The Hot Hundred: A Surprise

ON July 4, when even “educational” station WNDT (Channel 13) in New York gave up a moiety of its time to a program titled “Expressions of Patriotism” (not anything, by the way, that would stir one’s corpuscles to a trot, much less a gallop), I thought to look into some recent issues of Billboard, the national trade weekly which keeps track of such things, to find out what the youth of America was singing, or at least listening to, in our current time of troubles. I had thought they were humming to the strumming of Pete Seeger and swinging to the singing of “old” Bob Dylan. To my complete surprise I soon discovered that the patriotic song—and I mean Patriotic with a capital “p”—the song sometimes bordering on pure bathos like “For God and Country and You, Mom,” and not, say, “We Shall Overcome” was the rage among the country’s teen-agers.

Reading over Billboard for June 4, I discovered there in show-biz journalism, which likes its stories in big, bold type and large, round numbers, that “the 300,000 Americans fighting in Vietnam are making an impact on the American popular music scene.” I also learned that “since January, well over 100 Vietnam records have been released, with five making the Billboard Hot 100 and a dozen making Billboard’s country charts.” I learned further that these songs are generally divided into two categories —patriotic and protest, with “the first category” (patriotic) leading “by far in number of releases and total sales.” In the issue of June 11, imprinted in bold red letters and embedded in the Number 78 slot of the “Hot 100” popular charts was a recording titled “Day for Decision.” Starting that far up from the bottom gave indication

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Max Geltman

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ON July 4, when even “educational” station WNDT (Channel 13) in New York gave up a moiety of its time to a program titled “Expressions of Patriotism” (not anything, by the way, that would stir one’s corpuscles to a trot, much less a gallop), I thought to look into some recent issues of Billboard, the national trade weekly which keeps track of such things, to find out what the youth of America was singing, or at least listening to, in our current time of troubles. I had thought they were humming to the strumming of Pete Seeger and swinging to the singing of “old” Bob Dylan. To my complete surprise I soon discovered that the patriotic song—and I mean Patriotic with a capital “p”—the song sometimes bordering on pure bathos like “For God and Country and You, Mom,” and not, say, “We Shall Overcome” was the rage among the country’s teen-agers.

Reading over Billboard for June 4, I discovered there in show-biz journalism, which likes its stories in big, bold type and large, round numbers, that “the 300,000 Americans fighting in Vietnam are making an impact on the American popular music scene.” I also learned that “since January, well over 100 Vietnam records have been released, with five making the Billboard Hot 100 and a dozen making Billboard’s country charts.” I learned further that these songs are generally divided into two categories —patriotic and protest, with “the first category” (patriotic) leading “by far in number of releases and total sales.” In the issue of June 11, imprinted in bold red letters and embedded in the Number 78 slot of the “Hot 100” popular charts was a recording titled “Day for Decision.” Starting that far up from the bottom gave indication