Originally posted by Birdsong:
Talking about going off the radar, today I have been right back to my childhood and put on a cassette recording of [b]The Everly Brothers 
My dad used to play this kind of thing all the time, and I respect it MUCH more now of course than I did in my formative years.
Superbly crafted songs in the old school style when simplicity was more respectable.
And I love the innocence of the romantic dilemmas.
"Take A Message To Mary" is particularly good, prickling the hairs on my neck. [/b]
Going back a further generation...my dad requested the triple cd soundtrack of Dennis Potter's thirties-set drama of the seventies 'Pennies From Heaven' for Christmas, so that's what he got. He sits in quiet admiration marvelling at the 'wonderful' lyrics that they 'couldn't write today', as sung by Al Bowly, Josef Locke et al. To my ears they are laughably corny and simplistic, and I enjoy making little ditties in the same vein up on the spot that I think are as good/bad (delete as tastes incline) as the song he is listening to - to show it's as easy as that! However, he is also appreciating the naive charm in the same way as you are with The Everly Brothers, I think, Birdsong. And I can really understand that, even if I don't like the music. Plus, if the thirties had a nostalgic dimension for me, as it does for my dad, then I would probably derive some pleasure and warm comfort from the music too, not to mention a feeling that those songs are 'what music should be'. We are all, to an extent, products of our conditioning.
