Grandpa (Tell Me 'Bout the Good Ole Days)

"Grandpa, everything is changing fast
We call it progress, but I just don't know
And grandpa, Let's wander back into the past
And paint me the picture of long ago."

-The Judds
"Grandpa (Tell Me 'Bout the Good Ole Days)"

(Rockin' With the Rhythm, 1985)

I've always been older than my actual age. I was born with what my mother likes to call an "old soul".

While all my other elementary school-aged friends couldn't wait to get home to watch cartoons and superhero shows, I was busy pondering what was going to happen on my soap operas that were taped and waiting in the VCR for me.  Would Bo figure out that Hope wasn't Hope but actually Princess Gina?  Would Stefano come back to life for the tenth time and go after the Brady's? Oh what thoughts would entertain my seven-year-old mind. 

At night while my peers were snuggled up viewing their favorite Disney movies I was anxiously waiting to see what plot Lucy Ricardo was going to convince Ethel into going along with this time. 

At recess when we'd pretend to be famous singers my friends would pick artists such as Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey.  Me? I was content with being Barbara Mandrell and singing "Crackers" or "I Was Country (When Country Wasn't Cool)" until the kids would squeal for me to stop.

Sometimes I feel so out-of-place with people that are my own age that it's uncomfortable for me.  I don't like many of the same things as them and so it's hard for me to relate to the things they want to talk about, listen to, and watch at the movies.  Going along with this, I also have very old fashioned values and views about things.  This is both a blessing and a curse to me.



LeAnne and I outside the "Mother Church of Country Music".

I miss turning on my battery powered radio to the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman to hear Roy Acuff sing "The Wabash Cannon Ball".

 I miss when Doug and Julie and Patch and Kayla were the supercouples of "Days of Our Lives".

I miss the Glenn Miller Band. Simplicity. Working hard for what you got so you appreciated it. Gentlemen. and classic novels instead of smut.

 The thing is: I wasn't alive to experience these things first hand. Yet, I'll be driving down the road or be at school and get this sudden pang of longing and missing for these things.  Is it possible to miss times you've never lived through before?  I wonder this all the time.

One thing I really miss?  I miss the times when singers could actually sing...live and on a stage.  Where they sounded just as good live as they did on a cd.  This used to be something that wasn't even thought about because if you couldn't prove yourself worthy as a singer then you weren't going to get a record deal.  This was way before the times of the lipsynching Milli Vanilli and out-of-tune whining of Taylor Swift.  I want to be able to go to a concert or watch an awards show and not worry about holding my ears because they sound so much different than the records I jam to in my car. Scratch that--sounding different is alright, sounding horrible is not. 

 My iPod is overflowing with old artists and many of the mp3 files that I have are live versions.  These recording stars understood the importance of performing and sounding like their fans expected them to.  Legends like Loretta Lynn still grasp this understanding.  In 2004 when she and the White Stripes, Jack White, cut the album "Van Lear Rose", she didn't record the songs multiple times so they could edit the best from each take to paste together a good version.  Lynn recorded each song just one time and didn't let them enhance her sixty-nine-year-old voice in the least.  What happened in the studio is exactly what a listener hears on the CD: laughing, talking and everything in between and is perhaps one of the rawest and most country albums that's been produced since the genre changed over to pop-country.  This is perhaps why I idolize this lady so much; she's genuine and not afraid to let you hear the real her.

This being said, I don't just stick to the oldies that were produced decades before my time.  I find it impossible to stay still during a Lady Gaga song and am not ashamed to admit that I love her to pieces.  This chick may be a tad flamboyant in her appearance but she's got a true voice that doesn't just come to life behind a microphone in Studio XYZ where producers spend hours trying to alter it.  She proved this when she took stage during the VMAs this month and belted out some of her new song.  Even Kanye didn't dare jump the stage and interrupt this super power mid-line.  Another pure voice emerged on this night, as well: Hayley Williams of Paramore.  She can sing anything live or acoustic and make it sound impeccable.  If you haven't heard her then she's definitely worth looking into.

The only thing that's constant is change, but this IUS history minor is proudly going to keep enjoying the old classics and rolling my eyes at the newbies who can only hope to be one day.

"...crap drives out class, our tastes grow coarse, and the life of imagination grows smaller.  And when the good stuff's gone? It ain't coming back, son.  That's what I'm really afraid of." -Stephen King

<3 Kellie