Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation’s Music

Whether my children are willing to listen is another matter

Queen’s Freddie Mercury performs at Live Aid, which was much better than anything today’s generation could come up with, that’s for sure

Since they were very young, my children always showed great interest in the music I listened to. Whether at home or in the car, they invariably had questions about what I was playing — questions like “What IS this, anyway?” and “Can we please listen to something else?” -- not to mention, “Can you at least stop singing along?” 

Ah, the inquisitiveness of youth…

OK, the truth is that my kids never much cared for the music from my formative years. But then again, why would anyone want to listen to the likes of Pink Floyd, Earth Wind & Fire or R.E.M. when you can endlessly hit “repeat” on the true musical genius that is “Baby Shark?” 

Stop, Children, What’s that Sound?

So you can imagine my surprise a few years ago when I heard a series of familiar ‘70s-era songs emanating from my youngest son’s room. Standing outside his closed door with my head cocked like that RCA/Victor dog listening to a phonograph, I caught strains of “Hooked on a Feeling” by Blue Suede and “Come and Get Your Love” by Redbone. 

I even heard Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky,” which I consider perhaps the greatest musical tribute to Jesus ever recorded by a Jewish singer, not counting the songs on Neil Diamond’s Christmas album.

It turns out that these songs, along with a bunch of others from the same era, were included on the soundtrack to the popular Marvel movie Guardians of the Galaxy. And that’s when I realized the superpower of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is not in its characters but in its sway over today’s youth. 

While my kids were growing up, the music I played received little more than a collective “meh” from them, but one trip to the movies, and all the way home they can’t stop singing about piña coladas and getting caught in the rain.

We Can Be Heroes

Frankly, I welcome this trend of incorporating some of the corniest songs of the ‘70s into Marvel movies and hope it continues. In a future Iron Man film, Tony Stark could check the power supply for his chest arc reactor while Debbie Boone’s “You Light Up My Life” plays in the background. 

And who wouldn’t love to see an Incredible Hulk film in which the title character adds emphasis to his signature “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” line by launching into the Morris Albert classic “Feelings?” 

My gentle mockery aside, this “rediscovery” of old music by the younger generation is not a new phenomenon. One of the most popular albums among my peers in the ‘80s was the soundtrack from The Big Chill, which featured ‘60s hits from artists like Aretha Franklin, The Temptations and Three Dog Night. 

The main difference is that, unlike me, my parents and the rest of their generation didn’t notice or care about the appropriation of their music. My mother certainly never stopped me from singing along to The Big Chill by angrily demanding, “How did YOU know Jeremiah was a bullfrog? He was a good friend of MINE!”

Turn and Face the Strange Changes

This current intergenerational conflict isn’t just over popular music — Facebook, Tiktok  and Instagram are filled with videos featuring parents chuckling about their kids’ unfamiliarity with decades-old movies and TV shows or mocking the youngsters’ confusion with yesterday’s technology. 

A typical video will show a couple of teens puzzling over a rotary phone like it’s the Enigma machine — pushing the numbers like they’re buttons, lifting the receiver up and down, and eventually resorting to shaking the whole device in exasperation, while the parents snicker off camera. 

Ha ha, stupid kids! Of course, these are the same adults who, back in the ‘80s, didn’t know how to get their VCR clocks to stop blinking “12:00.” Maybe they should keep that snickering to a minimum for the next time they need their kids’ help remembering the Netflix password.

Reelin’ in the Years

Nowadays, thanks to social media, your children’s confusion when confronted with a Rolodex or inability to identify “Joanie” as the correct answer to the question, “Who loved Chachi?’” can translate directly into the most precious commodity of all in the digital age – clout. 

As a result we may be experiencing a curious shift from previous generations when parents routinely tried to one-up each other about how smart their kids were. Instead, today’s clicks-chasing parents will do just the opposite:

Parent 1: “My little Jimmy has never even heard of The Beatles.”
Parent 2: “Oh yeah? Well, my Susie doesn’t know what a DVD is.”
Parent 3: “That’s nothing. My Wilbur still falls for the ‘Got your nose’ trick – and he’s 19!”

In my household, my kids seem to have grown more open to listening to my “old” music. I’ve noticed that now when I put on songs from the ‘60s or ‘70s, they’re much less likely to groan, roll their eyes and pretend to suffer debilitating injuries to their ears. Well, until I start singing along, that is.