Pardon the Interlude: Just Too Good To Be True: Music of Yesterday
October 25, 2012
By Alexandria Sardam
Whether deeply cast under it’s wicked spell for the sweet or the sour, love is rooted within the lives of us all, tracing it’s imprint on the very depths of our souls. And while disagreements arise, voices are raised and tears are shed, loves true illuminating presence has the power to unlock the most jaded of souls, chained in cynicism, once lacking the faith in finding a hand to hold and lips to kiss.
And what better tool to further that feeling, inching towards bliss, than with the tool of sound, and influence of music. The kind of music that takes you back to where love meant spitting a soda and rocking a jukebox. Where innocence was everything and falling in love made sense through the words on the radio. Love is alive and well through the spirit of yesterday and through the music of the oldies.
Whether it was Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons singing songs of the I-can’t-take-my-eyes-off-of-you-kind-of-love, or The Ronnettes wondering if they’d ever even find love, music just seemed timeless then.
It seemed simple and classic, forever sealed within the safe protective confines of a picturesque snow globe filled with Thunder Birds and pastel colors.
Holidays weren’t aborted, barely appreciated before the proceeding celebration’s decorations could line the shelves of supermarkets. Nothing was rushed.
Time passed, but moments were embraced, memories were made, and the music was cherished. The simple things were most valuable and that ideal was reflected in the era’s soundtrack.
Through the appreciation of the day, music was absorbed through ears and hearts. The greatest love stories of all time were told, and it didn’t take complex feelings or unresolved dissonance to pull on heartstrings.
It was the love-sick harmonies of young men and women pining for the affection of a complete stranger that captivated audiences and stirred up the one sole emotion needed to flourish and live a life of worth — love. It’s in the music from Ben E. King to Billie Holiday that provoked a bashful kind of love that was both rich and naive, capturing the essence of real life romance.
It’s through those musicians and their honest renditions to the trials of life and the way love leaves its lasting fingerprints on a heart through a song that humbly and successfully told the first ever, non-pretentious, old-fashioned love story.
