This article was originally published in the Toronto Star, Sunday 12/29/2019
-- By Tom Phillips
-- By Tom Phillips
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| Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, c.1963 |
The 1960's turn sixty in 2020, with their
meaning and value still in hot dispute. It might help to divide
the decade in two; the first half peace and love, the last fear and loathing. Still,
in both phases, the Sixties were an age of prophecy.
Bob Dylan sang “The answer is
blowin’ in the wind.” Simon and
Garfunkel saw “the words of the prophets written on the subway walls.” New voices came out of nowhere, and found
rapt listeners in the massive generation born after World War Two, the baby
boomers.
The prophets were not boomers
themselves. They were the big brothers and sisters of the boomers, the
relatively small generation born during the war. As elders, they knew from an early age
that their voices would be heard. And
they knew the world they were born into was not fit for future generations. Children
of war, they became prophets of peace.
