Teen Angel, Can You Hear Me…

in the middle of this infernal racket?

The local supermarket where I shop plays Musak, which is always set to hits of the 50s and 60s.  {The music is aggravating to the young store clerks who have to listen to it hour after hour day after day, but in the brief time I spend there, usually late night Wednesday, it provides a welcome morsel of soulful nourishment.}

Last week I remember singing along with the classic Venus by Frankie Avalon, as I'm walking into the parking lot.

Venus, make her fair
A lovely girl with sunlight in her hair.
And take the brightest stars up in the skies
And place them in her eyes for me.

Okay, if you know the words to Venus, you're obviously in a certain age category.  And that's fine, because the category isn't so much a chronological distinction—Venus was popular in 1959—as it is cultural.  I'm thinking, "What a sweet song.  And how alien to a lot of the youth music around me today."

Not that I bother to actually sit down and decipher the lyrics of the more artistically meaningful modern rock or hip-hop/rap ditties.  But someone invented the Internet, so as a research project, I decide to look up some lyrics from Kid Rock—the following from the Cocky album:

You never met a motherfucker quite like me
Hey hey like me
Like me
Hey hey hey like me
You ain't never met a motherfucker quite like me

No doubt hot young chicks are curling their toes in orgasmic delight as the pure poetry pumps into their iPods.  Can't wait for the video.  Note, Kid says "hey" three times in the fourth line, after saying "hey" only two times in the second line.  Now, that's art!  Also appreciate the overwhelming sensitivity shown to his love interest, the lucky girl (presumably).

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Even though Rock and Roll was all wound up in the healthy musical liberation of sexual energy, many of the early tunes surrounding our pulsating new freedom were popular young-love ballads on top of a mild beat, suggesting the ultimate thrill of the perfect kiss.

Personally, I was a puppy-love holdout.  Most of us weren't in any big hurry to grow up back then (except wanting to outgrow the agony of Zit Hell).  I confess one of my favorite songs into my teens was the simple serenade by Ricky Nelson, Sweeter Than You (1957):

I could never be loved by anyone sweeter than you
And I could never belong to anyone sweeter than you
With you to stand beside me I'll never be alone
And what more could I long for than to have you for my own

I can go on by heart, "My only desire is loving you e-ter-nal-ly, and no, no other love, could ever mean, so much to me."  Wow.  Even better than Venus.  Or Teen Angel (1960), by Mark Dinning.  Teen Angel, though technically the girl sheds the mortal coil, holds a positive message of a boy's undying devotion to a wonderful, young goddess.

Teen angel, can you hear me
Teen angel, can you see me
Are you somewhere up above
And I am still your own true love

And it was such a heavenly spirit that often invigorated many (of my luckier friends') explorations of feminine mysteries in "night moves" at the drive-ins outside of town.

The King himself (Elvis Presley) had the biggest young-love hit of all, Love Me Tender (1956).

Common thread: tenderness.

Checking out "tender" in the thesaurus, I see loving, caring, affectionate, fond, kind, kindhearted, gentle, warm, compassionate.  These feelings toward the fairer sex I did embrace, perhaps naively, as a big part of the love/sex equation.  During my own personal "season of the rising sap," I encountered not a few women who saw sentimentality as a sign of weakness, or even incipient sexism!

The "don't give me no crap, just be the pig you are by nature" attitude gels nicely with the widespread misogyny of the rap/hip-hop world.  Consider the following lyrics from Them Jeans, by Master P.

Shake what you got in them jeans (them jeans)
Girl grab the wall, then shake it like a dog
Shake what you got in them jeans (them jeans)
Girl grab the wall, then shake it like a dog

Now there's a time and a place for everything.  But talk about sexism!

Ayn Rand said art was a cultural barometer, and judging from groovy hepcats like the Kid and Master P, we must be in a low-pressure zone the size of Jupiter.  So whattup?  Is the world of music going to the dogs (literally), and with it those tender Romeo-and-Juliet strands of affection drawing boys and girls together?

Naw.  We still have country music.

Just kidding.  But the world is very large, and the world of music almost as big.  As for the genres of nasto rock and repulso rap, especially the latter, think about it.  Watch the icons, these multimillionaire illiterate pretenders on TV.  Man, what a snow job!

Like the Emperor's New Clothes, as soon as a child—or the panel on American Idol—states the obvious, i.e. "this is crap," the whole fawning, overhyped, gang-infested heap o' clatter can collapse tomorrow like a puffball under a Jesus sandal.

But don't get me wrong.  The pony in the pile o' manure may be some hip-hop that's going to go mainstream.  Maybe it will even be a new source of genuine enjoyment?  Time (, love, and tenderness) will tell.