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Eve of Destruction: Barry McGuire

This song seemed to give voice to all of the frustration and anger I felt.

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This entry was posted on September 12, 2010 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Music. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

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12 Comments on “Eve of Destruction: Barry McGuire”

  2. Michal's avatar Michal Says:

    September 12, 2010 at 1:41 pm

    This was a very heavy tune when it came out. Sadly, a lot of its still pertinent. He remade it recently, with a kid’s choir. Not quite as powerful IMO.

  3. Rowen's avatar Rowen Says:

    September 12, 2010 at 2:32 pm

    My thoughts more or less when I opened Coffee this morning feeling increasingly bummed by all the bad news. Nice timing.

  4. buzz's avatar buzz Says:

    September 12, 2010 at 10:26 pm

    Bummed out is the nicest way of putting it…

  5. Jim's avatar Jim Says:

    September 13, 2010 at 2:14 pm

    I bought this way back in 1965, same day as I bought LIke a Rolling Stone. Six-shillings-and eight-pence each they cost—from Canns Record Shop on Chapel Walk.

  6. sblake's avatar sblake Says:

    September 13, 2010 at 5:59 pm

    A protest song about political issues of the ’60s, this was banned from many radio stations for its antigovernment lyrics, but still managed to hit #1 in the US. The song takes on racism, hypocrisy and injustice. The Kennedy assassination was an influence on the song.
    This was written by 19-year-old PF Sloan, who was a staff songwriter at McGuire’s label and went on to form The Grass Roots. Sloan wrote on his website: “The song ‘Eve of Destruction’ was written in the early morning hours between midnight and dawn in mid-1964. The most outstanding experience I had in writing this song was hearing an inner voice inside of myself for only the second time. It seemed to have information no one else could’ve had. For example, I was writing down this line in pencil ‘think of all the hate there is in Red Russia.’ This inner voice said ‘No, no it’s Red China!’ I began to argue and wrestle with that until near exhaustion. I thought Red Russia was the most outstanding enemy to freedom in the world, but this inner voice said the Soviet Union will fall before the end of the century and Red China will endure in crimes against humanity well into the new century! This inner voice that is inside of each and every one of us but is drowned out by the roar of our minds! The song contained a number of issues that were unbearable for me at the time. I wrote it as a prayer to God for an answer.
    I have felt it was a love song and written as a prayer because, to cure an ill you need to know what is sick. In my youthful zeal I hadn’t realized that this would be taken as an attack on The System! Examples: The media headlined the song as everything that is wrong with the youth culture. First, show the song is just a hack song to make money and therefore no reason to deal with its questions. Prove the 19-year old writer is a communist dupe. Attack the singer as a parrot for the writers word. The media claimed that the song would frighten little children. I had hoped thru this song to open a dialogue with Congress and the people. The media banned me from all national television shows. Oddly enough they didn’t ban Barry. The United States felt under threat. So any positive press on me or Barry was considered un-patriotic. A great deal of madness, as I remember it! I told the press it was a love song. A love song to and for humanity, that’s all. It ruined Barry’s career as an artist and in a year I would be driven out of the music business too.”
    This was originally recorded by The Turtles, who released it on their first album earlier in 1965. The Turtles did not release it as a single, and McGuire’s version became the hit. As management problems and personnel changes plagued The Turtles, they finally decided to release this as a single in 1970, shortly before they broke up. It was their last song to chart, reaching #100.
    McGuire was in The New Christy Minstrels before recording as a solo artist. He had a few hits with the group, including “Green Green” and “Saturday Night,” but this was his only hit as a solo artist. Sloan explains: “Barry McGuire had just left the group and was on his own and looking for material to record. He wound up at my publishing company and he was told there was a quirky songwriter he might want to listen to. Now, Barry didn’t like the song ‘Eve of Destruction’ that much. He liked a few other songs of mine better. One in particular called ‘What’s Exactly The Matter With Me,’ which originally was the A-side of the record. When he was ready to record he picked 4 songs and ‘Eve’ was the 4th to be recorded, if there was time. If you listen to the recording he’s rushing singing through the lyric because of the time constraints and he was reading it for the first time off a piece of paper I had written the lyric on! Okay. McGuire’s record is released but ‘Eve’ is the B-side. Somewhere in the Great Midwest of America a DJ played the wrong side by mistake! So as you can see, when people had written that this song was some calculated idea on how to capitalize on the emerging folk scene, it’s simply B.S. Honest to God that’s what happened and how the song got played.”
    McGuire’s vocal was recorded late at night as a rough take. His voice was raspy and tired, but the producer loved it and used that take. The producer Jay Lasker brought the song to Los Angeles radio station KFWB the morning it was finished, where it was played for the first time.
    A folk group called The Spokesmen recorded an answer song to this called “The Dawn Of Correction.”

    • katry's avatar katry Says:

      September 14, 2010 at 11:03 am

      sblake,
      I can add nothing to this except my own memories. I thought this song was amazing. It chronicled the world and its ills exactly as I saw them, as I and so many others saw them.


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