Eve of Distruction

I was watching PBS tonight and they had a 60's music show on featuring lots of old videos from the NBC show Hullabaloo and some more recent concert footage of some 60's rock acts. They had some pretty amazing stuff I thought, but I was really shocked at most of the Hullabaloo tapes in that, 1) they were mostly lip-syncing and 2) I remember seeing so many of them when they first aired in the mid 60s. One of the few Hullabaloo tapes that did not feature lip-syncing was an amazing rendition of P.F. Sloan's Eve of Destruction by Barry McGuire. It was raw and guttural and still packs a wallop after all these years.

I was hoping to find a copy of that performance to share here, but it is not available. What I did find is a very nicely done video which aptly displays the timelessness of Sloan's lyrics.

The Eastern world, it is explodin',
Violence flarin', bullets loadin'.
You're old enough to kill, but not for votin',
You don't believe in war -- but what's that gun you're totin'?
An' even the Jordan river has bodies floatin'.
But you tell me, over and over and over again, my friend,
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

Don't you understand what I'm tryin' to say,
An' can't you feel the fears I'm feelin' today?
If the button is pushed, there's no runnin' away,
There'll be no one to save, with the world in a grave.
Take a look around you, boy, it's bound to scare you, boy.
An' you tell me, over and over and over again, my friend,
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

Yeah, my blood's so mad feels like coagulatin',
I'm sittin' here just contemplatin'.
I can't twist the truth, it knows no regulation,
Handful of senators don't pass legislation,
An' marches alone can't bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin',
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin'.
An' you tell me, over and over and over again, my friend,
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

Think of all the hate there is in Red China,
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama.
Ah, you may leave here for four days in space,
But when you return it's the same ol' place,
The poundin' of the drums, the pride an' disgrace.
You can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace.
Hate your next-door neighbor, but don't forget to say grace,
An' tell me, over and over and over again, my friend,
You don't believe we're on the eve of destruction,
No, no, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.