Then... And Now

Brrr. So cold! I feel oddly like a refugee, dodging from house to house this week. Walking the manic Jack Russell/Maltese cross that is Polly every day again. She breathes like Darth Vader, even when she isn't zooming along the footpath like a lunatic.

Listening to my MP3 this morning on the way to work and I had a funny thought. I recently bought a four CD album entitled 'Songs That Won The War'; comprised of epic hits like 'Run Rabbit Run', 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy' 'Pistol Packin' Mama' and 'Accentuate The Positive' (they actually sorta spell it phonetically in the title, but I couldn't be bothered), I saw this at the shop and couldn't resist. All these songs are songs from WW2, mostly by Americans or British performers, although there are a couple I think must be ours like 'Is 'E An Aussie, Lizzie?', 'Brown Slouch Hat' and 'When A Boy From Alabama Meets a Girl From Gundagai'.
Anyway, it struck me - these songs are all so upbeat! The people were in the middle of a world war: homelands threatened, loved ones suffering and dying, and they were singing songs about how annoying the sergeant major was and how their girlfriend had pretty eyes! Even the sad songs were upbeat - have you actually listened to the lyrics of 'You Are My Sunshine'? It's actually a sad song about somebody who doesn't trust his/her girlfriend/boyfriend! But, listening to the tune, you'd never know...
Now, listening to our pop songs, I'm filled with confusion. Here we are, in the West, with amazing resources, nothing particularly big happening to worry us, lots of money and very little chance of seeing all our young men march off to die at the same time - and what do we have? Emo rock. Heavy metal. R&B. Songs about pain, pain, pain! I don't understand.

It's like we need music to make us feel (or help us express) whatever emotions we don't have a lot of stimulus for in the real world. E.g., we don't really have a stimulus for deep morbid sadness - but many people feel a need to listen to Greenday and My Chemical Romance. The citizens of the war period didn't really have a lot of reasons for yelling 'Roll out the barrel, we'll have a barrel of fun'! but they did feel a need to hear Bing Crosby.

I don't quite understand the world.