It’s just noise. That’s the common refrain heard by
every child about their music from every parent. You heard it. I heard it …
especially when I was listening to Diesel Rhino.
Of course, it goes the other way around, too. The
younger generation has a hard time coming to grips with the music of its elders.
They don’t understand why their parents and grandparents like what they do as
much as they do. I remember taking road trips with my grandparents, and the
scariest thing I’d hear was, “Let’s listen to Boxcar Willie
one more time.” My soul would scream. I could not understand the appeal of
Boxcar Willie. I couldn’t relate to him or his songs. Nor could I relate to my
dad’s love of Johnny
Mathis, or my mother’s need to play Judy Collins.
On the flip side of that, I’m sure my parents
cringed whenever they heard Kiss,
Iron Maiden,
or later on – Skinny
Puppy. How could my parents relate to it? It wasn’t their
music, and it wasn’t their memories.
That’s where the power lies. Music moves people for
different reasons. It creates different memories in different people. How it
connects with you as a child may be different than how it connects with you as
an adult, but if that connection was strong enough when it originally was created,
it will most likely always stick with you no matter how little you listen to it
in your later years. I do not listen to Kiss much these days, but if it comes
on Sirius, I’ll crank it up and I’ll have some sort of memory attached to it. The
last bit of music I bought was Essence!
by Death in June.
I do not have early memories attached to that band, but I’m interested in
making new ones – a new soundtrack for this point of my life. I don’t just
stick with the songs and albums I know. My parents did the same thing. I
remember my mother buying the newest Blondie
release. I remember my dad getting excited when he got a new Anne Murray
eight-track.
The music that sticks, though, is what we’ll never
understand between generations. We don’t share the memories and that’s okay.
We’ll go on not understanding each other’s music choices and it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t diminish either side in either way. We don’t have to understand each
other in this sense because it’s so personal that it could never be fully
understood anyway. Just remember that the next time you question your
grandparent’s love of Boxcar Willie, though I have a hard time coming to grips
with that ever being an acceptable music choice.