Woodstock—Forty Years Later

Wouldn't our society now feel more stable and more secure, if we hadn't gone to Woodstock?

Did we miss someone's birthday? Yes, someone just hit the big 4-zero. Do you remember the Woodstock Festival back in 1969? "I'm going down to Yasgur's farm, gonna join me a rock and roll band." So the song went. And they came – by the hundreds of thousands, with some estimates as high as half a million, to White Lake, New York, for what was billed as "three days of peace and music."

As it turned out, those three days back in August of 1969 became more like three days of music and mud. It rained! And it rained! And it rained some more! It got cold and muddy, though that didn't stop some 500,000 young people from feasting on rock music from many of the most popular bands and singers of the time. There were Richie Havens, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Country Joe and the Fish, Janis Joplin, the Who, and Jimi Hendrix, among others.

I suppose it's sort of an age test to ask someone if he or she remembers all those names. The rock stars have mostly gone now, with some having succumbed to drug overdoses, and with varying levels of celebrity these 40 years later.

But what of the influence of Woodstock, and the cultural revolution it epitomized back then?

What of Jimi Hendrix appearing on stage drugged and unable to present the musical talent he was capable of? And Country Joe and the Fish spelling out an expletive that still shocked the older folks? And all the talk of "free love," really a euphemism for free sex? Where are we left, in the aftermath of Woodstock and its influence?

During the festival, an anarchist group pulled down the fence that was intended to limit access to the farm. Was this a metaphor for the fences and restraints then being torn down by this youth-led rejection of traditional values? And are we better off for it all?

40 years, and the fences have come down, that's for sure. Fences of sexual morality, drugs, propriety, values. It all looks quite different in 2009. One has to wonder whether we might have been better off sticking with the old values. Wouldn't our society now feel more stable and more secure, if we hadn't gone to Woodstock?

It's worth considering, and asking ourselves about our values now. Values needed to carry us through this twenty-first century. "Woodstock, who do you think you are?" And who do we think we are now?