List #62: All American

Let's Face the Music and Dance

My father was a DJ, famous in New York, the biggest radio market. His station was what was then called MOR, or Middle of the Road, playing standards sung by such stars as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett and so on. My father knew popular music well and had excellent taste.

So it was inexplicable to me when one day, when I was ten years old, he came home and told the family: “I just heard the future of music.” He then put a record (a large, circular piece of vinyl) onto the phonograph (an ancient device for running a needle over a record so that it plays music) and turned it on.

“Are you kidding?” I asked, flabbergasted. “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah? That’s what you think is so great?”

Well, Dad was right. The Beatles were, in fact, the future of music. But I wasn’t happy about it, and I’m still not. Here’s why.