I was putting them up as a hedge, as I'm sure you are too genteel to point out. They are just kids having fun. They'll grow out of it. It was never like that for me. It's signs and pointers from early childhood - the idea that there's something out there worth finding, not a religion so much as....um.....utopian Anarchism?? (God....)
I always liked the idea, long before I could put a name to it. It's not just the 60s. It's also in Wilde's essay "The Soul Of Man Under Socialism". The ridiculously romantic idea that people could be free enough to just realise their artistic potential. And it seemed to me, when I was a kid, that something not a million miles away from all this was going on, somewhere over there, in the 60s.
Anyway, The Stones seemed central somehow. I heard their 1st album as a five year old the same summer I saw "A Hard Day's Night" at the pictures. I was very impressed.
If The Beatles had stayed together, making a series of duller and duller records, returning to touring on a stadium level and Paul and Ringo were still out there treading the boards with a bunch of overpaid session musicians - believe me, it would be much, much worse...
I told you it had more to do with me than them.