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Counterculture In The 50s

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Much of the 1960s built off the momentum of the 1950s. Not only was the birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the 50s, but culturally the societal pressures of conformity and obedience led to an outbreak of counterculture in the 1960s. With these new ideas and a new genre to voice them in, the 60s made way for a cultural backlash against society. One song that speaks to this discontent of societal constructs is “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones. Released in 1965, the country was rapidly changing but at the will of the men in power. In the 1960s, Americans were dissented by the variety of struggles towards civil rights, the wars, and greater freedom of expression. The song illustrates the frustration the American public was experiencing. …show more content…

People are resisting the draft in order to protest the war in Vietnam. People are performing sit-ins at universities like in Berkeley, California for freedom of speech. Without social change, they will not be satisfied. The Civil Rights Movement didn’t start in the 1960s. Since World War II, black americans had been breaking down the walls of segregation in the trenches and in the workplace. The Cold War created a gap in America’s rhetoric and the racial inequality. While the country was promoting freedom and justice abroad, they failed to do at home. This led to a wave of successes on part of the movement. The Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954, the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, and the beginning of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership in the …show more content…

Many people in the 1950s left that it was their patriotic duty to boost capitalism through shopping. The Stones are saying that one can not be satisfied and fulfilled through materialism. Even the line “Well he can't be a man cause he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as me” seems to invoke a division of the cigarette market. Whether it may be that white collar smoke a different brand of cigarettes than blue collar workers or white people smoke a different kind of cigarette than black people, both depict how advertising messages target different audiences to push their product to. The United States was divided due to new freedom in choice of

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