Paint It Black and Ed Sullivan

Something for the weekend.  Paint it Black (1966).  The above is the performance of Paint it Black on the Ed Sullivan Show  by The Rolling Stones in 1966.   To those of you who were not alive then, it is hard to convey the cultural impact of the Ed Sullivan Show in the America of that time.   Suffice it to say that until the late Sixties, Sullivan was the cultural gatekeeper of America.  Until a new entertainer appeared on Sullivan’s show, he or she had not yet achieved mainstream acceptance.  Today a show having that type of influence would be impossible.

Sullivan rightly despised Communism and the dopes in this country who supported it. He was a pioneer in making his show a nationwide forum for black entertainers to appear before a largely white audience.  He and his wife Sylvia were married for 43 years when she died in 1973, the year before his own death.  He would call her immediately after every show to get her critique.  Above all he was a master showman, his pioneering variety show running from 1948 to 1971.

Sullivan didn’t think much of The Rolling Stones, viewing them as scruffy hooligans who really needed to learn the utility of soap and shampoo.  He also knew that much of his base audience hated them.  Didn’t matter.  He knew a lot of young people liked them, and Sullivan prided himself on bringing new talent to the main stream.  Thus the Stones appeared several times on the Sullivan show, and if that sounds a bit like your grandmother going to a rap concert, well, that is rather what it felt like at the time.

Here are several renditions of Paint it Black. My favorite is from Tour of Duty. I have seen few videos more evocative of time and place than the intro to Tour of Duty with Paint It Black.  The second and third seasons of Tour of Duty added soap opera and adventure elements which detracted from the realism of the show, but the first season is highly recommended by me for anyone wishing to see a realistic depiction of what life was like for the men who fought one of America’s more unpopular wars and who usually served their country far, far better than their country served them.