7 O'Clock News/Silent Night Lyrics
The recent fight in the House of Representatives was over the open housing
section of the Civil Rights Bill.
Brought traditional enemies together but it left the defenders of the
measure without the votes of their strongest supporters.
President Johnson originally proposed an outright ban covering discrimination
by everyone for every type of housing but it had no chance from the start
and everyone in Congress knew it.
A compromise was painfully worked out in the House Judiciary Committee.
In Los Angeles today comedian Lenny Bruce died of what was believed to be an
overdoes of narcotics.
Bruce was 42 years old.
Dr. Martin Luther King says he does not intend to cancel plans for an open
housing march Sunday into the Chicago suburb of Cicero.
Cook County Sheriff Richard Ogleby asked King to call off the march and the
police in Cicero said they would ask the National Guard to be called out
if it is held.
King, now in Atlanta, Georgia, plans to return to Chicago Tuesday.
In Chicago Richard Speck, accused murderer of nine student nurses, was brought
before a grand jury today for indictment.
The nurses were found stabbed an strangled in their Chicago apartment.
In Washington the atmosphere was tense today as a special subcommittee of the
House Committee on Un-American activities continued its probe into anti-
Viet nam war protests.
Demonstrators were forcibly evicted from the hearings when they began chanting
anti-war slogans.
Former Vice-President Richard Nixon says that unless there is a substantial
increase in the present war effort in Viet nam, the U.S. should look forward
to five more years of war.
In a speech before the Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in New York,
Nixon also said opposition to the war in this country is the greatest single
weapon working against the U.S.
That's the 7 o'clock edition of the news,
Goodnight.
Holy night
All is calm
All is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.
Yes, when I first heard this song, I cried. Chills went down my spine. It is a great recap of all that was going on at the time. What means the most to me, though, is the part about Chicago's Richard Speck, as well as Cicero, since I live right near there.
what poetic geneouses!!!
i love this song. genius. the juxtaposition between silent night and the evening news is REALLY powerful. it's amazing it gives me the shivers.
i love the ingenious juxtaposition created by simon & garfunkel.... they are practically my favorite artists...
Wow, the 60's were just so bloody cool, weren't they!
This is an amazing song. It's incredible. Geniuses!
This hauntingly beautiful piece of music is the final song on the "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, And Thyme" album. The first time I heard this, it brought me to tears. Truly a moving song, something we're in pretty short supply of these days.
I wish there's an updated one because of all the shit that's going on now.
Of course it's possible to look at the other items in the news report, civil rights and Martin Luther King etc. and contrast them with the spirit of "Silent Night".
But to me this is first and foremost an anti-war song.
The choice of "Silent Night" ("Stille Nacht") evokes when this carol was famously sung simultaneously by German and British troops during the Christmas truce in World War I.
By placing this with the final news item on protests against the war, it asks why fighting couldn't cease in Vietnam just like it had in 1914. The album was released in late 1966, so Christmas wasn't far away.
In the context of the song, the final statement "opposition to the war in this country is the greatest single weapon working against the U.S." is like a rallying cry, subverting its original meaning to tell the listener that actively opposing the war is the best way to bring it to an end.
The "news broadcast" is actually a collection of the some of the headlines of the times read together as if they were a single news announcement. I think the song is primarily anti-war, but it's also just a sad commentary on the chaos of the time.
Additionally, considering the fact that the news wasn't actual news but a selection of stories put together by the recording studio: it makes sense that the underlying message might be the necessity of standing up for yourself and for what's right.
Additionally, considering the fact that the news wasn't actual news but a selection of stories put together by the recording studio: it makes sense that the underlying message might be the necessity of standing up for yourself and for what's right.
Standing up against the Vietnam war might get you blacklisted by HUAC, but it's the "greatest single weapon" working to end the war.
Standing up against the Vietnam war might get you blacklisted by HUAC, but it's the "greatest single weapon" working to end the war.
Speck, alone, killed nine nurses by strangling them with their own bedsheets, and none of them fought back.
Speck, alone, killed nine nurses by strangling them with their own bedsheets, and none of them fought back.
etc.
etc.