The Death of Traditional Rock and Roll
The 1967 summer of love marked the midpoint of the 60s cultural revolution (“the half-time air”) and the sweet perfume referenced in these lines is viewed by some as a reference to the flowering of the movement, but many others believe that it has another meaning too, as the air of the summer was filled with marijuana. The defining musical album for the summer of love was the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” which quickly became the marching tune of the counterculture (“While Sergeants played a marching tune.”)
(Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)
The next lines, (“We all got up to dance / But we never got the chance”) refer to the transformation of rock ‘n’ roll music that has now moved beyond its original roots that were dance-based towards something that became more experimental, drug-related, and political, in stark contrast to the simpler times of the 1950s, when it was all about dancing and having fun.
The pace gets more and more rapid as the radical youth players move away from the peaceful someone of love towards confrontational violence. “The marching band refused to yield” is a metaphor for the civil authorities who pushed back but also continues to be a metaphor for the music that keeps changing over and over again. here they are, a generation lost in space, which is now widely regarded as the last generation, left with no time to start over.