The Pouring, or How the Universal Mind Reached Out to a Generation: A Commentary on the Counterculture Lyrics of the Sixties

If you experienced the Sixties as more than just sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll, then this book will resonate with you. If you didn’t get to live through the Counterculture, then here is your opportunity to find out what it was really all about. Gargatholil heard the music of the Counterculture as a call to spiritual awakening and as a conversation about the spiritual struggles that accompanied that awakening. In The Pouring, Gargatholil illuminates the meaning of more than 875 songs by 60+ artists and bands from the widely popular (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones) to those known chiefly to the Underground (e.g., Pearls Before Swine and The Incredible String Band).

The Pouring is arranged to take the reader on a journey that begins after the Kennedy assassination with “protest” songs stirring those of us who would rebel against the System, continues through a downpour of spiritual content after the Summer of Love, and ends with the receding of the Counterculture. A number of important themes emerge. Multiple indexes also allow the reader to easily dip into their favorite songs and artists.

As the subtitle indicates, The Pouring is premised on the idea that this music was coming through the artists from a higher source, calling on us to break free not only from the capitalist system dominating our life on the physical plane but from the physical plane itself. Those songs are heard even today as reminders of spiritual joy (and pain). Gargatholil recognizes that the music was heard subjectively (which was key to finding meaning in these songs) and is sensitive to multiple meanings co-existing in the same lyric. The fact that the Countercultural experience and our ill-prepared entry into altered states of consciousness was messy and problematic is not lost on Gargatholil as they interpret these lyrics.

There are some major themes that run through the lyrics of this time. These include: anti-materialism and anti-establishment statements; the Counterculture defining itself against the Mainstream; the call to transcend the ego and turn toward Spirit; the call back-to-the-land; and a yearning for return to an Edenic state of Peace, Love and Harmony, whether established on the earth-plane or in realms transcendent. Particularly in the latter part of the Pouring, there were also themes of spiritual urgency and warning; signals that the Counterculture would come to an end; and laments about our spiritual inadequacies and our failure to overcome our ego.

Thus, besides being an interpretation of individual songs from this period, The Pouring offers a window into the experienced history of the Counterculture, its internal struggles and issues, and the psychological journey and states of mind through which many participants in the Counterculture passed. Readers can expect to find delight in recognizing the inspiration that these songs still convey as well as a deeper understanding of the Countercultural experience at a spiritual and psychological level.