Category Archives: 1960s songs

The top 500 best music and songs from the 1960s. Song meanings, lyrics and interpretations from your favorite artists. The Beatles, Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel, Dylan. See who rates the highest!

1960s songs, words not needed

#432 The Look of Love- Dusty Springfield

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The look of love/
Is saying so much more than/
Just words could every say.

“The Love of Love” is another Burt Bacharach classic, this time sung by the amazing Dusty Springfield. Springfield might have the sexiest voice of all time and it is best demonstrated on this song. There are a couple other singers in the running, but this song is an amazing demonstration.

The Look Of Love Meaning
Dusty Springfield

Notice the restraint with which she sings. No one does that like her.  She gets the proper credit she is due. Most would recognize five of her songs but only music geeks would recognize her name. She doesn’t have the name recognition of her peers like Aretha Franklin or maybe Patsy Cline.

This is a song as overtly about lust as you can imagine, and yet it was still a hit in pop music in the late 60s. Though, if you compare this to the rock of that period this is about on par. Nothing on the pop side was close to as sexual as this. Consider “Son of a Preacher Man”, or Warwick’s “Walk on By”. This song was released in the seminal year of 1967 too, but we usually don’t think of it as a big year for pop, but a big year for rock. There was a lot going on in music that year.

The Look of Love Lyrics

The look of love
Is in your eyes
A look your smile
Can’t disguise

The look of love
Is saying so much more than
Just words could every say
And what my heart has heard
Well it takes my breath away

I can hardly wait to hold you
Feel my arms around you
How long I have waited
Waited just to love you
Now that I have found you

You’ve got the look of love
Is on your face
A look that time can’t erase

Be mine, tonight
Let this be just the start of
So many nights like this
Let’s take a lovers vow
And seal it with a kiss

I can hardly wait to hold you
Feel my arms around you
How long I have waited
Waited just to love you
Now that I have found you

Don’t ever go
Don’t ever go
I love you so

I can hardly wait to hold you
Feel my arms around you
How long I have waited
Waited just to love you
Now that I have found you

Don’t ever go
Don’t ever go
Don’t ever go

Songwriters: Burt Bacharach / Hal David

1960s songs, secular hymn

#429 Across the Universe- The Beatles

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Jai Guru Deva, Om/
Nothing’s gonna change my world.

The Beatles’ “Across the Universe” is like a prayer: Lennon says his mantra while he notices all the things going on all around him. Some of the words and images enter his mind and are “inciting and inviting” him and others just past by him just as all the rain would pass by a paper cup if you set out a cup to gather the rain.

Light, laughter, sound, sorrow, joy…it is all around him…across the universe. But right now, he is not going to let any of it penetrate him. He is going to do his mantra and calm his mind and “nothing is going to change his world.”

Across the Universe Meaning
The Beatles

There are various versions of this song and the world wildlife version may be the best-though Lennon did not like that version. The bird sounds in the beginning add a spiritual and nature vibe that the other versions lack. The non-professional background singers in this version is preferable  to the choir in the remastered version. The WWF version has the proper amount of sitar too. The difference is slight though. Also check out the “naked” version.

Across the Universe Lyrics

Words are flowing out
Like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe.
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy,
Are drifting through my opened mind,
Possessing and caressing me.

Jai Guru Deva, Om.
Nothing’s gonna change my world.
Nothing’s gonna change my world.
Nothing’s gonna change my world.
Nothing’s gonna change my world.

Images of broken light,
Which dance before me like a million eyes
They call me on and on across the universe.
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box,
They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe.

Jai Guru Deva, Om.
Nothing’s gonna change my world.
Nothing’s gonna change my world.
Nothing’s gonna change my world.
Nothing’s gonna change my world.

Sounds of laughter, shades of life,
Are ringing through my open ears
Inciting and inviting me.
Limitless, undying love,
Which shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe.

Jai Guru Deva, Om.
Nothing’s gonna change my world.
Nothing’s gonna change my world.
Nothing’s gonna change my world.
Nothing’s gonna change my world.

Jai Guru Deva.
Jai Guru Deva.
Jai Guru Deva.
Jai Guru Deva.
Jai Guru Deva.
Jai Guru Deva.

Songwriters: John Lennon / Paul McCartney

1960s songs, growing up

#423 My Back Pages- Dylan/ The Byrds

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Ah, but I was so much older then/
I’m younger than that now.

That has to be one of the better lyrics in Rock n Roll history. In “My Back Pages” Dylan writes that the more he experiences the less he understands. For some of us it is because we are indoctrinated with school and religion when we are young and then when we begin to experience life…it comes at you fast and in unexpected ways, and it is humbling. The certainty of my beliefs that I felt as a young man might conflict with experience and that leaves me feeling like I know less than I knew before. This is one of Dylan’s deeper song meanings. Genius.

My Back Pages Meaning
Bob Dylan

Every Dylan song has been covered, and some of the covers are better than Dylan’s original. In this case I think the Byrds version is slightly better than Dylan’s version, but they are both great. Even without the Byrds version it would still be a top 500 song. We will see other covers of Dylan songs that are so good that the cover is the only one worth listening to. For most of Dylan’s songs, his own versions are the best. This one could go either way.

My Back Pages Meaning
The Byrds

The Byrds made Dylan more accessible for many people. David Crosby from CSNY and Roger McGuinn from The Band were first in The Byrds and give them that distinct sound: the harmonies and the rich electric guitars. Dylan’s voice can be an acquired taste, but his songs are universally beloved.

My Back Pages Lyrics

Crimson flames tied through my ears, rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon, ” said I, proud ‘neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth, “rip down all hate, ” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white spoke from my skull, I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now

Girls’ faces formed the forward path from phony jealousy
To memorizing politics of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists, unthought of, though somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now

A self-ordained professor’s tongue too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty is just equality in school
“Equality, ” I spoke the word as if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now

In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand at the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy in the instant that I preach
My existence led by confusion boats, mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now

Songwriters: Bob Dylan