A Musician's Prayer

I wasn't going to comment on this but I can't help it. The grammy's were on TV last night. Carol and I watched something else. I have been fortunate enough to have lived through sixty years of American music and a lot of it was great. But, not lately. No, no don't give me that stuff. It's not because I'm an old curmudgeon. I have been a musician since the early seventies. I have a good ear. I can watch and listen to a production and immediately pick out the good and the bad parts. I understand completely that one man's music is another man's noise but by and large I can enjoy and appreciate all kinds of music. I grew up listening to the big band sounds and was in my impressionable years during the era of the crooner. I was in the fifth grade when Elvis stormed the Ed Sullivan Show. I was in high school when the Beatles and the Stones hit shore. The sixties and seventies, long hair, drugs, psychedelic rock, are you going to San Francisco? Motown and bebop and Sam Cooke, and then Springsteen and the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac and BB King and Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson, Andrea Bocelli and on and on and on. I know good music.

I didn't watch the Grammy's so I can't say there wasn't any good music on. There might have been. But, it's lonely. It needs a friend. I did listen to radio reports that played excerpts of the songs that won the big prizes. Beyonce, very talented. If you want to dance she's your girl. If you want to listen, not so much. Best thing she's done is the old Etta James ballad in the movie Cadillac Records. Youtube it, it's great. But not new. And Taylor Swift. Oh my! Good music is lonely. It needs a friend. Somebody please help. I know we've been brainwashed into believing this stuff is good. Everyone in the audience claps along. Help us Oh God to stand on talent again. Some where in a garage, Oh Lord, is a music saviour. Send this saviour out Oh Lord, the world is in desparate need. Please one last good song before my time is up. One tune that will last in my head after it is over. One tune that I can hum. One tune that will make me stop everything to listen. Just one tune Oh Lord. Just one.