Forgiveness

Whether it's your CD collection or your iPod, there are certain albums, artists or songs that you don't make a point of sharing with just anyone. These are the guilty pleasures for which the personal stereo headphones were invented. You can go on listening to your private tunes without letting on just how quirky and/or pedestrian your music tastes might be. For example, I'm guessing my relative hipness would take a hit among certain quarters if it were known that I have a great many John Denver songs on my playlist.
As a native Coloradan, I suppose you might guess that before I left the state I was asked to take along a certain amount of its culture along with me. I never was much of a skier, so I guess it was inevitable that I would choose the songs of John Denver as my chief export. But this was no compulsory act. I did it of my own free will. I genuinely like the guy's music. There. I've said it and I feel better. That's why I kept all those songs in my library. That's why I was pleased and happy when my older brother sent me a Christmas CD with a generous helping of John Denver. This morning I was running in the hills of Oakland, listening to "Rocky Mountain High," and it made me feel glad.
But how could I reconcile this with my otherwise cynical outlook on life? How did John Denver fit into a music collection that was so wildly diverse? Then I remembered one of the best things John ever did: He appeared before the Senate, testifying against the proposed mandatory labeling of records and tapes by the Parents Music Resource Committee. Once upon a time, "Rocky Mountain High" was banned by many radio stations for its drug references. He sat next to Dee Snider of Twisted Sister and Frank Zappa and faced down Tipper Gore and her husband. He suggested that the trouble with America's youth wasn't the music they were listening to, but the future that their government was providing for them.
And so, for this, I have decided that feeling guilty about listening to John Denver is a waste of my time. Especially when there are still all those ABBA songs to live down.