Music and the Elusive Revolution by Drott Eric;

Author:Drott, Eric;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2012-01-22T16:00:00+00:00

POLITICS INTO ROCK/ROCK INTO POLITICS

Although the reaction of the rock community to gauchiste interventions in the Aix and Biot festivals had been overwhelmingly negative, other dissenting voices could be heard in the aftermath of l’été pop. One letter to the editor of Rock & Folk chided the magazine’s critics for misrepresenting the activists who had disrupted the festivals. Far from being the “agitated minority of little lazy bums” described by Vassal, the individuals who had interceded on behalf of le peuple were, in the opinion of the letter writer, better attuned to the unfulfilled desires of French youth than the critics for Rock & Folk cared to admit. What these authors failed to recognize was that the hopes aroused two years before, during May and June 1968, still animated French youth culture: “In France, there was May. Whether one likes it or not, consciously or not, the pop movement at its deepest level . . . is inextricably linked to the need for revolution.”102 The experience of communion that youth sought out in rock festivals was symptomatic of deeper political aspirations—aspirations that had been displaced but not wholly extinguished. Should pop festivals be banned in France going forward, this would only fuel the public’s hunger to see realized the utopia for which festivals were but a faint presentiment: “What if next year we aren’t offered any more lovely pop festivals? But we are waiting for another, much more fabulous and much more generous festival, that of the oppressed. Do you know what that is called?”103

Judging from the bulk of articles and published letters, such full-throated support for the actions of the ex–Gauche prolétarienne represented a minority position within the rock community. Nevertheless, advocates for a more thoroughgoing politicization of la pop’ music became an increasingly vocal constituency in the latter months of 1970. While most fans worried that the infusion of politics into pop simply increased the likelihood of governmental crackdowns, others contended that this represented the best way to make the music speak directly to the hopes, desires, and frustrations of French youth. From this perspective, the continuing resilience of gauchisme within French youth culture, instead of representing an obstacle to the emerging rock community, was a resource that it could draw upon, especially in warding off the threat posed by commercial interests. As Chris Warne has pointed out, this marked something of a departure: “What was once derided as an outmoded and restrictive force in France, preventing the emergence of a local counterculture . . . now appears to be acting as a kind of protection, the ground from which the countercultural resistance to recuperation will be conducted.”104 The tenacious grip of gauchisme, once viewed as an impediment, was transformed into a means of guaranteeing the French counterculture’s integrity.

The emergence of a faction of politically engaged rock enthusiasts was underlined by the formation in fall 1970 of the Force de libération et d’intervention pop (FLIP), an organization that explicitly sought to marry rock music and left-wing agitation. In

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