My Three Major
and Most Significant
Influences from The West
During The Late 1960s
and Early 1970s
Introduction:
Pop/Rock music, the protest movement against the war in Vietnam by youths in the West, and the works of Western writers and thinkers were my three major influences during the late 1960s, while I was still a secondary school student in Victoria School, Singapore.
(A) POP/ROCK MUSIC (Media: Rediffusion; Radio; Record Albums):I was already hooked onto the early exciting songs of The Beatles in my primary school days. It was a time of Beatlemania. The Beatles became an unprecedented worldwide pop culture phenomenon. The English pop/rock music group was to become my all-time favourite band. They dominated popular music in the 1960s. The Beatles opened up an exciting new world of hope, joy and sense of freedom for me.
Most of the Beatles' songs were sung and written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon.
Guitarists, singers and composers John Lennon (1940-80), Paul McCartney (1942- ), and George Harrison (1943-2001), and drummer Ringo Starr (Richard starkey; 1940- ) won fame in Britain with their recording "Please Please Me" (1963). The 1964 song "I Want to Hold Your Hand" introduced them to the United States, where their concerts became scenes of mass adulation.
Revolver (1966) and
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) are ranked among their finest albums.
(James) Paul McCartney is an English singer, guitarist and song-writer, and a key member of the Beatles (1959-70). McCartney's contributions were predominantly ballads, including "Yesterday" (1965), "Hey Jude" (1969) and "Let It Be" (1970). After he left the Beatles, McCartney and his first wife, Linda Eastman McCartney, subsequently formed and performed with the rock band Wings (1971-81)), recording such albums as Band On the Run (1973). His more recent solo albums include
Tug of War (1982),
Flaming Pie,
Memory Almost Full, and
Chaos and Creation in the Backyard.
A rock musician, John Lennon was a founding member of the Beatles. Along with Paul McCartney, John Lennon wrote most of the Beatles' music, including "A Hard Day's Night" (1964), "Help" (1965), "Strawberry Fields Forever" (1966), "A Day in the Life" (1967) and "Revolution" (1968). As a social critic, John Lennon wrote "Give Peace A Chance" (1969) and "Imagine" (1971). Lennon married Yoko Ono in 1969 and continued to compose and sing after the Beatles disbanded in 1970 -- with such great songs as "God", "The Luck of the Irish" and "Jealous Guy". He was shot to death on December 8, 1980 by crazed fan named Mark David Chapman. John Lennon's murder by the demented fan Mark Chapman in New York City on December 8, 1980 caused mass mourning around the world.
All Things Must Pass (1970) was George Harrison's finest post-Beatles solo album and, according to rock critic Nigel Williamson, "arguably the best post-Beatles solo album of them all." George Harrision, according to Sir George Martin (the Beatles' record producer), was never regarded at the same level by John, Paul or him. But George's songs did get better -- "until eventually they got extremely good." George's growing skills as a songwriter was evidently and eventually recognized by the listening public. His "While MY Guitat Gently Weeps", is, according to Nigel Williamson, "one of
The White Album's most enduring tracks." And, to Nigel, George's classic song "Something", which appeared in the album
Abbey Road (and was also the second most covered Beatles song after "Yesterday"), was finally able to rival the greatest compositions of John and Paul. And who can forget "Here Comes The Sun" (from
Abbey Road), which was another song that matched many of John's and Paul's contributions to the album.
The Beatles created many great albums -- such as
Rubber Soul (1965),
The White Album (1968),
Abbey Road (1969) and
Let It Be (1970) -- and numerous hit songs (mostly as singles issued from these great albums), and were always growing as musicians and songwriters. As the group matured in the late 1960s, their songs became more lyrically complex and more sombre in melody. These songs elevated them into another higher level of commercial and artistic achievements. But they were, to me, still at their most brilliant and creative best singing ballads.
Even though I later became interested in listening to other pop and rock groups or artistes from the 1960s and 1970s, I had never given up my high opinion of this great band and their wonderful, amazing songs. They were not just a very successful pop group. They had, as the rock magazine writer Sean Egan wrote, "socio-political impact as de facto leaders of the world's youth during the 1960s". They reflected the Sixties youth counter-cultural values (such as peace, love, freedom and brotherhood), which I had absorbed with a sense of liberation. They represented, in the words of Sean Egan again, "the young, fresh, optimistic, and insurgent zeitgeist of that tumultous decade."
Jack Kroll, writing in Newsweek on 23 October 1995, commented: "What the Beatles did in the '60s remains the most thrilling surge of creativity innthe history of pop culture. They obliterated distinctions of high and low ...... They made it clear that if art is to survive in the techno-millennium that looms ahead, it must be hooked into the realities and redemptions in the days of our lives."
I had grown up with The Beatles, and they had profoundly influenced my life--and my personality and character, and my attitudes and beliefs--as a man, human being, citizen and writer. Good morning, World!
(B) THE PROTEST MOVEMENT IN THE LATE 1960s AGAINST THE WAR IN VIETNAM(Newspapers and News Magazines):Even as a primary school student, I was deeply affected and disturbed by reading reports of wars and violent conflicts in the Straits Times daily. In secondary school, outside school hours, I was also reading political literature written by authors with anti-totalitarian beliefs. Such reading of anti-establishment literature contributed to my anti-war attitude and beliefs. I became an unconditional and strong supporter of the protest movement by youths in the West against the war in Vietnam.
To this day, I never regretted my fervent support for these anti-war protest movements in the West by youths and by many intellectually or artistically inclined leftist critics of the war in Vietnam. This is especially true now, when I am acquainted with the anti-imperialistic and anti-war writings of such Western intellectuals as Noam Chomsky, who is a prominent and vocal American critic of American foreign policy --especially its aggressive interventions in other countries.
(C) THE WORKS OF WESTERN THINKERS AND WRITERS -- IN CONTRAST TO THOSE OF CONFUCIUS AND OTHER CHINESE/ASIAN ONES (Books): I am not a leftist myself. I would rather consider myself a libertarian and a liberal (to use more traditional terms) or a democrat (to use a more modern political term). Although I am a Chinese-Singaporean, I see no need to apologise for my deep, wide and strong interest in the humanist intellectual tradition of the West -- in contrast to the works or writings of Asian or, more specifically, Chinese thinkers and writers. Why is this so? I will use the philosophical (or moral) teachings of the world-reknown and highly-respected Chinese thinker Confucius as an example to explain and show why I greatly prefer to focus and concentrate most of my time and effort on reading and learning from the writings and works of,
not Chinese (or Asian) thinkers and writers generally
but instead, Western thinkers and writers particularly!
To put it simply, I consider Confucian teachings too intellectually limited and deficient in range, variety, depth, quality, and interest. The great Chinese philosopher, Confucius, as a teacher and moral and political philosopher, is just too conservative -- with all his stress on traditions!--for me. How could I possibly accept his conservative, morality-centred teachings as my own?
It is interesting that former PM Lee Kuan Yew and the rest of the PAP leaders have now stopped using, promoting and championing Confucian ideas and principles to justify their autocratic and authoritarian practices and methods of government in Singapore. Yes, Lee Kuan Yew first championed "Asian" values; then he found it unworkable and indefensible as a concept (too much diversity in Asian religions, cultures and philosophies!). So he spoke, instead, of Chinese (or more specifically, Confucian) values!
But he still found too many people challenging his justification of his brand of autocratic and authoritarian government through the use of Confucian values! So now, Lee just talks solely about
Singapore's own brand, method or way of government --without reference to either Asian, Chinese or Confucian values! (But what I want to ask is: Is it Lee Kuan Yew's way of government -- or THE SINGAPORE WAY OF GOVERNMENT -- that Lee Kuan Yew himself is promoting, defending and championing? And has LKY's method of government -- or what he would like to call Singapore's method of government -- absolutely NO place whatsoever for a libertarian and a liberal like me? Should I then, well, contemplate emigrating to a country like Australia or the U.S.A -- so that I can be more truly productive and creative, as a man, human being, citizen and professional writer?)
But I have digressed -- though not pointlessly. Just to repeat: I had already begun to form a range and depth of anti-establishment views and positions during these early youthful years as a thinking (and thus questioning) student.
And so, with all the learning from my wide and deep (mostly reading) experiences and knowledge (that I had already acquired from my time and effort spent in educating myself -- mostly in Western culture, philosophy and literature), yes, even before I entered the army as an eighteen-year-old National Serviceman on 20 December 1971, I had already become such a disillusioned young thinker -- with great antipathy towards the military establishment as well as the authoritarian and autocratic PAP Government at that time -- which my self-education up to that point in time had encouraged! Was it any wonder, I can now wisely ask -- knowing myself as I was then and now with the benefit of hindsight, that I eventually went Absent Without Official Leave from my military camp at that time -- just a few months after I was enlisted?
Well, the rest of my life from that crucial moment onwards, when I became a practical demonstration of what it meant to be a protesting
anti-establishment -- and thus unwilling and unhappy-- full-time infantry soldier (for two-and-a-half years in the highly-regimented, submission-required and obedience-demanded Singapore Armed Forces), has now become posted with so many significant (and often undesired and undesirable) events and happenings that have had influenced or affected me personally; and my own story or history has thus been greatly transformed -- for better or worse! (And I'm still trying to find out!).
