Local Sunday morning radio, playing songs of inspiration. It Is No Secret. Suddenly, I’m back in a small-town church, singing that song with a group of classmates for eighth grade baccalaureate. Feeling very grown up, wearing my first nylon stockings and sandals with a modest wedge heel.
We knew that music well; it was very popular, as was Beyond the Sunset, which we also sang that evening. Those were the days when it wasn’t controversial for songs of faith to be on the pop charts. I believe it was Tex Ritter who had a hit with Deck of Cards, telling how the deck of cards stood for various aspects of faith and made it a Bible and Prayer book.
One thought led to another as thoughts tend to do, and I recalled many popular songs of yesterday which had spiritual messages. I Believe, He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, One Day at a Time, Wings of a Dove, Will the Circle be Unbroken? Why Me, Lord? We sang those songs along with the radio, and learned them by heart. They were even played by bands at country dances.
A little later, there were a lot of happy songs, not necessarily spiritual but upbeat and cheerful. Don’t Worry, Be Happy, Feelin’ Groovy, This Land is My Land, and most all of Neil Diamond’s timeless tunes.
Even earlier, we were in ragtime mode. Ragtime Cowboy Joe, Chattanooga Shoeshine Boy, I Want to be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart, and sentimental tunes like, You Are My Sunshine. My dad sang that one to me when I was just a button. We lived for the music on our radios, desperate for cheer in the midst of a World War.
Music at my grade school was the first fifteen minutes of every Friday. A local woman played piano and we got to choose what to sing. Funny stuff, like Where Have You Been Billy Boy? My Darling Clementine, and always something patriotic. America the Beautiful, The Marines, Hymn, or Battle Hymn of the Republic. We favored The Yellow Rose of Texas, I suppose because Texas seemed like a romantic place where we would surely never go. No clue about the back story of that song, it wouldn’t have been age appropriate for us to hear.
I don’t listen to much popular music of today. Can’t seem to find a tune in it to carry. There is a genre of Christian music now, mostly new songs by new singers, but it doesn’t reach the general public in the same way as those old pop tunes. How many of today’s youngsters can sing America the Beautiful? Where are the songs encouraging us to be cheerful? They may be out there, just that I haven’t encountered them. I hope they are, that some of you prove me wrong. What I do know is that “age appropriate” has gone out the musical window, which makes me sad.
My eighth-grade baccalaureate service is a precious memory. I’m still in contact with a few singers in that group. Baccalaureate was a rite of passage just as much as graduation. An opportunity to be thoughtful, and consider what being a grown up might entail. It was required, not an event you could choose to attend. Some churches mark the passage these days, but certainly not at eighth grade level. I suppose that the youth of junior high age now consider themselves already grown up, not just on the cusp of it. With the plethora of non-age-appropriate material available, it’s not surprising.
Never mind. Just some reminiscences of a very old woman bemoaning the loss of innocence.