The Beatles and the Swinging Sixties

 

The Swinging Sixties 

by Jane Lawson at DailyStep.com

Fifty years ago this week, on 5th October 1962, four young men from the Northern English city of Liverpool released their first single, and Britain changed forever.

They recorded the song “Love Me Do”, in Abbey Road recording studio in London and the song went straight into the charts.

Britain at the beginning of the 1960s was a slightly depressing grey place, still trying to recover from the effects of World War Two, which had only finished a decade and a half earlier.

The success of the Beatles and the explosion of youth culture that came with it transformed British society. The Swinging Sixties had started and for a while Britain became the fashion and music centre of the world.

Bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Who became famous all over the world. Their long hair, laid back attitude, and their apparent disrespect for authority and tradition shocked and worried many of the older generation, but the younger people loved this new sense of freedom.

The generation gap was perhaps wider than it had ever been before.

But the 1960s wasn’t just about pop music – the world was changing fast in lots of ways. In the USA the civil rights movement was gaining momentum as the black American minority demanded equal rights.

This week in 1962 amid protest and rioting James Meredith, the first black student to attend the all white University of Mississippi, was escorted on to the campus by US marshals. You can see this historic moment in the bottom right hand picture. 

The Cold War intensified as the Cuban missile crisis threatened to engulf the world in nuclear war, and construction of the Berlin Wall continued as the division in Europe became more acute.

It’s all a long time ago now but some people still argue whether the changes that came in the 1960s were good or bad. But one thing is certainly true – Britain became a freer and more tolerant place, and surely that must be good! The Beatles went on to become the most famous group in the world and had lots of hit records, but split up in 1970.

People were always asking them if they would reform until John Lennon was shot in 1980. George Harrison died in 1991 [sorry – it was 2001!] but the other two members, Paul McCartney and Ringo Star, still play music. Paul McCartney performed a favourite Beatles song “Hey Jude”, at the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics.

What’s your favourite Beatles song? Maybe you’d like to discuss it with other DailyStep students on our Facebook page.

Let’s move on now to our Audio Word Study, where I’ll teach you the meanings of some expressions from this article.

 

Here is Audio Word Study #055 from Jane Lawson at DailyStep.com

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Here are some expressions from this week’s DailyStep audio article on the Swinging Sixties!

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1. Youth culture

Meaning: Young people’s opinions and the way they live, including how they dress, the music they listen to and so on.

Example: There was an explosion of youth culture in the 1960s, which resulted in a transformation of British society.

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2. The Swinging Sixties

Meaning: The decade of the 1960s, which was a time when ideas and behaviour of many young people were new, exciting, radical and subversive.

Example: In 1962, with the release of the first Beatles single, Love me do, the Swinging Sixties was born.

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3. Laid back

Meaning: Relaxed in behaviour, manner and character; not worried things that need to be done.

Example: He’s such a laid back guy – he never gets stressed about anything.

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4. The generation gap

Meaning: we say there is a generation gap when older and younger people do not understand each other because of their different opinions, experiences, behaviour and habits.

Example: He’s the kind of inspirational speaker who can manage to bridge the generation gap. (note: this means that all generations can understand and relate to what he says.)

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5. The civil rights movement

Meaning: The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. It was at its height in the 1960s.

Example: The famous African American civil rights campaigner, Martin Luther King, was assassinated on April 4th, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, in the USA.

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6. The Cold War

Meaning: The Cold War was the name given to confrontation between the communist countries of Eastern Europe and the Western democracies. This reached its height in the 1960s and finished when communism collapsed in 1989.

Example: The Cold War was such a frightening time and we were constantly worried that a nuclear war was going to start.

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7. Hit records

Meaning: Recordings of songs that become hugely popular and are bought by a large number of people.

Example: In the 1960s, many new bands such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones had hit records.(note: we often say ‘hit single’ rather than ‘hit record’ when we mean a single song, rather than an album of songs, becomes a hit.)

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“What does it mean when a person is such a pacifist that they get shot? I can never understand that.”

John Lennon of the Beatles famously said this – and then many years later, on 8th December 1980, this famous musician and campaigner for peace was shot dead on his doorstep in New York. This quotation asks why anyone would kill an active campaigner for peace. It’s a very good question!

That’s all for Audio Word Study #055 on DailyStep.com.

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