It’s Friday night, and we’re waiting to go to the airport to pick up Richard, who is coming home for a visit. Unfortunately, his flight has been delayed, so we’re biding our time for now.
Normally I would squawk about airlines and their comically frequent flight delays, but I’m too happy about Richard’s visit and the arrival of the weekend and I don’t want to ruin my mood. So I’m going to go in the opposite direction, dive into some truly vintage rock that takes me back to high school days, follow Joe Walsh’s suggestion, and get into the Rocky Mountain Way instead. After all, it is better than the way we had.
Seriously, is this what we’ve come to? Americans can’t even sit in an airport terminal without being hectored repeatedly by a federal agency about how to sneeze and cough, and using a particular kind of baggie when going through security? Can’t we leave it to the mothers of America to teach their children to cover their mouths when they sneeze or cough? And why should it make a difference to the feds whether my liquids are stored in one plastic bag versus two?
When The Monkees TV show first began airing and their songs dominated the airwaves, Davy Jones became the heartthrob of millions of adolescent girls. He was one of the first post-Beatles teen idols. At that time, at least, the role of teen idol carried a certain responsibility — you had to be squeaky clean in your public persona, give mindless interviews about your pet peeves and favorite foods to magazines like Tiger Beat, and pose in the most ridiculous publicity photos imaginable. Jones carried it off with elan, and then he handed off the baton to Bobby Sherman, who handed it off to David Cassidy, who handed it off to some other fresh-faced, inoffensive object of the platonic affections of millions of teenage American girls.
Consider Neil Young, for example. He’s been a fixture of the rock ‘n’ roll scene since the 1960s and has had successful musical releases in each of the intervening decades. But, even by the high standards of his career, the 1970s were remarkable. Consider the astonishing albums he produced during that magical decade: After The Gold Rush (1970), Harvest (1972), Tonight’s The Night (1975), Zuma (1975), American Stars ‘N Bars (1977), Comes A Time (1978), and Rust Never Sleeps (1979). Many musicians would gladly claim what he produced during that single, prolific decade and call it an entire career.
Bowie is an interesting character for a lot of reasons and has produced a lot of memorable music. Bowie wrote All The Young Dudes — the epic song from the legendary band Mott the Hoople — and his playlist includes classics like The Jean Genie, Space Oddity, Diamond Dogs, and Changes, among many others. Bowie is one of those artists who seems to leap easily from genre to genre, from hard rock to pop and back again.
What can I say? I’m a child of the ’60s. I remember watching The Monkees TV show when I was a kid, thinking it was funny, and liking the music. My sister, along with most girls, liked Davy Jones. My favorite Monkee was Mickey Dolenz. Some of my friends liked Peter Tork because he was funny; others liked Mike Nesmith because he always wore a stocking cap with a yarn ball on top. I didn’t care that people said the Monkees didn’t play the instruments on their records, and I didn’t care that the TV show was silly gags combined with a shameless rip-off of The Beatles in Help! and A Hard Day’s Night.
