Are We Really Fated to Pretend?

When Tilly and the Wall broke into their rebellious “Nights of the Living Dead,” I suddenly found myself in the midst of enraged high school kids “all fucked-up, touching each other, oh my god.” As much as I love the song, I couldn’t wait for it to end. Unlike the majority of people at the all-ages Knitting Factory affair, the song carries a far more sobering message to someone at 22 versus, say, age 15.

The Who talked about their generation. Black Flag rose above. An already older Tom Waits refused to believe he was growing up. More recently, The Arcade Fire argued that we’ve been lied to. Since World War II, it’s probably impossible to go a decade without a song encouraging youth rebellion. Hell, it can be argued that the entire punk movement was about rejecting whatever society deemed normal. To young listeners, the songs become anthems conveying thoughts that their parents just don’t understand. Something like a phenomenon, simple musicians are elevated to idols with kids lining their walls with band posters, desiring to be like them. Then something strange happens and there’s nothing left to rebel against. When the moment comes, we’ve caught up with society and, in an instant, have grown old.

I imagine we all go through teenage rebellions that in some way involve music. Mine was, after all but giving up on school, listening endlessly to Nirvana’s Unplugged in New York—the gateway album to David Bowie, The Vaselines, and The Meat Puppets. Soon thereafter, it was getting a cheap electric guitar and an even cheaper amplifier. Then there were the rock shirts and the chucks and the pleading with mom and dad for the concerts. I think the line was drawn at wanting to work at Newbury Comics. Nevertheless, the sonic jihad in my room was one way out of the stereotypically hard time that so many ninth graders claim to endure.

As we quickly grow up and blow away, youthful rebellion gets replaced with the sad realities of a society that places marginal value on creativity. Even so, those baby-boomers that created the counter-culture continue to pack stadiums for The Rolling Stones and other nostalgia acts that set fans back a good $500 or more just for an up-close view of Mick Jagger’s wrinkles. Someone realized that even those in the most tedious high-paying jobs still find satisfaction in a few moments of feeling young again.

The music industry is strange like this. A good friend that spent many years in music journalism tells me to forget about a career in music because it’s a path toward a dead-end street. He’s not alone. My grandfather, who spent decades as a record promoter for some of the biggest labels, always instructed me to avoid the industry like the plague. Whenever I hint about longing to work at some indie label or music publicity firm, I’m warned that these occupations are full of self-selecting snobs failing to live, but instead killing time before having to confront so-called real jobs. Truth be told, three of record store owner Rob Gordon’s top five dream jobs make my list too. Still, unless it’s a close friend, I’ll take the easy way out and suggest that I’ll likely end up in law school. It might not be what I want to do, but I majored in political science. If I want acceptable success, do I really have a choice?

I know a liberal arts education isn’t supposed to be a technical experience, but more often than not, it does feel like I’ve been driven in a particular direction. A recent Columbia alumnus now in the high-impact world of consulting suggested that quickly failing to take on a financial picture of success devalues a prestigious education. He rolled his eyes when I advanced the importance of finding happiness above a situation that leaves him a mostly miserable person hidden by an ill-fitting suit. It’s painfully obvious that he’s not doing what he wants. Being happy, I suppose, implies a bit of the lasting youthful rebellion that customarily takes a backseat to climbing the company ladder. It’s likely this same internal rebellion that drives people toward careers in music, even if they can never afford a big house and five cars.

At the Knitting Factory last week, the unsettling experience of winding up in a torrent of high school kids eventually resulted in my own observation of the crowd in the back and in the balcony. There they were, the old-timers like me, easily recognizable by a beer in one hand, their other hand resting idly in a hoodie, staring blankly at the stage. To us, listening to a song about youth rebellion is about coming to terms with the fact that what we desired and hoped the world to be just never came to fruition. It’s our inevitable quest toward all things ordinary and the visceral reaction to how naive we were as kids.

One way or another, we’re confronted with the question of how much of our rebellious pasts we can shed before we wake up one day unable to relate to the next generation. Resisting the expected transition toward normalcy directly channels the rebellion of our youth and possibly steers us back toward what we really want to in life. Even a young William Miller returned from his assignment with a band called Stillwater. Years later, he grew up to make movies.

Jarid Maged is a student in the school of General Studies studying political science. Frozen in the Ninth Circle runs alternate Fridays. Opinion@columbiaspectator.com