by E. Alan Meece
by Eric Meece, August 8-9, 2026
prompt: let us eat cake
My Band of Writers essays

Let Us Eat Cake

August 8, 2026, for UUFLG Band of Writers meeting, August 9, by E. Alan (Eric) Meece prompt: let us eat cake

This prompt first of all refers to many royal princesses like Marie Antoinette, whose extravagance and apparent disregard for the suffering of the people inspired subsequent rebels to attribute the statement "if the people have no bread, just let them eat cake" to her. The much-hated princess led a sheltered, self-centered life in her own mansion on the grounds of the magnificent Palace of Versailles in which the French royal family had lived since the reign of Louis XIV. During the French Revolution on October 5, 1789 many citizens of Paris led by women demanding "bread" marched on the palace, accompanied by some national guards, and they captured her and her husband King Louis XVI and forced them to return to live again in the capital city, where they could be more subject to the will of the people and be among them again. It was a huge part of the story of the new birth of democracy and human rights in our modern times. Even today women often lead marches against our own tyrant. Oct.5 is also my birthday. Not in 1789 though, of course, but 160 years later. So because my birthday is on such an historic day of revolution, I also bring a cake for us for this story, so that we won’t need any bread today.

But democracy and human rights are still denied today in many places. We and many other peoples now live under regimes who just let the bosses trample upon the needs of the people they rule. Oblivious as they are to the results of their policies, it’s as if they think that if the people don’t have any bread, they can just as easily have cake. The bosses want to fool us again and again to accept their rule. So, let us be reminded of their scheme. Let us eat cake.

There are other anniversaries and birthdays we can celebrate or commemorate today with our cake. This is also another of my musical essays, because 60 years ago today as I write this on August 8, 1966 The Beatles released their album Revolver in the USA, three days after its release in Britain. The French Revolution undoubtedly changed the world. But this is also said about the 1960s, and about The Beatles, and in particular about this album, which many including myself consider their best and most influential. It saw the first application of many new recording techniques, and created new sounds never heard before. Tomorrow Never Knows was the first song they worked on for the album in April 1966. It is the music of tomorrow from 60 years ago. John, George and Ringo took LSD at a gathering in LA with Jim McGuinn and David Crosby from the US folk-rock group The Byrds in August 1965, and since then the music of both groups became more mature, free and expressive of what they were discovering. Actor Peter Fonda visited his musical friends there too, trying to help George through his trip, but he also said such disturbing things as "I know what it’s like to be dead", to which John Lennon replied to stop saying things like that, because "you’re making me feel like I’ve never been born". Changing "he" to "she", John quoted Fonda’s words and his reply exactly for the last song The Beatles worked on for Revolver in June called She Said She Said. These words were sort of an alarming way to point toward the death of the limited self and opening up to the eternity within us. But people in the sixties did not mince words. It became the final track on side 1, and another influential psychedelic rock classic.

In June 1966, just before my own new spiritual birth of awakening burst through, the Byrds released the song 5D Fifth Dimension, the title track for their new album, a song which some radio stations banned because it sounded like an LSD trip. This and other music helped expand my consciousness in the following weeks without me having to take any LSD. The Byrds song included lyrics like "I will remember the place that is now, that has ended before the beginning," and Tomorrow Never Knows included almost the same words. John sang, "play the game existence to the end of the beginning". Across an ocean, both groups were catalysts for a new more spiritually-awakened culture that was then unfolding.

The French Revolution helped create a new more-democratic world. It also unleashed some less desirable trends like nationalism that came to a climax 81 years ago today in world war two when the USA bombed Nagasaki to end the war, three days after bombing Hiroshima. The atomic age was born, threatening us all with what it’s like to be dead. The Byrds on the Fifth Dimension album included a song about this bombing. Then in 1968 The Beatles put their song Revolution on the back of one of their biggest hits. John sang that we all want to change the world, but we’d better free our minds. In other words, the spiritual revolution they spearheaded on Revolver needs to accompany the political one goingon. The Rolling Stones that year were singing about how the time was right for a palace revolution, but that in his town a Street Fighting Man’s only place was in a rock n roll band. And in 1971 The Who expanded on the Beatles’ song in Won’t Get Fooled Again, first played on the air here in the Bay Area 55 years ago this week. It immediately became my favorite song, and eventually my all-time #1. It also included synthesizer sounds never heard before. The song ended with the line, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss". It was a cautionary tale about the terror that can come from revolution, even though it also embodied the whole liberating, panoramic and fearful scene of revolutions from 1789 to today, much as the Stones’ song also did.

So, let us eat cake, in honor of all the liberations we have gained, and aware of all the terrors and illusions we still face.