Just A Form Of Music

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? 这是一个真正的乐趣在这里与大家下午。我总是指望它特权，每当我有机会站在一群学生在集会像这样的以前。要知道，你们中的大多数都在生活中的一点，当你正在做的是要确定你的理念和你对生活的态度决定。它是在早期的十几岁，不幸的是我做了一些错误的决定。我在把我的背在我的教堂，我的父母曾试图教我的一切决定。我的想法是，我要活得像我不想活了，我不在乎别人认为或其他人说。但事实并非如此，直到我19那一个晚上，在一个小教堂我来的结论是，如果我真的要得到什么，我想从生活中我必须改变那种态度。今天，我在这里不是为了证明任何一个或任何事物的对错，但我想和你谈一些想法和态度，都通过音乐的方式传达。我希望我们能一起停下来想一想，你面对的是美国的年轻人一些严重的问题。这是可能的，我可以今天走出这个舞台上，并发表演讲，嘲讽的标志或嘲笑我们的一些政府的领导人，我想有一些你们谁可能没有说一个字。也许我可以站在这里骂上帝或使用亵渎不会扰乱你们中的一些，也许我可以把我的名片草案从我的口袋里，站在这里，并挑衅地撕了块子，我想总会有一些你谁也不会说的事。但有一件事我是相当肯定的 - 如果我今天在这里走出，只是不敢说一个字对甲壳虫乐队，滚石乐队，吉米·亨德里克斯，荒原狼，铁蝴蝶，齐柏林飞船，攻略，或门，有些人会想在这里提出和肢体撕裂了我的肢体。我要问的问题是这样的 - 我不知道那会真的是正确的，或者将它说明了这东西叫摇滚乐超过音乐的一种形式？