Practical MIDI

You younger Cybermidi readers may think I sound like a geezer, but I’m really aiming this at the people of my generation (I’m 52). Wilfred Brambell, who played Paul’s grandfather in the movie A Hard Day’s Night was 52 at the time the movie was filmed in March of 1964. Next week Paul McCartney turns 60 and that fact doesn’t sit well with me. It made me realize just how fast time is flying by.

During The Beatles’ heyday of the mid 60s, a music critic described their familiar “whoooo” as the “cry of eternal youth.” Imagine that, a critic who may have briefly believed that The Beatles could stay young forever. I suppose like everyone else of my generation he marked the passing of time by relating it to The Beatles. For example, when I read someone’s obituary in the paper and see that they passed away at the ripe old age of 62, I immediately think, “Hmmm, Ringo is 62.” Or when someone asks me what I was doing in 1965 I think of what was happening in The Beatles’ career at that time and the era immediately comes fresh to my mind. Let’s see, 1965, The Beatles we filming Help! in the Bahamas. Me? I was 15 and just starting my sophomore year in high school.

These days the comparison works in reverse. When I see a rock star in their late 20s or early 30s I see them as just kids until I stop to realize that when The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, George, the youngest, was just 20 and Ringo, the oldest, was just a kid of 23. By the time George was 27, The Beatles were history. Age and time are all relative, I suppose.

It’s hard for me to realize just how old some of the heros from my teen years are. I really looked up to the rock stars of the 60s as though they were adults or close enough to it. Of course, that was from the perspective of a teenager, and to teenagers anyone looks older that they are. Heck, I thought Peter Noone from Herman’s Hermits was older and more sophisticated. You know what, he’s only a year older than me. And Steve Winwood from The Spencer Davis Group, whose voice boomed out over the radio all those years ago, is my age. Turns out that another famous booming voice of the era was Alex Chilton (who?) Alex Chilton—lead singer for The Box Tops—my age. He was 17 when The Letter remained in the #1 spot for a month during 1967.

In the 60s during their heyday Pete Townsend of The Who wrote the lyrics for My Generation. It included the line, “I hope I die before I get old.” Too late, Pete. You’re pushing 60, going deaf, bald and getting wrinkled. It happens to all of us sooner or later (that is if we manage to stay alive). Maybe that’s why so many icons of my youth died young. Janis Joplin (27) Jimi Hendrix (27) Jim Morrison (27)—what is it about being 27 that brings on death? Elvis (42) John Lennon (40) These people will forever be remembered as the age they were when they died.

Which brings me to the close of my stream of consciousness. Had these people gone on to live normal, healthy and longer lives, would they still be as famous today and would they still sell as many posters, coffee mugs, T-shirts and CDs? I think not. Today at age 59, Janis Joplin would probably be working at an all-night dry cleaners.
Hendrix at 59 would more than likely have gone into the insurance business. Morrison, also 59, might have branched out and published poetry books. Elvis would be 67 today and would have run through his fortune and been reduced to running a peanut butter and banana sandwich stand on some street corner in Keokuck, Iowa where he was last spotted a few years ago. John Lennon, who was finally getting his act together when he was killed, would be giving Paul McCartney a run for his money. They’d be competing for slots on the charts. They had that effect on each other’s creativity. But I guess we’ll never know how many more songs John had left in him.

As for me, at 52 I’m starting my 38th year of playing live music every weekend. It’s in my blood and I can’t see giving it up anytime in the near future. Maybe in a few years I can start what I’ll call the Gurney Tour. They’ll wheel me up onto the stage flat on my back and lay my guitar across my chest and plug me in. I’ll hire someone to stand next to me and tap his toe to start the song and I’ll play until I fall asleep. As John Lennon said in A Hard Day’s Night, “Gaw, it’s depressing.”

©2002 Bill Bernico for CYBERMIDI.com Downwind Publications