Stop by any cafe, sports bar or college hangout and you will find that the background music is usually from the 1970s. Those fifty-year-old songs have retained their appeal, even for persons born long after their initial release.
For those of us now in our own seventies, these "soft rock" tunes offer more than nostalgia and musical entertainment. Most of us were in college or grad school during that era and know that the lyrics reflect the social upheaval that characterized that decade. Political turmoil, anti-war protests, drug experimentation, budding environmentalism and sexual liberation were among the fodder for many of the songs.
Knowing that "our music" holds its value in modern society is reassuring. After all, we would never have listened to music from the 1920s during our personal years of freedom.
