Life's perspective and its after-effects.

One of my friends came into work today (not the same sick friend from yesterday) wondering what that song was that he heard on the radio... "Why don't you take a good look at yourself and describe what you see, and baby, baby, baby, do you like it?" Immediately, I didn't know, although I knew it was a Led Zeppelin song, and I knew that they usually didn't sing the titles of their songs. OK, so I admit I had to look it up - Misty Mountain Hop, but I knew it was from "Led Zeppelin IV", which some among us refer to as "Zofo".

For instance ...

We come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.

How soft your fields so green, Can whisper tales of gore, Of how we calmed the tides of war. We are your overlords.

Immigrant Song. Sure. you knew that.

Zeppelin is one of those bands that those of us old enough to know, can refer to at times as classic music, even though, at the time we didn't think of it that way. We (me) were more into Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Focus or (God forbid) Uriah Heep and Deep Purple, and thought that those bands defined the era when in fact, the ones we ignored did. Funny.

Music magazines of the era liked to encourage competitions. Yes versus ELP, Black Sabbath versus Deep Purple ... when in fact, all of them were equally relevant, but in our tiny marketing-enhanced heads we were influenced by the magazines. Why, I don't know. I suppose you have to be 50 to understand.

I just finished making a CD for my young friend to acquaint him with Led Zeppelin and their music. The CD is made from the perspective of a 50-year old who, at the time would have dismissed it as trite and trendy, and would instead have directed him to other more so-called intellectual music. Now, the intellectual music is largely forgotten and the trendy stuff is what we refer to as classic. Go figure.

Perspective is a great thing. It allows us to realize what we once viewed as common that is now viewed as historic. Who'd-a-thunk that Focus and ELP would be thrown away relics of a bygone era. They were so good. Just ask me and I'll tell you.

Does that mean that crap like Clay Aiken and Bo Bice will one day be viewed as classic rock?

Shoot me now.