What his life was like...

Coming of age during the sixties must have been the experience of a lifetime. This was the era of go go boots, psychedelic experimentation, and beatnik jives. Gas was cheap and jobs were plentiful. But the good times didn’t last forever. In the seventies the United States was invading Vietnam and gas was expensive and in short supply. Not to mention the Cuban missile crisis. This could have been the fuel that feed Billy’s’ lust for doom and gloom. But I think his largest influence was when he spent his summer in Paris. While there he was introduced to a variety of thinkers and poets.