protest. His dissent was both political and artistic, but it stemmed from his inner, more personal protest of sorts and was therefore at the same time intentional and unintentional. Darin was rebelling against his own image. He did not allow people's definition of him to define him. He refused to be bound by conventions and comply with the expectations of his audience. Although commercial failures, his two
50 Direction albums are a truer statement of an artist, given he was creating something he really cared about and considered important. For him to shed his flashy stage persona to act upon his thoughts and beliefs via his music and activism meant taking a stand for what he believed in despite essentially abandoning the nightclub circuit that had made him famous, giving up huge amounts of money, walking out on TV shows and singing material that alienated most of his fans.
While his change of lifestyle was largely influenced by the hippie movement, his political activism was to an extent shaped by the New Left, especially by the anti-war movement. By 1968, Darin had political ambitions of his own and even though he gave them up, he remained outspoken about the political and social matters he felt strongly about - primarily about the Vietnam War, the establishment and social conditions in the country. He took part in demonstrations, spoke at rallies, was ready to organize protest marches and vented his opinions through all types of mass media.
Countercultural ideas and ideals not only triggered Bobby Darin's artistic transformation, but were also reflected in his songs and overall performance style. As a songwriter, Darin reacted to a wide range of issues, including war, environmentalism, capitalism, abuse of power, police harassment, and the assassination of Robert Kennedy. He spoke of injustice, freedom, drugs, change and uncertainty. As a singer, he put more emphasis on the lyrical content rather than musical elements. This is also demonstrated by the fact that several of his works from this period - "The Proper Gander" and "Bullfrog," for example - structurally resemble tales rather than songs in that they lack a proper chorus and melody, and the emphasis lies on a free-flowing narrative. Entertainment was not the crucial part of his shows anymore, getting the message across was. Despite the fact that many of Darin's
Direction songs display his dissatisfaction with and distrust in authorities of the day, not all of them are protest music. Some come across as a stream of consciousness, some purposefully
51 seek to challenge the values of mainstream society. Some of them are protest songs, while others are not even political, although all convey some sort of social commentary - even those that are obviously autobiographical. Many of the topics Darin's late 1960s lyrics deal with are timeless, such as environmental damage that he sings about in "Questions." Songs like "Long
Line Rider" and "In Memoriam," on the other hand, were very current at the time they were written, and expressed themselves in relation to specific recent events. And some compositions are both at once, commenting on particular problems or people but with their overall theme still relevant, as is the case with "Me & Mr. Hohner," "Simple Song of
Freedom" and a number of others. In a few cases, Darin looks at the same issue from multiple perspectives. In "Jingle Jangle Jungle" he expresses disagreement with the general concept of materialism, whereas in "Song for a Dollar" his disapproval is aimed at his own former materialistic lifestyle.
In general terms, the first Direction album has barely aged, because it is made up of songs the subjects of which have not really become obsolete The tracks on the second one are musically less simplistic and contain more sophisticated wordplay, such as "Water Color
Canvas," where Darin is talking about the "pastel pieces of the pretty pictures painted / On the watercolor canvas of my mind." At the same time, this album is more ambiguous. While the majority of the songs from Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto are quite straightforward and explicit, the lyrics of the Commitment pieces are rather puzzling at times.
Above all, Bobby and Bob Darin's late 1960s songs interpret personal views and feelings of a member of a countercultural group. Although "Long Line Rider" did chart, neither of the two
LPs was commercially successful. Both albums failed to capture the public's imagination, but critics praised them as socially and historically valuable and inspiring. Monetarily, this transformation cost Darin a lot. Artistically, it solidified his status as one of the most versatile and relevant singer-songwriters of his time.
52 Appendix
Appendix 1 - "Jingle Jangle Jungle" (written by Bobby Darin)
I live in a jingle jangle jungle / If you ain't got it, you can't be Fightin' over crumbs / Wait till payday comes / Getting' green ink thumbs From countin' / While it's mountin' / In this jingle jangle jungle I call home.
You live in a jingle jangle jungle / If you can't earn it, you ain't free Where a life is spent / Tryin' to meet the rent / Payin' back the cent You borrow / Some tomorrow / In this jingle jangle jungle you call home.
We live in a jingle jangle jungle / You're only worth what you can buy So keep on workin' hard / To keep your own back yard Teach your kids that God / Ain't fiction / Contradiction In this jingle jangle jungle you call home.
I live in a jingle jangle jungle / If it don't jingle it's gonna fold All the things you own / Are only here on loan / It's by bread alone You're livin' / Call this livin' / In this jingle jangle jungle we call home.
I live in a jingle jangle jungle / Where people die to make some green Turnin' men to boys / Makin' new war toys / Dancin' to the noise Of ticker / Can't get much sicker / In this jingle jangle jungle we call home.
Appendix 2 - "The Proper Gander" (written by Bobby Darin) There was a white mouse consultation / Down at the county fair All the church mice, field mice and not so nice mice / Everybody gathered there. You see, the muckidy muck, he was speakin' / Tellin' them where it was at He said hear, hear there ain't nothin' to fear / Except a three-eyed Siamese cat And the crowd was stunned / See, no single mouse had ever seen one He said don't be scared / We're prepared.
Then he held up a great big picture / So every mouse could see
53 What a three-eyed Siamese cat looked like / The face of the enemy And the crowd let out such a shudder / As they lined up file and rank Starin' at a twenty-foot picture frame / Surroundin' a twenty-foot blank Just empty space / But every single mouse / Swore he saw a face He said don't be scared / We're prepared.
Then the muckidy muck started screamin' / Yellin' till his voice gave out He said now that you've seen what the / Cat looks like / Gonna tell you what he's all about He said he don't eat cheese on Friday / And he goes around lickin' his paws He's awful mean and he loves to keep clean / And believes in changin' laws And the crowd went wild / And every mouse began to fear for his child Don't be scared / We're prepared.
Now two times two is forty-five / The muckidy muck explained And the flat side of the moon is green / And the farmer don't need no rain And the night is light and might is right / And Supermouse is on our side And the three-eyed Siamese cat's a plague / From which nobody can hide And the mice all cringed / The whiskers of that cat would soon be singed Don't be scared / We're prepared.
Then the muckidy muck started singin' / Through his great paternal grin And the church mice, field mice / All the patriotic mice / Everybody chimed right in They sang this land is mice land / Mice country, 'tis of thee Well, my father took it from the beaver rat / Nobody's gonna take it from me And the mice all cheered / The sound that they were makin' sure was weird Don't be scared / We're prepared.
Then the muckidy muck said line up here / Everybody give a buck To fight the three-eyed Siamese cat takes money / And a little bit of luck We've got a million of our best young mice / To go out and volunteer To give up what they're livin' for / To make the cat disappear Let's give 'em a hand / Yay We don't want that cat invadin' our land / No way We're not scared / We're prepared.
54 Then a mighty strange thing happened / Guess you could call it fate You see, a gust of wind blew the picture frame down And it landed on the muckidy muck's head And the mice they all went crazy / For the first time they saw the lie It was all a hoax on just simple folks / And the muckidy muck must die And die he did / The members of his staff they just fled They were scared / Hah / Just not prepared.
Appendix 3 - "Me & Mr. Hohner" (written by Bob Darin) Me and Mr. Hohner / Standin' on the corner / Not doin' nothin' to no one When a squad car stops / And out jump cops / You're one of them if I ever saw one. Wonder what I said / As my face turned red / Up against the wall, says the tall one. That's a cute mustache / Have ya got any hash? / I'd like to make a buy, says the small one.
Now the whole thing's silly / But I'm starin' at the billy / Quietly askin' myself now will he Use that thing / To make my eardrums ring It's all a bad dream / And I'm in South Philly / Now tell 'em, Mr. Hohner
Me and Mr. Hohner / In Yuma, Arizona / Tryin' to hitch a ride to Denver. Well, out of a toll / Comes the highway patrol / To check up on my gender. Is it her or him? / Or maybe Tiny Tim? / Now up against the fence, says the dense one. You have picked a bad spot / To smoke your pot / Whatcha gonna do two against one?
Now the whole thing's silly / But I'm starin' at the billy / Quietly askin' myself now will he Use that thing / To make my eardrums ring It's all a bad dream / And I'm in South Philly / Now tell 'em, Mr. Hohner
Me and Mr. Hohner / Relaxin' out at Kona / Hawaiian sun can be groovy. When a pair of MPs / Yell out, freeze! / And I think I got a part in a movie. Hey! I'm talkin' to you / Tell me, what did I do? You're a draft card burner, says the thin one. We can tell by your looks / That you read too many books of wars
55 And that's because ya ain't been in one.
Now the whole thing's silly / But I'm starin' at the billy / Quietly askin' myself now will he Use that thing / To make my eardrums ring It's all a bad dream / And I'm in South Philly / Now tell 'em, Mr. Hohner
Appendix 4 - "Simple Song of Freedom" (written by Bob Darin) Come and sing a simple song of freedom. / Sing it like you've never sung before. Let it fill the air / Tell the people everywhere / We the people here don't want a war.
Hey there Mr. Black Man, can you hear me? / I don't want your diamonds or your game. I just want to be someone known to you as me / And I will bet my life you want the same.
Come and sing a simple song of freedom. / Sing it like you've never sung before. Let it fill the air / Tell the people everywhere / We the people here don't want a war.
Seven hundred million are you list'nin'? / Most of what you read is made of lies. But speakin' one to one, ain't it everybody's sun / To wake to in the mornings when we rise?
Come and sing a simple song of freedom. / Sing it like you've never sung before. Let it fill the air / Tell the people everywhere / We the people here don't want a war.
Brother Solzhenitsyn, are you busy? / If not, won't you drop this friend a line? Tell me if the man who is plowin' up your land / Has got the war machine upon his mind.
Come and sing a simple song of freedom. / Sing it like you've never sung before. Let it fill the air / Tell the people everywhere / We the people here don't want a war.
Now, no doubt some folks enjoy doin' battle / Like presidents, prime ministers and kings. So let's all build them shelves / Where they can fight it out among themselves, And leave the people be who love to sing.
Come and sing a simple song of freedom. / Sing it like you've never sung before.
56 Let it fill the air / Tell the people everywhere / We the people here don't want a war.
I say let it fill the air / Tell the people everywhere / We the people here don't want a war. Freedom! (I say) / Freedom! (Got to have) / Got to have freedom! Freedom! / Freedom!
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63 Summary
This thesis deals with the impact of the 1960s counterculture on the life and music career of all-around performer Bobby Darin. Its aim is to trace the influence of the counterculture on Darin's professional and personal metamorphosis in the late 1960s, and to examine how this influence is manifested in his work, artistic shift and political activism.
The first chapter of this thesis presents an overview of the key aspects of the counterculture and provides a general description of the values, beliefs and attitudes that stand in direct opposition to those of mainstream society. The second chapter is devoted to music as a form of expression and a tool of social criticism. Its two subchapters deal with theory and power of protest songs, and with the role of protest music in social mobilization and collective identity formation.
The next part of this thesis encapsulates Bobby Darin's lifestyle and workstyle prior to his main professional and personal transformation. The purpose of this section is to provide a broader context that later emphasizes the contrast between Darin's former and latter persona.
The first subchapter summarizes the most crucial aspects of the entertainer's background that later prompted him to become the kind of performer and avid social and political activist he was. The second subchapter puts a special focus on Darin's place in show business, most noteworthy achievements, performance style and portrayal in the media.
The next chapter examines the striking metamorphosis Bobby Darin underwent in the late 1960s. It is divided into three subchapters and each of them looks at Darin's transformation from a different perspective. The first subchapter focuses on his personal changes, shift in values and lifestyle. The second one traces how these changes manifested themselves in his professional life, alteration of repertoire and workstyle. The third subchapter concentrates on his artistic transformation. It comprises an analysis of selected songs, self- penned during Darin's soul-searching period and published predominantly by his own record
64 label created specifically for this purpose. The analysis looks at the way the countercultural influences are reflected in the lyrics, focusing not only on the social and political issues the singer comments on, but also on topical connections to his personal life, overall structure, literary devices, musical elements and the disparity between the albums' popular and critical acclaim.
The last chapter discusses the final phase of Bobby Darin's short life, which saw him draw a more distinct line between his political activism and his career, while making a compromise between two very different musical approaches that reflected both sides of his identity.
65 Resumé
Tato práce se zabývá dopadem kontrakultury šedesátých let dvacátého století na život a hudební kariéru všestranného umělce Bobbyho Darina. Cílem této práce je vysledovat vliv kontrakultury na Darinovu profesní a osobní transformaci a zkoumat, jak se tento vliv projevuje v jeho uměleckém posunu a politickém aktivismu.
První kapitola této práce předkládá přehled klíčových aspektů kontrakultury a poskytuje obecný popis hodnot, názorů a postojů, které jsou v přímém rozporu s těmi většinové společnosti. Druhá kapitola se věnuje hudbě jako způsobu sebevyjádření a nástroji sociální kritiky. Její dvě podkapitoly pojednávají o teorii a funkci protestních písní a o roli protestní hudby v sociální mobilizaci a ve formování kolektivní identity.
Další část této práce shrnuje životní styl a styl uměleckého vystupování Bobbyho
Darina před jeho hlavní profesní a osobní transformací. Účelem této kapitoly je poskytnout
širší kontext, který dále podtrhuje kontrast mezi Darinovou dřívější a pozdější personou. První podkapitola shrnuje klíčové okamžiky z jeho dětství, které měly podíl na tom, jakým umělcem a společenským i politickým aktivistou se stal. Druhá podkapitola klade důraz na
Darinovo místo v showbyznysu, jeho nej významnější úspěchy, umělecký styl a vyobrazení v médiích.
Následující kapitola zkoumá šokující změnu, jíž Bobby Darin na konci šedesátých let pod vlivem kontrakultury prošel. Tato kapitola je rozdělena do tří podkapitol a každá z nich nahlíží na Darinovu transformaci z jiné perspektivy. První z nich se zaměřuje na změny v jeho osobním životě, hodnotách a životním stylu. Druhá sleduje, jak se tyto zvraty projevily v jeho profesním životě, změně repertoáru a uměleckého stylu. Třetí podkapitola se soustředí na jeho uměleckou transformaci. Sestává z analýzy vybraných písní, které Darin napsal a složil během tohoto období a vydal převážně přes vlastní hudební vydavatelství, které založil specificky za tímto účelem. Analýza se zaměřuje na to, jak se vjeho textech odrážejí
66 kontrakulturní vlivy, přičemž se soustředí nejen na sociální a politické otázky, ke kterým se zpěvák vyjadřuje, ale také na tematické spojitosti s jeho osobním životem, dále na celkovou strukturu, literární prostředky, hudební prvky a rozpor mezi tím, jak byla tato alba přijata kritiky a j ak veřej ností.
Poslední kapitola pojednává o závěrečné fázi Darinova krátkého života, během níž dokázal oddělit svůj politický aktivismus od své kariéry a zároveň učinit kompromis mezi dvěma velmi odlišnými hudebními přístupy, které odrážely obě stránky jeho identity.
67