If you’re a pop music lover, especially if you came of age in the 1960s, you have reason to celebrate this year. Fifty years ago, from 1969 and into 1970, some of popular music’s most influential songs made their debut. When they first began playing on the radio, oftentimes one important musical message after another, I wasn’t aware how groundbreaking they were. But now, thinking back, I can see it…clearly.

I realized what a banner year ’69 into ’70 was when I was researching and writing my book Reach Out in the Darkness: How Pop Music Saved My Mortal Soul. That collection of poems was a tribute to the songs that helped me navigate my tricky teen years. As I wrote those poems, I researched details about the key songs of my youth, noting who composed them, the topics they covered and when they first started showing up on radio playlists. That’s when I realized that, as the ‘60s gave way to the ‘70s, many of the songs that saved my life were also changing the world.

I ended up writing a poem about those influential recordings, calling it “My Ten Commandments.” I chose that title to make a bold statement about how those pop songs became as important to me as religion is for others. To show how powerful the songs’ messages were, “My Ten Commandments” was not written as a traditional poem; in fact, I didn’t write a single word of it. Instead, I let the lyrics of ten important songs from 1969 and’70 tell my story. For example:

Yes, a new world’s coming

the one we’ve had visions of,

coming in peace, coming in joy, coming in love.  “New World Coming”  Mama Cass

Reach out and touch somebody's hand

Make this world a better place,

if you can.           “Reach Out & Touch”  Diana Ross

Look over yonder, what do you see?

The sun is a-risin’ most defiinitely

A new day’s comin’

people are changin’…    “Crystal Blue Persuasion” Tommy James & the Shondells

When I heard Mama Cass, Diana and Tommy sing the promise of those songs, I believed them with all my heart. They and the other seven commandments were beacons of hope as I moved toward adulthood. Rereading their lyrics for this blog, I needed a refresher as to why those songs were so important to the world in ‘69 and ’70. A quick Google search uncovered these headlines:

 — January 1969. Richard Nixon takes office and immediately escalates the Vietnam War.

—  June 1969. New York City’s Stonewall riots break open gay rights.

—  July 1969. Man walks on the moon.

—  August 1969. Woodstock reinvents what it means to attend a concert.

—  January 1970. After two million die, Biafra loses its battle for freedom.

—  May 1970. Four students are shot to death at Ohio’s Kent State.

—  September 1970. Jimi Hendrix overdoses. Two weeks later, Janis Joplin follows.

Raised in a small town in Upstate New York, to me those headlines were just words that Walter Cronkite reported to my father night after night. They didn’t seem important to my world of school and teen angst until my top 40 radio station—my lifeline—helped me make sense of it all. Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” warned us that it was time to “get back to the garden,” Neil Young mourned those Kent State students with his cry “Four Dead in Ohio,” and when The Fifth Dimension sent the song “Aquarius” to the top of the charts, it felt like I was on that spaceship racing for the moon.

Along with the outer world’s turmoil, I was also fighting an inner battle, trying to come to terms with my sexuality. I’d been silently struggling for years and often found the songs on the radio—most of them were boy-meets-girl— unrelatable, so, by 1969, at age 14, I had given up the idea that I could have romantic love. Then, miraculously, along came songs about another kind of love: brotherly love, love-thy-neighbor love…you know, Ten Commandments kind of love.

Come on people now, smile on your brother

everybody get together,

 try to love one another, right now.     “Get Together”  The Youngbloods

When you’re weary, feeling small,

when tears are in your eyes

I’ll dry them all…                “Bridge Over Troubled Water” Simon & Garfunkel

Think of your fellow man

Give him a helping hand

Put a little love in your heart…       “Put A  Little Love in Your Heart” Jackie DeShannon

Those Ten Commandments songs opened a new road for me.  A year later, Carole King wrote “You’ve Got a Friend” and James Taylor sang it to me night after night from my record player. I believed in what James and Carole sang and decided that was how I was going to live my life. Repeated listenings to all those songs led me to a human services career and a lifetime of good, solid friendships. They made me who I am, and when I listen to them today, I hear how they still stir the soul of a teenage boy trying to figure out his world.