The highlight of the 50-year retrospective that’s been going on about 1973 to me of course is the release of Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd. In 1973 this super cool highly polished British rock blues album—with its iconic black cover with nothing but a clear triangle prism converting a stream of white light into a rainbow—sounded futuristic, like a gift or warning from Outer Space, yet each song’s precisely crafted lyrics written by long-haired young human beings spoke to a lot of us coming of age in a world of cacophony and conflict. The year of our Lord 1973 is recalled in shadows, dark and cold, with little light save the one on the Pink Floyd album cover which became a popular teen bedroom poster.
The Vietnam War was officially over in 1973. But no one was happy. There would be no celebrating, not like our nation did in 1945. No ticker-tape parades for our guys finally coming home from a much longer war or police action in Southeast Asia. Instead in 1973 couples started divorcing in much higher numbers.
On TV tennis star Billie Jean King beat big-mouth sexist Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tournament, watched in the homes of American families across the country.
Gas lines were a common sight due to an oil embargo caused by leaders of the Middle East because that’s where all the oil was. That’s all we knew back then; we needed gas for our cars real bad. So we played the game, and drivers spent an hour or so waiting in long lines to get gasoline which was rationed and not available 24/7 like today.
Watergate became a household word as federal hearings were broadcast live all day long on the three networks (ABC, CBS, NBC). Ugh. What a long hot summer was ’73. My mom kept us kids busy at swimming pools, amusement parks, carnivals and family travels because her soap operas were cut in order to show the Watergate hearings every weekday. Ditto for summer of ’74. And everyone wondered if our president was indeed a crook.
Live and let die
The movies of 1973 reflected and reinforced American anger, numbness and cynicism—especially to kids: The Exorcist, The Way We Were, Serpico, Magnum Force, Badlands, American Graffiti, Soylent Green. Good God, what’s wrong y’all? Well, I was just a kid. But kids are impressionable. I got the picture, so to speak.
On a high note, composer John Williams’ big-time success creating memorable movie music began in 1973 with the dark jazzy noir The Long Goodbye. He’d go on to compose the music to Star Wars, Superman, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Home Alone, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan and Harry Potter.
But in 1973, amid all the yell-a-thon TV shows like All in the Family and Maude, the most controversial issue to hit Americans was abortion on demand. Roe v Wade became law of the land—and by a conservative all-male Supreme Court who voted 7-2 in favor of a woman’s right to seek an abortion, judging it a right to privacy. If a girl or woman wanted to have an abortion, didn’t want to go through pregnancy (no matter how it happened), she was free to choose in this United States of America. For 50 years doctors (and everybody) could not only help guide females in such crisis … but they could actually say aloud the word abortion.
Not anymore in, what, half the country in 2023? In Texas lawsuits are just beginning to catch media attention, from women whose intended pregnancies turned devastatingly heartbreaking and even potentially deadly (for the mothers) to individuals suing ‘accomplices’ who help a woman get abortion pills. Texas offers anyone $10,000 for bringing to the state’s attention people who provide or assist in an abortion. It seems to me the biggest change in the past 50 years of American history is how vindictive the masses have become. Fifty years ago, people minded their own business.
Give me love
All this reminiscing about 1973 made me wonder how did any of us, kid or adult, manage to maintain sanity and carry on. Mine was easy: music! Rock music. I listened to music all the time after school, at the skating rink, at the swimming pool, and all summer long, top 40 radio which was mostly rock, pop, R&B and country crossovers. The titles alone bring back memories of what may be the happiest time of my childhood: Long Train Runnin’, We’re an American Band, Tie A Yellow Ribbon ’Round the Ole Oak Tree (the number one song of the year), Killing Me Softly With His Song, Diamond Girl, Natural High, Photograph, Angie, Keep on Truckin’, Drift Away, China Grove, Crocodile Rock, Half-Breed, Show and Tell, Saturday Night’s Alright, The Morning After, Shambala, Dancing in the Moonlight, Feelin’ Stronger Every Day, Free Bird.
And into this sparkling playlist fell singles from Dark Side of the Moon, like a meteor shower. The song Money from the album conveyed a bitter hateful tone, perfect for 1973. Maybe it was a love-hate ode. I mean, you gotta have money. Perhaps the point criticized was the love of money.
Dark Side of the Moon’s songs expound upon the human condition experienced by those of us living in the 1970s. The sound of helicopters at the beginning of the album—a spinning disc that actually begins in dead silence and very slowly builds to recognizable sound—represent what many soldiers from Vietnam still heard in their minds. The heartbeat the proof of life, time the ticking clock, then all the clocks stopped by a cluster of alarms loud, pure noise, painful and unrhythmic.
Pink Floyd knew how to get the attention of our generation. What they had to say was going to be important and meaningful: from lyrics to melodies to arcing guitar improvisations. Mesmerizing and profound … to this day. Each song details modern human life: what’s important, what’s not, how most of us spend our days detesting boredom, and our collective fear of death. Then in the middle of all these thoughts voiced by the rough edges of male rock singers comes the sound of a wailing woman. As if in labor, she sing-hollers as the band’s swaying steel guitar and later cosmic organ counter in soothing harmony. All is right with the world. No words. It’s beautifully haunting … and I always thought sad. In a time when I understood pregnancy wasn’t always good news, I sensed the woman’s anguish. She was bringing forth a child into the world, our awful God-forsaken overpopulated polluted warring murderous lying cheating stinkin’ world. Or is she Mother God, crying for humanity? “Please save yourselves, my Children!” The album is a psychological trip through darkness to enlightenment we all experience while passing through this world. Its conclusion deals with mental illness as man is apt to go crazy now and then. The entire album is a work of art that remained on the charts into the late 1980s.
Rock music was at a social apex in 1973. Music was going to change. The disco years were in our near future. For a kid 50 years ago, music provided a carefree optimism. Songs like Natural High made me believe I would experience feelings of being in love with someone, too, someday. And though I wouldn’t have believed it 50 years ago, we’re still seekers on the road to Shambala.