Somewhere Over the Rainbow

I’m at a payphone trying to call home
All of my change I spent on you…
Maroon 5

I was listening to the radio in the car yesterday and I heard the announcer talking about the new Maroon 5 song called Payphone. The producers were concerned that no one would get it because there are no payphones anymore. Kids these days wouldn’t know what the song was all about. It is #1 on the charts right now.
Now this post was going to be sentimental and touch you in so many ways. I was going to take you back to when you were a child and talk about walks to the ice-cream store and running through the sprinkler. I am sure if you were under forty you wouldn’t have related to most of what I was going to write because you may not have known those things in your lifetime, or maybe under thirty. And then I watched the video to this song.
When I got to YouTube I saw that it was marked, Explicit I figured there must be a swear word or two. It is a little more than that. Let’s just go with needless violence and destruction. I am posting it here although part of me wonders if I am only promoting the violence but you will go look for it anyway. So here it is:

I just have to ask: WHY? Why does it have to be that videos (and movies and TV shows and video games) are being made like this? All we hear about these days are shootings and bombing and death. Do we need to glamorize it in our music videos too? I know I sound like an old fuddy duddy and God I hope so! If I were in my twenties would I think it was cool? I hope not. Or worse, in my teens. I don’t even know what you do if you are a parent. Do you tell your children they can’t watch these videos? How do you police that?

If happy ever after did exist
I would still be holding you like this
All those fairytales are full of sh*t
One more stupid love song I’ll be sick….
Maroon 5

I grew up with happy ever afters and I believe in them. I really do.
I grew up with running through the sprinkler and ice-cream cones on hot summer nights.
I grew up with 45’s and 33’s and dancing in my bedroom memorizing the words.
I grew up where the channel was changed on the TV if the show was too violent and the language was too course and let’s not even talk about nudity. We didn’t.
We sat down to dinner on Sunday nights and had to finish our peas whether we wanted to or not.
We took the bus and got a ride with the milkman to the corner in his truck.
We delivered newspapers and didn’t expect a tip.
We knew when we did something wrong, we waited for the punishment we knew we deserved, and we were sorry. Truly sorry.

But we didn’t watch videos like this.

I am the biggest believer in freedom of speech in all ways. I believe in the joy and hope of creativity and that we have a need to express ourselves. What are we doing wrong that videos like this are what we want to create? If this is what our world is creating and expressing then do we have any hope for a happy ending anymore?

I will not give up.
I will make a wish on the first star I see at night.
I will say RABBITS! on the first of the month.
I will keep money in my pocket when there is a new moon.
I will remember what happens when I step on a crack.
I will hope that the violence and destruction that surrounds us will come to an end one day.
I will say my prayers before I go to sleep.
And I will pray that there is a happy ending somewhere at the end of the rainbow.