Eve of Destruction (Was Re: Market Research)

[mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Mike Hemeon wrote:
>The Eve of Destruction by Barry McGuire not relevant three weeks ago. Do you
>think it is relevant today?

        While sort of dated, this song also has always remained sort of
relevant, too, IMO. And I find it a powerful piece of pop music. The
gravelly, angry voice, the whole production, is just right on. For what was
supposed to be a pop record to sound so angry and negative was shocking to
a lot of people. And it's a snapshot of a moment. It was summer 1965. It
was way before it became so fashionable to oppose the Vietnam War that the
cliched housewives in station wagons were going to demonstrations. Civil
rights workers were still being killed. The song has a line comparing
Alabama to "Red China," which back then registered as about a 9.8 on the
Richter scale of controversial. Younger people today, IMO, don't get just
how wild it was for this song to show up on the radio then. Blatantly
political songs were just beginning to show up. This was one of the first.

        It was so controversial that Westinghouse pulled it off all its
stations, but not until it already had gone very quickly to the top of the
charts. An aircheck I wish I had is Dave Maynard on the WBZ weekly Sunday
morning/afternoon top 30 countdown show explaining why Eve of Destruction,
which had been #1 or #2 (I forget) the previous week, was off the
air--gone. He said something to the effect that Westinghouse headquarters
had decided it was not appropriate, or some such rather bland statement, I
believe. But I wish I had exactly what he said. It's interesting that he
explained it at all.

        Since the teen-age me already owned this amazing single, it was a
very eye-opening and in fact radicalizing experience to hear this. As young
as I was, I found it a good lesson in how large, conservative corporations
have great control over the media. The anti-war line --"Old enough to kill,
but not for votin'/ you don't believe in war, then what's that gun you're
totin'?"--may have been what got it censored. I was amazed that
Westinghouse executives in Pittsburgh could make this #1 (or about to be
#1) song disappear. I suppose WMEX kept playing it, but out where I lived
WMEX was so weak nobody listened to it.

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