They say that when you hit your 40s, your life is half over. We prefer to think of it as HALF EMPTY. Our age has finally caught up with our outlook on life. Remember, it is possible to turn that frown upside down...but you might pull a muscle.
Our Music Was So Much Better
By Rick Kaempfer & Dave Stern
You know you’re getting old when you say this phrase: “Our music was so much better than music today.”
It’s a rite of passage, as inevitable as ear hair and hot flashes.
We knew our parents were hopelessly out of touch with the youth of America when they mocked the music of our generation--rock and roll.
Have you listened to rap music lately? Consider us to be just as hopelessly out of touch with the youth of America as our parents were. We guess that we can understand the attraction of the thumping beat, and we’re down with those street lyrics, but whassup wit’ the subizzurban kizzids rapping ‘bout ganstas, pimps and hos? You can mock three-chord rock and roll, but at least it was authentically our music. The lyrics spoke to our generation. They dealt with issues that affected us. No gangstas, no pimps, no hos.
Our lyrics delved so much deeper than that, into our wants and needs. What did we want to do? Queen summed it nicely in 1978’s “Bicycle Race.”
“I want to ride my bicycle. I want ride my bike. I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride it where I like.”
That’s lyrical depth right there. The kids today have people like 50 Cent (singular), but they’ll never experience the kind of lyrical beauty provided by people like The Beatles. They didn’t just preach to us, they asked important questions. Remember this gem from 1968’s “The White Album”?
“Why don’t we do it in the road? Why don’t we do it in the road? Why don’t we do it in the road? Why don’t we do it in the road? No one will be watching us. Why don’t we do it in the road?”
Why indeed? Makes you think doesn’t it? We weren’t pretending like we knew what it was like to put a cap in some pimp, but we did know how to beg our women for a little love. It was part of who we were, and what we dreamed. We wanted to ride bikes. We wanted our women to consider places other than the back seat of the car. But most importantly, we wanted to have fun.
This was something we could still do as recently as 1986. The words of Wang Chung said this more beautifully than we ever could.
“Everybody have fun tonight. Everybody Wang Chung tonight. Everybody have fun tonight. Everybody Wang Chung tonight. Everybody Wang Chung tonight.”
Amen, fellas. Those were the days. When music was music. When lyrics actually meant something. When people could Wang Chung their little hearts out.
The kids of today will never be able to experience that kind of depth. They’ll never know the thrill of really committing to something (like boogie oogie oogie-ing, until they can boogie no more.) They’ll never learn about the gritty underbelly of Asian-American race relations (like the funky Chinaman from funky Chinatown that was chopping them up and chopping them down.) They’ll never know about diseases they may contract (like Cat Scratch Fever).
And that’s just sad.
So what can we say or do to rectify the situation? We may not have the answer, but the wordsmith Sting from the 1980s supergroup “The Police” certainly does:
“De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da, is all I want to say to you.”
And he doesn’t just say that for himself. He says that for our entire generation.
We have started accumulating our "Half Empty" columns here: http://halfemptyarchive.blogspot.com
