It was one thing when my last two foremen were younger than me. It was OK that the doctor who performed knee surgery was still in three-cornered pants when I got my first driver's license. I could deal with my computer instructor being half my age.

It wasn't easy, though. After all, everyone knows that bosses, doctors and teachers are always older and wiser.

Until you reach a certain age. Now, I've been told that age is older than rock and roll. You might as well just say older than dirt.

My first 45 record purchase was "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" when the Beatles arrived on the scene. I spent most of the late '60s in a pretty good little garage band with my best buddies. That's why I'm disheartened by the events of recent years. Rock music, that enduring bastion of leather-jacketed rebels, has gone corporate.

Bob Seger started it. I may be wrong, but the Chevy truck "like a rock" commercial is the first one I remember. It didn't seem too bad at the time. Seger was getting older, puttin' on some weight, not rockin' too hard anymore. Maybe he needed the money.

The really disappointing one was when the Stones took several million dollars from Bill Gates. Mick and Keith are still at the top of their game and rollin' in the bucks. When some of the original bad boys of rock, the biggest names in the business said it was OK, the floodgates were thrown wide open for Rock and Roll Capitalism.

Today, it's everywhere. You can't watch TV without some rocker trying to sell you something. Joe Cocker is selling cars. The Who, more original bad boys, are also in the car business. Seals and Croft's "Summer Breeze" is selling ceiling fans. The Beach Boys pitch for a home improvement store. But the one that really hurt was when I heard The Chambers Brothers singing "Time" for a stock brokerage. "Time has come today/young hearts can go their way" . . . straight down to Wall Street.

But it isn't just the old-timers cashing in on past glory. Lenny Kravitz is hawking cars. I even heard Pearl Jam on an NCAA basketball tournament, although I wonder if they went to the bank on that one.

There has been a huge shift in attitudes. A group of young teenagers in a band named Silverchair had a hit recently with a song that said, "You say that money isn't everything / but I'd like to see you live without it." Not exactly a ringing endorsement of unrestrained capitalism, but still the kind of acknowledgment of money's importance that wasn't heard 30 years ago in what is now called "dinosaur" rock.

Another contemporary group paraphrased biblical teachings when they sang, "They say that money is the root of all that kills / but they've never had the joy of a welfare Christmas." Again, not really advocating that we dedicate our lives to getting rich, but another example of how attitudes about money have changed.

Remember the group Ten Years After? In their song "I'd Love to Change the World" is a line that says, "Who needs money? / no more for me." Now, don't get me wrong. Even the most naively idealistic among us had to roll our eyes at that one. Nobody actually believed those guys were turning down any cash for their gigs or kickin' all their money to Mother Teresa. But at least that was the prevailing sentiment, even if it was tinged with more than a little hypocrisy.

The question "Who needs money?" wasn't trying to say it's unimportant. There is no denying the very real impact of empty pockets versus a fat wallet. But clearly, one of the most significant messages of the counterculture was that money is not the most overriding, critical key to a happy life. The Beatles were obviously satirizing the human quest for gold and riches when they sang, "Gimme money / that's what I want."

We were going to be the generation that recognized the futility of chasing fulfillment through the two-car garage and a color TV formula of the 1950s. Now, many, if not most, of those same freaks from the '60s are taking money to the same self-destructive extremes they took sex and drugs. I think we crossed a line somewhere around the time Gordon Gecko said, "Greed is good."

There is a current hit by a band called Train that says, "I've never had a day where money didn't get in my way." How true is that?

Of course, it's easy for people like me, who have no money, to be critical when icons of youthful rebellion cash in on their fame. After all, I'm just a welder. What do I know? The sad part is, if someone offered me a lot of quick cash for my identity and integrity, I'd probably pull a Jerry Maguire, too. Add enough zeros, and the number of people unwilling to sell their souls would be depressingly small.

I'm trying hard to hold on to the quaint notion that someone in the rock and roll world still believes there are more important things in life than money. But if I hear Neil Young crooning "Cinnamon Girl" to Betty Crocker's breakfast rolls, I'm going to switch to country music.

Richard Klovdahl's e-mail address is rickdahl@worldnet.att.net.

Copyright © 2000 The Seattle Times Company

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