Forever Young and Currently Youngish.

I was born on Johnny Cash's birthday in the year Elvis died which makes me the big three-oh in a mere few days. That same year Charlie Rich had a number one with a song I've always liked:

Once was a thought inside my head
'Fore I reached thirty I'd be dead
Somehow on and on I go
I keep on rollin' with the flow

I've never had the premonition of early death (except while watching this video) but I am sort of bemused at standing on the precipice of this milestone and what is all could mean.

Since I started out with the musical taste of a 60 year old man I'm quite curious to discover where maturity takes me. Someone commented the other day they were "listening to more country as they got older." Will I do the reverse? Am I about to discover the grunge phenomena? Can I expect the phrase "wicked beats" to suddenly start springing to my lips unbidden, like waking up and finding a gray hair?

For years I've been the youngest person at the gigs I went to. It's been apparent for a while but I finally have to admit it: I am no longer a novelty. Every bloody Gen X/Yer these days it seems is either Team Tweedy or Team Farrar, has a shelf full of Johnny Cash, a crush on Emmylou Harris and a Sweethearts of the Rodeo t shirt. Banjos do not seem to attract the same universal condemnation I recall them once doing. Every second person my age I meet is in a fracking rockabilly band for frack's sake! I am aggrieved -- I put in all the hard yards of self imposed exile from my peer group for years and years and years to have these musical tastes. Oh yes, it was hard, people. I suffered. But I at least had an identity, even if it was only "that weird chick whose doesn't recognise "Smells Like Teen Spirit" when she hears it." And suddenly we're all 30 something, everyone else catches up and I'm a nobody!

I want my weirdness back.