Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Can't Hear Yourself Think
Music is everywhere in this story, blaring out of radios in restaurants, cars, and homes:
The music was always in the background like music in a church service, it was something to depend upon. (6)
It's so omnipresent, in fact, that it seems to have worked its way into the very way characters think, act, and feel. For Connie, music is associated with sex; her feelings for boys are mixed up with "the insistent pounding of the music" (10) and its "slow-pulsed joy" (14). Arnold exploits the rhythm of popular music, with its repetition of catchy lyrics and simple melodies, when he cajoles Connie in a "simple lilting voice, exactly as if he were reciting the words to a song" (59).
But what does all this musicality mean?
Well, a lot is made of the fact that "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" takes place in the mid-sixties, at the turning point of youth culture in America. The Sexual Revolution had already begun, the idea of free love was starting to infiltrate areas of the country like New York and San Francisco, and the music was louder, hotter, and more raucous than it had ever been.
The "music [...] always in the background" can be seen as standing in for this massive cultural shift. Parents were not pleased—if they could have yelled at their children to turn down the racket of the "turn in, turn on, drop out" ethos, they would have.