Restless Leg Syndrome

Relic?

After a prolonged hiatus, “the collegiate” in me has returned for once last tryst. This means a couple things: For one, it evidently seems like a good idea to eat chicken wings at 2 AM again. For another, my lack of ability to keep any money in a bank account has sadly returned with a vengeance. But on a more positive note, academia is seeping back into my brain, ensuring lengthy, overly analytic conversations about a plethora of under rug swept topics.

In one class, America Since 1970 (I know, isn’t it great to study what is basically not even considered history by many historians? Mannnn, college), our first assignment is to analyze a relic of 1970s culture, examining its greater significance in American society. The “YOU CAN WRITE IT ABOUT AN ALBUM FROM ONE OF THE GREATEST TIMES IN ROCK HISTORY” bells were immediately ringing when the essay was assigned, but now I am determined to pick something I know less about. One kid is writing about “Pumping Iron,” the movie that made Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gold’s Gym and body building macho and cool, not creepy. That’s pretty original and sweet.

Regardless of if I will end up caving and writing about, I don’t know, Blood on the Tracks, Born to Run, “Ohio” by CSNY, Lou fucking Reed… oh crap I need to stop it’s just all too exciting… it got me thinking – is there really a better, more definitive relic from  any period of American history than music? Maybe. Maybe not for me or for anyone who loves music, though.

When thinking about the enormous difference in American culture from the year 1970 to 1980, there are too many components of change to speak to. I don’t like to pretend I lived through it, of course, but it is incredibly fascinating: It was a time of social upheaval in response to the political upheaval of the decade before. All the trends of the 1970s were trickle down (or up?) effects of the 1960s. And though the political revolution that the hippies, Yippies, and all those damn kids were looking for didn’t quite work out as they planned, what they inadvertently (or maybe not so inadvertently…) did was split open the cultural malaise, the cultural consensus and make way for this enormous wave of underground cultural phenomenon flooding the mainstream.

A great way to track the effects of that wave is through music, especially if you consider the 1970s as crucial a decade to pop culture as I do. Growing up with parents whose main experience with being THE YOUTH was the American 1970s has taught me a few things. One, if I play Bruce Springsteen my mom will dance and sing like a 17-year-old fan girl. Two, if I play “Cowgirl in the Sand” my dad’s eyes will glaze over and he’ll start talking about college. Three, music resonates a time and memory so powerfully, its hard to overcome the nostalgia and not mentally return to the moment it brings you to.

So, if I was going to write this essay about music… which I’m going to try not to do, I am determined, it is not happening… I would talk about a song or album from the 1970s and the different emotions it brings up, the subject matter it addresses, and the other music it’s influenced down the road. Music is so much about connectivity, and when studying the recent past, so much of what you’re digging up are the feelings of people. It blurs the line between history and psychology in many ways, but like most things, maybe that line is not quite as thick as different majors, classes and colleges make it out to be.

Ok – it’s out of my system. Now I can go write this paper about… a Rubik’s cube… or something. Ideas anyone?