The year was 1967.
We had moved back to Germany from Canada in 1965. (See previous instalments for details. Click HERE.)
During the week, living on the base, I was just another Canadian “Army Brat”. Weekends with my grandparents and other relatives transformed me back into a German girl.
During those years, we travelled extensively throughout Europe. This year, in particular, was filled with plenty of adventure!
Popular that January (and for the following three months) was “No Milk Today”, which became my favourite Hermans Hermits song, and “Spanish Eyes” by Al Martino, which appealed to my mother so much, she would sing it around the house. Good thing she was musically inclined!
For the March School Break, my mother and I embarked on an incredible journey to The Canary Islands, off the northwest coast of Africa. Even more amazing was our day trip to the Spanish Sahara (now known as the Western Sahara), where we visited a Bedouin tribe.
Read more about that trip HERE.
The most popular tune there was Los Beta’s version of “Guantanamera”. I bought the 45 as a souvenir and still have it in my collection. Also on the airwaves that March was “Happy Jack” by The Who, my first taste of a band I would come to know and love.
On June 25, we watched the first worldwide live satellite broadcast on TV, a program called simply, “Our World”. From Wikipedia:
Our World was the first live, international, satellite television production, which was broadcast on 25 June 1967. Creative artists, including the Beatles, opera singer Maria Callas, and painter Pablo Picasso – representing nineteen nations – were invited to perform or appear in separate segments featuring their respective countries.
The two-and-a-half-hour event had the largest television audience ever up to that date: an estimated 400 to 700 million people around the globe watched the broadcast. Today, it is most famous for the segment from the United Kingdom starring the Beatles. They performed their song “All You Need Is Love” for the first time to close the broadcast.
Our summer vacation that July was a road trip to northern Germany and Denmark. First stop, Hamburg, followed by Travemünde and Grömitz on the Baltic Sea. Lastly, we took a ferry to Copenhagen.
Hamburg is Europe’s second largest port and world-renowned for its entertainment district, where The Beatles honed their skills before hitting it big. The Baltic Sea coast has several beach towns, where you will see miles of brightly-coloured wicker beach “baskets”.
I was “12 going on 20” and befriended a group of older teenagers at the beach. They all smoked cigarettes and when someone offered me one, I didn’t have the sense to turn it down.
Even worse, it became a regular habit/addiction for the next 37 years! Need help quitting, yourself? Read how I did it HERE, along with some tips to quell the cravings.
Sittin’ in the basket, strummin’ my guitar.(With parents in silhouette.)
The ferry to Denmark took a couple of hours. What I remember most was feeling queasy and unable to enjoy the extensive smorgasbord (Scandinavian buffet) that was available.
Copenhagen itself was fascinating, colourful, historical, whimsical. Tivoli Gardens, one of the world’s biggest amusement parks and gardens is located there.
A notable landmark is The Little Mermaid statue, named after Danish author Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale. It sits on a large rock by the water’s edge.
Popular that July was the father/daughter team of Frank and Nancy Sinatra and a new group that would become all the rage, first in Europe and then worldwide. They were for me as well!
It was a pivotal year on many fronts. The Vietnam War was heating up. There were peace marches and riots. Israel gained ground after fighting with Syria, Egypt and Jordan for six days.
Music became more profound, often drug-induced, but largely brilliant. The Beatles released their break-through concept album, “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”.
Psychedelic bands such as The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane enjoyed great success during this period with songs celebrating the counterculture of the ’60s.
The Hippie movement took hold in San Francisco, during the “Summer of Love”. Scott McKenzie recorded the quintessential anthem, embraced by all the “Flower Children”.
I loved everything about this and have been a hippie, in spirit, since that time. Music was (still is!) my drug of choice and I was getting high on Psychedelic rock. Life became more complex. We were growing up.
Where were you in 1967? Join me for some #MusicalMemories! #dogladysden Share on X
This is a continuing series, inspired by
“THE SOUNDTRACK OF MY LIFE”
at
It Rains…You Get Wet and Your Daily Dose
Coming next 👇
The year was 1968:
A trip through the Alps, the Italian Riviera and getting shipped off to boarding school
Where were you in 1967?
Any memories you’d like to share?
Looking forward to your comments!
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Dog Mom and (retired) Canine Innkeeper in suburban Toronto, Canada, known as The Doglady. Former corporate workaholic. Writer, photographer, digital creator. Animal lover, music fanatic, inveterate traveller. Eternal hippie/rockchick. History, literature and cinema buff. Hockey and soccer fan. Dedicated night owl. German/Canadian binational, multilingual. Let me entertain you!
25 thoughts on “THE YEAR WAS 1967 | #MusicalMemories”
Fantastic post, Debbie! The enrichment you gained through your travels clearly shows in your pictures and words. This was truly a treat to read and the music will have me humming all day 😉 ‘Spanish Eyes’ was very popular here (as you might imagine) and ‘San Francisco’ still holds that breezy allure of freedom for me. Thanks so much for sharing!
I’m glad you enjoyed the memoir, diedre! 🙂 “Breezy allure of freedom” is the perfect description for Scott McKenzie’s tune. Thanks for coming by.
Great memories, great music. Love Scott McKenzie – will probably hum “if you’re goooooing to Saaaan Fraaaancisco…” all day now.
Denkmark is definitely on my travel bucket list, especially after this year’s hockey world championships!
PS: where was I in 1967? Nowhere. My parents had only just met 😉
I’m glad you enjoyed my memoir, Tamara. 🙂 Yeah, I’m pretty old compared to most people in the Blogosphere. Don’t feel like it, though. 😉 Copenhagen is a fabulous city! I hope you get the chance to see it, yourself. Thanks for dropping in and have a great weekend!
Debbie,
I was only 6 in 1967 and I don’t have any particular memories except that might have been the year that my parents moved into a new house placing me next door to my best friend from Kindergarten which totally blew me away. I was the happiest little girl in the world! The 60s had some real mewsical gems and the talent…WOW is all I can! You sure had a very full summer hopping from one continent to another. You’re quite the world traveler, aren’t you? Thanks for sharing such fun memories!
HI Cathy; You must have been so excited to live next door to your best friend! 😀 Lots of great music in the 60s, for sure! Travelling is easy when you live in Europe. So many small countries grouped close together. 🙂 It was a wonderful time in my life. Thanks for coming by!
Debbie,
Oh, YES I was super duper happy! You see, when I was in Kindergarten I really loved her and then all of sudden she wasn’t able to go because her parents weren’t financially challenged as some. I guess it was meant for kids of low-income families which is really stupid but I remember my mom telling me this when I was little and I was so sad. And, then we moved next to her and I was so giddy! She was my maiden of honor in my wedding and stay in connect with one another loosely over the years but I still feel like she’s my BFF. 😀
1967 was a certainly a busy year for you! Great music. As for me, I was only 2 yrs old, and recovering from my second surgery on my tear ducts. My tear ducts didn’t open when I was born – so I had one surgery when I was 6 months old and the other when I was 18 months old.
My battle coming up on Friday features a song that was released in 1968. Looking forward to seeing you then.
Hi Mary; The late 60s were a great time for music! 🙂 I’ll be sure to check out your battle. Having surgery at such a young age must have been traumatic, but you probably don’t remember it. Thanks for checking out my memoir!
This is a fabulous post Debbie! What a wealth of riches you have had in your life as you’ve traveled the world. I LOVE those yellow wicker beach baskets! Are they still around over there? I absolutely hate those little beach chairs that sit so far to the ground. At my age now, I can’t get my big ass up out of one of those. I could totally get on board with those wicker basket beach chairs. Lol!
That’s a wonderful picture of you strumming your guitar in one. You are hippie all the way through… And how we both started smoking has similar backgrounds. I never smoked at all but I was at my cousins’ house swimming and hanging out. My cousin Lisa and I were done in the pool so we went in to get out of our wet suits. While in her room, I overheard through the open window my other cousins (Lew & Dave) wondering if I smoked and then said they were going to play a trick on me and tell me that they were going to tell my parents that I smoked. Of course I just held onto that little tidbit of knowledge so that when we all went out to the fort in the woods, they unleashed their trickery. When they said “Hey, we’re going to tell your Mom and Dad that you smoke” my response was a begging and pleading one: “No! Please please don’t tell on me! Please…” And Lew & Dave looked at each other in total surprise. So then when everyone pulled out their cigarettes and I was offered one, how could I turn it down after that charade??! So I took one, took my first drag and they went on to tell me I wasn’t smoking right and taught me how to inhale… And I continued smoking from that day on for the next 26 years… I was 11 years old at the time of my first cigarette. Good Lord!
You’ve shared some wonderful songs here. I don’t remember Herman’s Hermits “No Milk Today” but I sure do like it. And I love Spanish Eyes. My Mom plays that song on the organ. You would recognize a lot of the songs she plays.
I also really love “San Francisco”.
It was neat hearing Frank & Nancy Sinatra singing “Something Stupid” — I had forgotten that they did some Father/Daughter performances.
Also really enjoyed hearing for the first time the Bee Gees song. I never heard the New York Mining Disaster song. It’s quite good.
Thanks for sharing your very full 1967 with us!
Will look forward to 1968…
(sure wish I had a time machine and could push a button that would take me back there…I guess it’s because I was so young back then but life was so easy then. Do we all end up saying that about our past lives? I always find myself saying how much easier the 70s were. Were they just that way because we weren’t yet bogged down into adulthood with all the adult problems…or were they really simpler times? I still haven’t determined the answer to that question…)
Have a great week
Michele at Angels Bark
Hi Michele;
Living in Europe made travelling so easy! Several small countries grouped close together. 🙂 Those basket chairs are a German invention, seen on all the beaches there as well as other places. Here’s a link with more info: German Strandkorb. I know exactly what you mean about seats being too low. Doesn’t work so well with wonky knees either! 😛
Apparently, “No Milk Today” wasn’t released as a single in the U.S., but it was a huge hit in Europe, along with the Bee Gees first-ever hit, “New York Mining Disaster 1941.” They were also much bigger in Europe than North America, at least, until Saturday Night Fever came along. 🙂
Funny story about how you started smoking! The aftermath isn’t so amusing, though. That was a typo above. Should read 37 years, not 47. Quitting was incredibly difficult! Took six years to lose the cravings and, every once in awhile, I still get them. Must have been hard after 26 years too!
Not sure how easy the 70s were. I’m a bit older than you. Got married in ’73, had to give up my writing and singing dreams for a steady paycheque, growing pains in the marriage, etc. On the other hand, we partied a lot and had lots of fun, too.
Thanks for sharing your memories with me. Cheers!
Great soundtrack, including Guantalamera and The New York Mining Disaster of 1941-your adventures still anaze me!
It was an outstanding year in so many ways! 😀 Thanks for dropping in, Alana.
Ironically, my Time Machine goes to 1967 this week- among the songs you mentioned on the chart that week were The Bee Gees, the Sinatras, and the Who. Me? I was about to crush kindergarten! And Dad just bought a cream Chevy Impala small block- still my favorite car ever! (Well, except for the color…”
I’ll be checking out your time machine. 😀 Kindergarten? Geez, I must be old! LOL They made great cars in those days! Now, they’re all generic. Thanks for dropping in!
’67 was a crazy year for me. Dad died in January and Mom seriously considered packing the three of us up and moving to California, so we spent a couple of weeks out there, including a little time in San Francisco among the hippies, who were just about everywhere. I remember all of these. “No Milk Today” was the flip side of “There’s A Kind Of Hush,” which a friend gave me for my birthday. Great memories!
How sad to lose your father at such a young age! 🙁 On the flip side, it must have been fun to be in California during the hippie era. I was far-removed over in Europe and could only imagine it. You’re one of the few who remembers “No Milk Today”. It was a huge hit in Germany, but apparently not in North America. I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Thanks for coming over. 🙂
That was some epic travel that you did! I don’t remember much about 1967 other than I had just started high school and I was just beginning to immerse myself in pop music. I sure remember all of those songs that you mentioned. At the time The Beatles and The Beachboys were my big favorites.
Arlee Bird
Tossing It Out
Hi Lee; Yes, we travelled a lot during those years. It’s easy when you live in Europe. All those different countries, so small and close together. The Beatles and The Beach Boys both had a lot of hits. Good times, yes? 😀 Thanks for dropping in!
HiYa, DEBBIE.
I see you wuz on the move in “The Summer Of Love”. (I’m always amused by how many people seem to think “The Summer Of Love” was in 1969.)
Whenever I see Al Martino mentioned, I’m reminded that Waylon Jennings said when he first went to Nashville and was signed, someone there thought he was going to be Nashville’s version of Martino. Ha! I don’t really know a lot about Martino, but listening to part of ‘Spanish Eyes’, I was pretty sure I could smell the Mafia all around me. 🙂
I used to have a girlfriend named Juanita Juantontomata.
I know you’re not playing BOTB the day after tomorrow, but if you have a chance, you might want to swing by my Battle at some point. I’m also doing a “Groovy ’60s” post featuring a big hit song from ’69 (NOT The Summer Of Love!)
I’ll leave you with this one:
~ D-FensDogG
STMcC Presents ‘BATTLE OF THE BANDS’
Hi Stephen; People who thought the “Summer of Love” was in 1969 obviously weren’t around in the 60s. Mind you, 1969 was also a pivotal year in many ways. 🙂 Al Martino played the “Frank Sinatra” role in the Godfather, so I can understand that whiff of Mafia scent. 😉 For sure, I’ll be checking out your Groovy 60s BOTB. Thanks for checking out my musical memoir here. Cheers!
P.S. That’s a great tune. Thanks!
My biped remembers all those songs except ‘no milk today’!
She was at primary school and she and her friends all wanted to be older. They felt like they were missing out on all the exciting things that were happening.
I think “No Milk Today” was the B-side for another song, but it was a huge hit in Germany at the time. Most of us wanted to be older in those days! 🙂 Thanks for dropping in, Clowie.