I sit here writing this from my cozy bed, while my trusty laptop lies comfortably on my lap, and from my stereo speakers the soothing sounds of Gerry Rafferty come wafting over me, albeit at a reasonably sedate volume of nine (it can go up to an ear-piercing fifty). Ah, I know what you’re thinking. Who the hell is Gerry Rafferty? Better yet, how old is this guy who cranks up his stereo to a geriatric nine? Hey, these days I’m asking the same sorts of questions.

A few weeks ago I found myself singing, for no apparent reason, as the radio wasn’t even on, the classic song, “Baker Street”. I Googled the lyrics and, voila, there was Gerry Rafferty. “Baker Street”, the pundits will tell you, is instantly recognizable by its opening saxophone riff. (Okay, if you need some help placing it, the chorus goes like this: “You used to think that it was so easy. You used to say that it was so easy. But you’re tryin’, you’re tryin’ now. Another year and then you’d be happy. Just one more year and then you’d be happy. But you’re cryin’, you’re cryin’ now.”) He’s also famous for another classic, “Right Down The Line” (“…When I wanted you to share my life, I had no doubt in my mind; and it’s been you, woman, right down the line…”), plus assorted other minor hits. Sounding familiar now? Just take my word for it; in the late 70’s the guy was right on up there with Elton John. (Coincidently, both hail from the U.K.)

Anyway, I was eleven when both of his hit songs premiered in 1977. Are you doing the math? Yes, I’m thirty-eight now and, for some unexplainable reason, playing music that I wouldn’t have been caught dead listening to back when it came out; though my mom probably loved it. And the last time I sat down to write, I had the new Lisa Stansfield on. Before that it was the latest George Michael. Yes, I frighten myself with these terrifying choices, as well.

Back in ’77 the eleven-year-old me was cranking his turntable (remember those?) as loud as it would go to the sounds of Blondie and Boston, to Fleetwood Mac and Foreigner, to Queen, to Meatloaf, and to the occasional Saturday Night Fever LP (a sure sign of things to come). My tastes were, for lack of a better word, cool. Good old Gerry Rafferty was blaring from an AM station that I, thank goodness, had never even thought to turn to.

By ’87 my tastes had shifted to the alternative: to The B-52’s and The Bangles (before they both became pop), to the Talking Heads, to Siouxsie and the Banshees, to The Motels and Romeo Void, and, on occasion, to Nina Hagen (another sign of things to come). I was still cool, and cutting-edge cool at that. Gerry was still recording music, but, apparently, his creative juices were on the wane by then. And by the time he stopped cranking out albums, I was having an industrial revolution.

The 90’s ushered in the one-hundred-fifty beat/minute groups. That’s also when I started doing some serious damage to my poor eardrums. A week ago I was rearranging my now formidable CD collection when I came across some of those nostalgic discs. On a whim, I pulled a bunch of these down and popped them in. Oh sure, it was nice to hear the sounds of Nitzer Ebb and Nine Inch Nails again. Not to mention The Sisters of Mercy and Shriekback, and the mellower Depeche Mode and the nearly catatonic Dead Can Dance. Ah, see, even then I was slowing down. But did the Cocteau Twins and Enigma necessarily lead me down the path I currently find myself on?

My last hurrah occurred in the mid and late-nineties. The industrial and the alternative melded nicely with the dancier beats of such noted groups as The Lords of Acid and My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. And, naturally, this led to the Techno bands that found themselves regularly played on my CD Player.
So why did the one-hundred-fifty beats slow down to this snail’s pace I now enjoy? How exactly did I go from to Siouxsie and Shriekback to Simon and Garfunkel? (Yep, I saw them on tour last year. Am I thirty-eight or fifty-eight? Geez!) These are the thoughts I think about as I relax beneath my covers and bob my head to the melodic saxophone chords of Gerry Rafferty. Is it inevitable that when we slow down with age, so does our music? Perhaps I’m simply more refined. More mature. Okay, perhaps I’m just getting old. But at least I still enjoy music, even in its milder forms.

Still, I try hard not to ruminate on what might possibly come next. And, just in case, I’ll try to avoid the Big Band section of my local record shop. But if I do, somehow, find a Tommy Dorsey CD on my player one day, I’ll keep it down to a reasonable volume of seven. Maybe the lower I play the music, the less I’ll realize how old I’m truly getting.

But who knows, maybe when I’m seventy, God willing, the pendulum will swing back the other way and I’ll dust off those old CD’s (if they still have CD’s by then) and I’ll sit in my cozy bed and write a nice story while jamming to Moby once again. Or maybe I’ll just stick to Gerry Rafferty and convince myself that I’m still cool. Hey, it could be worse. I could have found myself singing to Hall and Oates a few weeks ago and been doomed to listen to them for the rest of my life. Now that would not have been cool.