ABOUT THE COLUMNIST
Gracie Bonds Staples is an award-winning journalist who has been writing for daily newspapers since 1979, when she graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi. She joined The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2000 after stints at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Sacramento Bee, Raleigh Times and two Mississippi dailies. Staples was recently promoted to Senior Features Enterprise Writer. Look for her columns Thursdays and Saturdays in Living and alternating Sundays in Metro.
Every day I’m reminded of how powerful words are. Coupled with just the right tune they’re carried on wings into our hearts, telling us how love feels, how love lifts and lets you down. Sometimes all at once.
News of Percy Sledge’s passing last week awakened those thoughts in me once more as I listened to every newscast replay, “When a Man Loves A woman.”
The song hearkened back to a time, at least for me, when men weren’t ashamed to cry; when declaring their passion and devotion for their beloved was as natural as breathing and when all of us seemed to believe in romance, in the uplifting power of love and the importance of people.
We marked time by those soundtracks. At least I did.
1972. Remember Roberta Flack’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”?
1981. Remember the Whispers’ “Love is Where You Find It”?
1994. Remember Boyz II Men and “I’ll Make Love To You”?
If there was ever a song that willed you to love, it was the Whispers singing: “What’s this magic that I feel inside? … Hypnotized by what’s inside of you.”
It may not have been the most popular 80s love song but it resonated with me and my boo. Thirty years later, it still takes me back with loving feelings to that hot California summer in 1984 when we first met in Sacramento, fell in love and then married.
I get the feeling that isn’t happening much any more, that somewhere along the way we simply stopped listening to our hearts and started believing the beats separating the sexes. The ones that say men are players, black women are sexually wanton creatures with mean attitudes, white and Latina women are easily manipulated and none of us are worth the time of day.
Demographers define generations by their year of birth but music also differentiates one generation from the next.
We boomers came of age during the era of free love, Woodstock and the Vietnam War. Gen Xers — age 31 to 46 — were the first kids to play video games and tune into MTV’s music videos after school. And my daughters’ generation, the millennials grew up in a wired world in which ear buds remain a necessary accessory and they’re proud of it.
Growing up in the 60s and 70s, romance was a part of the escape from the atrocities happening in our communities. We escaped through the love of our husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends and children.
Once we fought our way out of the civil rights era and gained greater opportunities through education and the vote, we changed and so did our music. There was no longer a need for unity, support and sadly love — particularly romantic love.
“Our soundtrack suddenly changed from, ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ to ‘Every Girl In the World’ and ‘Back That Thang Up,’ ” said Casimir Spencer, a Los Angeles based film and television publicist. “Our focus shifted as well as the kind of respect we have for ourselves and clearly the respect for the women in our communities.”
Indeed, up until a few days ago when I had the pleasure of meeting a group of Georgia State University journalism students, I might have gone to my grave believing we’d completely lost not only our belief in love but the need for romance.
I remembered Anita Baker, Luther Vandross, Teddy Pendergrass and, Lord, Barry White. They pointed to artists like Taylor Swift, John Legend and Drake. And while they might dance to denigrating rap tunes, they told me the genre is more for fun and dancing. Thank God.
“Everybody is sort of ADHD,” said Grace Leach, 22. “We bounce around from person to person, song to song, statuses and updates on Facebook.”
But it’s love’s soundtracks that hold them, too, they said. For instance, McKenzie Renfroe recalled falling in love for the first time listening to “First Day of My Life” by Bright Eyes. For Joya Johnson, 19, it was John Legend’s “Best You Ever Had.” And A.J. Travers confessed that Tupac sent her there.
Yes, they have their own soundtrack, they told me. It’s just far more vast than anything we old boomers could ever imagine.
Cool.
But I had to ask. Isn’t your soundtrack less about falling in love and more about making out? Isn’t it more about denigrating women and less about honoring and loving them?
Yes and no, they told me.
“Some music is degrading and undermines the value of love, but it does not mean that our entire generation’s music doesn’t have those songs that we listen to as we fall in love,” Travers said. “I think romance will forever be alive and love will always be an integral part of this world and of humanity.”
So there. When a man loves a woman? It’s still happening, y’all.
