Ginsberg and Leary in John Henry lyrics

No one wants freedom of thought, so they demand freedom of speech as a sort of compensation.

-- Kevin Solway

It's hard to remember sometimes (though Flansy has been making it a bit easier lately) that They Might Be Giants are Boomers, and that their allusions are often to the music and "culture" of that period. I've been listening to their 1994 album John Henry these days -- especially "I Should Be Allowed To Think" and "The End of the Tour."

"I Should Be Allowed" begins with the Very Serious opening lines of Allen Ginsberg's degenerate beatnik pedo cri de coeur, set to the lighter-than-air advertising-jingle tune of the Association's "Everyone knows it's Win-dy" -- a juxtaposition which strikes me as a pretty clear-eyed appraisal of that era. The nod to the Association also brings to mind their "Enter the young, yeah, they've learned to think" -- an unintentionally ironic precursor to TMBG's intentionally ironic song. ("Enter the young" would of course have meant something quite different to NAMBLA member Allen Ginsberg!)

"The End of the Tour" begins thus:

There's a girl with a crown and a scepter
Who's on WLSD
And she says that the scene isn't what it's been
And she's thinking of going home

What is this but a veiled reference to Leary's mantra? Tune in (the radio station), turn on (LSD), drop out (go home).