Generational Music

In the old man’s December 15th issue of the Post, I described my introduction to the Facebook social network and my reaction to it. Since then I have had some surprising results from my presence there. The latest was a short “Hi” communication from the granddaughter of my very accomplished and much admired niece, Eileen Lemna. The girl introduced herself as Kelsi Lemna, saying she had been surprised to see my profile on the network.

When she accepted me as a Facebook “friend” I left a message that I was equally surprised. Then I looked up her network profile. I thought the last time we had met, she had been a babe in arms. Now I found that she was obviously a very happy late teen (I think), a social butterfly, a guitar playing figure skater, and, like, a totally with it young adult of the current era whom I placed within Generation Y, or perhaps even Gen Z, if that has arrived yet. As the old man is a rather backward product of the Roaring Twenties Generation the generational divide in our respective musical tastes becomes obvious. Kelsi listed her favourite music as “heavy metal”. For my profile I had chosen “eclectic, but a day without Mozart is like a day without sunshine”.

That reminded me of a passing thought I recorded in the early nineties about my reaction to the sounds of the rock and roll music that continuously assaulted my eardrums unless I stayed within my own quiet corner of the world. In my opinion the situation has worsened since then and the rap and even worse versions of the genre continue to be mostly meaningless noise to the old man. So I offer the following verses as my critique for Kelsi and other potential readers to consider:

HEAVY METAL

The pounding beat of heavy metal
Driving sex into the ground
Sending vanity to madness
Sending madness into hell.

Nothing left but sounds of engines
Crashing sounds to beats of drums
Till the madness screams to heaven
Senses gone and world undone.

Ever more the madness centres
Meaning goes around the curve
All there is, is sound and fury
Ever closer, closer, here.

Grins of glee as senses leave us
Beating sounds of metal grind
Into crashing death and splinters
All that matters is the beat.

Human sounds of screaming fury
Join the drums in crazy race
Twisting forms all havoc centred
Reaching, searching, heaven bent.

Lost in hells of self creation
Pounding on we never stop
Beats and screams and madding laughter
Is the meaning metal found.

Damning souls to life eternal
Of the hell where loudness dwells
Never stopping never sleeping
Faster always, louder too.

The metal wears, the cells divide
The universe goes mad
Until the rhythm disappears
And sounds disorganize.

Then finally the silence enters
And space is all around
Where all we find is peace and beauty
But we’re not there, we’ve found the sound.

Abbotsford, B. C.
June 20, 1993

To Dreams ...

Each day that is left is a bonus for the old man. I treasure it and my amazing fortune in sharing that day with my chosen spouse. I sing this song in a personal card for her collection as she begins her 84th year in a week.

At the same time I want to make it public in my last issue for February as a token of my appreciation to her for sharing 60 plus generally peaceful years with me through thick and thin.

A day to remember
that stays and then grows,
When a boy meets a girl
and all at once knows
his life has new roots
for a budding tree,
To plant by a stream
that roars wild and free.

We hang on its branches
a shining new dream,
And watch it grow strong
By the watering stream.
As dreams load the tree
and life moves along;
We are free as can be
with the memory strong.

And now we are old,
but the tree is still strong;
I remember that day,
and I was not wrong.
We still have room
to hang up more dreams
And the memory will live
even should I change streams.

- 30 -

Tomorrow ....

My first two issues of the Post turned into a real schlimazel. That came about mainly because of not being very familiar yet with this blogger program and my seeming inability to click the right buttons at the right time. To complicate things further I tried to make some email changes on my ISP server and apparently shut down my Outlook Express email program for several days from July 5 last weekend. I hope I have resolved those problems and have asked blogger to take me off their disallowed list. Accordingly, in this issue I am taking the precaution of composing the content directly into the posting page and will avoid adding pictures or other material until I master the method.

For this issue I am publishing a few lines that evolved in the early morning sleepless hours after I had a chat with my sister who is celebrating her 86th birthday next week. In fact I added the lines to a birthday card for her and she may find them either sad or negative. But they were not intended in that way. They are simply a realization of one of the frailties of my own particular journey through various occasions and relationships through life till this time, and I feel sure I am not alone in the sentiment expressed, and I don't think of them as being sad or down putting. I headed the lines with the title of this issue, and they came out as follows:

As we thrust forth
from womb to world,
loved and fed
and cleaned and clothed,
are we happy then?
We know it not--
tomorrow we will know.
The joys of childhood
were there forever.
In centre stage
we took it all for free.
The joys were there;
we knew them not.
Just wait until tomorrow.
And in our youth
long days of peace
and beauty, that joy
escaped unrecognized--
we could not wait to get away,
to really live tomorrow,
and so it went for all the many morrows.
Now we live well and peacefully
in rapid aging years.
We're left alone,
left to atone
those long lost years
of tomorrow and tomorrow
when tomorrow calls us there.

Readers, if any, may comment by email. Pleading the exigencies of age and idiosyncracies, I likely will not reply to emails directly, but reserve the right to respond in future issues of the Post. Please try to send emails to me directly by clicking on my follow address, which I hope will access your own email creator: 83rdplus@telus.net