Friday, June 5, 1970
"Chr*st You Know It Ain't Easy"
by Charles Peter Eschweiler
in Derek Taylor's liner notes for
the Byrd's Turn Turn Turn al
bum, he said of the disc "Give
this album to grumpy uncles for
Christmas, it will help". The
statement is the sort of thing
that is whimsical and slightly ri
diculous sounding.
The statement, however, fits
John Sebastian's solo albums
SOHN B. .SEBASTIAN . . . RE
PRISE •63'79 perfectly.
Sebastian has always had a gift
for being amiable, as any old time
Lovin Spoonful freak can tell you.
Unfortunately too much •of his
verbal warmth of the Spoonful
days was - spoiled by the rest of the
band's slapstick clowning,
When the Spoonful broke up,
Sebastian went into hiding and
Was heaid of once in a while, as
being -contracted to Elektra and
doing an album that would knock
everyone out.
A year ago Elektra sent out
'their press releases and Hit Par
ader got an interview with Sebas
tian wherein he described his al
bum. Elektra never got around to
lINAF is a member of the National Coalition for a Responsible
Congress
Partial list of sponsors:
B. D. Aiken
Roger Albritton
Father Coleman Barry
Edward J. Blaustein
Felix Bloch
Konrad Bloch
Howard R. Bowen
Harvey Brooks
Jerome S. Bruner
Bernard BudianskY,
Mary Bunting
Owen Chamberlain
Jule Charney
Abram Chayes
Robert Cole "
Henry Steele Commager
Edward Condon.
Carl Djerassi
John T. Edsall '
Howard W. Emmons
Erik Erikson
.Bernard Feld
I enclose $
I also pledge a future donation of $ - .
I am willing to help work for the Fund on my campus at
(Name)
' (Address) ,
The Universities' National Anti-War Fund, Box 800, Cambridge,
Mass. 02139
releasing it, and Sebastian was
moving to Reprise records. Some
how in the shuffle MGM came in
and a year after the Sebastian
alblim was recorded moyed by
Elektra, it was brought out un
der Reprises label. A. few days la
ter MGM released an identical
version, both albums being called
John B. Sebastian.
Reprise had the legal right to
the album, since they bought it
from Elektra. MGM was being
charged with simply taping it off
a Reprise copy. At any rate MGM
is going broke and deservedly so
—they are rip-off artists.
While all this legal hassle was
going on, Sebastiin was touring,
The album was being praised and
it would seem he is at least recog
nized as the superstar (to use that
worn out term) he is.
The reason is his amiability. He
never forces a point when insinua
tion will do. You might say that
he's still thinking in 1967 terms
of flower power but the maturity
of his work on this album rules
that out.
Every number on the album has
Congress and the War
Since the. day American troops entered
Cambodia, people in the United States
have turned to Congress to end the war in
Southeast Asia.
In the weeks ahead we must insure that
the corning elections will create a Congress
that will be committed to peace, the with
drawal of American military presence from
Indo China and the prevention of other
Viet Nams.
The Universities' National Anti-War Fund
is committed to these goals.
We ask every faculty and staff member of
every college and university in the United
States to uledge a minimum of one day's
1.?1.Y to • the Fund.
The millions of dollars raised will:
Provide support on a non-partisan basis to
candidates for the House and Senate whose
election is critical to the cause of peace.
(Your support _may be earmarked for a
candidate of your choice or given to a
common fund administered by a National
Board.)
Buy television time, newspaper advertising
space and other publicity for the election
of peace candidates.
Send representatives of the university
community to Washington to lobby the
Congress or to any part of the country to
assist in critical local campaigns.
J. K. Galbraith
Bentley Glass
Nathan Glazer
A. D. Hershey
Hudson Hoaglund
H. Stuart Hughes
Roman Jakobson
Vernon Jordon
Gyorgy Kepes
Leon Kirchner
John Knowles
Joshua Lederberg
Daniel S. Lehman
Harry T. Levin
Cyrus Levinthal
Hans - Linde
Franklin Long
Edward Lowinsky
Salvador E. Luria
Lewis Mumford
Martin Peretz
Frank Press
to the Universities' National Anti-War Fund
Hollis F. Price
David Riesman
Allan. Robinson
Henry Rosolisky
Brunt) Rossi
Albert Sacks
Franz Sehurmann
Jose Luis Sert
Raymond Stever
Ascher Shapiro
Walter H. - Stockmayer
Albert Szent-Gyorgi
Lionel Trilling
Albert D. Ullman
Harold C. Urey
George Wald •
James D. Watson
Victor F. Weisskopf
Jacqueline Grennan Wexler
Jerome Wiesner
Herbert York
NITTANY CUB
a mood of reflection, as if Sebas
tian is giving us advice by simply
relating his past experiences.
Thus when Sebastian sings about
an old lover instead of Dylan's an
guished and still hoping there
might be something left as shown
in Just like a Woman, he looks at
a more objective way, such as in
one line from She's A Lady:
She's a lady, give her time for
she's allowed to change her
mind
She's a lady, happy to say that
she once was mine.
It is interesting to compare Se
bastian's feelings about many
things in his music to those of
Dylan's. Both men are the same
age and have the same back
ground (they probably played to
gether in the village folk scene at
one time).
Basically, Dylan and Sebastian
write on the same level, except
that Dylan is surrealistic and Se
bastian is realistic. When you lis
ten to Darling be Home Soon and
then to I Want You, you can rea
lize that there is little difference
beween the two. Dylan is a bit
more complex and hostile. Sebas
tian is hopeful, but practical, and
strangely fatalistic. Yet both
songs communicate the yearning
they are supposed to.
Sebastian's style would be su
perficially dismissed as not being
serious enough, yet it is just dif
ficult to write of complex situa
tions realistically and commun
icate them well as it is to take
them and fit them ino a surreal
vein.
As for hostility, most artists
realize maturity only after they've
gone through enough changes to
substitute communications of hos
tility to those of contentment.
Dylan managed to reach his
maturity in an ungraceful series
of moves that can be traced from
Delay Costs Money
University Park, Pa.,—Delay in
the State appropriation for 1969-
70 cost The Pennsylvania State
University $1,034,000 in interest
charges, President Eric A. Wal
ker said today.
The appropriation bill for the
year starting July 1, 1969, was
not signed into law until March
13, 1970. Payment of funds due
was made by the State late April,
In expressing the hope that no
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Blond on Blond to Nashville Sky
line, the line of separation being
the way John Wesley Harding
differentiated from Blond on
Blond.
Sebastian had achieved his style
by the time his music for the
soundtrack of You're A. Big Boy
Now came out. His way with
words have become so skillful that
his lyrics often outshine the
music.
Musically, the album is a de
light. Crosby Stills and• Nash do
most of the backing, and there's
not a „false not anywhere. Yet it's
Sebastian's show all tde way, and
it wouldn't matter if a •bunch of
unknowns backed him.
Anyone who can comment a bit
on the good old situation of get
ting, keeping, and worrying about
chicks with lines like:
"Dream on my man, you'll un
derstand what you do and what
you say her world turns another
way."
But you just can't,,, figure out,
just what she thinks about after
singing two verses before a few
lines that go;
"Well you say you been around
and you got it all together and
your diggin' where it's at any
your feeling real groovy.
Well that's not quite true, but
nice to meet you
I heard you spent time trying
to figure out a reason
Why you couldn't get along but
now the pain's easing" and be
able to sing it with a dirty hard
rock beat and some soul horns
punching it around, with a great
big grin in his voice does have
something together.
Those lines are from one song,
What She Thinks About, and
there are 10 others, each one as
good as the other. This album is
a fantastic 50Y. John Sebastian is
a big boy now.
such delay would be encountered
in passage of the 1970-71 appro
priations President Walker
said the cost resulting from the
delay had to be absorbed in the
education and research programs
of the University.
"We can ill afford this loss, es
pecially in a year when inflation
also reduced the net value of the
University appropriation", he
noted.
Students Discuss
Students In Revolt
A crucial question: where
peaceful demonstrations end and
where an angry confrontation be
gins, is discussed by those direct
ly involved, in Janet Harris's new
book, Students in Revolt (Mc-
Graw-Hill, $4.95).
Eyewitness accounts on whA is
happening today are provided by
Nesbitt Crutchfield, a member of
the Black Student Union at San
Francisco State College; Robert
Friedman, editor-in-chief of Co
lumbia University's daily newspa
per; Heidi Reichling and .Karl
Dietrick Wolff, respectively secre
tary and president of the West
German radical student organi
zation, Sozialistischer Deutscher
Studentenbund, plus others.
The young authors 'boldly ques
#oxi the universities' dedication in
preparing students for jobs, rather
than allowing time for true intel—
lectual exploration; the students
question their own demands—are
they too ambitious, or too timid?
They examine reasons for the
spread of the revolutionary spirit
world-wide.
The contributors to "Students
in Revolt" 'basically express the
students' desire for a larger share
in determining their own future.
They feel a need to participate in.
the black-white issue, the Viet
nam War, and opposition to the
draft and R.O.T.C. -
STUDENTS
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Whitehall Plaza
1-814-238-2600
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