Words to Woodstock theme song-1969-and thought on those days

WOODSTOCK

Well. I came across a child of God,he was walking along the road,

when I asked him where he was going,this he told me,

Well, I’m going down to Vascar’s Farm,going to join a rock-n-roll band,

going to live off on the land,and set my soul free.

We are stardust , we are golden,

and we got to set ourselves back to the garden,

By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong.

Everywhere I went, there were songs and celebrations.

Well, maybe it’s the time of year, or maybe it’s the time of man,

And i don’t know who I am, but life’s for learning,

we are stardust, we are golden,

and we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Ad I dreamed I saw the bombers, riding shotgun in the sky,

turning into butterflies above our nation.

We are stardust,we are golden,and we got to get our selves back to the garden.

Woodstock and then Altamont, the two outdoor concerts thatstill stand as monuments to the decade of love, the innoncense and irony of youth.  The song makes everything sound so wonderful, magical, yet in fsct, it rained during most of the festivsl, there were few sanitary fscilities, little food, people over-dosing on drugs and getting sick everywhere.  Litter and trash left to the farms owners to dispose of, and at Altamont, an African American man killed, right in front of the stage by the Hell’s Ageks motorcycle gang, who had been hired for “security”.  Now, when all of us who were too young to go, and only read, with envy, about going, to those who did, and found that it made a profound impact on their lives, we must remember youth as it really is.  Within a year, two of the stars of Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were dead of herion overdoses.

Decades later, we “baby-boomers” are retiring, grandparents, company executives or in some less fortunate cases, still stuck in a world that cannot be and never really was.  I look at my grandchildren and wonder  what the “Woodstock” will be, their pivotal event, how they ill look back on this yet-to-be-revealed event as they sit and tell their grand-kids about the glorious days of their youth.

Sometimes, I enjoy getting on you-tube and listening to interviews and songs from the stars of those days. I smile and remember that computers and “you tube” and cell phones were not yet even a dream to most of us.   It will be the same with our grand children. What was once our yet-to-be-invented future, will be their past. And we will not be able to imagine  what they tell their grandchildren about the magical days of their youth meant to them.