I always thought they played Sweet Caroline at Carolina games because of the homophonics (still legal in NC!), but apparently everyone plays it, except, now, Penn State. 

Anyway, I was forced by circumstances beyond my control to visit a Whole Foods for the first time today, and the piped-in music as I navigated the organic produce was Neil Young's Southern Man, and the lyrics about a father vowing to kill the black man who has been miscegenating with his daughter were just more Muzak to the ladies in the yoga pants and tatted-up dudes filling their little carts with expensive prepared items.

And then I stopped by Walgreen's, and they were playing I Wanna Be Sedated. Which may be apt for the clientele, and of course the Ramones are old-people's music for a sizable chunk of the world's population, but it was amusing to me nonetheless.

We've talked here before about visiting grandpa in the home and realizing as the Big Band tunes come over the speakers that we, too, will be hearing the popular music of our youth as we tuck into our gruel. It's begun.

Comments

[justcorbly]

Was in Chapel Hill's Whole Foods this afternoon. They were playing stuff from Joe Walsh's better band, the James Gang. For me, high school tunes.

Shopping at Whole Foods requires discipline, lest you go broke. They count on our weakness.

[Account Deleted]

We were in Five Guys last week and Sedated came on. Sometimes the music there is in a bad vein but it was pretty good this time. Anyway, my head was bopping and my heel moving up and down and I caught myself and looked around. I counted two employees and three customers doing the same thing.

[Don Moore]

I hope they don't figure out the Vapor's "Turning Japanese"!

[Hugh]

James Gang, best song ever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7JBTLnyJ2g

[Kim]

"Touching you,....", I'm more disturbed about the names on the jearsy.

[Steve]

I was in Jos. A. Banks a few months ago and heard a muzak version of DeVaugn's "Be Thankful For What You've Got."

I suspect I was the only person who remembered the original.

////////

Though you may not drive a great big Cadillac
Gangsta whitewalls
TV antennas in the back
You may not have a car at all
But remember brothers and sisters
You can still stand tall

Just be thankful for what you've got
Though you may not drive a great big Cadillac
Diamond in the back, sunroof top
Diggin' the scene
With a gangsta lean
Gangsta whitewalls
TV antennas in the back

You may not have a car at all
But remember brothers and sisters
You can still stand tall
Just be thankful for what you've got

[Steve]

Still, I prefer Bobby Womack's version of Sweet Caroline.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUHuChUyXQ4

[Bill Yaner]

We are what we were when we were12. There's no exception to that rule.

Boomers? Rock 'n Roll never forgets.

Post Boomers like you, Mr. Cohn? I'm sorry, but you will never understand the power from those years.

[Ed Cone]

I was there in real time for much of the music I'm talking about, BY. It meant the world to me.

Every generation thinks their time was unique and nobody else can understand what it all meant. And surely there was a moment in our culture when the music of the '60s and '70s transcended the pop charts in its importance (that's the point of the Neil Young story above -- dude is singing about serious political things as a soundtrack to wheatgrass juice transactions).

But Boomers may be somewhat more annoying about their specialosity than some other groups.

[Bill Yaner]

Point well taken. With my parents it was that I would never hear the greatness of Frank Sinatra singing live with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.

[Bill Bush]

Took some Hank Williams CD's to Mom's nursing home. You should have seen the old heads nodding to that. It was like 1950's again for them.

FWIW, the smokers there have it best, in a way. They congregate 4 times a day in the rec room, chatting while they wait to go outside to smoke. It is like a party for them, and I think if there were an occasional beer made available, there'd be a reasonable facsimile of a honky tonk! Glad I quit 36 years ago, but it is a pleasure for them in some otherwise pretty thin days.