One's hearing is supposed to deteriorate with age, and from time to time I detect signs that I am not an exception to the rule. But for some reason if I have the oldies station on, I can hear the words much more clearly than I did years ago. Perhaps hearing them mumble the lyrics a few times makes it easier to pick out the words. Perhaps the car speakers are far superior to the tinny ones of the 70's. Certainly the airport speakers are much easier to understand than they used to be (easily verified by listening to recordings made back then--even at a Presidential address the sound was terrible).
No, we didn't go to concerts, but I suspect the audience noise would have made them even harder to understand than the radio versions. (Maybe understanding wasn't the most important thing about concerts--darsan and tribal bonding...)
I'm not always overjoyed when I finally figure out what they were talking about. "Are you nuts? Life's not like that; love's not like that!"
Similarly, the women in my Bible study all remembered the moment later in life when they realised that the terribly romantic story that enchanted them in "Doctor Zhivago" when it first came out was about...a woman who was married to someone else. Squirm, wince.
ReplyDeleteI get it.