Primitive London

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1

(INAUDIBLE)

# So what do you want

to make those eyes at me for?

# When they don't mean what they say

# They make me sad, they make me glad

# They make me want a lot of things

that I never had

# You're fooling around with me now

# You lead me on and then you run away

# Well, that's all right

I'll get you alone some night

# And then you'll surely find

you're flirting with dynamite

# So what do you want

to make those eyes at me for?

# When they don't mean what they say

NARRATOR:
When this song was new,

automobiles were a novelty,

aeroplanes had yet to fly,

and 67 million men were still to die

in two world wars.

Yet the sentimental message

still reaches us loud and clear.

Man is a sentimental creature.

And sentimentality, like Charles II,

is "an unconscionable time a-dying."

# So what do you want

to make those eyes at me for?

# When they don't mean what they say

# When they don't mean what they say #

NARRATOR:
In a city like London

with its nine million people,

you have to look hard

for evidence of sentimentality,

but it is there.

"We are a civilized

people, " they will say,

then they'll be insulted to be reminded

that they are also animals.

Sentimentality shies away

from the realities of life and death.

In our world, 6,000 people die every hour,

yet few civilized people

have seen a dead body.

Every hour, 14,000 people are born.

(BABY WAILING)

Yet, unconsciously, sentimentally,

we prefer to smudge over

the first and last facts of life.

Medical science has made childbirth safe.

But no matter how sophisticated the apparatus

and skills gathered around the birth,

the event itself is, in every sense,

a fundamental and unchanging miracle

constantly renewed.

A gynecologist attending this birth said

it was the most difficult he'd ever known,

and he had delivered over 5,000 babies.

All men are born equal,

but this baby will have to fight

harder than most for life.

The first convulsive gasp for breath.

The cord is cut. The last link of the child

to his mother is severed.

Now he is a separate being,

and must, as life is pounded into him,

begin to discover his separate identity.

These feet must carry

him far in this world.

That is, if he lives at all.

(KIDS CHATTERING)

He must tread warily in a society

which seeks to categories.

The lines are drawn,

the route through life mapped early.

The child defines the limits

the adult will observe.

(CHILDREN CHUCKLING)

The friendships now established,

the values set, the pattern for the future.

The prep school will lead him

through higher education

to affluence and possible influence.

A nicely-ordered existence

where expensive gadgetry

smooths a calmly correct life.

The primary school

will make him a wage-earner,

a man with a number.

He has little affluence,

and significance only in mass

at times of election.

These lines are drawn early.

But on his way to these ordered categories,

he will find a no man's

land called teenage.

Perhaps he will become a mod.

"Mod" is a generic term

for the modern young man.

He rides a motor scooter,

likes brightly-colored clothes,

and tolerates mod girls as an accessory.

He doesn't know that the emergence

of the peacock trend in male dress

was forecast by sociologists

after the end of World War II.

Sociologists saw that, in the 60s,

there would be more eligible boys than girls

for the first time in many centuries.

Clothes would be brighter.

And to meet this demand, the male boutique

made its appearance in London.

At first laughed at,

they are now firmly established

trendsetters among the mod teenage boys.

The colored trousers, the scarlet jacket,

none of this would have been conceivable

15 years ago on a man.

The clothes are distinctive,

they are his identifying uniform.

They proclaim his assertion

and his acceptance of the group mold.

The rockers are another teenage category.

They deride the mods' dress display,

but they peacock in their own way,

just as frantically.

Metal studs in leather jackets,

the leather wear itself, the jackboots,

these are just as much

a proclamation of group identity.

To discover their philosophy,

we shall return to them later.

(PLAYING MERRY TUNE)

Another group is the beatniks.

Their name has something of defeat in it.

They pride themselves on

their non-conformity.

But their very revolt

serves to emphasize the norms

against which they

proclaim their rejection.

# Now, John Henry, he was a little baby

# He was sitting on his pappy's knee

# Lord, he gave out a long and lonesome cry

# Said, "This hammer is

gonna be the death of me

# "Lord, Lord

# "This hammer is going

to be the death of me"

(MUSIC PLAYING)

# Young Henry was working on the rail road

# His hammer was striking fire

# And the mountain was so tall

John Henry was so small

# Lord, he laid down his hammer

Lord, he died, yeah, yeah

# He laid down his hammer and he died

(LAUGHING)

# Some say he's from Texas

# And some say he's from France

# But I know he's just a Louisiana boy

# He died with a hammer

in his hand, Lord knows

# He died with a hammer in his hand #

(MUSIC CONTINUES)

(INAUDIBLE)

(INDISTINCT)

- MAN:
What's your name?

- Michael.

- How old are you, Michael?

- Twenty.

- Do you work, Michael?

- No.

- What do you do?

- I write poetry.

- You write poetry?

- Yeah.

- Is this your aim in life, to write poetry?

- Yes, it is.

- Had anything published?

- No, not as yet. No.

- Can you quote me a stanza from...

- The only one I can remember offhand is

one of my early ones, and it's,

"I turned right into heaven and saw that

pothead Peter polishing the keys to the pad."

That's all I can remember of it.

Tell me, I'm intrigued, that key

in your ear, what's that for?

Well, it's purely for decoration.

It's me nickname, you know.

- What's your nickname again?

- Jailer.

- Jailer. Tell me one thing, Michael.

- Yeah.

- Do you believe in free love?

- Yeah.

- Where were you educated?

- Berkhamsted Public School,

Northwestern Polytechnic,

and in my bedroom.

In your bedroom? I see.

- Many of them.

- Many of them.

- Do you believe in marriage?

- If people love each other, they are married.

- I see. How about you, David?

- I believe in it, um...

Choice of the two people

as individuals, as well as together.

You mean, if you like one another,

you live together?

Yes. I think one should live together

for a certain time beforehand, though.

MAN:
What do you think about it?

BOY:
I don't believe in marriage.

You don't believe in it. Would you

live with a girl if you liked her?

- Certainly.

- How about children, would you have them?

I believe there ought to be some form

of contract written for children,

in the case of children.

# I got my brand on you

# I got my brand on you, yeah

# I got my brand on you

# I got my brand on you

Oh, yeah

- MAN:
How old are you, Sammy?

- 16.

Sixteen. Where do you work,

or what do you do?

Well, I work at Waterloo.

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