THE GREAT AMERICAN PROTEST
SONG
By Pat
McWilliams
Summer 1965. Tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbors (“The Eastern world, it is exploding”). The struggle for racial equality in America erupts into urban riots (“Marches alone can’t bring integration, when human respect is disintegrating”). 18 year old men are being drafted to fight and die in a place called Vietnam (“You’re old enough to kill, but not for voting”). And overshadowing it all, the spectre of the mushroom cloud and nuclear annihilation (“When the button is pushed, there’ll be no running away, there’ll be no one to save, with the world in a grave”).
One long sleepless night, a 19-year-old songwriter, P.F. Sloan pours out his feelings about the injustices, hypocrisy (“hate your next door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace”) and dangers of modern existence. It was, he would later say, a “prayer” that people would recognize the problems and work together to solve them. That prayer was “Eve of Destruction”
It became one of my favorite songs.
Not that I heard it all that often on the radio. WHB, the top 40 station in Kansas City, following the lead of stations around the country, refused to play it, falsely believing it was “negative” or “anti-American”. WHB’s biggest competitor, KUDL would occasionally respond to a phone request, and then P. F. Sloan’s words and Barry McGuire’s booming, angry voice would fill the hearing aid size speaker of my pocket transistor radio.
I wanted that record.
My parents, concurring with those radio station program directors, told me I didn’t need to be listening to that kind of music. Of such parental disapproval many an obsession is born.
Then, one day, I found a discarded album by a folk-rock group “The Turtles”. I knew them from their hit “Happy Together”. Turns out they had also recorded “Eve of Destruction”. So, there was more than one version of my song.
Of such simple facts, collections are born.
In my college years I discovered thrift stores, wonderful places where records could be had for mere pennies. Like most collectors, I don’t mind paying big bucks for some records, but I can’t afford to do that for every record.
By then I had Barry McGuire’s recording, plus cover versions by Jan & Dean and P.F. Sloan himself. I also located a copy of “Dawn of Correction”, by the Spokesmen. It was an answer record in praise of the UN, the Peace Corps and other agencies working to make the world a better place.
Over the years I turned up additional versions. Some were straightforward imitations (We-4, Red Rockers, The Raiders). A few were instrumental only (Duane Eddy, The Hollywood Persuaders, Glen Campbell). A few can only be described as weird. The Living Voices released easy listening choral versions of both “Eve” and “Dawn” on the same “Positively 4th Street” LP. Wrestler, later Governor Jesse Ventura recorded it complete with bomb and machinegun sound effects. A punk band, The Incredible Shrinking Dickies , shrank this 3 minute 10 second song to less than 2 minutes, despite adding an extra verse. The late Tiny Tim, on the other hand, must have tip toed thru the hallucinogenic mushrooms before embarking on his marathon tour de force desecration which runs a mind numbing, jaw dropping 25 minutes and 45 seconds! ( I timed it—once!).
The first CD I ever bought was a copy of “Eve of Destruction” by Hot Tuna, featuring a picture of Saddam Hussein on the cover.
The song which almost ended P.F. Sloan’s career became his most recorded composition. New parodies and updates continue to appear, including Sloan’s own “Still on the Eve of Destruction”. All The Best Records, a web site discography devoted to P. F. Sloan’s music lists over 40 known versions. I have about half of them.
When I owned 43 Stephen W Meader novels, I was a collector. When I bought that 44th title, I became a curator. When it comes to “Eve of Destruction” it looks like I’m going to be a collector for a long time.
Barry McGuire recently appeared on a PBS folk music show, hosted by the Smothers Brothers. Barry’s a bit thicker around the middle and a lot thinner on top (aren’t we all?), but the voice, if not the anger, is still there. The audience of aging baby boomers sang along. After almost 40 years, the still relevant lyrics, expressing our greatest fears, have become at the same time an artifact of a mostly fondly remembered youth.
And I still want those records.
Pat McWilliams is a Manion’s staff writer and describer. He is an advanced collector of, and authority on, firearms – specifically Iver Johnson revolvers and Saturday night specials – and vinyl records. He has appeared in numerous films: Recluse, Privacy Advocate, Paranoid, Conspiracy Buff, Moonchild, Bimbos in Time, and Bad Blood – just to name a few. In addition, McWilliams is an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church, has been seen on the Morton Downey Show, and was a write-in candidate for President of the United States of America in 2000 and 2008.