I love getting a chance to discuss with people, the jobs that they do that I am not familiar with. A perfect example of that is my own wife. As many of you know, Ana is the music coordinator a local nursing home. Much of what she does is playing music for the residents, in group and individual settings. Initially I suggested that her job title might more appropriately be “Wandering Minstrel”. She assured me that music was more than entertainment or soothing background noise, it was actually quite therapeutic. While she is not a certified music therapist, she often witnesses the therapeutic power of music, and tells me of lots of times when the residents she visits transform from being incoherent to clapping, singing along and even suggesting different songs.

For this job, she was surprised to have to learn new songs. It wasn’t a matter of going in and singing whatever song she thought would be most fun or rejuvenating. She had to learn the songs that these residents would have known and sung as children. Songs like My Wild Irish Rose, Bicycle Built for Two, Don’t Fence Me In and many others that I can’t remember and had never heard of. This got me thinking about what types of songs will be sung for my generation when we’re residing at similar institutions. A number of ideas crossed my mind.

The scariest was that the songs rooted deepest in our subconscious are the ones that are drilled into our head by mass media. Will they have to dress like Britney Spears to get the seniors born in the 1970’s and 80’s to return to coherence? I got a scary vision of a music therapist going home to her husband sixty years from now saying, “I didn’t think that Will Loewen was with it at all until I started singing that ‘Chicken Tonight’ jingle, and started singing along and doing the actions with me.” Frighteningly, there’s likely some truth in that.

Another idea I had was that it would be songs that I’ve even forgotten now. Songs of our childhood are locked away in our minds somewhere. Maybe it’s old Vacation Bible School songs I learned, like that Noah’s ark song … “elephants and kanga-roosies-roosies, children of the Lord.” Or maybe the hymns that were sung in church when I was growing up. Even now, Gott ist die Liebe has a certain therapeutic power to it.

I’d like to think that there are other more obvious songs that would help rejuvenate me. The song Ana sang to me at our wedding, any of the songs from our musical, or even more popular songs, maybe something by Stompin’ Tom. Time will tell.