I’ve just come across a reference in a 1962 ‘Jazz Monthly’ to a CBS compilation LP, ‘Who’s Who In The Swinging Sixties’ – with ‘swinging’ in this case clearly a play on the idea of ‘swing’ as a jazz term and ‘swinging’ as an adjective denoting ebullience. I wondered if this may have been, in fact, the debut appearance of the phrase, albeit in a slightly different context to the one we’re all familiar with (Carnaby Street, London, 1965, etc.). Certainly, the first appearance of the term ‘Swinging London’ in print – from which I think the wider notion of the ‘swinging sixties’ derived – was in a famous ‘Time’ magazine cover story of April 1966.
In the book ‘Days In The Life: Voices From The English Underground 1961-1971’ (Heinemann, 1988), by Jonathon Green, Time magazine’s cultural commentator of the time, Andrea Adam, recalled the origin of that phrase:
‘As I remember it, the expression ‘Swinging London’ just came out of the blue. One of the editors on Time used it jokingly. Somebody said, ‘Oh hey… what about that?’ We never tried to push it as a concept, but it became the working title for the cover. And it caught on… We were all totally riveted by London. London was special, it had a kind of mystique. But what prompted the bloody cover story was not a fascination with a socio-cultural phenomenon, it was the fascination among the senior editors for mini-skirts. There was no more depth of emotion than that… [But] we knew that there was actually a phenomenon going on in London which kind of differed from what was going on in the States. I don’t think we understood it. We felt that the way in which England had adopted these mores was based on some kind of cultural maturity, England after all being an older culture, whereas in the States it was yet another crazy fling.’
The implication there is that ‘swinging sixties’ was not a phrase then in use – that ‘swinging London’ was a totally new word pairing/concept to describe the cultural cauldron of the time/place.
Can anybody point to a use of the phrase ‘Swinging Sixties’ that predates the CBS 1962 LP? Also, aside from that, can anyone recall (yes, I’m looking at you Johnny C) if the phrase was used within the decade itself or was it – like the phrase ‘progressive rock’, used to describe a certain sound/milieu associated with the early 70s – largely a retrospectively applied term?
https://www.discogs.com/Various-Whos-Who-In-The-Swinging-Sixties/release/3109809
Carl says
Colin, I’m surprised, possibly shocked, that someone with your knowledge of the 60s has overlooked Roger Miller and England Swings.
It first entered the charts in December 1965. Predating the Time story by more than 6 months.
I have no idea of any antecedents to this song and with respect to the CBS album I’d never known of until now.
Gatz says
From the OED:
Gatz says
BtW, the entry goes on to the first mentions of Swinging London and the Swinging 60s, bothof which are later than you, ahem, jazz mag.
Oh, and Days in the Life is a terrific book!
geedubyapee says
Norman Vaughan hosted Sunday Night at the London Palladium from 1962 to 1965. His catchphrase was “swinging” and ” dodgy” with thumbs up or down respectively. I have no idea if this was anything to do with “swinging sixties”, but it may have a connection. Lots of people watched the programme, and it was this programme on which the Rolling Stones refused to get on the revolving stage at the end of the show, where all performers gathered to wave. Can’t remember the year, but it was probably in this time frame.
NigelT says
Aha! We were writing the same thing at the same time! The Stones appeared in January 1967, amazingly…
Johnny Concheroo says
Yes, amazing. I would have said it was earlier, but you’re right.
NigelT says
Now this is a good question! I was a teen in the 60s and my recollection was that this was in use by 1965 at the latest. A small pointer maybe – Norman Vaughan hosted Sunday Night At The London Palladium from 1962-65 and his catch phrases were ‘Swinging’ and ‘Dodgy’….my recollection, for what it’s worth, is that ‘Swinging’ was in common parlance, which was why it was funny….I know, different times….
hubert rawlinson says
One of our playground rhymes at the time was
Swinging Dodgy
Elsie Tanner
Mr Tatlock lost a spanner.
Colin H says
All very interesting, chaps. And Carl – you’re right to point out ‘england Swings’. I do know the record and hadn’t joined the dots. Clearly, for a semi-satirical, certainly topical, record like that to have existed the reference it was making must have been one that would readily chime with a wide audience.
Perhaps, though, as others have pointed out, Roger was really picking up on a general term (like ‘fab’, ‘gear’, ‘groovy’ [did anyone really USE the latter? I suppose they must for Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Feelin’ Groovy’ to exist…]) that was in vogue at the time, i.e. ‘swinging’. It may be that he happened to inadvertently pre-empt the ‘branding’ of ‘swinging London’ that was very firmly established by that Time cover story in April ’66.
The discussion above, with all this circling around the phrase while not quite stating it, reminds me of the Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories – where not once, in 56 stories and 4 novels, does Sherlock utter the phrase ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’, and yet he uses phrases within shouting distance of it a few times. Somehow, the general public has come to believe en masse that this was the character’s catch phrase.
Maybe, in a way, with all this talk of things swinging by TV presenters, et al. and London/the sixties becoming a cultural explosion by the middle of the decade, ‘Swinging London’ and ‘the swinging Sixties’ were phrases that were all but inevitable.
hubert rawlinson says
‘Elementary my dear Watson’
American actor William Gillette formulated the complete phrase: “Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow”, which was later reused by Clive Brook, the first spoken-cinema Holmes, as: “Elementary, my dear Watson”.
Carl says
Indeed, the image that Miller portrays isn’t exactly the milieu of The Beatles and The Stones:
Bobbies on bicycles two by two…
… the rosy-red cheeks of the little children.
NigelT says
I think you nailed it Colin – it was never a phrase used by us cool teens (ahem) but a label which was applied by the media. The term had obviously been around for years and appropriated in the mid-60s. This makes me think of the George scene in A Hard Day’s Night, which is hugely prescient, where he demolishes the assumptions of a groovy advertising bloke who is promoting ‘grotty’ shirts and a model’s career. This was filmed in early 1964, almost before the whole London thing got going, and way ahead of the Time article.
Colin H says
So, George was ahead of his Time 🙂
Colin H says
‘Three Swings on a Pendulum’ is an interesting BBC TV doc from 1967, exerpted in the clip below – it looks at whether London really is/was swinging in the way foreigners had been, by then, led to believe. The full show can be found in the BBC’s own Collections part of their online platform – notable for featuring a terrific clip of Herbie Goins & the Night Timers (alas, post John McLaughlin’s membership) in a club.
jazzjet says
While I can’t claim to have been at the heart of it I was certainly on the fringes of the hippie scene, ‘swinging London’ etc and I can’t recall the term ‘swinging’ being used much, if at all. ‘Groovy’ was much more common. And then, of course, there’s the other type of ‘swinging’, ie wife swapping. This first became a thing, apparently, in American military bases during WWII partly due to the high pilot mortality rate and surviving pilots ‘looking after’ (ahem) widowed wives.
And another vote for ‘Days In The Life’. Great book.
Mike_H says
The word swinging was in use for only a fairly short while at the very beginning of the ’60s. Being a young adult rather than a youth expression, It very quickly became regarded as totally naff and was soon not even used ironically.
I was just entering my teens around then and cannot recall ever using it. I would have been embarassed to.
Sniffity says
Sinatra’s Songs For Swingin’ Lovers was released in 1956, so the term must have been in use for some time before that.
Colin H says
I can imagine it being a naff phrase very quickly. Germany was obviously slower to catch on, as they had a TV music documentary series circa 1969-70 called ‘Swing In’, which I know only from two docs, Jethro Tull and Jack Bruce.
Sniffity says
It’ll be making a comeback in 2066, though – I recall Lady Penelope took Alan to the Swinging Star in Thunderbirds Are Go….for a performance by Cliff Richard Jnr! (must have been a clone, Cliff’s left it a bit late to procreate)…Lady P said it was way out…of course by 1969, the mainstream insisted things were out of sight and people were doing their thing, so yes, them Germans were behind the times (hey, they still had Beat Club in the mid/late 60s too).
Johnny Concheroo says
“Swinging lovers” took on a whole different meaning in later years, of course. Especially in Germany.
Johnny Concheroo says
It’s quite late (April 1966) but I found this in the Daily Telegraph. Seems like it’s quoting from the Time magazine article.
http://i.imgur.com/npEbtGZ.jpg
garyjohn says
I’m putting in a solid vote for this – 1960 I do believe and even though the swing refers to the cymbal, I draw the house’s attention to the missing ‘g on the label’, which surely constitutes a knowing element at the very least.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQeYEnbneKI
Johnny Concheroo says
That was Fluff’s signature tune on Pick Of The Pops, wasn’t it?
Some great Swinging London footage here, including the first Biba store opened in 1964 in Kensington Church Street.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ke3RtWdKvM
retropath2 says
As an aside, surely the main motif was all those shots of swinging’ london clubs and discotheques in films of the era, all with elderly folk with short hair and scarves shimmying around to sub-James Last trumpery, as lampooned so well in Austin Powers. Here’s a bona fide explanation for civilians
And isn’t that JC at 2.25?
Mohair-Sam says
Our neighbours were ‘Swinging’ right through the 60s according to dad. Every Saturday night the fucking Tom Jones records would come on and the house would fill up he told me AND they converted the back bedroom into a darkroom so the must have been wrong uns.
I think he was just miffed cos he never got an invite….
hubert rawlinson says
Now this is swinging like Cheetah and Tarzan on lianas.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pWpaFgmqkUM