LATE FRIDAY evening, northbound on the M1. My wife is at the wheel and I'm in a retro state of mind. Little Feat's Fat Man in the Bathtubis blasting from the CD player: All I want in this life of mine is some good clean fun/All I want in this life and time is some hit and run.
If only it were that simple. Fat Manis about the sex lives of a couple of deadbeats – or lack of a sex life where the frustrated male is concerned. Not very promising material to work with, you would have thought, but beautiful music was the result.
My elder son has always maintained that my generation grew up with the greatest music ever produced. He gets no argument from me.
I recall again the cold-sweat thrills I felt as a schoolboy upon hearing the Stones' Little Red Roosterfor the first time. Courtesy of my sisters' record collection, I'd already been thrilled by the likes of Hank Williams, Buddy Holly, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis.
All massive talents and forerunners, but the Stones et al were heralding a revolution.
Year after year, the incredible music just kept coming: Dylan, The Small Faces, Peter Green, Simon and Garfunkel, The Kinks, Janis, Jimi, The Animals, The Band, Van the Man, Leonard Cohen and hundreds more.
The music was everything; it changed everything. After decades of enforced conformity and being ignored, youth finally seized the stage in the 1960s. The dam was breached and a flood of frustration- born creativity was unleashed that swept everything before it.
Depending upon where you choose to look, we’re still reaping the benefits or suffering the consequences of that time.
Today, the supremely talented Marshall Mathers speaks to the anger and self-loathing of millions of western youngsters, the unwilling flotsam and jetsam of other people's notions of personal freedom: Ripped this old lady, hung her neck by a hook/Didn't realise it was my grandmother 'til I checked her pocketbook/F*****' with the white boys got me back on crack/Better explain where the hell your TVs and VCRs is at.
Equally true, western women, gays and lesbians are nowadays no longer persecuted and a man of mixed race is in the White House. Whatever about the social and political outcomes, no one can deny the quality of the music.
Leonard Cohen, the master poet, is now playing as we sweep along in the car: Like a beast, with his horn/I have torn everyone who reached out to me. I've known that feeling all right.
There are few wordsmiths of Cohen's calibre: Do not choose a coward's explanation/that hides behind the cause and the effect.I purposely try not to, Leonard.
The music evokes mental snapshots from the past. Some of the people who died young make a fleeting appearance. In The Chelsea Hotel, Cohen has Janis Joplin consoling them both: Well, never mind, we are ugly but we have the music.
Janis was kidding herself. Her talent was never enough to compensate for the constant high- school humiliations, nor was the heroin that eventually killed her.
I wonder for a second whether Dylan meant it as a blessing or a curse when he sang May you stay forever young.Most likely he just thought it was a good line.
Growing older, you gradually realise that the lyrics can only reflect aspects of your life, not act as a blueprint for living. My generation took the songs far too literally at times. The "freedom" we endlessly pursued was, as Kristofferson wrote, . . . just another word for nothing left to lose.The artists were elevated to philosopher status. This became too much for some of them.
Before long, Dylan was frantically denying the mystical powers attributed to him, although this only encouraged the disciples. Van Morrison signalled the same, titling an album No Guru, No Method, No Teacher.
Just as important it begins to dawn with age that happiness is vastly overrated. No matter what the songs say, happiness is only another temporary high. It doesn’t compare with the gentle evenness of contentment, which can only be achieved by fully appreciating what one has, rather than chasing the unattainable.
Touch wood, I’ve eventually achieved a good measure of contentment in my own life. The black dog bites far less often now and not nearly as deeply as he once did. The music can be a wonderment and inspiration, but it can never be a cure. I glance over at my wife and think of our children and grandchild.
Simon and Garfunkel's Kathy's Songis playing: And so you see I have come to doubt/All that I once held as true/I stand alone without beliefs/The only truth I know is you.Not quite, but I know that feeling too.