Ihave a modest proposal, a gentle suggestion that term limits ought to be put in place for rock musicians.
We do it for elected leaders. After a certain number of years, we tell them thanks, but no thanks. You’ve done this long enough, and we think we’d all be better off with some new blood.
So why not do it for the stars of rock ‘n’ roll, a musical genre created as a youthful expression of sexual awakening commingled with a rebellion against adulthood?
There’s something contrary to rock’s very essence when it’s performed by guys in their Medicare years parading onstage as wrinkled, gray and creaky remnants of their former selves.
Last weekend, what’s left of The Monkees performed at the Mizner Park Amphitheater in Boca Raton, more than a year after the band’s lead singer Davy Jones died of a heart attack at the age of 66. And Wednesday night, Black Sabbath will perform at the Cruzan Amphitheatre in suburban West Palm Beach with its 65-year-old lead guitarist Tony Iommi rebounding from chemotherapy and radiation treatment for lymphoma.
When The Eagles tour comes to South Florida in the fall, the band is expected to include 65-year-old bassist Timothy B. Schmit, who had surgery last year for throat and neck cancer.
And poor Paul McCartney. Every new song he makes seems to tarnish his Beatles brilliance a little bit more. It’s not his fault. He turned 71 this summer. At this point, encouraging him to come up with another song and hoping for a good outcome is like tossing a glove to Willie Mays and trotting him out to center field again.
When Rod Stewart first sang the song, “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” he was 33. He’s still singing it this summer on his world tour.
Except now Stewart’s a 68-year-old man warbling, “If you want my body and you think I’m sexy, come on, sugar, let me know.”
Which is creepy, but still not as creepy as The Beach Boys, a trio of men in their 70s, still fretting on stage this summer over the fun they won’t be having once their girlfriend’s father takes her T-Bird away.
At their ages, when girlfriends get their cars taken away, it’s most likely due to a Silver Alert.
It was 12 years ago when I first realized that the gig was up with what is now quaintly called “classic rock.” That’s when Earth, Wind & Fire played here as part of a concert tour sponsored by the makers of Viagra, the erectile dysfunction pill. Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Available by prescription.
Aged rock stars keep going on tour because people my age are still ruthlessly clinging to romantic notions of their youth. And there’s an alchemy to those old songs that works like time travel.
It’s the same impulse that makes some people so fiercely loyal to their college alma mater. It’s not the school as much as that 19-year-old version of yourself that you’re clinging to.
It’s not right.
Return rock music to where it belongs, the young. It’s bad enough we’ll be glomming onto their Social Security. We should at least let the young have their own music.
Editorial, Pages 12 on 07/30/2013