Elevator/Grocery Store Music

When did the music of my youth become elevator music?  Lol. I was in our local convenience store, Weigels, the other day and the background music was the popular music of my youth...who'd have thought that would EVER happen?  Popular artists and groups such as The Association, The Beatles, Three Dog Night, the Carpenters, Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka, the Doors, The Monkeys, the Who, Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly, The Rolling Stones and Mick Jagger, Carol King, Elvis Presley, Tom Jones, Jackson Five, Donny and Marie Osmond, Ingelbert Humperdink, Petula Clark, Lulu, The Everley Brothers...where did the time go?  

One of the first songs I learned on the piano was Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Waters. I loved the soulful chording and while I was perfectly aware that the lyrics probably had vastly different meaning than my attribution...the fact was that they were exactly what I wanted them to be as a sixteen year old.  

I lived in Germany throughout my teens with my family.  After two years in Augsburg, where we only had AFN radio, we moved to the Kaiserslautern area and AFN had tv programming for several hours in the afternoon and evening.  We were so excited to have something of "home."  In truth, the programming was limited to programs that the big three (CBS, ABC, NBC) would loan to the Armed Forces Network to air.  It was usually several years behind stateside programming but we didn't care.  During that period musical variety shows (The Carol Burnett Show, Donny and Marie, Laugh-In, Sonny and Cher, Dick Van Dyke Show, The Ed Sullivan Show,  The Red Skelton Show, and Dean Martin) filled the airways.  The jokes, the skits, the music and performers all gave us a glimpse into an American culture that seemed so far away.  Other programs - Star Trek, old I Love Lucy shows, Mission Impossible, Bewitched, My Favorite Martian, Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone, Bonanza, Gilligan's Island, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Perry Mason, The Mod Squad, Columbo, My Three Sons, the Fugitive, Rawhide, Disney, The Beverly Hillbillies, Batman, Ben Casey, Burke's Law, F Troop, Flipper, Get Smart, Gomer Pyle, McHale's Navy, Green Acres, Hogan's Heroes, I Dream of Jeanie, Mr. Ed, The Addams Family, The Munsters, The Jetsons, The Rat Patrol, Voyage to the Bottom of thenSea, Wagon Train, The Rifleman, The Flintstones, Petticoat Junction, Outer Limits, Lost in Space, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Dragnet, Combat, Mannix, Maverick, and The Flying Nun and Patty Duke Show were all programs that kept us connected to "home"...even if they were aired AFTER they had been cancelled stateside!  Lol. Ironically many of the tunes from tv programs filtered their way into our culture and our memories, reminding us of our better selves and encouraging the values and principles held by us, as Americans.