Clap Along

Some people call it an epiphany. Oprah calls it your "Aha! moment," the moment you figure something out.

Back in the late 1950's, my older sister and I would fight over which television program to watch. My mother, her hands full with tending to an additional three-year-old and one-year-old, made a rule that my sister and I could each pick a half-hour show to view, while she prepared dinner. I would choose my program, probably something like Lassie or The Lone Ranger. My sister would say, "Oh, wonderful! That's my favorite, too." Annoyed, I would immediately get up and change the channel to something else, to which she would fawn even more. I'd run through the available 5 or 6 channel options with her making ever more specious comments until I'd found myself watching ABC's Evening News featuring John Daly. Then it hit me, "I've been duped." I turned to see the smug smile on my sister's face.

If you can't beat them… I began to watch her programs with a new eye. I notice an alluring edginess to the programs my sister favored, such as The Twilight Zone, 77 Sunset Strip or American Bandstand.

***

If you think about it, "American Bandstand" is kind of a forerunner to reality television, minus the scripting, that is. It was amusing to watch some of the white kids really let go and "dance like nobody's watching," even though everybody was watching. Plus it featured the first multiracial cast.

There was a portion of the show where they would play a new song and have a panel of three kids, of whom two would rate the record on this random 35-98 scale. The third kid would write down the ratings, add them, divide by two and come up with an average. I have this memory of a time when the host, Dick Clark, turned to the third kid and asked for the average and the boy replied, point blank, "84 and a half." The host did a double-take, stunned he said, "What? A half!? That can't be right." He turned to look out at his production staff and said, "That can't be right. Can it?" But, every kid watching knew the boy was right. After that kids stopped rounding it off when the divisible total was an odd number and giving a song a "? and a 1/2" rating became the new rage.

In addition to giving a numerical rating to the song, the contestants were asked what they liked or didn't like about the song. The comments were very basic. Like I said, they were unscripted back then. So, the infamous refrain became, "It has a nice beat and it's easy to dance to it."

***

Back in my young, before parenthood, days I had a subscription to Rolling Stone Magazine. I enjoy all kinds of music. On weekday mornings I might listen to the Eric and Kathy Show, partly so I can hear local news from my former hometown, Chicago. In the car, I prefer Coffee House on XMRadio which features acoustic music. In the afternoon I favor a local NPR station that plays classical music. In evenings, when preparing dinner I may go to a podcast program that does old-time jukebox blues.

I watched part of the Grammys recently, before I fell asleep, that is. That is where I saw this energetic young man, be-bopping all around the stage, wearing a huge Smokey Bear-type hat. I reserved judgment. After all, who am I to comment on what is possibly au courant? The young man's group won a grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group, I think? Anyway, I was moved by his humility when accepting his award. Humility is a nice virtue.

The very next day I hear Eric and Kathy talking about him. And now I had a name to go with the young man, Pharrell, Pharrell Williams. I didn't know much else about him, except that he is a singer/songwriter. Then they played a song performed by Pharrell, which he co-wrote. It's called "Happy." It's from the movie, Despicable Me 2, and it's an Oscar nominated tune for Best Original Song.

I listen to the upbeat lyrics, "… clap along if you feel like a room without a roof, clap along if you feel that happiness is the truth…" It has hints of swing band and early Motown and yet it retains a completely modern funkiness. The song just makes you feel, well…, for lack of a more appropriate word, happy, happy to the point of clapping.

I give it a 98 on the rate-a-record scale. It has an infectious beat and you can't help but dance to it like nobody's watching."