my idols are dead and my enemies are in power.
part ii
i received a letter the other week from my pen pal in canada (yes, you read that right) and she told me that she only knows 1 beatles song and mostly listens to music post 2000. i had always feared this was the case with many gen z’ers around the globe, and now my fear had been confirmed.
meanwhile, on the opposite side of the world i’d just finished reading brian epstein’s autobiography from 1964. epstein was the beatles’ manager, a.k.a the fifth beatle and a talented yet incredibly troubled man.
so, i’m reading her letter and wondering how she functions in a world without the beatles, david bowie, bob dylan, lou reed, the list goes on… and then i realised just how many people must exist in this dark and barren place. a place without hope, without thought, without subtext. okay, i’m being a bit dramatic, but my point still stands.
i hate to admit it, but like most digital natives i spend an exorbitant amount of time online, especially on youtube, and i can tell you that by the end of a 3 hour long political commentary downward spiral, i certainly don’t feel good about the current state of the world. with political and social issues spiralling towards all ends of extreme, many of us rely on online content and/or the lyrics of k pop songs to inform us about the world. no wonder we’re all so confused.
so, it is usually at this point in the spiral that i force my hand to close the youtube tab, grab my headphones and hastily put on some beatles (or bowie, depending on the day). now, i’m sure there are some more recent artists that people listen to that help distract them from the mess of the internet, a.k.a the world, but i can assure you that bts or miley cyrus are not going to tell you the story of a fictional murderer named maxwell edison sung to an upbeat melody that actually has nothing to do with murder but is rather about the pitfalls of life and what to do when life brings you down. only lennon and mccartney can do that.
but what use is it me sitting here reminiscing about a time that i never lived through that only seems to recede further and further into our collective memory as time goes on? well, a wise man once said, ‘if you know where you come from, it’s easier to get where you’re going’ (quincy jones), and wherever it is the world is heading, it seems to me that we could definitely use a little advice from the past.
and so i say, next time you feel the urge to throw your laptop or phone across the room just to stop yourself from the relentless doomscroll, calmly place your phone down, put on some headphones and listen to the soothing sounds of artists from a simpler time when art was still shocking and original and feminism was only about equality.
~ DAHLIA
p.s. sadly no, i didn’t write the title line of this post however, i felt it was the perfect sentiment to sum up my generation. credits are still ambiguous, but it’s generally credited to a viral online post by an individual called paul darling.
(cult) references:
a cellarful of noise - brian epstein