It Was 1965

It was 1965. Anything could happen in 1965.

That's a line from the Paul Revere & the Raiders chapter in my work-in-progress book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). I've written many times of my affection for 1965, of my belief that '65 was pop music's best year ever. There was something magic about 1965, at least in my mind, in my curated memory, edited by my brain in earnest effort to reconcile the facts and figures recorded by history with my recollections of being five years old. It was 1965. Anything could happen in 1965.

It wasn't necessarily only good things that could happen. My Godmother, my Aunt Connie, died in 1965, and I was just devastated. My brother Rob was in a horrible car accident that he was fortunate to have survived. Great songs on the radio couldn't fix any of that. 

But those great songs still remain a conscious inspiration to me. From The Beatles to Wilson Pickett, 1965 stands out as the year when the best stuff was popular, and the popular stuff was best. 1966 may have offered higher highs, and 1964 gave us the giddy rush of the British Invasion, but '65 was consistent. Top of the pops. 

So 1965 looms large in my legend, and it's well represented in my book. But...that line. "It was 1965. Anything could happen in 1965." I wrote it as a summary of the world of possibilities opening up for Paul Revere & the Raiders in '65, but it's become something more to me. I can't explain (1965!), I think it's love. And I think it's a line I'm going to use again in a different project.

I've been toying with an idea for an extended story. I can't tell you anything about it, and it's in a very early stage of creation. It's a story I've been picking at for quite some time, but I've been...I dunno, reluctant to even work on it, concerned about spoiling its pristine conception by trying to make it real. Currently, it's in that perfect fantasy state of vague, undeveloped notion; I kind of know what it's going to be, but neither nuts nor bolts (nor even blueprint) exist yet. 

It's fiction, and it's set in the present day. I see it as a comic-book mini-series rather than a prose work, but we'll see. I've just begun the long process of committing some of the broad strokes to the blank computer screen that is my canvas. And it opens with a dream-sequence flashback: 

It was 1965. Anything could happen in 1965.

Maybe nothing will happen with it this year. I have other projects in need of attention, especially that Greatest Record Ever Made! book that I hope will capture the fancy of some publisher. But I also want to work on this idea, this love letter to an imaginary 1965, when anything could happen.

Maybe this is the year I make it happen.

1966 cover date, on the stands in '65.

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Fans of pop music will want to check out Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, a new pop compilation benefiting SPARK! Syracuse, the home of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. TIR'N'RR Allstars--Steve Stoeckel, Bruce Gordon, Joel Tinnel, Stacy Carson, Eytan Mirsky, Teresa Cowles, Dan Pavelich, Irene Peña, Keith Klingensmith, and Rich Firestone--offer a fantastic new version of The Kinks' classic "Waterloo Sunset." That's supplemented by eleven more tracks (plus a hidden bonus track), including previously-unreleased gems from The Click Beetles, Eytan Mirsky, Pop Co-Op, Irene Peña, Michael Slawter (covering The Posies), and The Anderson Council (covering XTC), a new remix of "Infinite Soul" by The Grip Weeds, and familiar TIRnRR Fave Raves by Vegas With Randolph, Gretchen's Wheel, The Armoires, and Pacific Soul Ltd. Oh, and that mystery bonus track? It's exquisite. You need this. You're buying the digital download from from Futureman, and/or the CD from Kool Kat Musik.

(And you can still get our 2017 compilation This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4, on CD from Kool Kat Musik and as a download from Futureman Records.)

Get MORE Carl! Check out the fourth and latest issue of the mighty Big Stir magazine at bigstirrecords.com/magazine

Hey, Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 100 essays (and then some) about 100 tracks, plus two bonus instrumentals, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).