’60s Music

People Got to Be Free

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The other day I cued up this song by the Rascals on my old record player. One of my favorite songs, it lyrics quote from the bible and other sources on the topic of freedom. “It’s a natural situation for man to be free.” Indeed, it is.

“You should see, what a wonderful world it would be, if everybody learned to live together.” Such good advice, living in a world that sometimes seems to have so much hatred of our fellow man. We all live on one small planet, and we have to learn to live together and respect our fellow man.

“Seems to me that we got to solve it individuality. I’ll do what you to you what you do to me.” Our world’s great problems won’t be solved by an single individual’s actions, but that of many Americans. We must learn to respect one and other, and realize how we treat one individual will reflect back on how we are treated by others.

Time in a Bottle

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“There never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do when you find them.”

— Jim Croce, Time in a Bottle, 1973

The song, Time in A Bottle was release posthumously to Jim Croce’s death in a plane crash. In many ways the irony of this song made it particularly sad. A romantic love song, those lyrics have particular meaning outside of a relationship.

These lyrics stress the fundamental problem of time — it’s unlimited until you find a use for it. By the time you find the meaning in something you are doing, it’s too often on it’s way out. Certainly that was true for Jim Croce, whose death came as his singing career was only starting to reach to a pinnacle. It’s also true in our lives.

Golden Rods

They say that man has a remarkable ability to destroy what he loves the most. By the time one has found his real passions, others have already taken it up and used or abused it. Or we might no longer have time in our lives to do the thing that we really wanted because we got committed to doing other things.

We have to constantly be evaluating our world around us and searching for our passions. We can’t be afraid of our changing selves, and embracing the world. We must do what we believe in, and be the change that we see needs to be done. There simply is no time to be afraid as if we pause our dreams will go up into smoke.