The Rise and Fall of Music

I want you to think back. Back to a time when cars were larger, when gas was maybe $1.50 a gallon, and when television was actually entertaining--and the music the average pop radio station played actually made you think, made you laugh--and even made you cry. It was the 1970s, the age of AM radio, the epoch of the eight-track tape. What a wonderful time it was to be alive. For example, 1970 brought us such radio classics as David Gates and Bread's "Make it With You." A textbook example of a song that was, in the words of one disc jockey, "a summertime memory." In this song, the narrator, a man--casts his personal vision of a life of true love and how wonderful it would be to have someone to share that with. As one who personally knows what that is like--I will let the world know that I have married a truly beautiful woman, both inside and out--I most certainly can relate to the song. As I listen to this song, I am invited to think about true love--not a one night stand, or just sex. Indeed, although there are those who wish to distort the title of this beautiful ballad of love to mean something it clearly doesn't--it is a love ballad which encourages the listener to imagine true love.

In '74, we laughed at the antics of an arguably goofed-in the head man who went around with no clothes on, as Ray Stevens introduced us to his friend "The Streak." While it certainly was a man who enjoyed being in the nude, it was funny yet still tasteful. Still, the tune spoke of something totally tasteless in a manner that was tasteful, and made us laugh. Or in '76 we laughed hysterically as Larry Groce poked fun at himself when he said that he was a "junk food junkie," walking around with a "Big Mac on his breath." (Sidebar: A lot of us '70s kids who grew up as Big Macs and Whopper junkies are now men and women in their 40s with high blood pressure, weighing far more than we want to!)