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Disco and/or Dysfunction
Mar. 22nd, 2005 12:01 amHey.
I was born in that brief period between the Baby Boom and Generation X. My elder sister was one of the last Boomers, my younger brother was one of the first X'ers. Which makes me belong to the Blank Generation.
I have precious little nostalgia for the times in which I grew up. I don't so much loathe those times as much as curse my lot in them. Perhaps I should have been happy, but I wasn't. But then again, maybe I should have been unhappy anyway. Let me quote myself in the Book of Tepid:
"I grew up during the fallout of the sexual revolution. The hit songs on the radio weren't the innocent young love teenybopper stuff from the late '50s and early '60s...they were the mature breakup songs of acts like Linda Rondstadt and the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac. Gee, wasn't it wonderful growing up without any innocence?"--Tepid 7:10
I came back around to this thought on Sunday, when I drove my sister and her second Significant Other to McGhee-Tyson Airport for their trip to his hometown. I was driving Sis' vehicle, a Honda minivan. The sound system was loaded with R&B songs from the first couple decades of the Rock Era, nearly exclusively. R&B...more than any other genre of rock, the soundtrack of the Boomers. I was born in 1966--just as R&B was being eclipsed by Soul (and from there, Funk) and more radical versions of rock-n-roll. Culturally, R&B means very little to me other than as a contrast. Put it together with one of my mother's favorite pop genres--Beach music--and you have musical fossils from a world that was long gone by the time I was deemed old enough for FM.
I used to tell myself that I really didn't have any musical taste before 1980, but I guess that's not entirely true. I've never been much of a record buyer. Even now I still don't have enough CDs to fill my travel wallet. (Part of the problem is that it's rare a CD has enough songs that I like that I'll buy it. Too often the disk will have one song I'll never want to hear again!) I don't download music from the web because of my lack of a high-speed connection. That and my car stereo refuses to play homebrews.
Anyway, I'm in that bizarre timewarp, listening to songs of the innocent lovestruck and the faithful lover and the committed lover and the lover who would do anything to win his/her desire. Yes, I've heard almost all those songs several times before--often co-opted by Madison Avenue to sell sit-down restaurants and Mercury automobiles. Maybe that's the point; the songs celebrate the young and innocent but have lost their own innocence through their life-cycle as cultural artifacts.
Instead, the music of my youth was about victims and sufferers and the odd cumuppance achiever or victimizer.
That's a Strange Way to tell me you love me
When your sorrow is all that I see
If you just want to cry to somebody
Don't cry to me--Firefall
If you don't love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
"We must never break the Chain"--Fleetwood Mac
Have you heard about the Lonesome Loser
Beaten by the Queen of Hearts every time
Have you heard about the Lonesome Loser
He's a loser but he still keeps on trying--The Little River Band
You lay dead, but you never bled
Instead you lay still in the grass
All coiled up and hissing--REO Speedwagon
What does this say about the roles a youth would grow into from here? Inflict hurt or be hurt? If you are hurt you can't be loved? Are you going to go through your whole life without knowing love? Is it a truth that you can't become happy without hurting somebody else and making that person unhappy and unloved?
Sure, getting your cues from pop music isn't a proper way to set your life. But the songs are hints of a much more pervasive syndrome of attitudes throughout the society of the time. They're the most tangible evidence I can find and share.
Is becoming a dysfunctional individual the price of living in a dysfunctional civilization?
And by the way, yes, I am single. And no, I've never had a girlfriend. The reasons for this are too bizarre and pathetic to get into here and now.
And I don't trust dating services of any kind.
FP
I was born in that brief period between the Baby Boom and Generation X. My elder sister was one of the last Boomers, my younger brother was one of the first X'ers. Which makes me belong to the Blank Generation.
I have precious little nostalgia for the times in which I grew up. I don't so much loathe those times as much as curse my lot in them. Perhaps I should have been happy, but I wasn't. But then again, maybe I should have been unhappy anyway. Let me quote myself in the Book of Tepid:
"I grew up during the fallout of the sexual revolution. The hit songs on the radio weren't the innocent young love teenybopper stuff from the late '50s and early '60s...they were the mature breakup songs of acts like Linda Rondstadt and the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac. Gee, wasn't it wonderful growing up without any innocence?"--Tepid 7:10
I came back around to this thought on Sunday, when I drove my sister and her second Significant Other to McGhee-Tyson Airport for their trip to his hometown. I was driving Sis' vehicle, a Honda minivan. The sound system was loaded with R&B songs from the first couple decades of the Rock Era, nearly exclusively. R&B...more than any other genre of rock, the soundtrack of the Boomers. I was born in 1966--just as R&B was being eclipsed by Soul (and from there, Funk) and more radical versions of rock-n-roll. Culturally, R&B means very little to me other than as a contrast. Put it together with one of my mother's favorite pop genres--Beach music--and you have musical fossils from a world that was long gone by the time I was deemed old enough for FM.
I used to tell myself that I really didn't have any musical taste before 1980, but I guess that's not entirely true. I've never been much of a record buyer. Even now I still don't have enough CDs to fill my travel wallet. (Part of the problem is that it's rare a CD has enough songs that I like that I'll buy it. Too often the disk will have one song I'll never want to hear again!) I don't download music from the web because of my lack of a high-speed connection. That and my car stereo refuses to play homebrews.
Anyway, I'm in that bizarre timewarp, listening to songs of the innocent lovestruck and the faithful lover and the committed lover and the lover who would do anything to win his/her desire. Yes, I've heard almost all those songs several times before--often co-opted by Madison Avenue to sell sit-down restaurants and Mercury automobiles. Maybe that's the point; the songs celebrate the young and innocent but have lost their own innocence through their life-cycle as cultural artifacts.
Instead, the music of my youth was about victims and sufferers and the odd cumuppance achiever or victimizer.
That's a Strange Way to tell me you love me
When your sorrow is all that I see
If you just want to cry to somebody
Don't cry to me--Firefall
If you don't love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
"We must never break the Chain"--Fleetwood Mac
Have you heard about the Lonesome Loser
Beaten by the Queen of Hearts every time
Have you heard about the Lonesome Loser
He's a loser but he still keeps on trying--The Little River Band
You lay dead, but you never bled
Instead you lay still in the grass
All coiled up and hissing--REO Speedwagon
What does this say about the roles a youth would grow into from here? Inflict hurt or be hurt? If you are hurt you can't be loved? Are you going to go through your whole life without knowing love? Is it a truth that you can't become happy without hurting somebody else and making that person unhappy and unloved?
Sure, getting your cues from pop music isn't a proper way to set your life. But the songs are hints of a much more pervasive syndrome of attitudes throughout the society of the time. They're the most tangible evidence I can find and share.
Is becoming a dysfunctional individual the price of living in a dysfunctional civilization?
And by the way, yes, I am single. And no, I've never had a girlfriend. The reasons for this are too bizarre and pathetic to get into here and now.
And I don't trust dating services of any kind.
FP
