Hypnotized and Social Responsibility

[michelej1]

This is a excerpt from a Salon.com by Camille Paglia, which weaves a song reference into an article about the political problems of today:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/09/09/healthcare/print.html

But dreaming in the 1960s and '70s had a spiritual dimension that is long gone in our crassly materialistic and status-driven time. Here's a gorgeous example: Bob Welch's song "Hypnotized." which appears on Fleetwood Mac's 1973 album "Mystery to Me." (The contemplative young man in this recent video is not Welch.) It's a peyote dream inspired by Carlos Castaneda's fictionalized books: "They say there's a place down in Mexico/ Where a man can fly over mountains and hills/ And he don't need an airplane or some kind of engine/ And he never will." This exhilarating shamanistic vision (wonderfully enhanced by Christine McVie's hymnlike backing vocal) captures the truth-seeking pilgrimages of my generation but also demonstrates the dangerous veering away from mundane social responsibilities. If the left is an incoherent shambles in the U.S., it's partly because the visionaries lost their bearings on drugs, and only the myopic apparatchiks and feather-preening bourgeois liberals are left. (I addressed the drugs cataclysm in "Cults and Cosmic Consciousness: Religious Vision in the American 1960s" in the Winter 2003 issue of Arion.)

[aleuzzi]

It's an interesting description of the song (especially like her calling Christine's background vocals hymn-like), but it's a tad out of context. A better example of a Welch song that might have worked is "Future Games." And, if Paglia has ever heard them, some of Bob's live talk-ups of this song on various bootlegs are even more apt...

[Madelow]

Hello Aleuzzi, I think you're right on the money. But, I like the reference anyway. I probably need to read some of Carlos' books. best wishes, Madelow.

[TrueFaith77]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/09/09/healthcare/index1.html

But dreaming in the 1960s and '70s had a spiritual dimension that is long gone in our crassly materialistic and status-driven time. Here's a gorgeous example: Bob Welch's song "Hypnotized." which appears on Fleetwood Mac's 1973 album "Mystery to Me." (The contemplative young man in this recent video is not Welch.) It's a peyote dream inspired by Carlos Castaneda's fictionalized books: "They say there's a place down in Mexico/ Where a man can fly over mountains and hills/ And he don't need an airplane or some kind of engine/ And he never will." This exhilarating shamanistic vision (wonderfully enhanced by Christine McVie's hymnlike backing vocal) captures the truth-seeking pilgrimages of my generation but also demonstrates the dangerous veering away from mundane social responsibilities. If the left is an incoherent shambles in the U.S., it's partly because the visionaries lost their bearings on drugs, and only the myopic apparatchiks and feather-preening bourgeois liberals are left. (I addressed the drugs cataclysm in "Cults and Cosmic Consciousness: Religious Vision in the American 1960s" in the Winter 2003 issue of Arion.)

My bad. This was old news. A friend sent it my way, so I thought it was news.

Anyway, since I posted, I should probably say something constructive.

I love how she contextualizes the song and, thus, the Welch-run Mac. Remember Stevie also id'd the mysticism running through the Mac before B/N joined. The struggles of Kirwan, Green, Spencer -- as expressed in their music -- certainly encapsulates the truth-seeking pilgrimages of the 60s youth. Welch extends that. I would ask: do people also think that Stevie and Lindsey joining the group reflected this "truth-seeking impulse" to the detriment of "social responsibilities"? Or was something else created by that dynamic.

Ah. Dynamic. See, what's also interesting to consider here is the "hymn-like" background singing of Christine McVie. Does her voice, then, represent that place of spiritual enlightenment or does she keep us grounded on the trek?