djfrosty

The producers of SNL50: The Anniversary Special, the three-and-a-half-hour salute to Saturday Night Live, which aired on NBC on Sunday (Feb. 16), had five decades of music to draw on for the handful of music performance spots on the show, but chose music from the 1960s to both open and close the show. Paul Simon and Sabrina Carpenter opened the show with Simon & Garfunkel’s 1966 classic “Homeward Bound.” Paul McCartney closed the show with the prized closing medley from The Beatles’ 1969 album, Abbey Road.

On the Grammy Awards two weeks earlier, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars bypassed their own Grammy-nominated (and ultimately, Grammy-winning) smash “Die With a Smile” to perform the Mamas and the Papas’ 1966 smash “California Dreamin’” as a tribute to Los Angeles, which was battered by wind-whipped fires in January.

On the upcoming Oscars, A Complete Unknown, the hit biopic about Bob Dylan which focuses on the period between 1961-65, is nominated for eight awards, including best picture. It’s the first biopic where three actors received Oscar nominations for playing real-life musicians — Timothée Chalamet as Dylan, Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, and Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez.

It is not known if Chalamet or Dylan (or in the best of all possible worlds, both of them together) will perform on the Oscars, but you can bet the producers have made the calls.

On the Tonys last June, The Who’s Pete Townshend joined the cast of the revival of The Who’s Tommy to perform “See Me, Feel Me”/”Pinball Wizard” from the band’s classic 1969 album. The show was nominated for best revival of a musical.

On that same show, the cast of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club performed “Wilkommen” from Kander & Ebb’s landmark 1966 musical Cabaret. Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club was also nominated for best revival of a musical.

So, what do we make of all this? Part of it is that smart TV producers, going back to Ed Sullivan on his long-running variety show, like to have something for viewers of all ages.

But another reason is simply the greatness of 1960s music, an era when The Beatles, Dylan, The Brill Building, Motown, Stax, Bacharach & David, Aretha Franklin, Simon & Garfunkel, The Who, The Beach Boys and The Rolling Stones, among many others, were at their peaks, spurring each other on to greatness.

Every generation likes to think their generation’s music was the best ever. But people who came of age in the 1960s can simply point to the above-named artists and hit factories to make a pretty compelling case.

Incidentally, this wasn’t the first time McCartney has closed a high-profile TV show by performing the closing medley (“Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight” and “The End”) from Abbey Road. He closed the 2012 Grammy ceremony with that same medley, joined by such guest musicians as Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl and Joe Walsh.

Carpenter and Simon engaged in some light banter on SNL50 before their performance of “Homeward Bound.”

“I sang this song with George Harrison on Saturday Night Live in 1976,” recalled Simon. “I was not born then, and neither were my parents,” replied Carpenter, who was born in May 1999.

Simon probably could have lived without the zinger about her parents, but it points to the staying power of his songs. “Homeward Bound,” like “California Dreamin’” and the Abbey Road medley, is nearly 60 years old, but its magic holds up.