Overheard, Overhead, Over the Hill

Posted on April 26, 2004 in Culture Encounters

It’s a sure sign of geriactrification when you realize that you were alive when the songs being played on drug store music systems came out. Tonight, we were at Staples and then Save-On. As we checked out of Staples, Nilson’s “Everybody’s Talking at Me” came over the loudspeakers. “Good lord,” I said. “I can remember when they first started playing this!”

“When was that,” asked the assistant manager who scanned the notepads I was buying.

“1969,” I said. “Were you born yet?”

She blushed and looked down in shame. “No. Not for another ten years.”

SaveOn played the “Theme from Billy Jack“, that classic “kick-the-establishment’s-ass” film that all my friends in junior high could quote word for word.

“There’s another sixties film theme,” said Lynn as we placed my benadryl, some tooth paraphenalia, and a pair of “low-carb” chocolate bars on the checkout counter.

“Actually, I think it’s a seventies film*. Somewhere between 1970 and 1972 is my memory.” I looked at the clerk. “Were you born yet?”

“No,” she said.

“Oh dear, Lynn. We’re the older generation.”

Those songs, so militant in their time, have become bad news.

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*Not to gloat, but I was right. 1971.

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Here’s the take of a Generation Xer on the movie.