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Hey, Remember the '80s?

Bob Mould chimes in with some inspiring words in The Big Takeover #57. Reading this quote gives me even more hope because it comes from a guy who lived in a very similar climate in the 1980s:

"It's gotta change. And it will change. And I tell my younger friends-people that are in their late-20s to mid-30s, when they get panicked and worried-we went through this before, 20 years ago, in the Reagan years. We got out on the other side. It took awhile, and a lot of damage got done, and a lot of lives were lost in a different way in the '80s, but you get through it, you know?"

I was born in '79 and was very oblivious to what was going on in the world. I kept hearing about "Star Wars" on the news, but I always thought they were talking about my favorite movie. I remember being very annoyed that I couldn't watch cartoons one morning because some guy named Oliver North was giving testimony. I remember lampooning Reagan's voice in a talent show in elementary school and seeing the man be lampooned in videos like Genesis' "Land of Confusion". I heard about AIDS and was aware of super-rich people, but everything else that the '80s "stood" for (greed, poverty, AIDS, bad hair, tacky clothing, synth-pop, hair metal) were not big deals for me.

Seeing so many trends these days take a cue from trends in the '80s, I often think that we are reliving the '80s. Whenever I hear somebody around me or read someone's writing somewhere fearing for the worst about where our culture is supposedly headed, Bob's quote comes with a great degree of comfort. Our climate is not gonna change overnight, but it will change.

Comments

josh Mueller said…
This is the man who wrote "Changes"...god bless him.
Eric said…
Bob Mould. Sugar's Copper Blue is an amazing album. Much more straight forward than the HUsker Du stuff and I probably like it more.
josh Mueller said…
Grubbs, what do you do for a living anyhow? You're the only person I read who can write seamless long-format pieces and properly works in news sources.

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