Old Glory vs New Glory

*Jefferson Airplane,* Volunteers, 1969
[click to embiggen]

In doing early research for my next Nicky Hopkins post, I landed on the Jefferson Airplane’s 1969 album, Volunteers, because Hopkins plays on five tracks. Unfortunately, his prodigious talents couldn’t pull the record out of a nose dive. I get that the group has many adherents who appreciate their wild, shirtless sensibility, but I don’t like the rhythm section, I don’t like the singers, and I don’t like the songs. I don’t know what to tell you.

There is one part of Volunteers I love, though. The album cover, credited to Gut, Milton Burke, and Jefferson Airplane, is absolutely arresting. The album title is boldly across the top in the MAN WALKS ON MOON typeface, with Jim Marshall’s picture of six young, fashionable hippies — four men, two women — in front of an American flag. I love the contrast of the people in black and white against the flag in vivid blue and red, the white cleverly implied in the basic design. It’s not that complicated, a simple stencil maybe? A tree sits in back, part of Marshall’s photo, but obscured by the flag just enough that the eye isn’t drawn to it at first. However, when the jagged outlines of those tree branches are picked up, it creates a visual effect as if the flag were broken into pieces, an apt, crystallizing metaphor for 1969.

An album cover sporting an American flag is rarely just an album cover. Like any other work of art, the flag is included because most artists have to wrestle with its symbology. There are exceptions. You’ll never find a country artist of even minor significance spoofing the flag because conservative whites don’t need to wrestle with the flag. It’s a symbol of their entitlement and assumed supremacy. What’s to think about? It’s everyone else who has to do the wrestling. The Jefferson Airplane lived in San Francisco precisely because they rejected sanctimonious patriotism. Thus, shirtless lampshade guy giving the mock salute and wearing white gloves evoking a Marine bugler. It’s a heady image and you can read into those young faces whatever you want: sarcasm, arrogance, playfulness, maybe a touch of anxiety. I think all of those could be true simultaneously. That’s what makes the cover so alive, so meaningful, even if the meaning is different for each person. The flag is ours, too.

Below are a number of records I own and several I do not, all of which contain images of the American flag. I offer no comments because the covers stand on their own and it’s especially cool to see them one after the other. There are some great cover designs here and by and large the tone is measured and thoughtful, but not lacking in passion. We get anger, reverence, silliness, absurdity, satire. Which is how it should be. Defining ourselves as Americans is not like deciding your favorite team when you’re 8, something you do once and then you set cruise control. For most of us, self-definition as a citizen is ongoing and the music we listen to — and the artwork for that music — reflects the process.

PS: I found out Marty Balin died within hours of writing this introduction, so now I feel like an asshole. Thanks a lot, God. But hey, we’ll always have the Volunteers cover. Let’s call it a draw. RIP Marty.

United States Of America – The United States Of America – 1968