After I watched Mr. Holland’s Opus, I knew I was born in the wrong time. If you have ever seen the movie, it depicts perfectly, in my opinion, how life in America evolved and changed from the mid 1960’s to the mid 1990’s, all through the eyes of a high school music teacher. The music, the style, the trends, the protests, the breakout of Motown and Rock n Roll. The bell bottoms, the old cars, static still on the radios. It all seemed so beautiful and simple to me, making me wish I was living my youth back then and not now.
I always knew I was never meant for this time. There were so many signs. I preferred vintage over new, records over CDs, paper backs to Kindles, and I held out on getting a cell phone for as long as I could. I was an old soul at heart, and everybody knew it. In my high school yearbook, I quoted The Beatles and Bruce Springsteen, stating that one day, I wanted to be living in a van down by the river. For some reason, every bone in my body rejected what was modern and craved what was old.
I became engulfed in learning about this time in America, where I longed to be. Those 30 years, from the 60’s to the 90’s, of such dramatic and influential change. It was such an exciting era. I truly believed that nothing would compare to this time in our history, ever again. After something is original once, it is only repeated and slightly altered, never fully having that unique touch. That’s how I feel about where we are today. Nothing seems new or one of a kind. Everything is an idea replicated, trying to stand out as being shiny and grand, but never fully living up to the splendor of what it once was. Ideas are reused and movies remade. Songs either remixed or over sung. Stories being retold. All the good ideas that were once had are no longer good anymore. Not to downplay where we are now, but it seems like we are trying to make wonderful something that never can be so again.
I blame it on phones and technology. How our connection is becoming further and further away from the earth and the truth that we can’t hear it speak to us anymore. The truth we no longer listen to. How the simplicity of not knowing and being at times unavailable, has been overtaken by knowing everything and always being available. It’s unnatural. It’s too much. The days of reading lyrics from the sleeve of a new record, or sending letters in the mail, hitch hiking to shows, having a home phone, are no more. We are the generation now of new, new, new. All I wanted was old, old, old.
There are moments, even still today, when I feel like I’m living back then, in that sacred and sweet time. At shows, when the concert hall is full and everyone is listening to the same music, being serenaded by the same song, that feels old to me. Or when I wear my hair pulled back tight behind my ears, it reminds me of how my mother used to wear her hair in high school. How hippies might grow out their hair and wear it to a festival. The sound of static on my records and watching them spin around in circles, slows down the fastness of my life, where I can truly reflect on how I want to live in today, with still a bit of those yesteryears. I know it’s a dream that can never come true, but my spirit will always be a somewhat mix of a Penny Lane and Joni Mitchell. Like Jenny from Forest Gump, embracing the change and the music scene from one year to the next. How I always wondered what it would be like to hop on that bus and not know where it was going.
There’s a moment in the movie when you can see in Mr. Holland’s eyes, the sadness he has for the fast-changing world and how complicated it was becoming. How he wishes too for a simpler time. How I always admired how he kept his record player and shelf full of records and continued to teach his students the fundamentals of music theory in a way that tied into America’s growing, but classic culture. How he held true to his morals and did not let the modern world taunt him or change his ways. How I wish we had more Mr. Holland’s in the world. How I’m going to try my very best to always be one. An old soul for life.