our generation needs to grow up

When we were young, we felt that we had life by the tail. When we got older, we realized that we had something by the tail and we were afraid to let go.

The problem is that we boomers seem to have, as one young man put it, a “cultural death grip.”
Listen to the music in the stores. It is ours. Listen to the music being used to sell stuff on TV and radio. It is also ours. Our groups drives advertising and just about everything else.

It is no wonder that younger people get irritated with us.

I asked my son one day what music did he think he would be listening to when he was my age. His response: probably yours.

I am not sure what we have done to our kids, but there is no real culture at their age.
When we were young, we listened to a shared music, had probably the first nationally shared interests in the history of the world.

A lot of that was because of television. We could see stuff and could want to become a part of it immediately. And it was fun.

The Beatles came on Ed Sullivan and we were enthralled. Overnight, schools had to ban Beatle haircuts. We saw protests and heard music and watched a war that we were winning at one time be trashed by news anchors and bought into it all.

But as we got older, especially since there were so many of us, we began to like to remember. And our remembering, little by little began to take over society,

Before long, everywhere you went, our music had replaced the Muzak general music in stores and in the mall.
Everybody got to listen to our music. Everybody, no matter what their preference, got to participate in the boomer rock culture. Ads on TV had it, young bands began to cover the music.

Everywhere you looked, everywhere you listened, our music ruled.

But was that good? But you ask, what harm can come from it, from listening to music we heard almost half a century ago.

The one thing that happened badly was the inability of the boomer generation, the children of the 60’s to grow up. The music was a constant reminder of when we were young and carefree.

It was almost as if the universe stopped about 1980. We didn’t really want to grow up, just sit and listen to oldies and remember.

It was as if, also, as if our parents played nothing but 20’s music and we grew up listening to nothing but that.

It is understandable that our children get annoyed and the young man called for the day when the cultural death grip of the boomers was released.

Of course, the problem is that there is nothing to replace it. Music in the past 20 years, at least, is a wasteland.

What’s the answer. I do not know. I like to listen to oldies, but I have to admit, it makes a restlessness within me to be back when I was young. And I remember too much.

Sooner or later you have to get older, and put away childish things.

Our generation needs to let go and grow up.