Blowing in The Wind - Peter, Paul and Mary

An artifact from 1963.

What I find most fascinating about this clip is the staging and camera work. In 1963 that feeling that we are backstage, among the lights and props, would have been very unusual on a TV show. And the camera shot that we get for the first time at about forty-five seconds in, with Paul's face in the left foreground, would have been extremely rare then. It's an odd and very gentle kind of culture clash, with Greenwich Village quasi-intellectuals appearing on a show run by a man who started in vaudeville before World War I. But..it is, in the end, show biz. They are lip-synching, not performing live. And they're there because they had a big hit record. Draw your own conclusions. Me, I'm not sure.