It’s difficult to re-create what it feels like to live through a pivotal historical moment, but following videos do a good job.

On the evening of Monday, December 1st, 1969, millions of eyes were glued to “prime-time” television as entertainment shows were pre-empted and 850,000 young men (and their loved-ones) nervously awaited the military draft number which would determine their fate. In Massachusetts that afternoon, it had just snowed…

Here is James Taylor a few months later, in 1970, performing the song he composed in mid/late December, 1969 in Los Angeles, a few weeks after the military draft lottery. Taylor’s home was in Massachusetts (Milton, then the Berkshires). He was 21 at the time.