Tuesday, March 24, 2020 – Georgy Girl

A runner zips past me with music blaring — Georgy Girl by The Seekers. This golden oldie transports me back to the flower power days of bell-bottoms, mini-skirts and go-go boots. It was an exciting time of counterculture and revolution of social norms. Hugh Hefner opened his first Playboy Club. Everyone talked about the “generation gap.”

Teased or backcombed hair was popular. An older classmate used to spend 1 ½ hours every morning teasing, shaping and smoothing her hair until it was just right. Chubby Checker started a new dance craze called “The Twist.” Xerox introduced the first photocopier.

However, amid all the positive movement, there was also tragedy. Both Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy Jr. were assassinated. The nation was shocked, mourning openly.

The song Georgy Girl epitomizes these conflicting attitudes. She is “swinging down the street so fancy-free,” but also has “loneliness there inside.”

There could not be a more perfect example of the national mood right now. Before the coronavirus, we were swinging down the street fancy-free, but now we are lonely inside.

We need to realize that “Life is a reality; you can’t always run away” and not be “scared of changing and rearranging” ourselves. “It’s time for jumping down from the shelf” to “bring out all the love you hide.” We can do it. “Oh, what a change” when “the world would see a new Georgy Girl!”