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The other day, some mail-order music arrived.
(Okay. I've just confessed to the ultimate small-town
sin of ordering by mail instead of shopping locally. The
problem is that the leading local music source is Wal-Mart,
whose selection is designed for rapid turnover, and is thus
more mainstream than my taste. The true mass-merchandiser
motto is If everybody doesn't want it, we don't stock
it.
)
As I opened the box, Columbine, my 16-year-old daughter,
immediately spotted the warning on one cassette:
Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics.
Dad, does your mother know and approve?
she
asked.
Er, well, no, I suppose she doesn't,
I conceded.
As a matter of fact, I don't think your grandmother has
approved of any album I've ever bought, starting with the
first one in 1966 -- 'High Tides and Green Grass' by the
Rolling Stones.
Pretty racy stuff,
Columbine agreed. But they
didn't have parental warnings in those days.
Someday I may figure out my own generation,
I
told my daughter. We were once the people who made
'drugs and sex and rock 'n' roll' into a way of life, and
now that we're moving into positions of power -- Dan the
Wholesome Vice-President isn't much older than I am --
we're busy trying to eliminate or regulate all three. How
could people who were once so open -- Quayle's own father
said Dan majored in 'booze and broads' in college -- become
so repressive? Why are we so damn hard on our own
children?
Such philosophizing bores teenagers, but I have a
tolerant daughter. Dad, I've got a few parental-warning
tapes and CD's,
she confessed.
I recalled Ritual de lo Habitual
by Jane's
Addiction, which has a warning on the cover, along with
text of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Try
as I might, I can't keep my children from being exposed to
subversive notions like free speech.
Our schools also do a pretty good job of teaching children that they have absolutely no rights and that being 'different' in any way is a felony, but as is true elsewhere in American education, there's plenty of room for improvement.
What about your other disks?
I asked. Are they
really so lewd and licentious that I should listen to them
first, and then decide whether the lyrics are suitable for
your tender ears?
You've heard most of them -- you must be hearing them
when you tell me to turn my boom box down. Is there
anything you can't hear just by walking down the
street?
No,
I agreed. But wouldn't the parental
warning be of some value, to let you know what you're
getting?
You don't go spend $15 on a disk unless you know
what's on it,
she said. If you don't like the music,
you don't buy the disk. If they're going to require any
warnings, they should be something like 'This disk has two
good songs that you've heard, and 14 filler tracks that are
garbage.'
Fortunately, the bawdy cassette that started this conversation didn't need the warning that Columbine suggested. Every track was enjoyable.
The collection, part of the Columbia Legacy Series, is
called Raunchy Business: Hot Nuts & Lollypops.
The newest song on it is He's Just My Size,
and it
was recorded by Lillie Mae Kirkman on June 15, 1939. But
only in this enlightened time, 53 years later, does it
require a warming.
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