"Name that Tune"...Seventy Years Hence

It's a drizzly cold November day, and I'm “writing” (quotations mine) on my little “Netbook” at the kitchen table while Best of Santana plays...”I ain't got nobody, that I can depend on...” Interesting thing is that my house guest, an 18 year old Turkish student, selected this CD from our vast (okay, not so vast really) collection. He likes the guitar solos and the multi-layered rhythm patterns. So do I. “Classic” Santana.

My job working with the elderly at a day program gives me the opportunity, on occasion, to play a “name that tune” game. There are a number of ways one can play this. One way is to use a pre-recorded cassette tape by the same name. A very pleasant, slightly southern sounding woman is the announcer and, possibly, the Hammond organist, too. Yes, it's about as corny as you could imagine, but many of our elders actually like it. It goes something like this:

“Are you ready to play, 'Name That Tune'?”...pause, pause...
”Good!”
“Let's listen now to our first selection” (home organ begins).

The sample ends and the microphone fumbles on. The pleasant voice returns:

“Can you Name that Tune?”...pause, pause...”
“It was 'The Man on the Flying Trapeze.'”
“ Are you ready for the next tune? Good!...”

Most of the tunes are recognizable by our group, and they are having a fun time together, which is the real object of the activity. They don't seem to notice or care that the musical style is cheesy; it's all about recognition and the memories the music evokes...and maybe the competitive aspect plays a small part. They certainly don't come to blows over it but occasionally a few petty arguments break out.

As my house guest and I, generations apart, enjoy Santana, I wonder if he will someday be playing "Name that Tune" and guessing “Black Magic Woman,” or perhaps “Bridge Over Troubled Water” or a Beatles tune, or Sting? And what might my three year old granddaughter be naming in her senior years? Imagine something by Eminem or Jay-Z...something that begins with a lot of beat, and an angry-sounding urban voice shouting something like, “YO!! YOU (expletive, expletive, expletive) bring-it-down, bring-it-down...” I'd like to hear THAT on the Hammond home organ!