Music Lost

I went to public school in NYC, PS 34 on Springfield Blvd. in Queens Village. Thinking back it was probably a very small school but as a kid it seemed MASSIVE ! A big stone building taking up an entire city block. I remember the floors were made of wood slats that would creek and groan as you walked down the hall or across your classroom. It was 3 stories high and on that top floor was the auditorium. Seats like in a movie theatre, raised stage with big, heavy velvet curtains, and ceiling high windows all across the back wall. And right at the base of the steps up to the stage sat a piano. In those days we weren't taught sex education or career planning or any of the other required courses of study in our schools today. It was basic reading, writing (as in learning how to form letters in script) and arithmetic. We went to gym, had art in the class room and music was in the auditorium with all the other kids from your grade level. We sat in the big seats near the piano and we sang songs. Songs like "Our National Anthem", "Battle Hymn of the Republic", "America The Beautiful", "God Bless America" and all the other patriotic songs that were part of our country's heritage. I still get a chill when I hear any of these songs and I still remember the words to most. I could sing the theme songs for the Marines, Army, Navy and Air Force and loved the natural high we all got from shouting out the words. It was a time when our country was recovering from the losses of WWII and everyone who was an American was proud of it. We sang our country into the next generation.

Our children don't know any of these songs. It isn't politically correct to sing about GOD AND COUNTRY. And just look around you at what our country is turning into.

I think it is time to resurrect the patriotic music of the 40's and 50's. It is time for the radio stations across the country to dust off some of the songs that stirred up a country at war and a country that knew what it meant to be an AMERICAN. Husband tells me that there are country music songs that sing of America but to me there is nothing like the tried and true classics. (And I wouldn't be caught dead listening to country music.)

Just think if you turned on your radio, computer, TV and heard the strains of "GOD BLESS AMERICA . . . LAND THAT I LOVE . . . STAND BESIDE HER, AND GUIDE HER . . ." Wouldn't this give you some goose bumps and a stirring in your bones to want America to be a better place than it is right now?

Music now is all about anger, hate, and self interest. I think it is time to start singing "I'm Proud to be an American" and "America The Beautiful". Start humming those tunes and see if you don't start feeling more patriotic and fired up about living in the greatest nation on Earth.