Album #1: John Sebastian - And How Have You Been, Woodstock?

    John Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful had a beautiful career as a songwriter with and later without the band. In his song Nashville Cats, the sings these lines:

"Yeah, there's thirteen hundred and fifty-two

Guitar cases in Nashville

And any one that unpacks his guitar could play

Twice as better than I will 

[Verse 2]

Yeah, I was just thirteen, you might say I was a

Musical proverbial knee-high

When I heard a couple new-sounding tunes on the tubes

And they blasted me sky-high

And the record man said every one is a Yellow Sun

Record from Nashville

And up North there ain't nobody buys them

And I said, 'But I will'"

    On social media there is a desire between people to call out others as being Cringe. Whether it's a person expressing themselves in an uncommon way, enjoying a work of art that is considered to be cringe, or even being late to a trend or joke that was just not considered to be. In response to this culture, many people internally feel an anxiety to avoid this label, and to avoid what actions and interests would cause others to give them it. Many other people, and many jokes, use irony as their shield. Yes, they are saying everything that someone who is Cringe would say, but they are in on it, they aren't like those people. As if that is such a horrible fate. Another aspect of it is about being nonchalant, and hiding passion and interest and emotion in order to look cooler.While the term Cringe being used in this way is very modern, I don't believe that this is a new feeling, and this conflict between who someone is and how they are perceived has always existed. Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice explores this just through the lens of the British upper-class of the time. It definitely existed when John Sebastian wrote Nashville Cats.

    Taylor Swift puts her albums and songwriting into perfectly split eras, each with a unique aesthetic. A new fan can jump in to her story and only need to understand what's happening in this era to GET her. Every era, she becomes a new, easily sorted, and easily consumable product. But what is John Sebastian's aesthetic? What does he do to turn himself into a product? 

    Many artists have written about their love of some kind of music, and many use it as an example to embody the work they love. The Beatles tried to do what Bob Dylan did on Rubber Soul, and Zimmerman himself tried to do what Woody Guthrie did in his early work. While Nashville Cats is played in a country style, the lyrics are still from John's perspective as an outsider. Nobody buys these records there, but he will.

    Surrounded by a desire to fit into societal norms, being cool, and being a marketable aesthetic, John Sebastian is a dork. He's chalant, and he's lame, and that's why he's such a beautiful figure in the history of contemporary music.

    This is the complete recording of him at Woodstock. I decided to name it after the first line he sings, and every gift on stage is taken from that song. The story of how he was at Woodstock to watch but flew into do an impromptu set on an airplane and given a guitar by Tim Hardin has been told many times and I wouldn't do as good of a job, so if you want the story of the concert itself, this is a good article on both it and his career.

    The download is of an album of the concert, but there is also a video on YouTube of the entire concert.

Download Link: Google Drive