Saturday Between 6pm And 8pm

Most people have a favorite type of music and so do I. Unfortunately, public radio offers only one weekly program where it is played. Every Saturday between 6 and 8pm I tune in on CBC Radio’s French music program. And then I swim away on a cloud of dreams into a time long gone. “Lost in the Fifties” was a title sung by Ronny Milsap, but my favorite music carries me back even further. The “Great American Songbook” contains treasures for my ears. It is often in retrospect that we think we would like to turn back the clock. The Fifties f.e.x were full of wonderful music, yet we tend to forget that there was so much political hate, cold war and suffering all over the world. The music did not mirror this. Instead it took people out on a journey of dreams and  happiness, and we could forget about the wars, the hunger for peace, the political hate. BUT STOP…! Today, 60 years later, we still have political hate, threats of war, millions of refugees and suffering all over the world. But today the entertainment industry does not produce soothing tunes. No, the great music of the past has been replaced with intolerable noise. It seems that modern comfort has produced the opposite in us, a desire to disturb and to destroy. Today’s music parallels and emphasizes the chaos of our world.  How else can it be explained that radio programs are sending out blaring noise all day long?  Every time I turn on the radio during day hours I quickly turn it off again. It is unfathomable how anybody can listen to this crap and ENJOY it. I seriously think that there is something very wrong with a person who listens to such screeching noise. Music in itself is meant to entertain, to inspire, and to calm us down, but sadly, the opposite is the case with modern “music”.