It's really a sad thing when we, as baby boomers, begin to feel like "old fogies" when it comes to music along with the "hip" things going on in popular culture. It is usually easy to forget that the rock music and many other genres of modern music got their launch way back during the days when baby boomers were the young people changing society and yes it was our music that changed the planet.
So it's good for baby boomers to consider such things about their heritage and what they passed on to the music and entertainment culture today. Inside the song "Rock and Roll Never Forgets" by Bob Seger, the singer blogs about the changes baby boomers have gone through since they go from youth to middle age and handle pressures of work, family, child rearing and modifications in health due to aging. However the end result remains the same that in the middle of every baby boomer is a rock and roller who is just as capable as ever of experiencing and enjoying the music that was the foundation of their culture.
One of the things that disheartened the newborn boomer generation growing up was seeing the stone life style take its toll on many of the icons of youth culture and music including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Freddie Mercury. However the unfortunate demise of these music heroes will not diminish the great contribution to music also to culture down through the years. To be able much as we grieve the loss of great talent, we can easily always celebrate what they gave to us and continue to give to us down to contemporary times as music continues to reference those great figures of 60s music as icons and inspirations.
But for every rock and roller who failed to survive that turbulent period in our culture, we can look to great performers who did survive, overcame their addictions and took to continue to give great music around the world decade after decade. Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones and David Bowie are instances of wonderful and talented music heroes that demonstrated that age and a few wrinkles don't mean anything. They continue to rock and roll today as hard along with as much heart as they did once they were in their twenties.
In a way "to rock and roll" is a metaphor for living life to the fullest and for staying true to your values and living life in a very genuine way that never surrenders on what's important in life. For this reason baby boomers have always had the maximum contempt for anyone who sells out or abandons their core principles that they can espoused in youth. To sell out is to say that none of the great good the youth revolution meant anything so we are willing to turn out backs onto it. But to "rock and roll" means going back to your roots and not giving up, even when age, and busy lives and bad health say that you should slow down and never try to live with as much earnestness as you did when you were young.
Seniors, even at this dignified and "mature" stage in life, should feel liberated to be able to go ahead and "rock and roll" in a real feeling of the word. The Bob Seger song was a hit because it gives us permission to reconnect with your roots and express that youthful enthusiasm again. You don't have to go to a nostalgia show to do that either. There are dozens of great rock and roll acts that are giving to the children of baby boomers (and their grandchildren) that same excitement we got from The Beatles and The Stones.
"Discovering" stone all over again can be great fun for the baby boomer especially when you find a new act which includes that power and capacity to perform that reminds us with the acts of our youth. They may be out there so just just go and uncover this great natural resource of talent within the music and culture of today's youth revolution.
Take a look at the site Wurlitzer Jukeboxes.
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