It's Just Not My Thing

          There are certain music genres to which I have a sort of allergy: I stop my ears, for example, at the sounds of rap and/or hip-hop. (I don’t know how they are different, because my ears are stopped.) Occasionally, I make an effort to listen, but it is always short-lived and dead-ended. Even my last attempt, The Grey Album, “The 2004 mashup of the Beatles White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album created by Danger Mouse”, failed to convince me. The promise of Beatles samples lured me into listening, but I spent the whole time eagerly identifying the Beatles bits and getting annoyed by the intrusive, ranting, shouty lyrics – the modern stuff. I do question whether I should be more open-minded (or open-eared). After all, the fact that a form of popular music is not of my generation or cultural niche is no reason to ignore or dismiss it. In the end, however, I have settled for finding it ‘unpalatable’ and leaving it at that.

          Hip-hop is just one of the layers of culture currently being laid down, with which I have little or no involvement and am content to entrust to those who will be affected most – the present and future generations. We Boomers have had our day in that respect and it’s time to make a dignified exit from the limelight, stand back and leave the stage to younger talent. Not that I would encourage retirement if ability and ambition remain strong, but there really is such a thing as an old fool. Nor would I advocate giving up and resting on one’s laurels. Engagement with society, at whatever level, is what keeps us well. Nevertheless, the past is still with us and, without dwelling on it, there is much to be learned from its occasional contemplation. And I mean not just the recent past.

          In the oldest part of Plymouth, where the original street-layout is largely intact, there is an Elizabethan house, preserved and maintained as a museum or time-capsule. Nearby, is a reconstructed garden of the same period – just a small space, squashed between the surrounding houses. I spent some time in both last week, soaking in the fact that the origins of the city were determined by geography and appreciating just how hard life was for most of the population. These things we know, but they become more vivid when contemplated in situ. Days later, on a soft, summer morning, I wandered the ruins of Haughmond Abbey in Shropshire and had a similar experience. The location is rural, tranquil and fertile. The Abbot’s chambers were palatial, while the monks lived frugally. Nevertheless, I imagine they were glad to have food and shelter in return for devoting their otherwise poverty-stricken lives to a god. The Abbey met its end during the dissolution, just as the house in Plymouth was being established. I felt grateful not to have been alive in those times, for fear I might have been at the bottom of the social ladder and with no prospect of climbing higher. Mind you, at least there was no danger of accidentally hearing hip-hop.

          But, as has been said by someone, “nothing ever happened in this world before the first person sold something”. A new age of trading was dawning in Elizabethan Britain and, with it, came wealth, social mobility, population growth, economic growth and, finally, industrialisation. This is our heritage and, though much has changed and is changing, some things stay the same. Those castles and cathedrals serve to remind us that hierarchies are still in charge, though their outward forms have changed. The present might be comfortable for some and the future might look rosy to others, but whoever coined the phrase “the good old days” didn’t know the half of it. If I were younger and angrier, I might be expressing this in a rap.