Rant #1,535: Car Bopping

Even as an adult who has been driving now for more than 40 years, one of the great pleasures I get is listening to music that I want to listen to in my car while I am behind the steering wheel.

I could be driving in the worst traffic known to man, but as long as the radio is on, and I am listening to music that I like, I am OK.

I have used my car radio as my personal cool-down system for years.

I have taken my car back and forth to work for so many years that even on bad days at work, once I get in the car and drive home, everything just fades away.

And even when I drive to work, listening to the radio kind of gets me going for the rest of my day.

I look over the past 41 years as a driver--as of November--and I see how I have went from the AM band to the FM band, from the FM band to listening to cassette tapes, from those tapes to CDs, and from those CDs to CD-Rs, where I can put more than 100 songs and really kick back and listen to them.

And now, I even have satellite radio, and I listen to that, mainly on the weekend.

But during the week, it is CD-Rs, or even thumb drives, with my favorite music.

What am I listening to most right now?

I am a 1960s person. I was born in the late 1950s--1957--but I grew up in the 1960s, going from a little kid to a very young teenager from 1960 to 1970.

My favorite musical period remains those great years from 1964 to 1971, when everything in our world seemed to be changing at breakneck speed, including what we listened to on the radio.

From the Association to the Zombies, and everything in between, that is the music I love the best, and thus, after a hard day at work, that is the music that I listen to in the car.

Right now, I am listening to a lot of different things on CD-R, stuff that I have accumulated over the past few years.

And even though the music I am listening to is often 50 years old or so, I can discover and rediscover so many different things, given my adult perspective versus when these things originally came out, when I was a kid.

And that brings me to what I am listening to in the car right now.

I have rediscovered one of the faves of my youth, a unique band that had a couple of great singles, some very interesting albums, but pretty much faded from the limelight after just a few years at the top of their game.

I am talking about the original family band, the Cowsills.

Yes, they are best known for "The Rain, the Park and Other Things," "Indian Lake," "Hair," "We Can Fly," and for singing the theme for "Love American Style," but I am discovering, as an adult, that they were much more than that.

Just to refresh your memory, this was a family band--including their mom--who came out of nowhere to become hitmakers beginning in 1967. They came from Rhode Island, and had a revolving group membership--along with mom there were about eight or nine kids, including one girl, Susie--and each one of the kids sang, wrote songs, and played their own instruments.

They were the real life basis for the Partridge Family, and when you listen to the original Cowsills material, it is light years beyond anything that David Cassidy and Co. ever put out.

Beyond the singles, the Cowsills put out some very interesting albums, in particular interesting because these kids were pre-teens and teens when they came out.

Their music was a little pop, a little rock, a little folk, a little psychedelic, and even a little Christian during those hit-making years.

The album tracks are particularly interesting, bursting with flower power and featuring lyrics that were a bit deeper than most teens and pre-teens could probably understand fully. I know that I didn't, but I kind of do now as an adult.

They even put out a very subtle Christian rock LP, "II x II," which really has to be heard to be believed. First off, I am shocked that this thing actually came out as it did back then, even with "Jesus Rock" just beginning its ascendance up the charts. Second, to have this pretty much written, performed and sung by kids so young was really something to behold, then as well as all these years later.

Releasing this LP was a calculated risk, and the risk pretty much failed, as the LP and its singles didn't do very well on the charts. Nonetheless, the album is top notch, as are all of their LPs and singles.

The Cowsills have been well documented both on record and on video. They made dozens of TV appearances during their hitmaking years, and you can find many of them on YouTube.

Just three of the kids survive today, and they have put out subsequent records as adults and still tour to this day. They were on the Happy Together Tour, and it appears they will be on it again in 2016.

But those original singles and LPs are really magic, even though they are all nearing 50 years of their original release date.

And that is what I am listening to in my car.

With all the rap, hip hop, current pop and metal out there, I choose to listen to this music instead.

And why shouldn't I? It is my car and my radio, and the great thing about today is that I can listen to exactly what I want to listen to while driving.

And even on a sunny day, I can listen to the opening bars of a tune that goes like this ...

"I saw her sitting in the rain, raindrops falling on her ..."

And it all makes me happy.

What do you listen to in your car during the workweek? What puts you in a good frame of mind before work, and when you are driving home from a tough day at the salt mine?