As I was sitting down to type this column (something
about how there needs to be better bus service between Portland and
Biddeford) a set of lyrics popped into my head from a song played at
every dance I ever went to.

       

        Save yourself, serve yourself.

        World serves its own needs

        Listen to your heart bleed

        Dummy with the rapture and the revered

            and the right, right.

        You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright

            light.

        Feeling pretty psyched



    And with that, I realized once again that I am old.
This year, that song turns 20 and when that song came out, I thought 20
years old was pretty old. Now that song is 20 and I am as old as that
song plus the age I was when I thought 20 was pretty old, which was 14.

    What makes me feel old is not the fact that I’m
quoting songs that haven’t been new for two decades– I know lyrics to
songs that are 50 years old. What makes me feel old is  that I
remember when that song was new on the radio. That and the fact that I
was about to write a column about public transportation. Well, those
two facts plus the fact that I often find myself thinking, “I don’t
like the looks of those teenagers.”

    Suffice to say there are a lot of things that make
me feel old, so let’s get back to my archaic musical taste. I once
heard someone say that  when it comes to style and taste,
everyone’s version of “cool” when they were a junior in college remains
their definition of cool for the rest of their lives. This is the
reason we have on the radio “oldies” stations and “classic rock”
stations and “contemporary” rock stations and “alternative rock”
stations.

    Each one of them represents each generation’s
collective decision that they are too busy to try to keep up with the
latest trends.

    It was all alternative at one point. White kids
listening to Fats Domino sing about what happened up on Blueberry Hill
was pretty alternative. Grace Slick singing about some kind of mushroom
was pretty altenative and Michael Stipe singing about Leonard
Bernstein, Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs was
alternative. But tonight, there’s probably a wedding reception where
some band will play all three of those songs. We trick ourselves with
the delusion that it wasn’t us who changed. But in reality, at some
point we all had to get up from our table at the soda fountain, take
off our poodle skirts and put our money somewhere other than the
jukebox and it is at that point that our musical taste begins to
fossilize.

    It doesn’t all happen at once. We coast for a while
as our favorite bands continue to put out albums and the radio still
plays our favorite songs. It’s hard to recognize because it is
happening to all of our friends at the same time, but imperceptibly yet
inexeribly our musical tastes becomes dated.

    For me, that date is somewhere around 1994. It took
me forever, but a few years ago, I downloaded all my cds onto a
computer to put on my ipod. Hundreds of CDs and thousands of songs,
virtually every  one more than 10 years old.

    Of the songs I do own that were produced in the last
decade, the majority are by artists I already liked in 1994 who have
managed to stay relevant. Maybe, maybe there are five albums by artists
that did not have an album out during Bill Clinton’s first term.

    But to me it all sounds hip and fresh. To me, I’ve
got a great music collection- Oasis? Oh yeah. Blur? Bingo. The Cure?
Coming up. Violent Femmes? Fantastic! Beck? Odelay!

    I may not be cool or hip, not that I ever was, but I
finally don’t feel like chasing after coolness or hipness. As I grow
older I have become happier with who I am, which is much better than
the otherway around.

    Every once in a while I resolve to update my
collection- maybe pick up some of that Arcade Fire I saw on SNL, but if
I actually do end up at the music store, more often than not I walk out
with a new copy of a long lost and long loved album whistling that
now-familiar tune, “Man, am I getting old.”