Feb
15
Written by:
Mr. Harbaugh
2/15/2010 11:34 AM
Music and musical styles change, but every generation finds its own stars. Ultimately, good music is a bridge between people of any age.
With all apologies to Abbot, Costello, and that guy playing first, I was more excited during halftime this Superbowl Sunday than I was for the game itself, because The Who was on stage for a medley of hits reaching back into the 1960's. My ten-year old stepson looked at the screen when they started playing Pinball Wizard and asked "Who is this?", and I answered "Who?! You'd better bet your life!" He didn't get it, but that's okay. He might as well have asked "Pinball? Don't we have that game on the computer"?
I was not alive in 1965 when The Who released its breakthrough album, My Generation, but I was twelve in 1981 when my friend Rob Skalla showed me Face Dances, the first compact disc I had ever seen, held, or heard, and the sound coming through the speakers in his room blew me away that day and still does. And I was alive and well in the 1970's when groups like Kiss, Led Zeppelin, and Rush were taking that Who sound to new places, and I would sit upstairs and listen to FM radio like my life depended on it, sometimes with the tape recorder sitting next to the radio, my finger on the red record button, poised to catch my new favorite song. I remember my dad coming into my room every once in a while to paw through my albums or eight track tapes, and sometimes to take them back to his stereo and check out what I was listening to; I didn't really get why he did it back then, but I think I do now.
So I'm still alive and kicking at 41, listening to new music as my sons and daughter lay claim to the soundtracks of their own lives. I can't say I entirely disapprove of where music has gone since I was a teen, maybe a little, it's too easy to be rich without talent these days, but saying something like that would make me sound old. If rock-and-roll taught me anything, it's not to sound old. Besides, though I can't dance to it, a lot of new music is really, really good. When our whole family is in the car, the person who gets to pick the radio station is in the position of honor. Mostly we listen to the pop station on satellite radio, per the kids' favorites, but sometimes my wife chooses 80's music and bops her head around like a teenager on roller skates, and sometimes I choose a classic rock station and drive my minivan to the sounds of high fidelity.
On Superbowl Sunday, an hour or two before the game began, I was listening to music while I did up the dishes from dinner. One child wandered into the kitchen and started fiddling with my I-pod, then the next kid, then the next, and then finally, all four kids and I were sitting around the kitchen listening to my I-pod, then my daughter's I-pod, then my stepson's. It was really cool to hear in each kids' music collection a whole bunch of influence from their parents, and on my I-pod songs that came to me from the kids. At one point a song came through the speakers from my I-pod that I named instantly. "That's Spinning Wheel, by Blood, Sweat, and Tears" I told them, nodding my head to the beat. "Man, my dad, your grandpa Harbaugh, loved Blood, Sweat, and Tears", I told them.
My oldest son cocked his head and listened a minute, then started nodding his head along to the music, too. "Blood, Sweat, and Tears", he said. "Yeah. Pretty cool."
I just smiled, knowing what he meant. Knowing the beat would go on.