Have a listen to my first experimental attempt at a podcast episode, where I read aloud my short essay on the noteworthy events of the year 1997. This podcast showcases my reading of Elton John’s lyrics to his song “Goodbye England’s Rose,” a tribute to Princess to Diana, who passed away that year.
A mild speech impediment is clearly evident in my reading – like the audio equivalent of my notorious typos. I apologize for any words I pronounce incorrectly, especially the names – and for any false things that I inadvertently present as true, but I tried to fact check as much as possible. Feel free to submit any corrections you’d like me to know about in the comments on my blog.
I don’t know why I felt compelled to write an essay about 1997, a seemly random topic, but as I explain in the episode I recently fell down a highly enjoyable research rabbithole in a café. I felt curious and typed the year into a search engine, exploring pretty much recent history in comfy solitude over a spiced chai.
I’ve never done this – recording myself reading out loud – before and I used the tiny microphone in my cell phone to record. The sound isn’t bad, considering.
I really should have a bibliography for this project, and I can honestly say without shame that my source for the events and figures cited was almost exclusively wikipedia. I did try to avoid plagiarism, and add my own perspectives on the things that I have learned.
Because of my value system this pilot episode will never include ads, and it will never end up behind a paywall. The approximate transcript is available below for accessibility, or even just personal preference.
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Here is a math problem for you: this morning I recieved 84 cents in change after my usual purchase of a small hot spiced chai from a café in my hometown. My change – left over from a $5 bill – is three quarters, a nickle, and four pennys, all of which were handed to me by a lovely barista named Josh. Josh is lovely. How much was my order? I know the answer, but only because I remember the answer, not because I actually did the aritmatic. Arithmatic is for people who weren’t math majors in college.
The first of the US quarters which I recieved as change is from 1997. The coin itself is relatively nondescript – the back of the quarter (“tails”) has the usual bald eagle, the US national bird, with wings outstretched. The front of the quarter (“heads”) depicts a face in profile, the face of the first presedent of the United States of America, George Washington – a man who kept slaves and yet, to the best of my knowledge, did not keep his own teeth.
On a whim, I did a quick search which reveals some noteable events that occured in 1997. Some quick mental figuring yeilds that since I’m nearly 25 and ’97 was about two years before I was born, 1997 was almost twenty seven years ago. I was negative two.
I spent a satisfying morning, drinking spiced chai, falling down the rabbithole that was googling the year 1997, following wikipedia links within links within links. I now know some things about the year of ’97 that I did not know before.
If you were alive and cogniscent of your surroundings 27 years ago, give yourself a point for each event of historical significance that you can remember from that year.
On August 31st, the Princess of Wales, born Diana Frances Spencer, was declared dead in the hospital at 4:00PM after a fatal car crash in Paris. This happened the year after her divorce from Prince Charles, but years after they had seperated. The beloved princess is remembered for her charming shyness, her photogenic beauty and consequent status as a fashion icon, and her involvment with charity work. Diana’s activism included supporting victims of the AIDS epidemic, as well as involvement with the international red cross’ campaign for the removal of landmines (see also the MCU’s Iron Man, I think that was maybe like 2008, starring Robert Downey Jr.). The dramatic nature of Diana’s death prompted an investigation which has fostered many a conspiracy theory in the years since. I have complicated feelings about the royal family, and I really do suspect that Diana wouldn’t have been happy in her marriage to King Charles, but I still wish that Diana could have succeeded Elizabeth and been our queen consort, instead of – well, now the queen consort is one of the woman with whom Charles cheated on Diana. It is still fascinating to me that Camilla wore white to Diana’s wedding, and then Elizabeth wore White to Charles wedding to Camillia. like the hecking queen she was
Two billion people tuned in to watch the September 6 funeral at westminster abbey
Elton John wrote and performed a song called “Goodbye, England’s Rose” as a tribute to Diana. He promised to never perform it again, in her honor. That song later topped the charts with its alternative title, “Candle in the Wind.”
The lyrics go something like this:
“Goodbye England’s rose
May you ever grow in our hearts
You were the grace that placed itself
Where lives were torn apart
You called out to our country
And you whispered to those in pain
Now you belong to heaven
And the stars spell out your name
And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never fading with the sunset
When the rain set in
And your footsteps will always fall here
Along England’s greenest hills
Your candles burned out long before
Your legend ever will
Loveliness we’ve lost
These empty days without your smile
This torch we’ll always carry
For our nation’s golden child
Even though we try
The truth brings us to tears
All our words cannot express
The joy you’ve brought us through the years
Goodbye England’s rose
From the country lost
Without your soul who missed the wings of your compassion
More than you will ever know…”
Also in 1997, the sovereinty of the city of Hong Kong was passed from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China. Democrat Bill Clinton was sworn in for his second term in office as the presedent of the United States, and that year the Clinton administration issued a formal apology for the United States Gov’t involvment in the ethically abhorent Tuskeegee Scyfillis experiemnts. As someone who still locates myself firmly on the left side of the policial ideology spectrum I still think the Clinton administration should probably apologize for a lot of things. That was also the year Mary McAleese succeeded Mary Robinson as presedent of Ireland, which was the first time in history that a women had succeeded another woman as elected head of state. Tony Blair was elected as the Prime Minister of the UK, a victory for the labour party.
1997 was the year that NASA successfully landed the Pathfinder and Sojourner rovers on Mars. This accomplishment brought tears to the eyes of everyone who understood what that meant, for the species. In the same year, astronauts from the space shuttle Discovery did repair work on the Hubble Space Telescope. And a Pegasus rocket carried the remains of 24 people into orbit for the first ever space burial. On March 22nd, the Hale-Bop comet made its closest approach to earth.
Meanwhile, back on earth, computer technology advanced. The DVD – Digital Video Disc, a video storage format invented two years prior in Japan – started to gain popularity in the west. An IBM computer called Deep Blue defeated Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov in a game of chess. The Confederation Bridge, the longest bridge ever built over ice covered waters, opened between the New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
Biomedical achievements abounded. Jeanne Calment, who still holds the record for the longest human lifespan, died at 122 years old – in no small part because of the “miarcles of modern medicine.” The first genetically modified person with three parents was born. The severity of the HIV/AIDS epidemic was at an all time low, having sharply declined throughout the 90’s due to advances in medicine and also because of important steps taken by activist groups for the sake of public health awareness.
At the intersection between developing technology and public policy, it is notable that handguns were banned in the UK in this year.
Every year in history is marked by its own particular history of human violence – whether that violence takes the form of war or genocide, bombings or mass shootings.
There was rioting in Northern Ireland, civil war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Quebec biker war and the Nordic biker war, an attempted coup in Zambia, war in the Congo and Sudan, massacres in Algeria. The North Hollywood Shootout, a gun battle between heavily armed robbers, killed 20 cops and civilians. This sparked debate about appropriate firepower in the United States.
In Denver Colorado in the summer of that year, Timothy McVeigh was convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing. He was sentenced to death by a jury of his peers.
Most people will remember this year as the mass suicide of Heaven’s Gate. No fewer than 39 of the monastic new age cultists, lead by Bonnie Nettles and Marshall Applewhite, committed a mass suicide under the delusion that they would ascend to the “next level” or the “evolutionary level above human,” coinciding with the approach of the Hale-Bopp comet. The cultists originally believed that their bodies would be taken to heaven via a UFO. The bodies of the cultists were discovered in Sante Fe on March 26th. I feel that this is one example of how far people will go when they are swept up in the strange power dynamics of a group like this.
Not all the disasters that year were rooted in human folly – as we have been for most of our time as a species, sometimes we find ourselves at the mercy of the weather. In the United States, on April 18th, the Red River of the North broke through the dikes and flooded Grand Forks, North Daktota, and East Grand Forks, Minnesota, costing 3.5 billion dollars in damage, requiring evacuation from local towns, where “the river crested at more than 54 feet above datum.” A deadly tornado killed 27 people in Jarell, Texas. The Central European Flood devastated Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. A fire in the Royal Jomtien Hotel in Thailand, killed at least 90 people because the hotel kept their doors locked so that customers couldn’t leave without paying. A magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck in Iran and killed 88 people, injuring almost 2000 more. An F1 rated tornado struck in Miami, Florida. A flood on the banks of Thailand triggered the Asian Financial Crisis. The Thredbo Landslide killed 18 people at the snowy mountains resort in Australia.
With renewed appreciation for the power of the elements, nations around the world signed the Kyoto Protocol – an international treaty which committed state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This happened in response to the scientific consensus that human made CO2 emissions are a cause of climate change. The treaty was adopted in Kyoto Japan in December of 1997.
Much of the popular media that year are still considered beloved classics today. The steamy historical romance/tradedy film, Titanic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, was released in theaters and broke box office records as the highest grossing film of its time.
Another favorite film I immediately recogize from a quick search for movies in that year is Good Will Hunting, starring Matt Daemon, whom I find extremely attractive, and also Robin Williams – whose collection of brilliant work in film I admire greatly, whose memory I will cherish, and whose passing was one of the saddest celebrity losses I have experienced in my lifetime. I still think often about that one scene from that movie where Dr. Sean Maguire talks about how much he loved – still loves – his wife. People who are madly in love their wives are the best that humanity has to offer, and “sorry, doc – gotta go see about a girl” is hands down my favorite line in all of cinema.
Other movies I recognize that year include Hercules and Anastasia, Jurassic Park, Men in Black, and Princess Mononoke.
J.K. Rowling’s first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was published by Bloomsbury on June 26th. For no good reason at all it was later renamed as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the United States. I wish this author would stop saying mean things about me and all my friends, and at the same time Lily and James Potter, Hagrid, Minerva, Albus, Arthur, Molly, Serius, and even Snape will always be very dear to me.
Other fiction authors who published that year included Neil Gaiman with Stardust and Terry Pratchett with Jingo, Phillip Pullman’s second book in the His Dark Materials. Gail Carson Levine published “Ella Enchanted,” a fantasy story about a girl who has put under a spell that forces her to do whatever she’s told.
In nonfiction, 1997 gave us Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt.
Music that year was characterized by hit songs by Elton John, Jewel, Spice Girls, the Backstreet Boys, Third Eye Blind, The Notorious B.I.G, Puff Daddy, Savage Garden, Blackstreet, Babyface, Robyn, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Paula Cole, Celine Dion, No Mercy, Jay-Z, Sheryl Crow, Journey, Ginuine, Sarah McLachlan, R. Kelly, Seal, Coolio, Mdonna, and The Cranberries topped the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1997. I only recognize a handful of these names, I did listen to a top 100 playlist from that year as I wrote this script.
Also in popular media – somebody thought it was a good idea to air the first episode of South Park on comedy cental.
I wasn’t there to remember back then, but it sounds like maybe hair was shorter that year – the classic “bob” hairstyle was fashionable for women, as were references to the 70’s and a “casual chic” look which included t-shirts, crop tops, jeans, hoodies, and sneakers – flats or running shoes, maybe with untied laces. This was almost the end of the decade where tattoos and body piercings became adopted into the mainstream.
Just like every other year in human history, it probably felt like the end of the world if you happened to turn on the news. There was war and senseless violence, there was international financial instability, there were bad decisions made by leadership everywhere. There was fire and flood and helplessness, wind and water and discouragement. Mistakes were made, people died, people got sick and hurt in accidents or they got hurt on purpose or they hurt each other on purpose for reasons that seemed so fucking important at the time.
And yet – every morning, in every city and every remote little settlement around the globe – the sun kept on rising.
There was literature and music and art and film, there were advancements in medicine and technology. There were moments when you were riding in the car with the windows open in the summer and your dad was driving and you let your hand catch the rush of the wind while you hummed along to the top 40 radio pop songs under your breath. There was a dog rolling over in the grass. There was hot spiced chai in a coffee shop in the morning. People fell in love and got married and thought about having kids, people studied for exams, people – everyday, everywhere, devestatingly ordinary people – went on with the everyday buisiness of living, waking up in the morning every morning to try and start again, tucking themselves in to sleep at night.
And there was – goddamn it.
There was totally room on that fucking raft.
Before I fell down this rabbithole, all I knew about the year of ’97 was that I wasn’t born yet.
My parents got married at a music festival, that year, 25 years before the groundskeepers cut down so many of the beautiful old trees in an act of senseless destruction which still makes my heart hurt.
My parents were living in a tiny little house – they called it a shoebox – with a creek in the back yard and a laundrymatt across the street. My older sister – my father’s firstborn daughter – was about 14 years old, and probably still refused to tie her shoelaces, because that was the thing to do.