The Woodstock Music and Art Festival was a rock music
festival at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in the small hamlet of Bethel, New York
from 15–18 August 1969. It advertised as ‘An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of
Peace & Music’. For many, it was the physical manifestation of the
counterculture of the 1960s and the "hippie era".
The 1960s were a tumultuous time for society with the rise
of counter culture, and anti-war protest at a high with the Vietnam war
drafting more and more college students by the week. With sociopolitical
tension on the rise, the youth longed for a platform to express their opinions
and desire for change, they had music and they had an audience thus Woodstock boom
baby.
Roberta Joan Anderson (born November 7, 1943 in Canada),
better known as Joni Mitchell, is a Canadian songwriter, musician and artist. One
of her most famous songs, a so-called ‘anthem of a generation’, "Woodstock"
was released in included on her 1970 album Ladies
of the Canyon, and summed up, for many people, the meaning of the festival.
You couldn’t make it Woodstock,
were you?
She relays the story for me, with a distant look in her
eyes, “No, I wasn’t. Crosby, Stills, Nash and myself all went to the airport. (It)
had been declared a national disaster area, so we were informed that we
couldn’t get in and get out.”
She adjusts her green tunic around her waist and continues,
“I had to do ‘The
Dick Cavett Show’ the following day, so I left the boys there, thinking they
were going someplace else. But they rented a helicopter.” A wry smile creeps
out, “I felt left out. I really felt like the Girl. The Girl couldn’t go, but
the Boys could. I watched everything on TV.”
Do you feel like, by
not going you have a better perspective on the festival?
"Well, I think that the deprivation of not being able
to go provided me with an…intense angle on Woodstock. I was one of the fans. I
was … a kid who couldn't make it… I was glued to the media…For a herd of people
that large to cooperate so well, it was pretty remarkable, and I could feel
that there was a tremendous optimism. So, I wrote the song 'Woodstock' out of
these feelings..." she lights a cigarette, “I wanted to capture that
feeling of a possible utopia- you know? Of what it was or what it could’ve been,
I don’t know. I wasn’t there, I don’t have that perspective of actually being
part of the backstage or whatever, but honestly I don’t feel like I needed to.”
She rubs the back of her neck and stares hard at the lit end of her cigarette, “The
essence of the festival was always about the collective, and perhaps, I don’t know,
it was real. I could feel that. I felt it then. In my apartment, sitting in front
of the TV. I wanted to share that. Not the nitty gritty or the- dare I say it- ugly
truths about the festival because that’s not what it was about- you know?”
The lyrics display only
one overt political reference: ‘I dreamed I saw the bombers/riding shotgun in
the sky/and they were turning into butterflies/above our nation’. Was this song
meant to be political?
She says, “Well, no. It was kind of silly- don’t you think?
To write political songs, being a Canadian. After all, people could say, “What
the hell is a Canadian doing protesting against an American problem?” she waved
her hands around for emphasis, “All of my friends and fellow artists- I mean- we
all hated the war. My sentiments were the same but- you know- instead of anger,
I wanted to…inspire or maybe even, dream of something better. I felt that we
needed… something that could sum up what we really longed for. As a generation”
She takes a drag, “I’ve written only one protest song. That
was ‘Urge for Going’, which was a protest against winter. And it certainly
isn’t going to stop winter.”
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