While driving to work this morning I was flipping through the radio dial (not really a dial anymore, so I was pushing the scan/tune buttons), and I inevitably came across the city's classic rock station (here in Mpls it's KQRS). Oddly enough, they were playing Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. I thought that the odds of switching to this station, at any random time, and hearing Wish You Were Here were pretty good. If we add Stairway to Heaven and Aerosmith's Walk this Way to the list, I image we'd have a fifty-fifty chance of catching one of those songs on a random try. Throw in all Bob Seager songs, and our odds go way above eighty percent.

Tam has this theory that classic rock radio is a ploy by the powers that be to keep people complacent. As she puts it, "It keeps the common man down." Her theory is that these station's continue to play music from 1972 through 1979 (roughly) to keep people's mind set in that era, and to prevent people from thinking about, and maybe even questioning the events of modern times. New music makes people think, and god forbid, question. Even if some classic rock makes people think, it's about 1975 issues, and more likely about Ventura Highway (no pun towards our illustrious Governor, the Body…err…Mind).

I agree with her intellectually, but emotionally I am on the fence on this issue. I was brought up around two older brothers who reveled in the rock sounds of the seventies. The first music I can recollect is Deep Purple's Made in Japan. Most people are nostalgic about the sesame street theme song. Puff the Magic Dragon brings up child hood memories for most my age. Sadly, for me, Deep Purple's Highway Star reminds me of childhood, the live version, of course…