Time travel

  Was watching music videos last evening, I'm hip like that even though I'm near 72 years old. Granted the videos I'm watching are all "vintage" now but they are the ones I enjoy. I do not feel compelled to listen to the new stuff, to attempt to stay current or anything like that. No, I just like what I like and that's all there is to that. As I watched and listened it occurred to me that I have lived that long, long enough that someone named Shaboozey was invited to play the Opry. The times they are a'changin' as Dylan once said. When I heard that my first thought was, so who is he? Apparently he is a Nigerian rapper according to google. Go figure. 

  As I watched some of my favorites from the 1990's, the first music videos were shown in 1981 on MTV, I couldn't help but think they were over thirty years old now. The first video was " Video Killed the Radio Star" and that was prophetic. Radio certainly isn't what it once was, now catering to our wants with every play. Then I realized that the turn of the century was twenty five years ago. That doesn't seem possible but here we are. I was never one to watch MTV as that came along after my school age years. I was 28 when MTV aired that first video. I've only recently discovered You Tube videos and have taken to watching them. By recently I mean, the last five years or so. A little while ago is ten years. Yes, I'm measuring time in decades now. 

  I use the free services like You Tube and Spotify when I want to listen. I guess growing up in the radio age I just can't see paying for that. I ignore the advertisements for the most part and can wait for the next song. We do have a radio station in my area that plays classic country hits. That's what I'm listening to these days. I do get a smile every once in a while when they play some song they are calling classic when it isn't that old. I mean, Zac Brown or Kenny Chesney aren't classic in my books. I still like listening to the radio on an old style radio. What I mean is I don't want surround sound, dolby or any of that stuff. I'm old enough to appreciate "high fidelity" sound, you know, his masters voice! You remember Nipper? If you do, you're pretty darn old. Yes, at one time I did have an entire cabinet filled with stereo equipment, the tuner, pre-amp, equalizer and those gigantic speakers. All long gone now replaced by digital devices. 

  It does seem like a long time ago when I would just sit and listen to records with my friends. Just a simple turntable with a built in speaker. We didn't have any video, no television on, no other devices distracting us, just listening to the latest tunes. I would buy a 45 for 90 cents and an album was over five dollars! Didn't buy many albums, just the best of the best. I think my first album was probably Steppenwolf. Thar was the first live concert I ever attended, it was awesome. Tickets were like fifteen dollars! Now I never sat and tried to record my favorite songs off the radio. I've heard of people doing that, and I guess they did, but not me. It was a long time ago when we listened to those groups or individuals without knowing what they looked like, what their politics were or much of anything else about them. If you bought the album, the liner notes might fill you in. Things have changed. 

  Whether just listening or watching a video music does take you back in time, you are there. I suspect it has always been so and that's why music was invented in the first place. Songs or melodies were a way to remember things. That's why we have nursery rhymes. It's an amazing thing really, they say even people with Alzheimer's remember songs from their youth. It is like it is written on the hard drive or something. I usually have the radio on when I'm working in my shop, background noise but seems odd without that. I do have a cassette player in that boom box radio. It was left there by the previous owner and I inherited that. Yes, it still works just fine. I have one tape at the moment, I'll have to look for others, sure I've got some. Closest thing to time travel that there is.