by Robert Wilkinson
57 years ago was one of the turning points in music history and popular culture that spread around the world and is part of the fabric of our existence.
”It was 57 years ago today, that Sgt. Pepper's Band began to play!
They've never been out of style, so come along and dance awhile
Now let me introduce to you, the one and only Fabulous Four
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band!”
On that day, June 2, 1967, the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in the US by the Beatles, kicking off the legendary "Summer of Love." This initiated a global blossoming of a spirit of "peace, love, and flower power" arising spontaneously in millions of young people (and oldsters young of heart!) all over the world.
A bit from Wikipedia. As it was written in Rolling Stone at the time: “The closest Western Civilization has come to unity since the Congress of Vienna in 1815 was the week the Sgt. Pepper album was released. In every city in Europe and America the radio stations played [it] ... and everyone listened ... For a brief while the irreparable fragmented consciousness of the West was unified, at least in the minds of the young.
According to Riley, the album "drew people together through the common experience of pop on a larger scale than ever before." In MacDonald's description, an "almost religious awe surrounded the LP"; he says that its impact was cross-generational, as "Young and old alike were entranced", and era-defining, in that the "psychic shiver" it inspired across the world was "nothing less than a cinematic dissolve from one Zeitgeist to another". In his view, Sgt. Pepper conveyed the psychedelic experience so effectively to listeners unfamiliar with hallucinogenic drugs that "If such a thing as a cultural “contact high” is possible, it happened here.”
(A side note; it seems that though it had a scheduled release date in the UK on June 1, because the Beatles had appeared on Where It’s At on May 20 and all but one track on the album was played, EMI rushed up the release date to May 26 in the UK.)
It also seems there is some confusion about what was happening astrologically back then. To set the record straight, there was no momentous Grand Water Trine in the Summer of Love. There was a Grand Water Trine in March-April 1967 with the inners in Pisces, Jupiter in Cancer, and Neptune in Scorpio.
That Summer the inners in Cancer trined Neptune, but the only times a Grand Water Trine (GWT) happened that Summer were when something was in late Cancer and the Moon was in late Pisces – very brief occurrences happening only on June 1, 29, and July 26. So the Moon was a trigger, but the larger blossoming was indicated by the outer planet configurations. Of course, since time is a continuum, this is more the moment that the flower “burst forth,” with deep roots and a long growth pattern preceding that singular event.
Historically, it is accepted that The Summer of Love vibe was initiated on June 2, 1967 with the release of Sgt. Peppers on the quickly passing GWT with Moon in Pisces. But it is also history that "the Summer of Love" took off in popular culture at the Monterey Pop Festival two weeks later with Venus conjunct Jupiter in Leo (Love, love, love) both trine Saturn in Aries.
And just as it took months to get Sgt. Pepper’s ready for release, the Monterey Pop Festival was conceived in March 1967, and as part of the promo, John Phillips wrote “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” recorded by Scott McKenzie and released on 13 May 1967. The Festival happened in mid-June, and the Our World global broadcast of “All You Need is Love” happened June 25, with the release of the song on July 7, 1967.
I believe the "Summer of Love" was created by Venus conjunct Jupiter in Leo trine Saturn in Aries followed by Sun and Mercury conjunct Jupiter in Leo trine Saturn. (An aside – there was a huge stellium in Leo when Elvis hit the scene. This was the Jupiter return of the explosion of rock and roll!)
The Moon in Sagittarius just after Monterey created a Grand Fire Trine that helped the word of what happened there spread "like wildfire." I was a teen in Florida at the time, and we all knew about it within days of it happening. Sag spreads the Fire far and wide. It was an electric time.
The vibe continued via the Mars in Sag trine Saturn in late September, which the Moon again focused in Leo when it made another Grand Fire Trine. To me, the Summer of Love was created by the combination of Water and Fire trines that helped us all to feel “the love.” We all felt something deeply in collective consciousness, and it exploded into Fire and Light with Sergeant Pepper’s and Monterey Pop announcing the Summer of Love.
It was an exciting and happy time. We experienced something that there were no words to describe at the time, but in the years since then I've realized we all experienced "tribe." We knew who knew and who didn't. It opened a collective awakening, optimism, and exploration the world had never seen, and hasn’t seen since.
And we felt the joy of our heart connected to something far bigger than any of us. It was truly an uplifting time, when hope blossomed, love was in the air, and the usual uptightness of “normal” reality wasn’t as oppressive as it had been before then and has been since then. For one brief shining moment, love broke through the fog of war and materiality, and millions experienced Life as One, whether they knew it consciously or not.
While there were still a lot of ego problems and individual hangups (and a brutally oppressive war machine dominating the atmosphere), it was a magical initiation of a generation into a Oneness no one had experienced before then in that collective way. Though it didn’t last many years in the general culture, millions of us never forgot. We stepped outside of cultural norms, experienced a magic unlike anything known to those in authority, and paid the price for that awareness. But at least some of us realized, applied those realizations, and lived that direct experience for the rest of our lives, however imperfectly.
Monterey!"Young gods smiled upon the crowd, Their music being born of love
Children danced night and day, Religion was being born, Down in Monterey
Three days of understanding Of moving with one another
Even the cops grooved with us Do you believe me? Yeah
Down in Monterey Down in Monterrey, yeah
I think that maybe I'm dreamin'
Monterey Monterey, yeah Down in Monterey"
From 1968, live on the CBC, Eric Burdon and the New Animals perform "Monterey"
For those who wonder what all the fuss was about, here’s a 44 minute documentary on the times. Why was “the Summer of Love” such an important historical moment? 1967 – The Summer of Love – History Documentary.
Here’s a 90 minute different take called Revolution Documentary – 1967 Summer of Love. While some of it seems a bit naive and quaint, it was still the first time a generation found itself outside the looking glass staring in at the weird scenes inside the gold mine.
Monterey Pop made history, since it was literally the first major pop festival that made history! This year I found a copy. Made by D.A. Pennebaker, it documented the music and the magic and turned the nation on by early 1968! The Who, Mamas and the Papas, Ravi Shankar, Hugh Masekela, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Simon and Garfunkel, Laura Nyro, Janis, Jimi, and a whole lot more. It really was a magical time. For your enjoyment, the iconic Monterey Pop
This year we have the album which took the world by storm 54 years ago today! For your enjoyment, the record that blew through all the musical doors in the world, and introduced a new type of music that changed the world forever! Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
We’ll close with Paul and Ringo perform "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and “A Little Help From My Friends” and this extraordinarily trippy and moving clip: “A Day in the Life”
© Copyright 2024 Robert Wilkinson
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