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How rock'n'roll freed the world

Februar 2004

I en tid hvor mye av musikkverdenen domineres av de store plateselskapenes manipulering av media, liksom-opprør uten substans, effekter for effektenes skyld og artister som er mer opptatt av image-building og sitt eget ego enn av musikk og budskap, så er det fascinerende å lese András Simonyis beretning om rockens effekt på ungdommen i østblokklandene på 60- og 70-tallet. I hvert fall for de av oss som ser på rock som noe mer enn «pure entertainment» og husker en tid da rocken bidro til å forandre både våre egne liv og verden rundt oss.

András Simonyi ble født i Budapest, men bodde fem år i Danmark på 60-tallet. Der var tilgangen på vestlig popmusikk naturlig nok betydelig bedre enn i Ungarn - hvor platene til artister som Beatles, Rolling Stones, Cream, Traffic og Jimi Hendrix var forbudt og måtte smugles inn via venner som hadde vært i utlandet. I dag er Simonyi Ungarns ambassadør i USA, og i november 2003 holdt han et foredrag i Rock and Roll Hall of Fame med tittelen «Rocking for the Free World: How Rock Music Helped Bring Down the Iron Curtain».

USA Today: He vividly remembers hearing the Beatles for the first time - a scratchy record of All My Loving - when he was 11, in a school gym in Denmark. «It caught me, and it hasn't let up since». The music he loved swept up an entire generation of young people suffering under communist rule and implanted the ideals that would later bring down the Iron Curtain. «When we were listening to the radio, we were part of the free world, if only for a few moments, whether the system we lived under liked it or not. Rock and roll, culturally speaking, was a decisive element in loosening up communist societies and bringing them closer to a world of freedom. Rock and roll was the Internet of the '60s and early '70s. It was the carrier of the message of freedom, just like it was 20 years later with the satellite dish. It's just great to be able to tell this story of what rock and roll meant to people who were stuck in the East for the wrong reasons.»

Other European leaders and writers have made a similar case. Václav Havel, the dissident Czech playwright, has credited rock music as a major inspiration in his years of fighting communist oppression. When Havel became president of the Czech Republic after the Soviet empire crumbled, he entertained rockers such as the Rolling Stones at the presidential palace. Havel requested that Lou Reed, leader of the infamous 1960s group, the Velvet Underground, perform at a 1998 State Dinner hosted in his honor by President Clinton.

Simonyi calls his talk at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, «Rocking for the Free World: How Rock Music Helped Bring Down the Iron Curtain». The title is a play on a 1989 Neil Young song, Rockin' in the Free World, that is a savage attack on the policies of President Reagan and the first President Bush. Young's song is anything but a celebration of democracy. Simonyi notes the irony and says his speech is largely a gesture of thanks to the musicians who inspired him and planted the dream of a different way of life in the guise of three loud guitar chords and a driving beat. «Rock and roll music glues together societies. It binds us all.»