7 O’clock News / Silent Night

August 1966

Hi all,

Thank you for joining me for this week’s song, “7 O’clock News / Silent Night”, by Simon and Garfunkel. If you’d like to hear the song before you read the background, I’ve included a YouTube video below the article.

Below, you’ll find an explanation of the “lyrics” of the song (a news broadcast). Comments and questions are welcome. For Japanese students, vocabulary words in bold are provided in Japanese below.

✳️ Note: The level of this article is for students with a TOEIC of 550+, Eiken Pre-1, CEFR B2.

Del Vecchio Dinamico acoustic electric resonator guitar (1960s), Museum of Making Music.jpg Photo by doryfour (Wikimedia Commons)

(690 words)

The 1960s in the U.S. brought some changes in the creation of music. More and more instruments used electricity, for example, guitars and synthesizers. Songwriters also experimented with mixing previously recorded audio into their new recordings. The song for today is a good example of that.

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel used a news broadcast from August 1966 as the background to their performance of Silent Night. The transcript of the broadcast is given in italics below with some explanation.

Walter_Cronkite_on_television_1976 (Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain).jpg

The News Broadcast

[This is the early evening edition of the news.

The recent fight in the House of Representatives was over the open housing section of the Civil Rights Bill. This 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.

For many, many years, landlords refused to rent apartments or houses to people who were not white. This was a way to maintain white control over who could live in certain neighborhoods. Here, the government was considering how to specifically address the problem through law. President Johnson had suggested a law that would make it illegal for anyone to refuse to rent to anyone. This idea had no chance of success. Instead, the government leaders who review possible new laws changed the president’s suggestion to one that most of the representatives agreed on. Civil Rights leaders such as Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. continued their struggle for equal housing opportunities for all people.

In Los Angeles today, comedian Lenny Bruce died of what was believed to be an overdose of narcotics. Bruce was 42 years old.

Lenny Bruce, 1961 (Wikimedia - public domain)

Dr. Martin Luther King says he does not intend to cancel plans for an open housing march Sunday into the Chicago suburb of Cicero [Illinois]. 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 and strangled in their Chicago apartment.

The next section is talking about the “House Un-American Activities Committee”. This was a government committee that began in 1938. The group was concerned that there were many American citizens who were not loyal to the U.S. The committee gained strength after WWII, and in the 1950s, during the Cold War, it made investigations into many people’s lives to find out if they were communists or had ever supported the communist party. Many people lost their jobs or were blacklisted. Here, the committee is investigating protests against the war in Vietnam.

In Washington the atmosphere was tense today as a special subcommittee of the House Committee on Un-American activities continued its probe into anti-Vietnam War protests. Demonstrators were forcibly evicted from the hearings when they began chanting anti-war slogans.

Photographer unknown (WikiMedia Commons)

Former Vice-President Richard Nixon says that unless there is a substantial increase in the present war effort in Vietnam, 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.

Sleep in heavenly peace

We contrast this news reporting about blocking civil rights, murders, drug overdose, war, and political investigations with the lyrics of a song about a holy child born on Christmas Eve to his virgin mother, Mary. Everything around (round) that child over there (yon/yonder) was quiet, unlike the turmoil in American society in August of 1966.

Silent night 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

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Question:

What kinds of historical events were happening in your country in 1966?

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VOCABULARY

proposed 提案された

outright 完全に

housing discrimination 住宅問題

compromise 妥協

overdose 過剰摂取

narcotic 麻薬

grand jury 大陪審

indictment 起訴

stab 刺す

strangle 絞め殺す

atmosphere 雰囲気

probe 調査

forcibly 強制的に

evict 立ち退かせる

hearings 公聴会

substantial 実質的な

holy 聖なる

virgin 処女

turmoil 混乱

Lyrics found at:

https://lyrics.lyricfind.com/lyrics/simon-garfunkel-7-oclock-news-silent-night

Source:

A&E Television Networks. HUAC - definition, hearings & investigations. History.com. https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/huac