[ Matthew Caulfield wrote in 051203 MMDigest:

> Most teens seem totally unmoved by the music, and if they are moved
> to comment, it is something like, "Do you have any good stuff?" or
> "How can you listen to that all day?"

Please be reminded that a teenager would rather die than admit that he
likes something presented by an adult.  You were the same way at that
age.

> For the young, modern crowd, our music is dying on the shelf.  The
> only hope is that they will learn to recognize some of it -- and to
> like it -- as they mature.  I'm afraid that arranging modern stuff
> for them will simply repeat the cycle in another fifty years; their
> music will mean nothing to the youth of 2055.

Well, nobody lives forever, and neither does their art.  It does get
re-incarnated, though.  A good bit of present top-40 music consists of
adaptations of '60's stuff.  This is interesting because, had we done
the same thing in the '60's, we'd have been reviving the music of the
1920's.  Which we did not.  I think.

> What was there about Tin Pan Alley music that made it last?  Or
> didn't it really?

There's no way of knowing, really.  Any serious analysis of music makes
it fall apart.  There is, however, a famous story that I believe is
semi-bogus, if entertaining.

It is said that a songwriter, famous but I forget his name, decided to
write a song based on research into every popular song written up to
that time.  He methodically dissected every tune and lyric, says the
story, and thereby was able to write a formula for a song that he
contended would be an instant hit.

The song was "Barney Google (and his goo-goo-googly eyes") and it was
indeed an instant hit, topping the charts for months.  My father used
to sing it.

Barney Google was a comic strip character, not a search engine.  He was
a city slicker who kept company with a mountain-dweller named Snuffy
Smith.  He was always seen with his race horse, the venerable "ol'
Spark Plug."  It is said that Spark Plug always wore his trademark
horse blanket because Fred Lasswell couldn't draw a horse.

  "She sued Barney for divorce
   Now he's living with his horse..."

Lasswell is gone now, but the strip still runs, and Barney Google
occasionally stops by to visit.

Mark Kinsler