This episode in this ongoing Substack series is about a variety of things, the first of which concerns my ongoing musical education.
This was like a supernatural message. I’ve been a student of rock ‘n’ roll since I was a youngster. I remember, clearly, when I first heard Elvis – I was having lunch with my mother in a diner in Hillside, Illinois. He was singing “Don’t be Cruel.” I was eight years old, going into the fourth grade. Elvis – the pre-Army Elvis, not the impostor that came out of the Army – changed my life.
A fellow about my age once challenged me to a rock ‘n’ roll trivia duel. He bragged that no one had ever beaten him. I beat him on his first question: “Who played congas on Welcome to the Canteen?” Look it up. As that anecdote confirms, have a PhD in rock ‘n’ roll history, with minors in blues and pre-hip-hop R&B
I was surfing music videos on YouTube the other day – it’s a favorite pastime – and I hear a song I’ve never heard before, a song that completely blows me away: “Pilot of the Airways” by Charlie Dore and her crack band, released in 1979. I’m still wondering how it passed me by. It’s as perfect a song as I’ve ever heard. I now begin my day, every day, with it. If you look it up, watch the version where Charlie’s wearing a sort pinkish top, with a white scarf hanging around her neck.
I’ve also been obsessively watching the Official Music Video – a live performance – of the Mac doing “Dreams.” It may be Stevie Nicks’ best vocal performance ever; completely revised my opinion of her. Nonetheless, the original band, led by Peter Green, continues to be my favorite lineup. I highly recommend Then Play On, the Mac’s greatest album ever.
Finally, during the same OCD session, I stumbled across the best duet performance I’ve ever heard: Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton doing “Islands in the Stream” live during some awards show. Is Dolly the greatest female vocalist of two generations, or what? She is the epitome of sublime and she’s doing nothing but having a good time. And Kenny, ever the gentleman, lets her steal the show…effortlessly.
One two-hour episode of Music OCD, the perfect song, three perfect vocal performances… How could I have asked for more? Like I said, it was supernatural. Here I am, a certified old man, and new stuff just keeps happening. I heard a message: Keep on rockin’ in the free world.
The free world, by the way, is shrinking and has been since the Berlin Wall came down. Case in point: Biden and the Democrat Party elite showed their true colors the other day, didn’t they now? Abstaining from a United Nations vote to demand that Israel accept an unconditional cease fire, thus leaving itself in peril. If Israel capitulates, which I doubt will happen, the mullahs will know that the timing of Israel’s destruction is completely up to them. Israel must stand. The free world depends up it.
We Baby Boomers started the craziness. We grew up during a time when the country was as unified as it’s been since the Revolution and then decided that “the best” was not only not good enough, it was actually the baddest. We should be called the Turncoat Generation. The problems American parents are experiencing with children – problems that would have been inconceivable to my parents, their peers, and their fore-parents – were part of the boomer legacy. Lamentably.
I have great difficulty remembering what I did yesterday, but I recall my childhood well. I do not remember ever seeing another child throw a tantrum. I do not remember ever seeing a child openly defy an adult’s instruction. I do not remember a female high school classmate creating and then wrapping herself in a personal soap opera. I do not remember a high school peer, male or female, going about in a near-constant state of angst.
If we don’t figure out how we got to this place, we are going to wake up one morning to find that the American experiment is over and the tyrants have begun their reign.
The solution begins with restoring sanity and unanimity to the raising of America’s children.
Washington cannot be trusted to do anything right. It’s up to “We, the People” to take back our personal authority and responsibility over our families.
Remember, it begins with the restoration of “scary parenting.”
Copyright 2024, John K. Rosemond