The Death of Traditional Rock and Roll
The 1967 summer of love marked the midpoint of the 1960s Cultural Revolution (“the half-time air”) and some view the sweet perfume spoken of in these lines as a reference to the flowering of the movement. It is worth noting, however, that many others believe that it has another meaning: that marijuana filled the air. The defining musical album for the summer of love, The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” quickly became the marching tune of the counterculture (“While Sergeants played a marching tune”).
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The next lines, “We all got up to dance / But we never got the chance”, refer to the transformation of rock and roll music that had now moved beyond its original dance-based roots toward something that was more experimental, drug-related, and political – a stark contrast to the simpler times of the 1950s.
As the radical youth players move away from the peaceful summer of love toward confrontational violence, the pace increases. “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 repeatedly changing. Here is a generation, one that is now widely regarded as the “last generation,” lost in space, left with no time to start over.