Department of English                               Gymnasium Steglitz Berlin

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In the story “The Human Being and the dinosaur” written by James Thurber a man and a dinosaur meet. After a while of staringat each other the man starts to talk to the dinosaur in a very rude way. He demonstrates how perfect the human being is and argues with words and phrases like “the chosen species”, “the certain survivor“ or “the monarch of all you survey”. After all taunts the dinosaur has one moment to say one scornful sentence. Then the man goes on with his performance. The closing paragraph of the story gives the reader the opinion that the dinosaur is not the survivor but the more intelligent species, because it says if all dinosaurs died they would have had a curious smile of satisfaction on their faces.
The story is not full of action. There is only one man talking and so it is boring. Because of that the story is not interesting for me and I would not read it in my free time. But in our world there must be such kind of stories to show us stupid people how stupid we are and that we won’t become megalomaniac. (Sep 2007)

Barry McGuire, Eve of Destruction

Eve Of Destruction
by Barry McGuire, 1965

The eastern world it tis explodin',
violence flarin', bullets loadin',
you're old enough to kill but not for votin',
you don't believe in war, what's that gun you're totin',
and even the Jordan river has bodies floatin',
but you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

Don't you understand, what I'm trying to say?
Can't you see the fear that I'm feeling today?
If the button is pushed, there's no running away,
There'll be noone to save with the world in a grave,
take a look around you, boy, it's bound to scare you, boy,
but you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

Yeah, my blood's so mad, feels like coagulatin',
I'm sittin' here, just contemplatin',
I can't twist the truth, it knows no regulation,
handful of Senators don't pass legislation,
and marches alone can't bring integration,
when human respect is disintegratin',
this whole crazy world is just too frustratin',
and you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

Think of all the hate there is in Red China!
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama!
Ah, you may leave here, for four days in space,
but when your eturn, it's the same old place,
the poundin' of the drums, th pride and disgrace,
you can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace,
hate your next-door-neighbour, but don't forget to say grace,
and you tell me over and over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

"Eve of Destruction" is one of the first protest songs of rock music. The song was written by P. F. Sloan and became a number one hit in the USA after its release in 1965.

First Sloan offered the song to The Byrds, who declined it. Then The Turtles recorded the song and released it on their album “It Ain’t Me, Babe” in 1965. After that a radio station got hold of  Barry McGuire’s song in a raw version, which was meant to be revised again, and published it. Thereby the song became a number one hit being a preliminary version.

The song is composed of four staves. The first two have seven verses in which two of them are refrain. The third has nine verses with the normal refrain and the fourth stave has ten verses in which three are refrains.

The title of the song explains to us what it is about. Eve of Destruction means something like the end of the world, so the content mentions the reasons for this statement. Already the first stave deals with the East-West Conflict (“The Eastern world, it is explodin’” line:1) and additionalyl with child soldiers (“You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’” line:3), especially relating to the 18-year-old Americans who were not allowed to vote but to kill in the Vietnam war because they were recruited. In the second stave he picks up the refrain, mainly with rhetorical questions (line:8,9). After that the song asks to have a look around the world (line:12) to realize the situation which has to scare the addressee (“it's bound to scare you, boy” line:12). The third stave is very disordered and abstract. You can interpret a lot of things. The only clue is the sentence “Handful of senators don't pass legislation, an' marches alone can't bring integration” which makes a suggestion about the discrimination of the Afro-American population in the USA. The fourth stave is similar to the third one.  The more aggressive suggestions are the only difference (“You can bury your dad, but don't leave a trace” line:29). This sentence makes a suggestion about the Christian cant of the American middle class.

After its release the song met with a refusal, because at the beginning of the Vietnam War and in the middle of the Cold War, most of the Americans didn’t like the song being an unpatriotic comment. Some people say that even the FBI compiled a dossier about Barry McGuire in the sixties, but but this might only be a rumour. But fact is that many radio stations in the USA and Great Britain boycotted Eve of Destruction or broadcast it only with the song of the Spokesmen, “Dawn of Correction”, which was officially against the statement of Barry McGuire. Another interesting fact is that McGuire never regarded his song as a protest song, rather as a “diagnosis of the human condition”. But I think it is one of the best protest songs because it deals with so many problems and conflicts which exist all over the world even today: for example the above mentioned child soldiers, the East-West conflict, atomic threat by new nuclear powers and discrimination of minorities. These are all problems which still exist today. The mixture of the angry and desperate atmosphere, which can be felt throughout in the song, made it one of the most important protest anthems of the Love and Peace Generation.

All in all you can say that the song Eve of Destruction is a very aggressive song. In my opinion it is one of the best protest songs, because of the high number of problems which are brought up in it and the relevance to the present situation. (Dec 2007)