Verfrerndungseffekt The bit of the ageing process that really worries
me, when I have time to think about it, is the growing alienation of my generatiOn from the one that's coming up. It worries me because I've always thought 1 was one of the more genial and tolerant bodgers who could remember his own teens and remain calm. But recently I have noticed the symptoms I remember in my own parents. (`Live and let live. but do they call that music?') This is all the worse because I was always a pop music fiend. My girl and I used to take all the words of the new hits from the radio in short- hand. Good or bad, we got the lot. In fact, I still know the words and tunes of, oh, easily 500 pops, dating back to before I was born. You name it, I'll sing it, and it serves you right. And then suddenly one day I realised that the current pops are an undifferentiated mess; all the same tune, all the same lyric. And any kids who go for this garbage must be degenerate. I had a useful jolt this week at somebody's party, where the guests included two teenage professionals. A routine pair of teenage nits, any old stager would have said. Then they sat at the piano and played together, rather neatly; they sang together. Good pitch, good harmony, nice swinging vitality. They sang those shala-la-LA-la bits of lyric dead seriously, and I thought, well why not? There's no sense in singing rubbish unless you sing it well. They were neat, clean, earnest and courteous and witty. They were sharper than I was twenty years ago. Maybe that's why we hate them.
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