I don’t have one musically talented bone or gene in my body. But most of me is primed to appreciate music especially since the first time I heard “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets. Rock an’ Roll and I grew up together. We were the first generation to be defined by our music and that music was Rock. Everything else was controlled by adults: school, food, clothes, chores, and television. They even decided to call us Baby Boomers. A total waste of a moniker which described them not us. Baby Boomer described what they did after WWII. They boomed out the babies. We were the boomed.
I have always despised the title and do so especially now since it is a term of such derision by the younger “generationwhatthehellever. “Hey, Boomer,” primarily means “Old man who is responsible for the world’s problems.” Implying connection to Trump, Climate change, political chaos inflation and greedy billionaires. But Billy Joel knows “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”
We birthed Rock ’n Roll. Billy Haley, Little Richard, Dion, Buddy Holley, and Fats Domino. It was the only thing that was ours. Adults hated it which made us more faithful to it. Loud, fast and obnoxious was how we wanted it and that was how we got it through the radio. It drove them away. It was also about sex hidden in code. We knew the Thrill on Blueberry Hill wasn’t about increasing our intake of fruit. And when little Richard sang “The Girl Can’t Help It” we knew exactly what that meant. And when Jerry Lee Lewis sang “Shake Baby Shake” we knew what she should shake. It was another way to prove adults weren’t as smart as they thought. We knew the secret.
A lead singer, guitar player and drums were all a band needed to play simple songs about a simple life preferably with no adults in the vicinity. When there was, we just turned the volume up.
WE ARE THE FIRST AND BEST ROCK AND ROLL GENERATION. The First R&R Generation. We have nothing to do with banging the babies out. The title was foisted upon us and has long outworn its usefulness.
Without us Americans would probably still be singing “How Much is That Doggie in the Window?”
Graham Campbell lives in Worcester, Massachusetts
