Everything grows old except for rock and roll, which should be a Peter Pan of sound: it might gain history but at heart it is a childish, immature teen phenom and it can't grow old because if it did it wouldn't be rock and roll any more.
The truth is, as we grow old we suck the life force out of rock and roll by not leaving it, not letting teenagers, who own it, to keep it. But what do you do when Chuck Berry is in his 80s? "Ring ring goes the bell" was a distance memory when Berry first wrote it, what is it today?
It's a distance memory for me. If you live to be 90, your teen years will have been 15% of your life. Very literally. From thirteen to Nineteen. That's it. And every thing is going full tilt and everything you thought you knew and think you know is coming apart at the seams while your body is raging into adulthood through flits and starts.
And rock and roll is (or was, or should be) the soundtrack to your life. A sound as wild and fucked up and confused, and hated and ignored, and misunderstood, and censored as you are with an adrenaline rush for the kicker.
Well, that's the dream and 60 years on the dream ain't so healthy but teenagers are still around.
Three of them write for us and rock nyc is starting a weekly column from our teen writers about their concerns. This is the first time we will be going off the subject of music. This will be more in keeping with our blog roots, a column from teenagers about being teenagers. Because, to understand the upcoming generation is to understand where they are taking the music next.