# The most 60s song **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 9, 2014, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858 "2014-10-09T12:47:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/41 "2014-10-09T21:15:28Z")
_All You Need Is Love_ was the ANTHEM for the 1960’s. ---
**Author:** ![Nema98](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d2c977/32.png) [@Nema98](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nema98)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/42 "2014-10-09T21:22:17Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I don’t know about that, but the [Carl Carlton cover](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3AXKjlH4rQ)is one of the most _70s_ songs ever, that’s for sure. The original one is from 1967, but it is very forgotten. The Carl Carlton one from 1974 and the 90s’ version by Gloria Estefan are better remembered. ---
**Author:** ![Nema98](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d2c977/32.png) [@Nema98](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nema98)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/43 "2014-10-09T21:23:29Z")
“Turn Turn Turn” by the Byrds. It is practically in every 60s documentary, besides the Buffalo Springfield song! Besides that any Beach, surfer type music, any African American girl group, Phil Spector songs. Any British Invasion song. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/44 "2014-10-09T21:41:18Z")
“Age of Aquarius” ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/45 "2014-10-09T21:58:43Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > “Age of Aquarius” Right? Totally what I was going to say. Dude. It sneaks in under the buzzer at 1969, but it \*feels \*very “60s” culturally, without any confusion at all that it might have been late 50’s or early 70’s. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/46 "2014-10-09T22:35:05Z")
My mind leaped to “Signs” by the 5-Man Electrical Band. But I am surprised to learn it was released in 1971, missing the decade. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/47 "2014-10-09T22:41:47Z")
> [@Nema98](#): > > “Turn Turn Turn” by the Byrds. > > It is practically in every 60s documentary, besides the Buffalo Springfield song! This is the correct answer. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/48 "2014-10-09T23:06:28Z")
Here’s a couple of _really_ Sixties things that were not hits as far as I know, but are great if you like psychedelic stuff [The United States of America](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrkOyO7NW5Y) _The Garden of Earthly Delights_ [13th Floor Elevators](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwSA0Tckwbk) _Slip Inside This House_ The decade is unmistakeable, I think. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/49 "2014-10-09T23:50:46Z")
The Association, [Never My Love](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zjessON4Uo4) ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/50 "2014-10-09T23:54:25Z")
I don’t see Satisfaction. I don’t see Respect. Hmm. What is the point to the 60’s? Music revolution. Generation comes of age. The U.S. questions itself. Drugs. The Pill. Black Power. Change. I also haven’t seen the Beatles’ _A Day in the Life_. I’ll go with that. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/51 "2014-10-09T23:57:19Z")
> [@Truman\_Burbank](#): > > Also, “Incense and Peppermints” by The Strawberry Alarm Clock, which is also in the running for the "most 60s band name’. 🙂 This is the one I was thinking of. Complete with freaky lights and lava lamps! ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/52 "2014-10-10T04:34:15Z")
This might be a reasonable question for other decades, but popular music changed so rapidly and radically in the '60s that there really cannot be one single song to represent all of them. It seems to me that there were at least three, very different, major phases of '60s music. The first few years were dominated by the dying embers of early rock and roll, and the remnants of Tin Pan Alley pop. The mid '60s were the early Beatles and Motown when they were both still doing simple happy pop songs, together with those they inspired or who hoped to initiate them (what for Americans, was “the British invasion”). The late '60s were psychedelia and blues-influenced hard rock. No one song that came close to typifying any of those eras could come close to representing either of the others. ---
**Author:** ![Wallaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dc4da7/32.png) [@Wallaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallaby)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/53 "2014-10-10T04:49:05Z")
_ **Spirit in the Sky.** _ ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/54 "2014-10-10T05:12:12Z")
> [@Wallaby](#): > > _ **Spirit in the Sky.** _ Except that came out in 1970. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/55 "2014-10-10T06:10:29Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > This might be a reasonable question for other decades, but popular music changed so rapidly and radically in the '60s that there really cannot be one single song to represent all of them. It seems to me that there were at least three, very different, major phases of '60s music. The first few years were dominated by the dying embers of early rock and roll, and the remnants of Tin Pan Alley pop. The mid '60s were the early Beatles and Motown when they were both still doing simple happy pop songs, together with those they inspired or who hoped to initiate them (what for Americans, was “the British invasion”). The late '60s were psychedelia and blues-influenced hard rock. No one song that came close to typifying any of those eras could come close to representing either of the others. But in the popular memory the '60s usually means the mid-late flower power/hippie stereotypes, especially to those who didn’t live through the period. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/56 "2014-10-10T06:58:16Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > But in the popular memory the '60s usually means the mid-late flower power/hippie stereotypes, especially to those who didn’t live through the period. Right, which is why we are getting so many suggestions of “psychedelic” era songs, but there were no psychedelic songs for the first two-thirds of the '60s (and, of course, there were quite a lot of them in the '70s). Actually, the people who suggested the fake flower-power of Scott MacKenzie’s “San Francisco”, may be onto something, as that, in a sense combines the Tin Pan Alley ethos of eh early '60s with (fake) psychedelia (in its lyrics, at least). It still has nothing British-invasiony about it, though. How about _The Beatles_’ “Hello, Goodbye”? It is far from being one of their best songs, but perhaps it comes closest to bringing the upbeat, chirpy poppiness of their early hits into their later, psychedelic period. ---
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/57 "2014-10-10T07:01:16Z")
_My Generation_ by The Who gets my vote. What could be more '60s than wanting to die before I get old? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/58 "2014-10-10T07:39:59Z")
> [@jabiru](#): > > _My Generation_ by The Who gets my vote. What could be more '60s than wanting to die before I get old? Keeping with the “generation” vibe but on a more cynical (commercially manufactured) note, you could go with the Monkees’ theme song: _“We’re the young generation, and we’ve got something to say.”_ WHAT they have to say, who knows…other than “buy a ticket to our concert”: _“So you’d better get ready, we might be coming to your town.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/59 "2014-10-10T07:47:29Z")
> [@jabiru](#): > > _My Generation_ by The Who gets my vote. What could be more '60s than wanting to die before I get old? … and then not doing it. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858/60 "2014-10-10T08:01:34Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > First thing that springs to mind is [California Dreamin’](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN3GbF9Bx6E) by The Mamas and the Papas. I vote for this. Has the right mix of ethereal psychedelia mixed with poetic lyrics and acoustic instrumentation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-60s-song/700858.md?page=4)