i heard the news today, oh boy...
now playing: antigone rising, "don't look back"
so they're all coming up to the light now...all the 25 year retrospectives. everyone has their own "where i was/what i was doing when i heard" story today...and really, i'm no different. it's as if john lennon's death is my generations' own JFK moment - the tragedy that binds us all together. so in that light, i guess it's only natural that we all want to share our own memories about it.
i can't help but be struck by the realization that my daughter is the same age right now as i was when it happened. i think about the time that has passed with that single fact as the Grand Barometer of all that has changed in the time since. i think about her life and her social circles and the things she contends with and her personality and her taste in music and generally speaking, who she is - and compare it and contrast it to that timeframe in my life - and the differences speak volumes about the cultural microcosm that the two of us represent.
tonight i drove her back to her moms' as she talked on her cell phone to a friend at school about a fight that had occured at the bus stop earlier this morning...there's a metamorphosis that occurs when jayda talks to her friends - i guess it's probably not that uncommon, really - but when you hear jayda talk to her family and then hear her talk to her friends, you'd swear it was two different people.
i digress.
when i was fifteen, i dealt with a lot of the same things she did - violence in school, bullies and thugs, peer groups that split entire classes of people into segregated cliques that didn't interact with one another under any circumstances, pressure to do well academically, trying to fit in and be popular among my classmates - none of these things are new to her generation, any more than they were to mine...although every generation that comes along takes all the things that suck about being a teenager to a new level.
jayda, like her father before her, has found a refuge - a safe place - in her music. it's where she turns when she's stressed, when she wants to block out the pressures of being her age, it's her tool for reflecting or reinforcing her frame of mind at a given time. it's so much a part of her life that it'd be a trite understatement to say "it's important to her".
in that way, perhaps, i see myself in her more clearly than any other.
i had already set my course in my head at jayda's age...i had acquired my first drumset, was already playing with a family of country musicians who lived down the road from me...and i just felt like i knew that this was what i was going to do. i don't think jayda takes music quite so seriously from a performance standpoint as i did, but that might be changing now...she's met a kid who's an acid whiz, who produces his own tracks, and he's had her come in to sing on a project, and they're talking about doing more. i heard the track she sang on, and she put a harmony part on the chorus that's absolutely dead on. there's no denying her talent - it's just a matter of what she chooses to do with it, and what the world is willing to acknowledge.
i'm not sure, though, that pop music as the world sees it in 2005 is even geared for a tragedy of lennonesque proportions. who would have to die today whose presence would be missed on the scale of a john lennon twenty five years ago? springsteen? bono? michael stipe? madonna? fifteen year olds don't care about them. the pop music of the past decade hasn't created a superstar of lennons' stature - someone so universally respected; who was so important to the music as he was. the closest analogy i can personally conjure is eminem - he's the only artist whose appeal and catalog would support the comparison.
and that's not the fault of the current teenage generation - the fact is, pop music in general isn't built that way anymore. we're smack dab in the middle of short attention span central - where the general reality show consensus doesn't allow for careers, only singles and videos that are here this morning and gone this afternoon. it's how it is, and that's what they've got, so they go with it.
and, if the truth be told, when i was jayda's age, i didn't understand how important john lennon was. i knew who he was, and i knew his work...double fantasy had just come out, and i had heard the single on the radio. of course, i knew about the beatles - but i didn't have the historical perspective then that i came to have as i grew older. as i viewed the significance of the beatles in both a musical and cultural sense in my later years, it was certainly apparent how important they were to the Big Musical Picture. they turned everything before them upside down and changed all the rules and influenced everyone who came after them and the fact is, if not for the beatles, there's really no way to gauge what pop music would have been in the years after them - if, in fact, rock and roll lived to the ripe old age it did.
twenty five years ago, the dream of the beatles putting aside their differences and returning to save us from ourselves ceased to be real anymore. but the effect of johns' death was bigger than that. in a sense, it really was the JFK Moment of our generation, in that we all came to realize that living your life within the hippie ideal, as a practitioner of peace, as someone who genuinely loved the world they lived in, was no guarantee that the world would treat you in kind. it was another brick in the cynical wall built by JFK, Vietnam, and Watergate - in the spirit of douglas adams, it was the fourth installment in the trilogy.
the universe told us once again that life isn't fair...that there's no written agreement that you'll get back what you put in.
i woke up every morning to the alarm from the treasured clock radio that was, in many ways, my salvation - in that it was my window to the world outside my house and the only conduit to rock and roll that i had at the time. i set the alarm of my own accord, so that i didn't have to rely on anyone else to wake me (interestingly enough, my daughter does this now with her own conduit to the outside world, her cell phone).
that morning was no different - the alarm simply turned on the radio, which came on right before ABC news on Q-107...and the entire four minute news broadcast was devoted to the shooting, which had happened the night before while i slept.
i still wasn't completely awake, but i heard and clung to every word he said - and immediately after the news broadcast, without so much as a commercial, they played dan fogelberg's "same auld lang syne".
twenty five years later, when i hear that song at christmas, i don't think about two star-crossed lovers in a supermarket...i'm back under my blankets in the dim, glowing clock radio light, weighing the consequences of what had just happened.
i had occasion to think about it all again this past weekend, when i played that song at a rare full-set solo acoustic show ("full-set" meaning that i brought everything - piano, guitars, dobro, sound and lights, the works - the deluxe version.)...and the immediate, unescapable conclusion that i came to was very simply that those days - and his kind - shall not pass this way again.
and while i want to feel sorry for those who came after who may never understand why he was as important as he was, i'm not so inclined to.
it all belongs to the ages now.
so they're all coming up to the light now...all the 25 year retrospectives. everyone has their own "where i was/what i was doing when i heard" story today...and really, i'm no different. it's as if john lennon's death is my generations' own JFK moment - the tragedy that binds us all together. so in that light, i guess it's only natural that we all want to share our own memories about it.
i can't help but be struck by the realization that my daughter is the same age right now as i was when it happened. i think about the time that has passed with that single fact as the Grand Barometer of all that has changed in the time since. i think about her life and her social circles and the things she contends with and her personality and her taste in music and generally speaking, who she is - and compare it and contrast it to that timeframe in my life - and the differences speak volumes about the cultural microcosm that the two of us represent.
tonight i drove her back to her moms' as she talked on her cell phone to a friend at school about a fight that had occured at the bus stop earlier this morning...there's a metamorphosis that occurs when jayda talks to her friends - i guess it's probably not that uncommon, really - but when you hear jayda talk to her family and then hear her talk to her friends, you'd swear it was two different people.
i digress.
when i was fifteen, i dealt with a lot of the same things she did - violence in school, bullies and thugs, peer groups that split entire classes of people into segregated cliques that didn't interact with one another under any circumstances, pressure to do well academically, trying to fit in and be popular among my classmates - none of these things are new to her generation, any more than they were to mine...although every generation that comes along takes all the things that suck about being a teenager to a new level.
jayda, like her father before her, has found a refuge - a safe place - in her music. it's where she turns when she's stressed, when she wants to block out the pressures of being her age, it's her tool for reflecting or reinforcing her frame of mind at a given time. it's so much a part of her life that it'd be a trite understatement to say "it's important to her".
in that way, perhaps, i see myself in her more clearly than any other.
i had already set my course in my head at jayda's age...i had acquired my first drumset, was already playing with a family of country musicians who lived down the road from me...and i just felt like i knew that this was what i was going to do. i don't think jayda takes music quite so seriously from a performance standpoint as i did, but that might be changing now...she's met a kid who's an acid whiz, who produces his own tracks, and he's had her come in to sing on a project, and they're talking about doing more. i heard the track she sang on, and she put a harmony part on the chorus that's absolutely dead on. there's no denying her talent - it's just a matter of what she chooses to do with it, and what the world is willing to acknowledge.
i'm not sure, though, that pop music as the world sees it in 2005 is even geared for a tragedy of lennonesque proportions. who would have to die today whose presence would be missed on the scale of a john lennon twenty five years ago? springsteen? bono? michael stipe? madonna? fifteen year olds don't care about them. the pop music of the past decade hasn't created a superstar of lennons' stature - someone so universally respected; who was so important to the music as he was. the closest analogy i can personally conjure is eminem - he's the only artist whose appeal and catalog would support the comparison.
and that's not the fault of the current teenage generation - the fact is, pop music in general isn't built that way anymore. we're smack dab in the middle of short attention span central - where the general reality show consensus doesn't allow for careers, only singles and videos that are here this morning and gone this afternoon. it's how it is, and that's what they've got, so they go with it.
and, if the truth be told, when i was jayda's age, i didn't understand how important john lennon was. i knew who he was, and i knew his work...double fantasy had just come out, and i had heard the single on the radio. of course, i knew about the beatles - but i didn't have the historical perspective then that i came to have as i grew older. as i viewed the significance of the beatles in both a musical and cultural sense in my later years, it was certainly apparent how important they were to the Big Musical Picture. they turned everything before them upside down and changed all the rules and influenced everyone who came after them and the fact is, if not for the beatles, there's really no way to gauge what pop music would have been in the years after them - if, in fact, rock and roll lived to the ripe old age it did.
twenty five years ago, the dream of the beatles putting aside their differences and returning to save us from ourselves ceased to be real anymore. but the effect of johns' death was bigger than that. in a sense, it really was the JFK Moment of our generation, in that we all came to realize that living your life within the hippie ideal, as a practitioner of peace, as someone who genuinely loved the world they lived in, was no guarantee that the world would treat you in kind. it was another brick in the cynical wall built by JFK, Vietnam, and Watergate - in the spirit of douglas adams, it was the fourth installment in the trilogy.
the universe told us once again that life isn't fair...that there's no written agreement that you'll get back what you put in.
i woke up every morning to the alarm from the treasured clock radio that was, in many ways, my salvation - in that it was my window to the world outside my house and the only conduit to rock and roll that i had at the time. i set the alarm of my own accord, so that i didn't have to rely on anyone else to wake me (interestingly enough, my daughter does this now with her own conduit to the outside world, her cell phone).
that morning was no different - the alarm simply turned on the radio, which came on right before ABC news on Q-107...and the entire four minute news broadcast was devoted to the shooting, which had happened the night before while i slept.
i still wasn't completely awake, but i heard and clung to every word he said - and immediately after the news broadcast, without so much as a commercial, they played dan fogelberg's "same auld lang syne".
twenty five years later, when i hear that song at christmas, i don't think about two star-crossed lovers in a supermarket...i'm back under my blankets in the dim, glowing clock radio light, weighing the consequences of what had just happened.
i had occasion to think about it all again this past weekend, when i played that song at a rare full-set solo acoustic show ("full-set" meaning that i brought everything - piano, guitars, dobro, sound and lights, the works - the deluxe version.)...and the immediate, unescapable conclusion that i came to was very simply that those days - and his kind - shall not pass this way again.
and while i want to feel sorry for those who came after who may never understand why he was as important as he was, i'm not so inclined to.
it all belongs to the ages now.
posted by tom at 02:44
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