Baby Boomer Blues

I’m a pre-modern man in a post-modern age;
A poet, a seer, a sayer, and sage
who rhymes of how simple our lives used to be
when Howdy Doody was on TV.
I was here for the birth of rock and roll
and saw the beginning of blue eyed soul,
High school sock hops when coke was a drink
and Saturday nights at the roller rink.
And I speak Baby Boomer.
I used to watch Jack Paar..
I wore green for Uncle Sam
and drove a rag top car.
Yeah, I speak Baby Boomer.
My hair has gone to gray
and no one really cares to hear
the things I have to say
I was here for Buddy Holly and the day the music died.
And when they shot Old Yeller, everybody cried.
Tie dye shirts, mini-skirts, Peter, Paul and Mary;
The Beatles and Bob Dylan, Curly, Moe and Larry.
I was here for Sputnik and the U. S. on the moon,
those Alabama marchers and lives snuffed out too soon
in Dallas and in Memphis. Our country mourned its loss
while young men went to Vietnam to carry freedom’s cross.
Yes, I speak Baby Boomer.
Things are groovy and they’re cool.
I’m the Woodstock generation
and still “hip” as a rule.
But, I speak Baby Boomer.
My hair has gone to gray.
and my kids don’t pay attention
to the things I have to say.
Oh, we have things in common. We like pizza with a beer
and we try to get together for Christmas every year.
But my children now have children and I think that it was better
when generations had a name not just a single letter.
See, I speak Baby Boomer
not X or Y or Z
So, let me lay it on you
and hopefully you’ll see
that all us Baby Boomers
have plenty still to say.
It’s just harder to remember what
since our hair has turned to gray.


Jeff Hildebrandt © 2007