I'm with you, jayto. Music, like any art form requires making a connection between the viewer/listener and the art. And even the greatest music or visual art can not make a connection with everyone.

Years ago, when I was performing more regularly, if someone who was running a coffee house told me that they didn't want to book me, because they thought that I wasn't a good fit for their audience, I always thanked them. Better to find out in advance, than when you're up on stage... :-)

Why aren't kids interested in songs about mules, anymore? When I was a kid, I grew up in farm country, and while no one I knew rode a mule to town on Saturday night, most of my uncles were farmers, and I could connect with their life, and the songs that reflected it.

And I wrote:

   "Old Uncle Jim he said, said to his son, he said
    Wake up Howard 'cause it's almost dawn
    The snow drifts have covered up the old hay wagon
    And we'll have to dig our way out to the barn
    The cows will all be waiting for the old milk pail
    And it won't be long before the rooster crows
    So we better hop to it, 'cause there's no one else to do it
    And the sky is turning cloudy, and it looks like snow"

                  Old Uncle Jim

I could understand the Spring of '65, and the old logging songs. I camped out at a logging camp in Canada for a week, and ignorantly danced across the moving logs, never sensing the danger involved. The Jam at Gerry's Rock seemed relevant to me. Try singing those songs to kids who have grown up on hip hop, and you might as well sing something in Chinese. It's not that the songs are not as good as they used to be, or that kids today are any less than we were at their age.

The connection is gone.

Jerry