It took me awhile to get back to this exercise. It must be a measure of youth, a rite of passage if you will, to listen to the radio and devote to mind the lyrics to two thousand terrible songs. I feel old now, but those songs that made the top 40's lists in the late nineties have made the "golden oldies" station. The eighties has been solidified melodically among the ranks of Frank Sinatra and the Beatles, so it was only a matter of time. Still, I can begin to imagine what it will be like in forty years when I'm beginning to get old.
In any case, there are literally thousands of songs ingrained in me. Remember back in high school or maybe community college when they'd tell you about oral story telling and you couldn't even imagine having not only the Iliad but the Odyssey memorized as well? Going around town to town selling your wares in the form of a well-told story, sending out a brass bowl to collect the days coins.
Maybe in the future all of us of the MTV generation will travel around singing out those many songs whose lyrics probably amount to an epic poem or two and whose many tones have the true feel of an emphasized tale. Sure, hats are far more in fashion, "pass the hat" and all that, but it all amounts to the same. Even Homer must have been kicked from a street corner or two for "loitering."
Unfortunately, so few of the songs etched across my brain pan have any true effect. And perhaps this, above all things, is the tragedy of my generation.
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