September 25, 1965, 60 years ago: "Eve of Destruction" by Barry McGuire hits Number 1 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart.
Barry McGuire (no middle name) was born on October 15, 1935 in Oklahoma City, and joined the folksinging group The New Christy Minstrels, co-writing, and singing lead on, their song "Green, Green," a Top 10 hit for them in 1963. But he left them in early 1965, looking for something more.
Philip Gary Schlein was born on September 18, 1945 in Manhattan, and grew up in Los Angeles, where his father changed the family name to Sloan, and Philip became known as "P.F." or "Flip" Sloan. The songs he wrote and recorded himself didn't go too far.
He began to write songs with Steven Barry Lipkin, a.k.a. Steve Barri, born on February 23, 1942, and also a New Yorker who went west to Los Angeles before the Brooklyn Dodgers did. Together, they would write such hits as "A Must to Avoid" by Herman's Hermits, "Secret Agent Man" by Johnny Rivers, and "You Baby" by The Turtles.
Early in 1965, "Eve of Destruction" was offered to The Byrds, who turned it down, and then The Turtles, who recorded it, but dropped the 3rd verse, in the hopes that it would get more airplay if it were a shorter song. It wasn't a hit for them.
Around that time, McGuire met with Sloan, and asked if he had any material. Sloan showed him some light fare, potential pop hits. McGuire said, "No, I'm looking for something that means something." Sloan showed him he songs that he thought "meant something." McGuire grabbed him by the face, kissed him, and said, "You're exactly what I'm looking for."
McGuire recorded "Eve of Destruction," and the album, on Dunhill Records, would carry the same title. Also on the album were "Sins of a Family," "Mr. Man on the Street" and "What's Exactly the Matter with Me," credited to Sloan alone; "You Never Had It So Good" and "Ain't No Way I'm Gonna Change My Mind," credited to Sloan and Barri; "Why Not Stop and Dig It While You Can," which McGuire wrote himself; and covers of Bob Dylan's "She Belongs to Me" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," The We Five's "You Were On My Mind," "Try to Remember" from the Broadway musical The Fantasticks, and the folk song "Sloop John B."
"Eve of Destruction" was recorded on July 13, 1965, in Los Angeles. Only 3 musicians were on it: Sloan himself played guitar and harmonica, and, from Phil Spector's "Wrecking Crew," Larry Knechtel played bass guitar and Hal Blaine played drums. Sloan, Barri, and Dunhill owner Lou Adler were listed as the song's producers.
The lyrics referenced the Vietnam War, whose first major protest march had been held in New York in April; the fact that, a man could be drafted at age 18, but couldn't vote until he was 21, a fact that wouldn't be changed until the 26th Amendment was ratified in 1971; trouble in the Middle East; the threat of nuclear annihilation; Southern Senators' attempts to block civil rights legislation; a comparison of "all the hate there is in Red China" with that of the police of Selma, Alabama the preceding March; a comparison of being an astronaut to living on Earth; and the hypocrisy of American Christianity: "Hate your next-door neighbor, but don't forget to say 'Grace.'"
By some standards, it seemed like the high point of liberalism and progress in America. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed. Martin Luther King Jr. was the current holder of the Nobel Peace Prize. Of course, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Medicare and Medicaid hadn't been signed into law yet, but would be as the song climbed the charts. Then again, the Watts race riot also happened right after that.
Blaine's drum opening, the spare arrangement, and Sloan's harmonica added to the song's hopeless atmosphere. A performance on ABC's variety show The Hollywood Palace showed McGuire singing in a junkyard while somber-looking dancers moved very slowly, with little of the joy associated with 1960s rock and roll dancing.
A vocal track was thrown on as a rough mix, and was not intended to be the final version. But a copy of the recording "leaked" out to a disc jockey. The song was an instant hit, and as a result, the more polished vocal track that was at first envisioned was never recorded. Many radio stations, thinking the song "un-American" or "anti-American," banned it. But it sold so many copies that, in its issue dated September 25, 1965, Billboard magazine ranked it Number 1 on its Hot 100 anyway.
The backlash affected McGuire more after the song came down the charts: He never had another Top 40 hit. The Spokesmen, including David White of Danny & The Juniors, and John Medora, who co-wrote "At the Hop" with White, recorded an answer song, "Dawn of Correction." It praised civil rights advances, decolonization, the Peace Corps and the United Nations, so it wasn't a straight-ahead right-wing response. Country singer Johnny Seay, under the name "Johnny Sea," also recorded a spoken-word piece, "Day for Decision," which acknowledged the problems, but suggested that patriotism was the answer, when it clearly wasn't. Both songs became hits, though not big ones.
In 1966, Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler, who had been a combat medic in Vietnam, recorded "The Ballad of the Green Berets." It wasn't an intentional answer song, but many people treated the considerably more patriotic song as such, and it hit Number 1.
In 1970, The Temptations recorded "Ball of Confusion." Being a Motown production, it was much more slickly-produced. It hit many of the same ideas, and used the words "eve of destruction." More a sequel than an answer song, it hit Number 3. In 1972, Don McLean's "American Pie" hit some of the same themes, and hit Number 1.
McGuire appeared in the original Broadway production of Hair in 1968. In 1971, he became a born-again Christian, and began recording Christian rock. By the 1990s, he was again willing to play his former hits. After a 1999 school shooting, McGuire took the line about China and Alabama, and changed it to, "Then take a look around at Columbine, Colorado."
Barry McGuire, 2023
Larry Knechtel died in 2009, Phil Sloan in 2015, and Hal Blaine in 2019. As of September 25, 2025, Barry McGuire, Steve Barri and Lou Adler are still alive, and McGuire is still performing.
No comments:
Post a Comment