T-I-M-E, Charging Up for Change

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Oh, but I remember the frumpy fifties so well…as if they were but a few years ago instead of half a century…! The leap in to the 1960 gave us all a welcome shock. Looking back, though, how much do we recall as it really was and how much has been airbrushed along the way by a cult mythology...?

Oh, but where DOES the time go, eh?

T-I-M-E, CHARGING UP FOR CHANGE

Oh, those formal, frumpy fifties!

BBC TV announcers

in evening dress even in the afternoon…

Glued to the radio (hangover

from a bleak wartime) while the likes

of Bronco, Cheyenne, Wells Fargo

and Wagon Train harvest rich myths  

of the old American West

for future generations to look back

with pride, the shame

of Wounded Knee left to Hollywood

with poor excuses

Off ‘n’ away with post-war blues,

we’re looking good…

Enter, skiffle and Lonnie Donegan

before rock and roll began

to take root and Juke Box Jury

woke us all up from days

of ballroom dancing to bold frontiers

of disco (forget the Lone Ranger

and Tonto); Mods and rockers fighting

each other for tabloid headlines,

girls adapting their hemlines to more

than simply fashion…

boys discovering drainpipe trousers

and winkle-picker shoes

Off ‘n’ away with post-war blues,

let the good times roll…

Along came Z-cars, eagerly elbowing out

dear old Dixon of Dock Green

(shortly doomed to bite the dust along

with Bronco and the rest);

the sixties taking over, Beatlemania

on a par with world religions,

politics fair game for anyone free

(supposedly) to indulge controversial

opinions of their own

so long as nothing likely to offend

Cold War ethics among gentlemen spies

and old boy networks

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in  A Feeling For The Quickness Of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]