Woodstock…My Story

Woodstock, yeah, I was there in 1969 for that celebration of life through music. Some still crack it up to a big drug and sex fest. When I talk seriously about Woodstock, I usually get the frivolous stock reaction, “who remembers anything, everyone was stoned out of their minds”. I think this misses the point that there was a cultural revolution in the air and the creative music of the day was the medium for new ideas and possibilities, realities that ran against the grain of the status quo, and still does today.

I mean in 69’ the social-cultural fabric of the country was unraveling from heavy waves; civil rights, the assassinations, women’s liberation, the war. For me everything was being called into question. All the music from Dylan to Woodstock got into my tamped down mind, opening up new ideas and realities that didn’t get delivered through “all the crap I learned back in high school” (P.Simon).

Woodstock was a transformative community building event. It worked for three days. As I recall a quarter million kindred souls mingling and grooving out there on Max Yasgar’s Farm, no one got gunned down, knifed or murdered and a riot never broke out. Try pulling that off today on any 4 points of the global compass and you’ll likely get a riot if not outright war because so many people have lost their human connections and compassion for the way community could and still can be.

Woodstock demonstrated that possibility to me and I haven’t let that go since 1969. That “we got to get ourselves back to the garden and set our souls free” (J.Mitchell) is not some irrelevant throw away cliche from the 60’s when you look outward at the global human condition 40 years later in 2009.

People yammering on about drugs and sex simply want you to miss the point that something deeper, more profound was in the winds of change in 1969. I believe it was, and still is, our shared human desire for peace, authenticity, compassion, meaningful community and joyous celebration. A month ago I was in JFK for a connecting flight to Utah. The airport culture looked so depressed. I’ve never seen “so many people walkin’ ‘round with tombstones in their eyes” (H. Axton).

When I landed at Woodstock on Saturday morning in 1969 there were no tombstones in any of the eyes I made contact with. Joy and celebration was in the air. As I walked over the crest of the hill at Yasgar’s Farm the air was moving as the crowd swayed to the impassioned rhythms of Soul Sacrifice washing across the amphitheatre from Santana on stage. This part of the celebration still moves me, 40 years later.

Maybe at Woodstock we were trying to connect simple things, like sharing the food I lugged in with me. Sharing anything with total strangers was outside my usual experience. The scent of damp soil, incense and marijuana, and the humanity of a quarter million people was a unique mix that I will never forget. I think the old social and emotional barriers were being challenged and relaxed.

There was all that tangible excitement in the air, and the music was the medium for new human and cultural possibilities. As I recall from reading an interview with Joan Baez ten years ago she said, ”Woodstock was the start of something and what that was about, is not over yet.” I couldn’t agree more, 40 years later.


Roger Merchant
Glenburn, Maine