Monday, March 12, 2018

Monday Music "Age of Aquarius" by the 5th Dimension

I don't know if I had covered this song before, but if I did, it was a long time ago.   I remembered this song being on my Dads reel to reel recorder.  It to me did showcase the 60's to me musically and it was to me considered a "bookend" song for the decade.

   The image above is what most people think of when they hear this song, the peace, and love generation the counter culture had gone mainstream and it changed music forever.
    Now there are a few people like me and others like my Dad and others that were around during this time, when we hear the song, this is the image that we think of,
UH-1 (Huey) dropping men off on a mountain during an operation.


"Medley: Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures)" (commonly called "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In", "The Age of Aquarius" or "Let the Sunshine In") is a medley of two songs written for the 1967 musical Hair by James Rado and Gerome Ragni(lyrics), and Galt MacDermot (music), released as a single by American R&B group The 5th Dimension. The song peaked at number one for six weeks on the US Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart in the spring of 1969. The single topped the American pop charts and was eventually certified platinum in the US by the RIAA. Instrumental backing was written by Bill Holman and provided by session musicians commonly known as the Wrecking Crew. The actual recording is something of a "rarity"; the song was recorded in two cities, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, then mixed together in the studio, afterwards.
The song listed at number 66 on Billboard's "Greatest Songs of All Time".


This song was one of the most popular songs of 1969 worldwide, and in the United States it reached the number one position on both the Billboard Hot 100 (for six weeks in April and May) and the Billboard Adult Contemporaries Chart. It also reached the top of the sales charts in Canada and elsewhere. Billboard ranked it as the No. 2 record overall for 1969.
The recording won both the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Group for the Grammy Awards of 1970, after being published on the album The Age of Aquarius by the 5th Dimension, and also being released as a seven-inch vinyl single record.
The lyrics of this song were based on the astrological belief that the world would soon be entering the "Age of Aquarius", an age of love, light, and humanity, unlike the current "Age of Pisces". The exact circumstances for the change are "When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars." This change was presumed to occur at the end of the 20th century; however, astrologers differ extremely widely as to when. Their proposed dates range from 2062 to 2680.
Astrologer Neil Spencer denounced the lyrics as "astrological gibberish", noting that Jupiter forms an astrological aspect with Mars several times a year and the moon is in the 7th House for two hours every day. These lines are considered by many to be merely poetic license, though some people take them literally.


3 comments:

  1. Sigh, that one brings back some fond memories...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Old NFO;

      I am sure that song reminded you of some of the "Oh Crap" I got away with stuff, LOL

      Delete
  2. The song sounded great even on AM. Even on the little transistor radios we had. I'm thinking I was between sixth and seventh grade when it was a hit.

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