Library Rock's Backpages

Harpers Bizarre: Anything Goes (Pye, WS 1716)

Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 31 December 1968

HOWARD JOHNSON ice-cream parlours, Harvey's hamburgers, Busby Berkeley movies: artificial, sentimental, surface childlike fantasies. Small-town radio stations, high school proms, Frank Capra, George Gershwin, Mickey Mouse. Of course these are unreal. But without them America would have little magic, and we are beginning to understand, after too long, that magic should be the mainspring of society.

Total word count of piece: 539

Subscribe

Becoming a member is easy. Membership gives you access to all the thousands of articles in the library.

Click here to go to Subscribe page.

Click here for academic and other group subscriptions.