The Boat That Rocked

A new Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually) film premiered in London last week, The Boat That Rocked. The premise of the movie is fascinating.

In 1966, the BBC was playing classical music and jazz instead of rock and roll. Their policy was to play two hours of pop music a week. When you think of the overwhelming A-list of British rock bands at the time---The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Yardbirds, The Hollies, etc.--it hardly seems possible. And there were no commercial radio stations to fill in the gap. The situation created the phenomenon of pirate radio ships. With the ships moored in the North Sea, a minimum of three miles offshore to be outside the bounds of English law, they began playing pop and rock music 24 hours a day. And, they eventually had over 25,000,000 listeners.

It was impossible to be alive in the 1960's and not be aware of music. Even though I was too young to have really been part of the era, having a music-loving older sister kept me surrounded by top-of-the-charts records. If my sister was home and in her room, I knew the turntable would be going.

I did, however, have sympathy for grandparents. Well, my paternal grandmother in particular. My grandparents lived in Madison, Wisconsin...always a progressive university city. One summer in the late 1960's, our family visited for a week. It was soon obvious to everyone that the college boys renting the house next door were attempting to be a band. They practiced relentlessly. And only one song: Light My Fire by the Doors. My grandmother was a strict Christian Scientist whose religion banned drinking alcohol, smoking, swearing, and generally bad behavior of any kind. She was also one of the few people I've ever known who simply could not say a bad word about another person. As soon as the opening chords to Light My Fire would start again for the sixth time that hour, my grandmother would smile tightly.

"They certainly have a lot of perseverance."

They really did. More perseverance than talent. The only break our long-suffering grandmother had from a badly played Doors' song was when my older sister would repeatedly play her just-bought 45 record over and over again. Incense and Peppermints by The Strawberry Alarm Clock. It had to have been a tortuous week for our grandmother.

Even though it boasts an impressive songlist, The Boat That Rocked has received mixed reviews. With 59 songs packed into a 129 minute movie, it's no surprise the script has been called lightweight and the plotlines disconnected. There's also the issue of glamorizing the worst excesses of the '60s that claimed far too many casualties. Still, the one thing the film got right, according to several critics, was the music. Actually, music is the one thing the 1960's got very right. The movie isn't scheduled to open here until August. I'll probably see it...and I may also set time aside to listen to a very specific 59 song playlist on my ipod. Great music just never gets old.