Being a bit older than myself, and a few others here, you have a slightly different perspective than I/we do, that being that you experienced some of the music and the times that I/we were a little young for. I noticed that when you were talking about the Beatles too. I remember some of the old Beatles on the radio (Hard Days Night etc), but was too young to be aware of when they first came to America and Beatle mania first hit. Same with Dylan - was too young to be caught up in the folk and beat poet kind of thing as it was happening. Obviously I'm aware of all these things, and am old enough that the times aren't too much off from my direct experience, but I enjoy getting the perspective of people that have clear memories of those times and the impact of those artists in their earliest years.
Omer, I would like to be younger than I am because growing old is a pain in the butt and other places as well but experiencing that time of the emergence of Elvis, the British Invasion and evolution of rock was a time unlike any other and while we all reveled in it at the time, it was only when looking back that we truly appreciated what we had experienced first hand.
We were the first generation to basically thumb our noses at tradition and what made our parents the people that they were. We took every opportunity to flaunt our new found freedom, that they had fought and sacrificed for, in their faces. This was not everyone but I was like that. I rebelled just to rebel.
I used to think they, the older generation, were just jealous and afraid of us but later on as I began to mature and really look back at those times of rebellion and building our own world, I realized they were not afraid of us but afraid for us. We weren't the first to want hedonistic lifestyles and rules suspended for us, but we were the first to give into it in mass quantities, it was all about fun. We were owed fun and earning fun wasn't fun and the banks saw our need to have fun now and pay later and the credit card was created.
I see complaints about the younger generation and just laugh, that's what my generation gave this country. We screwed up a lot of things including one of our own getting a bj in the oval office and accepting that. But we had great music and a lot of fun.
