My fascination with poetry came long before I had the chance to admire the works of William Wordsworth, William Blake, Geoffrey Chaucer, James Wright, Harryette Mullen, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, Seamus Heaney, John Keats, Donald Justice, Millard Dunn, or Dylan Thomas.

Putting words together in one way, shape, or form is a joy that grabbed me at a young age.  Recently I had a shiver up the spine whilst recording some songs.  There we were.  Me, a guitar, and a sheet of lyrics and chords were hanging out.  Embedded in one particular song were lyrics that I borrowed from poems I had written in 1985 and 1986.  A fifty-five year old was borrowing from his seventeen year old self.  That was a good day, however you wish to quantify.

Those poems I wrote more than three decades are in a bound book that, in earnest, I have not added anything to in a few decades.  If I was compelled to add something to it, I did not get the memo.  Perhaps this was by providential design.  Maybe.

When this book filled with poems from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, written long before I picked up a guitar with knowledge of how to mold words and music together, opens up, there is steadfastness about it.  The words never left.  They still have meaning.  Otherwise I would never have transposed some of these words with music.

Music.  Oh yes, that evil device!  

It was 1985.  That was then and this is now.  Some things never change.

When I think about the political bluster that is working its way around America in the form of book banning…AGAIN…I just shake my head.  This copy and paste political whimsy we suffer through today just looks for reasons to be mad.  Seems happiness in the form of complaining has become an art for some.

I can hear Ronald Reagan now looking at this unpleasant landscape, “Well, here we go again.”  

In 1985 it was that dreaded music that was polluting our nation.  Amazing as it was, there were Senate Hearings in Washington on the evils of popular music lyrics on the same day Bob Geldof was collecting 15.7 million pledge dollars that represented half of the money pledged during the LIVE AID CONCERTS in London and Philadelphia rockers put together to combat world hunger.  Their parents couldn’t stop Elvis from shaking his pelvis and now it was their turn.  Tipper Gore (Al), Susan Baker (James), Pam Howar (Raymond), and Sally Nevis (John) formed the Parents Music Resource Center and shook their finger at nasty lyrics.  One of these ladies found something her daughter was listening to objectionable and all music lyric hell at the Cotillion Society broke loose.

Not unlike what we are dealing with today in the form of book banning, I point to this time in my life when this was going on and all I could think, as a seventeen year old, was my parents taught me to stay away from music like that and they didn’t give a flip about Tipper Gore’s committee.  Oh yes, it was a simpler time.  My family’s values were in practice and we didn’t know what talking points were.

I recently looked at a list of fifteen songs that were targeted by the PMRC.  None of the artists listed have sat on my shelves at any point in time over the years.

I was there.  I have been there.

I will tell folks the same today.  If you can’t parent your kid, don’t blame the song.  If you can’t parent your kid, don’t blame the book.  And surely don’t blame someone else in the name of political bluster and the pursuit of intellectual welfare in the form of bigger government.

On September 19, 1985, John Denver, the musical equivalent of Mr. Rogers, said this:

“I suggest that graphic lyrics and explicit videos are not so far removed from what is seen on television every day and night whether it be in the soap operas or on the news.  That we should point our finger at the recording industry while watching the general public at a nationally televised game chant in unison ‘the Blue Jays suck’ is ludicrous.”

It was a simpler time.  Thank you, John Denver.  Glad I was there with you.

The aforementioned PMRC folded its tent eventually.  Given them credit, though.  This party was made up of both Republicans and Democrats.  It was a simpler time.

Examining the last point of John Denver’s statement makes me think of an ever popular slogan these days.  You’ve heard it.  Some of you have said it.  Some of you wear T-Shirts with it.  Some of you have bumper stickers on your vehicle sporting it.  You know the one.  It is a popular chant among some these days.

“Let’s Go Brandon!”

Not exactly a chant from the Cotillion Circuit.

Be it music or books to complain about, we know that some folks want to have their cake and eat it too.

We also know that not all nuts are grown in California.

We got a long way to go.  God help us.

Speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson