Oh, I Am Overcome . . .

This was truly a time of change in our country.

Some things had changed subtly, gradually, so that it snuck up on us. And somethings happened almost literally over night. Vietnam was one of the graduals, but then suddenly overnight we were aware of our country's involvement—partly because Walter Cronkite and Huntley-Brinkley brought it into our living rooms, but also those same newscasts started showing us the protests, from self immolations to the sit-ins, led by scruffy young people filling the air, not just with rants and chants, but also with folk songs—songs with plaintive lyrics calling for change.

And of course the civil rights movements ran concurrently with a social upswell that found favor with the awakening consciences of the boomer generation. Mixing all of that together, accented with new sexual freedom, unhindered access to drugs and passion-filled rhetoric of a new generation of leaders . . . well . . . it was a tidal wave of emotional change.

The older generation would change along with the young, but it would take awhile and it was difficult. The 'betelnuts' seemed to be an overnight phenomena, beginning with a Sunday night appearance of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. Young Americans had already been somewhat aware of the Beatles, but Ed Sullivan introduced them to the older generation, who were completely flummoxed by the music, the 'mophead' look, and the fans' uproarious behavior of screaming and fainting — screaming so loud that the music couldn't be heard, actually irritating John and Paul and George, because the music was important to them (I don't think Ringo could hear anything over his drums anyway).

Here is an erudite comment from Daniel from yesterday's post:

The whole “betelnut” thing in fact involves a very layered punning: “beatnik” is willfully confused with “beech-nut”, this is then confused with “betelnut”, where the “betel” is homophonic with “Beatle” (itself a pun).

(And it's perhaps worth noting that “beatnik” seems to have emerged from a misinterpretation of /ˈbitnɪk/ in a sentence “He was just beat, Nick!”, in an explanation as to why a musician had failed to come to a job.)

ANYway, the older folks started confusing and blending all of the younger antics, such as the earlier so-called beat generation stuff from the 50s, the Greenwich Village influence of the again so-called beatniks, with their strange poetry, their unwashed and unkempt look, and again the music, the folk music that started off innocently enough, but quickly took to becoming a voice of sanity and reform.

And really, the music was the common denominator of the changing of our times. From the swing and sway of the 40s to rock and roll of the 50s to the folk songs of the early 60s to the transcendental rock of the late 60s and later to acid, punk, heavy metal, etc etc etc.

A symbolic icon of all this came down to showing a scruffy young dude with a guitar and an attitude:

Post Script for those who don't read the comment section:

Even before the cyber ink was dry on this post, this helpful comment came in from Will Shetterly:

Wikipedia has the origin I've heard:

The word "beatnik" was coined by Herb Caen in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958.[10] Caen coined the term by adding the Russian suffix -nik after Sputnik I to the Beat Generation. Caen's column with the word came six months after the launch of Sputnik. Objecting to Caen's twist on the term, Allen Ginsberg wrote to the New York Times to deplore "the foul word beatnik," commenting, "If beatniks and not illuminated Beat poets overrun this country, they will have been created not by Kerouac but by industries of mass communication which continue to brainwash man."

But I love Daniel's examination of "betelnut"!

And a further comment from Daniel:

For an alternate claim about the origin of “beatnik”, search the WWWeb for

"Sam Katzman" beatnik

It should be noted that, while the Katzman story and the Caen story are often told with reference to “Sputnik”, both Katzman and Caen would have been familiar with the Yiddish “-nik”, meaning one who is in some way characterized by the prefixing term (as in “refuse-nik”, one refused the right to emigrate).