Look, I’m 60 years old. I’m sitting in a nice restaurant in the middle of Berlin, Germany with the family of my friend: a couple and their teenaged son and daughter. It’s a nice place, a little noisy and the sound system is needlessly loud in a place where everyone is trying to talk over it and each other. We ask for it to be turned down, and the folks are nice enough to do so. We enjoy a fine meal and as we’re getting ready for dessert we can kind of make out Peter, Paul and Mary singing Leavin’ on a Jet Plane… no wait, that’s John Denver. Then there’s another John Denver and I start to sing along (Rocky Mountain High maybe?) and another. Oh Mygosh, it’s JD’s greatest hits. And damned if I don’t know almost every word – much to the amusement of the teenagers.
So should I be embarrassed by this confession is it okay, in my generation to know all the words to John Denver’s greatest hits. I did explain to my companions that when I was learning guitar as an adult, these were easy songs to play and I already what they were supposed to sound like. Of course no one but my wife and kids knows for sure that I can’t sing a lick and am still a lousy musician – who has time to practice? Anyway, that’s how I know this stuff. Should I be embarrassed? 20 years ago I would not have admitted to this. But now, maybe it’s just another quirk of an eccentric old guy. Does anyone else do stuff like this?
