Listening to Andy Williams now. Nearly cried with happiness when I saw his '16 Most Requested Songs' album amidst the rack entitled (by me) 'things my parents listen to that i'll never touch'. (Well that's not true, I took Simon and Garfunkel's latest hits from that particular rack too. So far it hasn't been missed)

There's something so essentially pure about his music and music back then that makes me want to cry even if it isn't a sad song. It seems as though life was so much simpler back then, pleasure could be had in the most mundane of activities, love wasn't complex.

But the thing that hit me the most was this: such music could only have been written if the writer truly saw the world in all its glorious beauty, saw past the surface of abject misery and apparent dullness. That's what made music back then so beautiful and so unabashed.

This, from the girl who grew up listening to 90.5 and hating it, and later when the adolescent angst and cynicism kicked in, dismissed such music as sentimental and idealistic drivel.

I'm beginning to agree with my mom now, see what she means about the disturbing music of today, more so now because of the current popularity of 'nu-metal' (which I admit, I listened to in the not-so-long ago past), where they make it seem as though being happy was a crime, and where you're supposed to spend the best years of your life in depression, doing drugs and hating yourself.

That's not the way it should be.