A modern-day take on the day the music died

Boston Globe

Beverly Beckham

I was at the gym, hard to believe, because since COVID I’ve counted bending over to tie my sneakers a workout. But there I was, turning over a new leaf, headphones on, stretching to the music of the 1930s (I love old music), wondering what makes the wah-wah sound in these recordings. (I took a break and googled and learned that a trumpet or trombone makes the sound).

Then I put my headphones back on, grabbed some five-pound weights, and was doing bicep curls — happily anticipating Rudy Vallee (my grandmother loved him) who was about to sing “As Time Goes By,” a song most everyone over 50 knows because it was made famous by “Casablanca,” a movie most everyone over 50 has seen. These are the well-known lyrics:

You must remember this

A kiss is still a kiss

A sigh is just a sigh

The fundamental things apply as time goes by

Only Rudy Valle didn’t begin the song this way when he first recorded it in 1931. He began with an unfamiliar verse:

The day and age we’re living in,

gives cause for apprehension.

The speed and new invention.

And things like third dimension

This was the style in the ‘30s and ‘40s, to introduce a song with a verse. As I heard these words for the first time, I thought how the lyrics — written nearly 100 years ago — are as relevant today.

And then this happened: I took out my earphones, tucked my phone in my pants pocket, and was leaving the gym when Apple music began to play at full volume on my phone. Some song full of words that even my dead uncle who swore like a sailor (he was a sailor) never said.

This song made George Carlin’s “The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” sound like a child’s prayer. I shut off my phone but not before people heard. I wanted to apologize. But even more, I wanted to hide.

I asked my granddaughter about the music kids listen to today, because it’s been a long time since I’ve had a teen in my car commandeering the radio. And hearing this song with its cascade of words intended to shock had made me curious. She texted me a few names of popular artists and a young friend in her 20s gave me some, too. And I put on my headphones and listened.

And to my surprise, I came away not angry or shocked, but sad.

Here is where I could rant about today’s music, how it is vulgar and dissonant and disrespectful and nothing like music used to be.

It isn’t like music used to be. There is no romance or wah-wah sound these days.

But there’s a beat and there’s an energy and a repetition that’s hypnotic, and if the love song has been replaced with the sex song, and if tenderness and I’ll-love-you-forever are nowhere to be found, the music speaks for the times.

Crazy times. Angry times.

I, like most everyone, long for gentler times. Like the 1931 Irving Berlin classic:

How much do I love you?

I’ll tell you no lie

How deep is the ocean?

How high is the sky?

I long for these lyrics.

There’ll be bluebirds over

The white cliffs of Dover

Tomorrow, just you wait and see

There’ll be love and laughter

And peace ever after

Tomorrow, when the world is free

I long for peace, too. But there is no peace. And no world that is free.

Today’s music reflects this. It’s angry and it’s disrespectful. It’s a mirror of the times.

How can it not be? Young artists and the young people who listen to them have grown up in an era where people in power have consistently let them down. Politicians, police, counselors, clergy, adults who are supposed to be their protectors and role models make headlines not for the good they do but for the laws they break and the lies they tell. How can young people have high hopes or sing about forever love and peace ever after when the world shows them none of these things?

The day and age we’re living in

gives cause for apprehension

In 1931, when these lyrics were written, America was two years into The Great Depression, 2,500 banks had failed, and soup kitchens were feeding the poor and the homeless.

Still, composers wrote about love and singers sang about love and people sang along as if love were the answer to all the world’s problems.

It wasn’t. But it helped a nation forget its troubles for a while.

Pop music today does the same thing. It helps the young forget that they live in a world where they’re not safe even at school.

And if the lyrics are about sex and hooking up and living for the moment, maybe it’s because so many of the young don’t believe in forever, never mind some fanciful love that lasts that long.