This is Music - Two Decades On

THIS IS MUSIC - TWO DECADES ON

Back in the fifties
when Bill Haley rocked around the clock
and Marty Wilde jived on the 6.5 special
when Billy Fury and Adam Faith
were Britain's answer to Elvis
the "Third" was all Bach and Beethoven,
with jazz and pop just the youthful noise
of a beatnik generation -
even Stockhausen was hard to accept!

But tonight, in the seventies,
on Radio Three
I heard rock-an-roll and skiffle
played hard by Marty Wilde and Johnny Kidd
Harry Webb and Lonnie Donegan
And I heard Tchaikovsky on Radio One this afternoon

If we'd known this then
we'd have died of shock
and our parents would have too!

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Sheffield, 8th August 1970

Publications

1971 Bogg (UK)
1972 THE WINE THE WOMEN AND THE SONG (Pyle, Kenfig Press)