Wednesday, August 19, 2009

I Am So Lucky

Music brings peace and comfort and joy. It inspires both wonderful and terrible things.

Best of all, music is timeless. Or at least the music of the sixties and seventies seems to be. That's the music I grew up with and love.

There has been a lot of news this week about the fortieth anniversary of the Woodstock Festival. There were clips of many of the singers, including Joe Cocker. Yesterday, on "America's Got Talent," a contestant sang "You Are So Beautiful." It was fabulous and the audience loved it, definite goose bump time. That song performed by Joe Cocker was on the radio all the time in 1975.

What keeps the "pop" music from that twenty year period so fresh and interesting? Perhaps it is because our society had such a transition during those decades and the music reflected it, in both the tunes and the lyrics. Even when the lyrics were ambiguous, the words were at least understandable and you could wrap them around your own experiences. And you still can.

Except for a few Christian pop and country songs, I haven't a clue about more current music. I hear it every now and then blaring out car windows, sometimes blaring out my own window if my son is driving. I wonder if, thirty years from now, any of those songs or raps will still be on the radio.

I bet my seventies music will still be there, though, playing through the speakers of my comfortable SUV as I drive off into the sunset.

1 comment:

Ricky Balthrop said...

One of the problems with where music is now is that melodies have disappeared. The current trend is all about rhythm, percussion, and words. I suspect the loss of musicality is why we prefer the "oldies." It seems to me that there are more youngsters who listen to "classic rock" than there were people of our generation who listened to Big Band music. Makes you wonder if in twenty years there will be "classic hip-hop" stations on the radio (if there will still be radios!)

I knew that was a favorite song of yours, so when he sang I knew you would like it. That song always makes me think of you because it is one of your favorites, and because you are so beautiful.