Chairman of the Board - Feb 28 2022

 

Chairman of the Board

Feb 28 2022

Country, gospel, jazz.

Music from the heartland

tabernacle

coast.

Love lost

the grace of God

and cool hot licks.

Along with rock and roll

protest songs

hootenanny

folk,

blue grass

tap dance

tin pan alley

rap,

show tunes

hip hop

barbershop quartet

And songs of the open road,

roof down

tunes on

pedal to the floor;

heading west

toward the American dream;

its chrome-plated promise

that starting over is possible,

that you can reinvent yourself

and your past forgotten.

America,

there in its sounds

in all its contradictions and vitality.

But with all this choice

I am listening to Frank,

old blue eyes

chairman of the board.

The Great American Songbook

from Arlen and Ellington

to Porter, Gershwin, Kern.

The boy singer

fronting the big band.

The heartthrob

and movie star

and gifted young crooner

who once made girls swoon,

who could wrap his voice around the words

and make the lyrics his own.

And now old people like me

listen to that virtuoso voice

and are reassured

that beautiful music is timeless,

that greatness endures.

I hope that the first name is enough. But time moves on, and I wonder if now even “Elvis” would need elaboration!

I have unusual taste in music. Out of sync with my generation. Because by all rights, I should like rock and roll. But I grew up on folk. And now, it's mostly jazz, with a smattering of classical. So in the car, it's the Sinatra channel on Sirius/XM. The Great American Songbook. Which was “old people” music even when I was young!

Nothing in particular inspired this poem. It's just that I've been veering toward the political lately, and I can only tolerate so much of that. The world is going to hell. So why not put on some tunes and get a little drunk!