At times like this, I chuckle. And no one hears me. That’s okay.
Standing in my back yard Saturday afternoon, minding my own business, the strains of “25 or 6 to 4,” wafted my way, played by the university pep band at a football game.
I bet myself not a player in that band could name the group who originally performed it, the musician who composed it, or, its meaning.
Hearing the tune, certainly made me pause. And chuckle. What is this world coming to?
Music of the late 1960s and early 1970s (the tune played by the pep band) was detested by my parents’ generation. Stronger than detested, it was ordered from many church pulpits: “Don’t listen to it. It’s evil, or worse.”
The lyrics were drug coded, too loud, band members hair way too long, musician attitudes toward “normal” society showed disrespect…in other words, youth music of the 1970s was sending a generation to a hot place for eternity.
Yet, the band performing “25 or 6 to 4” was elementary school compared with “Get it while you Can,” (Janis Joplin), “Purple Haze,” (Jimmy Hendricks), “Get your motor Running,” (Steppenwolf), and “In A Gadded Da Vida,” (Iron Butterfly).
Even so, Chicago Transit Authority – later shorted to “Chicago” with its “25 or 6 to 4,” was destined to the dirty bookshelf of counter-culture.
But, good God, 44 years later college pep bands embrace the tunes and the U.S Postal Service has a Janis Joplin and Jimmy Hendricks stamp.
Stamps for #*&’@ sake!
Yep, I chuckled.
It almost made me ponder the coded words of a song my parent’s often sang – I could never understand why - and laughed about: “She has freckles on her, but she’s beautiful.”
Remove the comma and then wonder why my parents’ parents thought their kids were headed to that same hot place that the youth of the ‘70s had on their GPS.
And those kids from the ‘70s don’t understand rap of today!
Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?
