The day the music died
There’s a video going around (and has for some time) that some of you might have seen. It is an especially well-crafted work that literally “explains” the details of the iconic song “American Pie” by Don McLean. The song — released by McLean in 1971 — was No. 1 for weeks in the U.S. and other countries.
The song is a tribute, allegory and anthology. It is the story of three very well-known rock ’n’ roll artists: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson), who were killed tragically in a plane crash in February 1959. If you lived through the rock ’n’ roll era, I highly suggest you see the video and see how clever it is. (There are a number of videos, but I recommend the one on YouTube that has Bob Dylan on the cover.)
I recently viewed the video again when a friend sent it to me, and it got me thinking about how much has happened in the last 75 years (my age). First of all, the music: We have gone from WWII big band hits to rock ’n’ roll to country to soul to (egad) rap. When I grew up in Holyoke, a sock hop was a big deal (loads of fun), but the gyrations and sweaty dances today are far from what I recall.
We have gone from 45 rpm and LP (long play) vinyl records to 8-tracks, to CDs, to miniCDs to Bluetooth and — would you believe it — back to LP records that are now in vogue. Internet streaming is the modus operandi, and music videos are available for free or not much cost at all.
Life seemed to change over the years with death. Let me explain. I have lived through assassinations (JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Bobby Kennedy) and suicides or “accidental deaths” of famous people (Janis Joplin, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Margot Kidder, Robin Williams, John Belushi, Curt Cobain, Freddie Prinze, Princess Diana and many others). Murders, suicides and drug-related deaths seem to taint society, in my view. The suicide rate for military men and women (active duty and following their service) is indeed alarming.
Technology has exploded. I grew up on stick shifts, then automatics, and now there are self-driving cars. I rode a Moped and a Cushman scooter and progressed to a sporty Honda Magna. Now I ride a totally unique three-wheeled Can Am Spider. Motors have gone from huge to small to strange (three cylinders) and now electric cars and trucks are starting to become the rage. Autos used to be the size of tanks (the hood on the ’60s Cadillac cars was larger than a wing on my F-15 Eagle I flew in the Air Force!). And now, we have Smart Cars that can probably fit in the trunk of those old Cadillacs! Teslas silently glide by my pickup truck on the highway.
I grew up with the imaginative Dick Tracy watch as just that — not real. But, my son now can talk and use the Internet on his watch, and even check his blood pressure and “fitness” on the device. We have Google and Alexa and a myriad of social interaction platforms — both fun and sometimes nasty with commentary.
Phones? I remember party lines and operators in Holyoke. The neighbors could listen in on conversations. We progressed to rotary dials, then punch button phones, then HUGE cellphones tethered to our cars, and now our smartphones have more computer power in them than all of the jets I flew in the military. Superman can’t find a phone booth to change his clothes in, and I can’t live without my smartphone. In fact, families go into restaurants and all of them immediately stare at their phones. Talking is passé. Skype and other applications allow us to see one another on our phones, but make sure your hair is done and you are dressed when you make a call, ladies!
In 1946, the year of my birth, we were moving from propeller airplanes to jets at a rapid pace. From there, we went to the U-2 (flies at 70,000 feet and 100 knots) to the SR-71 (flew at 80,000 feet and 2,000 knots) to drones and vertical landing machines. Secret hypersonic (greater than Mach 5) machines are now on the drawing board, and lasers will soon be a weapon found on fighter jets. Apollo 11 landed on the moon in July 1969, but the horrible Challenger space shuttle explosion in January 1986 — plus the cost of space travel — quickly slowed the pace of us visiting other planets. However, talk of going to Mars is heating up, both by the United States and China. Oh, and UFOs have returned.
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