17/02/2014
Hello, I’m Jane at DailyStep English and welcome to my Audio Blog.
http://www.dailystep.com/
This week it is 50 years since the Beatles released their first record on 5th October 1962! So in this blog we’ll take a look at some of the major events of the 1960s, or the Swinging Sixties as they are known!
In the Audio Word Study, I’ll teach you some important expressions from the Sixties, and then you can hear audio descriptions of all the topics coming soon in the DailyStep audio lessons. If you subscribe, I’ll send you an audio lesson each weekday at your chosen levels, and you will soon find that your listening and speaking skills improve! As a subscriber you will also get full access to hear and download the audio in my full archive of audio blogs. Don’t forget to speak along with the audio files to improve your pronunciation and fluency! Finally, there’s great audio quotation from John Lennon.
But first, how did the Swinging Sixties get their name?
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The Swinging Sixties (by Jane Lawson at DailyStep.com)
Fifty years ago this week, on 5th October 1962, four young men from the Northern English city of Liverpool released their first single, and Britain changed forever. They recorded the song “Love Me Do”, in Abbey Road recording studio in London and the song went straight into the charts.
Britain at the beginning of the 1960s was a slightly depressing grey place, still trying to recover from the effects of World War Two, which had only finished a decade and a half earlier. The success of the Beatles and the explosion of youth culture that came with it transformed British society. The Swinging Sixties had started and for a while Britain became the fashion and music centre of the world. Bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Who became famous all over the world. Their long hair, laid back attitude, and their apparent disrespect for authority and tradition shocked and worried many of the older generation, but the younger people loved this new sense of freedom. The generation gap was perhaps wider than it had ever been before.
But the 1960s wasn’t just about pop music - the world was changing fast in lots of ways. In the USA the civil rights movement was gaining momentum as the black American minority demanded equal rights. This week in 1962 amid protest and rioting James Meredith, the first black student to attend the all white University of Mississippi, was escorted on to the campus by US marshals. You can see this historic moment in the bottom right hand picture. The Cold War intensified as the Cuban missile crisis threatened to engulf the world in nuclear war, and construction of the Berlin Wall continued as the division in Europe became more acute.
It’s all a long time ago now but some people still argue whether the changes that came in the 1960s were good or bad. But one thing is certainly true - Britain became a freer and more tolerant place, and surely that must be good! The Beatles went on to become the most famous group in the world and had lots of hit records, but split up in 1970. People were always asking them if they would reform until John Lennon was shot in 1980. George Harrison died in 1991 but the other two members, Paul McCartney and Ringo Star, still play music. Paul McCartney performed a favourite Beatles song “Hey Jude”, at the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics. What’s your favourite Beatles song? Maybe you’d like to discuss it with other DailyStep students on our FaceBook page.
Let’s move on now to our Audio Word Study, where I’ll teach you the meanings of some expressions from this article. If you are a subscriber to my regular audio lessons on DailyStep.com (please click here to view prices or subscribe), you can hear and download the Audio Word Study, and you can also download the audio for this article at the bottom of this page.
