The 1965 number one that tore America and its creator apart: “I was still only 20 years old”
In America, the sound of the 1960s was defined by peace, love, and sunshine, all against the backdrop of gunfire while war blazed on at the sacrifice of their soldiers.
The effect of the Vietnam War was such that it galvanised a nation towards patriotism, while simultaneously tearing them apart as sections of society woke up to the futility of bloodshed and the needlessness of fighting as a whole. When the legacy likes to tell you that everything was coming up roses, the atmosphere was actually remarkably hostile.
In this sense, it was a nigh-on impossible task for artists to truly capture the zeitgeist, where at one end of the spectrum, you had The Beatles living in psychedelic delusion, and at the other, you had young people losing their lives and wanting to scream from the rooftops about it. Anyone willing to take that on as a challenge must have had a spine made of steel.
But then came along Barry McGuire in 1965, who ironically found himself at the heart of the crossfire, even though he was far away from the frontline. His song, ‘Eve of Destruction’, written by PF Sloan, became the only Vietnam War protest hit of the era to top the charts, but as you might imagine, it didn’t come without repercussions.
Indeed, ‘Eve of Destruction’ was never actually a cut that was meant to make it to air. McGuire recorded it in one take at the end of a studio session merely to fill the time, then only to find that it had been released as a single behind his back weeks later. As such, he found himself in the centre of a storm he never really asked to be part of.
Some lauded McGuire as an anti-war hero, others blasted his song as unpatriotic in seemingly criticising the efforts of the American troops, which consequently saw it banned from various radio stations and broadcasters, including the BBC. Still a young man at the time, it caught the singer somewhat unaware.
“The media frenzy over the song tore me up and seemed to tear the country apart,” McGuire later said. “I was an enemy of the people to some and a hero to others, but I was still only 20 years old, and nobody really was looking. I have felt it was a love song and written as a prayer because, to cure an ill you need to know what is sick. In my youthful zeal I hadn’t realized that this would be taken as an attack on The System!”
Throwing a 20-year-old to the lions on his first big break does seem a little unfair in this regard, but in a lot of ways, it represented exactly what would happen if anyone dared to take any form of bold step under those fractious circumstances. You were either going to get lauded or launched into the flames.
For the most part, McGuire managed to emerge from his tussle mostly unscathed, although he did notably find a greater sense of contentment in religion later on and eschew the spotlight. Maybe the experience was scarring: it’s difficult to say when you weren’t there. But whether he likes it or not, McGuire will go down in history as the man who dared to speak up.
