You know you are getting old when:

[GHT]

I'm with you Tony, it's almost heresy to be a baby boomer and admit that 60's music, whatever the band, just ain't your taste. I much prefer to listen to nothing. The nothing being the title that a very arrogant John Lennon gave to music before Elvis. "Before Elvis, there was nothing." In that short scathing sentence he dismissed every genre of music that had gone before.

The Beatles rubbed off on Britain's DJ's too. One broadcaster played Shake, Rattle & Roll by a Brit who called himself Shakin' Stevens. He asked who had the original hit with it. The DJ thought that it was Bill Haley & The Comets, he wouldn't listen to those calling in with Big Joe Turner. You could say that Lennon was to blame, I forgot to say that this was pre-internet days, so looking up definitive answers wasn't so easy, but Lennon or not, the DJ should have known, chances are he didn't even know that Elvis had recorded it.

 

[Zombie_61]

It borders on blasphemy in some quarters to say this, but I haven’t heard anything new from the Stones worth the time it takes to listen to it in a good 30 years or more...

I can't disagree. The one and only time I saw The Stones live was in October of 1989 during their "Steel Wheels" tour and the few "new" songs they performed met with a far less energetic response from the audience than their "vintage/classic" hits.

My best friend for the last 40+ years still keeps track of what they're up to and has tried to warm up to each new release, but even he says they're long past their prime and should stick to performing the songs they know the audience wants to hear.

 

[LizzieMaine]

As somebody who never "got" rock in the first place, I kind of have an outsider's perspective to the whole business, and when I look at 60s music from that outside perspective I don't see much that can stand, in terms of songwriting quality, with the Gershwins and the Porters and the Kerns and the Warrens and the Rodgers-and-Harts and the Robin-and-Raingers and the Gordon-and-Revels (and yes sometimes even the Berlins) of the Era. The level of the lyrics and melodies just doesn't stand up for me. There are few songs to come out of the sixties that are as achingly beautiful as "The Way You Look Tonight" or "All The Things You Are" or "With Every Breath I Take" or "Why Shouldn't I?" or "You're Getting To Be A Habit With Me," or dozens of other titles.

The Beatles, though I'm not a particular fan, would be among the few exceptions. Lennon and McCartney could, when they worked at it, turn out substantial lyrics and melodies on a par with anything to come out of the pre-WWII era, and sometimes did material ("When I'm Sixty Four" comes to mind) which could have easily fit into that period. But I can't think of too many others of their contemporaries who had that sort of skill. Maybe Dylan, if I could understand what he was talking about, maybe Paul Simon, but I can't think of too many others.

The main difference, I think, is the intended audience. When you're writing for a hardboiled Broadway-type audience of adults who've been around the block a few times, as most prewar music was, you're going to be aiming at a different target than if you're writing for teenagers -- who were, from the late 1950s forward, the primary consumers of English-language popular music. The Clearasil set has never been noted for its emotional sophistication.

And yes, the Era also produced "Three Little Fishies," "Flat Foot Floogie," and plenty of other goofy novelty songs. But they stuck out as exceptions because they were.

 

[tonyb]

As somebody who never "got" rock in the first place, I kind of have an outsider's perspective to the whole business, and when I look at 60s music from that outside perspective I don't see much that can stand, in terms of songwriting quality, with the Gershwins and the Porters and the Kerns and the Warrens and the Rodgers-and-Harts and the Robin-and-Raingers and the Gordon-and-Revels (and yes sometimes even the Berlins) of the Era. The level of the lyrics and melodies just doesn't stand up for me. There are few songs to come out of the sixties that are as achingly beautiful as "The Way You Look Tonight" or "All The Things You Are" or "With Every Breath I Take" or "Why Shouldn't I?" or "You're Getting To Be A Habit With Me," or dozens of other titles.

The Beatles, though I'm not a particular fan, would be among the few exceptions. Lennon and McCartney could, when they worked at it, turn out substantial lyrics and melodies on a par with anything to come out of the pre-WWII era, and sometimes did material ("When I'm Sixty Four" comes to mind) which could have easily fit into that period. But I can't think of too many others of their contemporaries who had that sort of skill. Maybe Dylan, if I could understand what he was talking about, maybe Paul Simon, but I can't think of too many others.

The main difference, I think, is the intended audience. When you're writing for a hardboiled Broadway-type audience of adults who've been around the block a few times, as most prewar music was, you're going to be aiming at a different target than if you're writing for teenagers -- who were, from the late 1950s forward, the primary consumers of English-language popular music. The Clearasil set has never been noted for its emotional sophistication.

And yes, the Era also produced "Three Little Fishies," "Flat Foot Floogie," and plenty of other goofy novelty songs. But they stuck out as exceptions because they were.

It wasn’t until I developed an affinity for the popular music of my grandparents’ era that I truly appreciated the best of mine, and could articulate the reasons why.

I have no problem distinguishing what was Lennon’s and what was McCartney’s. They shared credit, and on a few tunes there was close collaboration, but the tunes were either mostly one or the other’s or entirely one or the other’s. And, if after hearing them hundreds and even thousands of times a person can’t pick that up, that person has a worse ear than even mine.

You named a couple-three of the rock songsters whose work will likely remain in the public consciousness long after they’re dead and gone. A great song is a great song, no matter when or by whom it was written.

What acts like The Rolling Stones have (had, anyway) is a compelling sound. The same can be said for some of the bigger rock acts of this current era. (Compelling to some. I’m not a big fan of, say, Foo Fighters, but I kinda get why the kids are.) What they don’t have, in most cases, is great songwriting chops. There’s a reason why few Rolling Stones songs get covered by others. It’s not the song so much as the feel, the groove, the performance (in the studio, when they were young). It’s great at what it is, but what it is isn’t great songwriting.

 

[EngProf]

As somebody who never "got" rock in the first place, I kind of have an outsider's perspective to the whole business, and when I look at 60s music from that outside perspective I don't see much that can stand, in terms of songwriting quality, with the Gershwins and the Porters and the Kerns and the Warrens and the Rodgers-and-Harts and the Robin-and-Raingers and the Gordon-and-Revels (and yes sometimes even the Berlins) of the Era. The level of the lyrics and melodies just doesn't stand up for me. There are few songs to come out of the sixties that are as achingly beautiful as "The Way You Look Tonight" or "All The Things You Are" or "With Every Breath I Take" or "Why Shouldn't I?" or "You're Getting To Be A Habit With Me," or dozens of other titles.

The Beatles, though I'm not a particular fan, would be among the few exceptions. Lennon and McCartney could, when they worked at it, turn out substantial lyrics and melodies on a par with anything to come out of the pre-WWII era, and sometimes did material ("When I'm Sixty Four" comes to mind) which could have easily fit into that period. But I can't think of too many others of their contemporaries who had that sort of skill. Maybe Dylan, if I could understand what he was talking about, maybe Paul Simon, but I can't think of too many others.

The main difference, I think, is the intended audience. When you're writing for a hardboiled Broadway-type audience of adults who've been around the block a few times, as most prewar music was, you're going to be aiming at a different target than if you're writing for teenagers -- who were, from the late 1950s forward, the primary consumers of English-language popular music. The Clearasil set has never been noted for its emotional sophistication.

And yes, the Era also produced "Three Little Fishies," "Flat Foot Floogie," and plenty of other goofy novelty songs. But they stuck out as exceptions because they were.

As a leading-edge Baby Boomer (1948 Model), I enjoyed the "rock and roll" music a lot in those days (1960's). However, for the most part the '60's music in particular - in my opinion - was never meant to be listened to in the way the music of prior generations was.
You might go to a live concert now and again - at very extended intervals - but for the most part the music was the "soundtrack of our lives"and was delivered via radio (AM), mostly in our cars.
We listened to it as we cruised the drive-in, went to the drag races, went to the junior and senior proms, and engaged in all the other activities that we did in those days.
It was always on in the background during good times and bad.

People from that era - definitely including me - have a library of music/memories that exist to this day. When I hear "Question Mark and the Mysterions" sing "96 Tears" I always stop what I'm doing and think about hearing that song while studying with my pals for our first big calculus exam. Someone made the comment that we'd all be "crying 96 tears" after the exam. I don't think anyone would call that song great art/music, but it resonates with me.
Based on my conversations with my own friends of similar age everyone has such musical memories.

George Lucas' autobiographical movie, "American Graffiti" captures that time very well, not counting some small degree of anachronism. To be specific concerning the music, my exact era of Baby Boomer was four years old when Bill Haley and the Comets sang "Shake Rattle and Roll", and we were eight when Elvis sang it in 1956.
Somehow that earlier era has been "absorbed" into the later rock and roll music in the public mind. It's rock and roll, but not '60's rock and roll.

To some extent trying to describe the combination of music and culture as we lived it during that time is difficult. It reminds me of the situation in which someone is trying to describe a humorous event and nobody laughs. Finally the story-teller gives up and says, "Well, you just had to be there."
So it is with the '60's and the music of that time - "You just had to be there."

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've never been a particular fan of "nostalgia" the way it's merchandised as a product, but there are certain sounds that will provoke those sorts of feelings in me. Baseball broadcasts were far more the soundtrack of my youth than any kind of music -- I can't remember anyone in my neighborhood caring a lick about the popular music of the moment, but we all followed the Red Sox on the radio. Hearing a clip of Ned Martin calling a Tony Conigliaro at-bat will provoke the warmest of fuzzies for me, and when they died, a part of my youth went with them.

My mother was the prime age to be Elvis-bait -- she graduated from high school in 1957 -- but she couldn't stand him. Her favorite musical artist was, and still is, Liberace. Rock, whether with Roll or not, had no purchase in our house. And even less so at my grandparents' house, where I spent a big chunk of my time -- my grandfather had led a small dance band in the 30s, and he couldn't abide postwar music, to the point where they never so much as owned a single LP record, or even a machine capable of playing one. We'd be watching Ed Sullivan and Ed would bring out some rock act or other and he'd tell me to turn the channel until they were done and the Soviet dancing bears came on.

AM radio was an essential part of my youth, but to me was tuning around at night trying to find the clearest signal for the game, and after it was over, twisting the dial around to find Joe Franklin on WOR, because he was going to be interviewing Benny Goodman live in the studio that night. "Brought to you by Martin Paints, my friends..." Or maybe the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre, "sponsored by Enn-hoyser Busch," especially if it was one of those weird scripts by Elspeth Eric. Even then my main interest was in figuring out how it was done.

 

[Edward]

I tend to hold to the view that there only are two types of music - good and bad. The former is always around in any era, though sometimes you might have to look harder for it than others. At any one time, the latter will usually be available in significantly greater quantity, though the longer in time you are away from that point, the less obvious this becomes. I remember, as a young punk circa 1989 finally getting to see a Top of the Pops broadcast from the punk rock peak of 1977. Let's just say it was an eye opener (and no wonder we needed punk rock so badly when that was the alternative....).

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think in any era there comes a point where the music starts taking itself too seriously, and it desperately needs to have its air let out. In the 30s, you had Fats Waller around to extract the Michael, as they say, and the 40s gave us the ineffable Spike Jones. It's interesting that the 50s and 60s and 70s produced comparatively little in the way of really good musical satire -- Stan Freberg, maybe, although he was more of a general cultural critic. Maybe the Smothers Brothers for a bit. But you never had anyone who really went after the stupider aspects of mainstream popular music the way it was done in the pre-rock era until Weird Al Yankovic came along at the very end of the 70s, and who else is there besides him today?

The best thing to come out of the 90s was "Beavis and Butt-head," which did more than an army of wound-up music critics to demolish the smug pretentiousness of that decade's popular culture. Every generation needs something like that, and the generation that doesn't is in danger of believing its own press.

 

[tonyb]

What stirs fuzzy recollections in me isn’t the auditory so much as the visual. Surviving structures and commercial signage might do it. Cars’ll do the trick, sometimes. Spotting a two-tone (white over blue) ’59 Impala or a straight white ’55 Ford wagon or a Studebaker Lark (a VI or an VIII; we had one of each) or an early post-War suicide door Mopar transports me to where I lived when the folks had one or another of those things, where we travelled in it and the people who rode to those places with us.

This visual orientation goes some way toward explaining my material acquisitions. My home is no museum, but there’s little in here that dates from more recently than the 1970s, and much of it is significantly earlier than that. The previous owners’ enthusiasm for DIY projects was rivaled only by their incompetence at same. (Talk about throwing good money after bad.) So we’ve been gradually undoing their “improvements” since we bought the place, going on four years ago. The upside to all of this is that we are making the place much more interesting visually. Last year’s project was a mostly cosmetic remo-lite in the kitchen. The chandelier, the second-ugliest such fixture known to man, had to go. We tore out the sloppily installed glass tile backsplash (what a waste of good materials that was) and faux-marble counters, took the cabinets apart and painted them in a blue that works well with the new “boomerang” Formica counters with corrugated metal edging. The result isn’t a late-’50s/early-’60s time capsule (we didn’t have black refrigerators and dishwashers and glass-top stoves back then), but it is much more in keeping with the architecture of this pretty much generic suburban rambler.

You know you’re getting old when you’re more compelled by boomerang Formica than the college-age girls up the street.

 

[3fingers]

In the 30s, you had Fats Waller around to extract the Michael, as they say,

What's not to like?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Solid! I think my favorite Waller of the moment is "Spring Cleaning," where he takes an unremarkable pop tune of 1936-37 and interpolates a rather striking statement: "No, lady, we can't haul yo' ashes fo' twenty-five cents, that's bad business!"

(To haul one's ashes, in 1930s Harlem slang, meant to engage in rather vigorous sexual intercourse, but the nice white folks at Victor Records didn't know that...)

 

[ChiTownScion]

As a leading-edge Baby Boomer (1948 Model), I enjoyed the "rock and roll" music a lot in those days (1960's). However, for the most part the '60's music in particular - in my opinion - was never meant to be listened to in the way the music of prior generations was.
You might go to a live concert now and again - at very extended intervals - but for the most part the music was the "soundtrack of our lives"and was delivered via radio (AM), mostly in our cars.
We listened to it as we cruised the drive-in, went to the drag races, went to the junior and senior proms, and engaged in all the other activities that we did in those days.
It was always on in the background during good times and bad.

People from that era - definitely including me - have a library of music/memories that exist to this day. When I hear "Question Mark and the Mysterions" sing "96 Tears" I always stop what I'm doing and think about hearing that song while studying with my pals for our first big calculus exam. Someone made the comment that we'd all be "crying 96 tears" after the exam. I don't think anyone would call that song great art/music, but it resonates with me.
Based on my conversations with my own friends of similar age everyone has such musical memories.

George Lucas' autobiographical movie, "American Graffiti" captures that time very well, not counting some small degree of anachronism. To be specific concerning the music, my exact era of Baby Boomer was four years old when Bill Haley and the Comets sang "Shake Rattle and Roll", and we were eight when Elvis sang it in 1956.
Somehow that earlier era has been "absorbed" into the later rock and roll music in the public mind. It's rock and roll, but not '60's rock and roll.

To some extent trying to describe the combination of music and culture as we lived it during that time is difficult. It reminds me of the situation in which someone is trying to describe a humorous event and nobody laughs. Finally the story-teller gives up and says, "Well, you just had to be there."
So it is with the '60's and the music of that time - "You just had to be there."

Certain songs trigger memories of life events, people, experiences- at least in my aging brain. And it happens more and more as said brain ages, I'll confess. Tunes got a lot of airplay at certain times in history, and how that plays out in the timeline of a lifetime is a very personal call. For example, "Beach Baby" by The First Class triggers of time spent during the summer of 1974 with a particular friend: one of those people who affirm self worth and make the bumpy road of life bearable. It's a pleasant recollection

And sometimes the lyrics trigger a relationship or an episode, even if the song itself didn't peak in its popularity at the same time. I can't hear Cyrkle's "Red Rubber Ball" (" The roller coaster ride we took is nearly at an end, I bought my ticket with my tears that's all I'm gonna spend..") without bringing up recollections of one relationship that might have bordered on PTSD at one time. Knowing how the participants' lives played out, it's more rooted in irony than trauma as the years go by. But it's still very vivid.

The triggers are very personal ("You just had to be there") and as we all had that "soundtrack of our lives" tuned to different stations on different days. But I think that is a lot of it. It's more than the music itself-- that's for certain.

 

[Edward]

I think in any era there comes a point where the music starts taking itself too seriously, and it desperately needs to have its air let out. In the 30s, you had Fats Waller around to extract the Michael, as they say, and the 40s gave us the ineffable Spike Jones. It's interesting that the 50s and 60s and 70s produced comparatively little in the way of really good musical satire -- Stan Freberg, maybe, although he was more of a general cultural critic. Maybe the Smothers Brothers for a bit. But you never had anyone who really went after the stupider aspects of mainstream popular music the way it was done in the pre-rock era until Weird Al Yankovic came along at the very end of the 70s, and who else is there besides him today?

The best thing to come out of the 90s was "Beavis and Butt-head," which did more than an army of wound-up music critics to demolish the smug pretentiousness of that decade's popular culture. Every generation needs something like that, and the generation that doesn't is in danger of believing its own press.

You might find something to appreciate in the work of Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer, self-styled Chap-Hop Superstar. I can ,in particular, recommend his 'We need to talk about Kan Ye'.

 

[Edward]

I tend to find music seond only to smell when it comes to triggering memories. I agree that the associations can be very personal.... Any time I hear the Stone Roses' eopnymous first album, or Radiohead's debut Pablo Honey, or Come on Feel the Lemon heads, I am transported not to 1989, 1994 or 1992, but to the Easter holidays in 1997, when these three albums - bought from the now long-gone Belfast Virgin Megastore in a '3 for £20' deal when that was a seriously good deal for CDs - soundtracked the writing of my undergraduate dissertation.

 

[tonyb]

I've never been a particular fan of "nostalgia" the way it's merchandised as a product ...

Me neither. While I appreciate styles of bygone eras and gravitate toward the company of like-minded others, I am repelled by the blatant commercialization of whatever older style is seeing a momentary resurgence.

Mid-century modern’s 15 minutes has lasted well over a decade now. Retailers, both bricks-and-mortar and “virtual,” specializing in that stuff are legion.

Those who furnish their homes at Design Within Reach and West Elm and maintain their subscriptions to Dwell might well have a stylish abode, but you’d be hard pressed to find photos of a genuine residence from 1967 that much resembled it.

As to Dwell magazine ...

I’ve considered starting a periodical devoted to stylish bathrooms only. What might make a good title? “Bathe,” maybe? Or ... ?

 

[GHT]

Solid! I think my favorite Waller of the moment is "Spring Cleaning," where he takes an unremarkable pop tune of 1936-37 and interpolates a rather striking statement: "No, lady, we can't haul yo' ashes fo' twenty-five cents, that's bad business!"

(To haul one's ashes, in 1930s Harlem slang, meant to engage in rather vigorous sexual intercourse, but the nice white folks at Victor Records didn't know that...)

Is that how Big Joe Turner got away with: "Shake, Rattle & Roll?"
"I'm like a one eyed cat peeping in a sea food store."
Doesn't take much explaining, but it got released, and furthermore, once Bill Hayley & The Comets recorded it, acceptance was assured.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There were many "slip one past The Man" records in the 30s, and not just "race" records. Our friend Mr. Waller was responsible for another dilly in 1939, a romping big-band tune called "Come and Get It," in which he bawled "I don't want no turtle-dovin', I got to get myself some booty!"

Which meant, in 1939, exactly what it means today.

 

[tonyb]

Is it that Puritans were well represented among the early European settlers to these shores that sex was (is?) to be mentioned euphemistically, if it was mentioned at all?

It was 16 years before the Mayflower set sail for the wilds of North America that Shakespeare had Iago tell of the Moor making “the beast with two backs” with Desdemona. Further, he informs a jealous Brabantio that “an old black ram is tupping your white ewe.”

Doesn’t take much imagination to uncover the meaning in that. I trust that the censors of a our parents’ and grandparents’ time had more formal education than most of their contemporaries, and were therefore familiar with the works of William Shakespeare, whose plays on American stages professional and amateur were produced daily throughout this God-fearing land. Yet they found something warranting closer scrutiny in “Louie, Louie.”

 

[3fingers]

Mid-century modern’s 15 minutes has lasted well over a decade now. Retailers, both bricks-and-mortar and “virtual,” specializing in that stuff are legion.

I thought it would have passed by now, but no every other listing on flea bay and other places puts the MCM tag on every dog turd in the house hoping that nobody will notice that they are selling a dog turd.
There are a couple of pieces of furniture that I would like to have, but that's not going to happen until this foolishness comes to an end.

 

[tonyb]

I thought it would have passed by now, but no every other listing on flea bay and other places puts the MCM tag on every dog turd in the house hoping that nobody will notice that they are selling a dog turd.
There are a couple of pieces of furniture that I would like to have, but that's not going to happen until this foolishness comes to an end.

Yeah, the crap (and much of it is indeed crap) is everywhere. Target. Walmart. IKEA. Pier 1 and Cost Plus. They all move tons of MCM “inspired” junk every GD day. (You’ll find it busted up in and alongside apartment building dumpsters before long.)

I don’t expect the madness to die away entirely anytime before we do. So much of the existing housing stock was built during that era, and those styles just plain “work” in those structures.

As we’ve observed before, the market for honest-to-goodness antiques has been in the dumps for a decade or more. But “vintage”? It sells like ice cream on the Fourth of July. The antique malls around here keep their doors open mostly in the strength of the market for stuff made 50 to 70 years ago.

Console stereos with MCM styled cabinets are going for several times what they were as recently as a year ago. (Depending on local markets, of course. There’s wide price differences between the larger cities and the more remote small towns.) I bought mine from the original owner for something like 70 bucks about eight years ago. It would fetch 500 in a heartbeat today. But I bet you could still find a comparable one for 150 or less if you kept your eyes open and had a van you wouldn’t mind taking for a couple hour drive.