| Lyrics: | It is a real pleasure to be here with you this afternoon. I always count it a priviledge whenever I
have the opportunity to stand before a group of students in an assembly such as this. You know, most
of you are at the point in life when you're making the decisions that are going to determine your
philosophy and your attitude toward life. It was in the early teenage years that unfortunately I
made some wrong decisions. I made the decision to turn my back on everything that my church and my
parents had tried to teach me. My idea was, I'm going to live life like I want to live it and I
don't care what anybody else thinks or anybody else says. But it wasn't until I was nineteen that
one evening in a small church I came to the conclusion that if I was really going to get what I
wanted out of life I'd have to change that kind of an attitude. Today I am not here to prove any one
or any thing right or wrong, but I want to talk to you about some ideas and attitudes that have been
communicated through the means of music. And I hope that together we can stop and think about some
serious issues that face you as the youth of America. It's possible I could walk out on this stage
today and deliver a speech mocking the flag or ridiculing some of the leaders of our government and
I suppose there are some of you who might not say a word. Perhaps I could stand here and curse God
or use profanity without upsetting some of you, or maybe I could take my draft card out of my
pocket, stand here and defiantly tear it up in pieces, and I suppose there'd be some of you who
wouldn't say a thing. But there's one thing of which I am reasonably certain--if I were to walk out
here today and just dare to say one word against The Beatles, Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Steppenwolf,
Iron Butterfly, Led Zeppelin, The Raiders, or The doors, some of you would want to come up here and
tear me limb from limb. The question I'd like to ask is this--I wonder would that really be right,
or perhaps would it illustrate that this thing called Rock and Roll is more than just a form of
music? |
