Not About Nostalgia
Pastor Dan is running a sermon series on “Songs”. You may find the sermons excerpted here on Hope’s YouTube channel. Through a confluence of events, I have the opportunity to drive a vehicle equipped with SiriusXM Radio. This has given me time to listen and reflect on songs and the interesting affect songs have.
I’m sure you are familiar with SiriusXM and the hundreds of different stations and multiple dozens of genres that are available. I have, I suppose, a very narrow range in my musical taste; it is fairly easy for me to narrow down the vast amount of songs to listen to. Initially, using the service, I would find a station, listen to a song or two, then flip to the next station and repeat the process, as one would do when playing with a new toy. It was quite interesting to scroll though the presets on someone else’s radio and try to analyze why and how the stations were selected and grouped as they were. I would not have selected half the stations already preset.
While I was thinking about someone else’s tastes in music, I started thinking about my own. This is an initial analysis and I am still researching, however, I have found some fascinating trends in my taste in music. I started out with three stations: ’60’s on 6, ’70’s on 7, and 80’s on 8. I have listened to several hours over several days to each station. There are definitely some patterns going on.
The ’60’s music was my entrance into musical experience. It was the music both in the family home and in the culture. At a young age, I had little control over what I was exposed to. Listening back to those songs, while good songs, there is little current emotional engagement. Apart from an intellectual study of form and content, and placing in a historical context, this era holds little in my formation.
Ah, now the ’70’s music is a different tale entirely! The songs from that decade definitely have an emotional hook, as well as a profound influence on my view of life, love, and relationships. When I listen to those songs, I hear ideas and thoughts that an adolescent would take and “try on for size”. New ideas, new sounds, new styles; choices in music that are outside of the family home. The expanding social structure: new friends, school, and even church youth group, also bring a wider view of culture and possibilities that come with beginning maturation. I can listen to those songs and connect the dots of my life. I understand where the idealistic foundations spring from, even though reality falls far short.
Which brings us to the ’80’s music. When I listen to ’70’s music I could not put a year to the songs. Most of the songs from that era are so tangled in my psyche, that apart from specific song types which start or define a genre, they could be from any part of the timeline. However, with the ’80’s songs, there is a point that I have lost all connection. The cut off for me seems to be “Neutron Dance” and “(Don’t You) Forget About Me”. Both from different motion picture soundtracks and both from around 1985. (The Pointer Sisters being from 1984, and the beginning of the end. ) I found, that if I was familiar with a song from the ’80’s it was pre-1985, after 1985, unless it was in “my wheelhouse”, was not on my radar. Apparently, my taste in music “calcified” and I only listened to “my music”. Along with my frozen taste in music, the emotional grip of music is frozen. Gone is the youthful exploration of new thoughts and ideas. There is no more need to import someone else’s view of life, love, and relationships. In retrospect, life had gotten in the way: work, starting my own family, work…
That is my initial assessment. I still need to sort through another four decades of music.
I will leave you with some words from a song that is 3000 years old. From Psalm 146:
Praise the Lord, O my soul.
I will praise the Lord as long as I live.
I will make music to my God as long as I exist.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+146&version=EHV>
Rock On!
Trust the Promises
Steve Skiver