The Ebbing Of The Tide

"For long you live and high you fly

But only if you ride the tide

And balanced on the biggest wave

You race toward an early grave."

    from Breathe (In The Air) by Pink Floyd

The rising and falling of the tide is a great metaphor for the rock music era. My generation came of age just as the music world was changing from  soul and motown into the era of classic rock. We didn't know it at the time but we were experiencing the rising of a great tide. So many great artists and bands caught their wave and rode it. Too many of them went to an early grave.

As my generation ages we have gained the perspective to understand a little better just what it was that we lived through.  Now that great tide of rock music is well into its ebb phase.  When I ponder what that means I realize that, as the tide goes out, we begin to see things on the shoreline that were covered by the high water but now are visible. We may recognize some things from before but others we may be seeing for the first time.

I see this happening in the music that I listen to. Recently I was in my car listening to a local radio station that plays a lot of new music. A song came on that I liked a lot. I thought it was a new artist but it turned out to be a band from the 1970's that I had never heard of. I listen to satellite radio a lot, especially to the Deep Tracks channel, Tom Petty's Buried Treasure Show, and Little Steven's Underground Garage.  These channels have made it their business to sort of scour that shoreline and turn over all the interesting rocks and shells. For my part I'm getting to enjoy a lot of great music that I missed out on the first time around, and the old familiar songs too.