THE LOVE GENERATION IN 'QUEEN'

Donovan, who believed in "the worship of life, the worship of the earth, the good mother earth, and the sun".  

T H U R S D A Y,  1 3  J U L Y

Leg pains a tremendous improvement on yesterday.

Granny and Grandpa came at two. Oh dear, I don’t know, I find her unbearable. It’s quite tiring to be with someone who complains about everything, all the time. How she can bear it herself I don’t know.

I picked a huge bowl of strawberries – our own crop!

Saw Top of the Pops - Procul Harmum are still No. 1. and the Beatles are No.3. I should think they’ll swap places next week.

In bed I read this jolly good article in Queen called ‘The Love Generation’. It’s written by Nik Cohn who's 21 and says it hurts to find he's "had it.” Nik Cohn calls the hippies naive, smug and boring. Donovan sounds very intelligent indeed.

“All the arts are at varying levels of purity, and the more an artist draws on God and love and the beautiful vibrations all around him the more beautiful he becomes. The uglies have had control of us too long. This is the first time for generations that people are thinking about love as a wonderful thing; before it was despised as soppy. Flower power I suppose is a bit sick - but it’s better than sex, hate and nettles.”

Lulu sounds surprisingly sensible. “People talk about this love-love-love thing as if you have to be on drugs before you can be part of it. In fact, love is far older than pop and goes right back to Jesus.”

Poor Mummy - I can hear her downstairs all by herself rehearsing her speech. It's an awful pity she has to do it on her birthday.

“Who was Nik Cohn?”

Rock lover Nik Cohn

Nik Cohn, whose words I admired - so clever, at 21 - went on to write books on rock and pop including the classic Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom. Elvis, Phil Spector and James Brown were his favourites. In 1976, his article ‘Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night’ became the inspiration behind ‘Saturday Night Fever’.