Being 19 years old forever

I have a theory about being 19 years old.  My theory is that at 19 one is in one’s prime with regard to taking a snapshot of all that is around and defines the individual.  Mentally, of course, at 19 one is usually still very immature and has much to learn, controlled by hormones and irrationality.  But musically and fashion-wise one has made a decision.  The ‘culture’ surrounding the 19 year old, they have chosen out of the different options available and it defines them for life.

(One of the greatest electro-rock dance granny DJs, now in her mid 70s)

Usually, a 19 year old loves the current and new music of their chosen genre, and if they were to take a ‘snapshot’ of all the music they’ve experienced, it would probably stretch affectionately back to when they were 12.  So, their head is filled with a ‘core’ set of musical values and fashion loves from the last 7 years.

It is at this point that for a huge number of people something goes wrong and everything gets stuck.  Forever.  This 7 year period from when they were 12 through to when they were 19 doesn’t grow old or shuffle into the past. Instead, it defines them.

Sure, they’ll listen to new music, but it has to be of the same genre as is in their original snapshot.  It can be new artists, fine, as long as they sing the songs they know and love.  It can be new songs, as long as it’s by the same artists they know and love.  A new song from a new artist?  That’s a tricky one.  Maybe if they sound more or less the same as artists or songs from their 12 thu 19 snapshot, then they’re ok.  But, a new genre from a new artist? Naaa.  Can’t have that, it doesn’t ‘fit’ into how they have defined themselves.

Fundamentally, this snapshot seems to fill all available space in their head.  There’s no room for anything else.  It doesn’t seem to allow for anything truly ‘new’ to add itself to the head space or for any changes.  It also starts ‘playing’ in a loop.  Over and over and over and over it plays for the rest of their life.  When they are 89, they are still humming the songs they loved when they were 19, as they have done day in day out, year in year out since they were 19.  It’s almost like an OCD that makes no actual sense, and yet this is what they do.

Now of course, the ages I’m speaking of aren’t set in stone.  I say ’19’, but for different people it may be different ages.  ’19’ could be plus or minus 5 or 6 years, but there’s definitely this age of taking a snapshot and ‘cutting off’.

Once a person has ‘cut-off’ they then spend forever trying to re-live their youth.  They want things to remind them of their youth, and never to have to face the here and now.  This is why theatres will pack with people in their 60s and 70s marvelling at Elvis Presley tribute acts or singers crooning Neil Diamond songs.  Yep, these people in their 60s and 70s are the oldest rock’n’rollers in town.  Behind them are those in their 50s and 60s who watch tribute acts pretending they are Pink Floyd or Led Zepplin.  Behind them are those in their 40s and 50s watching pretend Michael Jacksons.  And so it goes on.

Yet, for some odd reason they don’t keep watching the same episodes of Coronation Street or Eastenders from when they were 19, over and over again.  They do allow themselves to take in the ‘modern’ episodes.  It’s just the ‘modern’ music they have no head space for.

Indeed, an important re-enforcement ritual is to regularly moan, hiss and spit about ‘modern’ music.  It’s important to tell the younger generation that their music of choice is rubbish and not proper music.  Only music from their personal snapshot that’s filled their head space is ‘proper’ music, so there!  Everything else is to be sneered at or to be belittled.

It’s almost as if they do this as a kind of defence mechanism for some reason.  And, hey, the hell they put people of their own age through who dare like anything ‘modern’.

There are a few of us older folks out there that don’t have the stagnant snapshot occupying our head space.  In radio terms I recall John Peel not suffering from this.  Neither does Annie Nightingale.

The difference with us is that we don’t seem to take a snapshot and then ‘stop’.  We don’t seem to reach 19.  We are, maybe, constantly 15, and so constantly receptive to new ideas and styles.  In lots of ways we get bored with the ‘same old same old’ going round and round in a loop, and get excited when suddenly there’s a tangent and a new genre is thrown out by evolution.  The recent explosion of dubstep, as an example, we find exciting and fresh, not an abomination.  We don’t seek to do this deliberately, this is who we are, just as those who prefer to relive the same moments in time are who they are.  For those with the stagnant snapshot loop occupying their head space, new music genres are never real music (not like in ‘their day’) and is instead the work of the devil.  It must be dismissed and devalued, as all new music always is by the old people stuck in their personal stagnant snapshot loop.

Should anybody of a similar age to those sneering at new music dare say, “Actually, this is a very exciting sound!”, they will of course be told they are trying to re-live their youth or pretending they are young, and hey, look everybody, they’re the oldest swinger in town.

The truth is they aren’t trying to ‘re-live’ their youth in any way.  If they were, they’d be playing their own stagnant snapshot over and over again, and constantly, well, re-living their youth.  As it is, they are just living for the here and now, and being blown away by the wonderment of the new experiences everyday brings.  Why knock them/us for it?