Battle Hymn of the Baby Boomers

[babylonsister]

Run time: 02:17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49GavdGWtac   Posted on YouTube: January 19, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: June 15, 2009 By DU Member: babylonsister Views on DU: 3427

 
Lighten up! :D



Battle Hymn of the Baby Boomers
Lyric by Bill Dyszel
(To the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic)

We baby boomers just got older than the President.
We're all staring in the mirror wondering where the decades went.
While we still think we're as young and hip as characters from RENT!
Those days have passed us by!
HOLY CRAP! We're getting older!
We've pissed our youth away!

Were desperately maintaining our desirability,
But there's only so much you can do with plastic surgery,
Cause today were only "young" if you compare us to a tree!
Our youth has passed us by!
HOLY CRAP! We're getting older!
We've pissed our youth away!

We were born into an age of infinite prosperity,
And we never saved a nickel. We just spent incessantly.
Now we've postponed our retirement til the age of 93,
If nothing else goes wrong!
HOLY CRAP we're getting older!
We've pissed our youth away!

NOTE: The music and lyrics are completely clear for broadcast. I'd welcome live performance if anyone wants to do this lyric set to the Wilhousky arrangement of the Battle Hymn - it's written with that in mind. My only requirement is that you credit me and tell me when and where you're performing it.

[OKNancy]

1. delete

oh, nevermind

[babylonsister]

2. Darn, I missed it!

You do know this was posted in good fun, not trying to make any point at all. :hi:

[stlsaxman]

3. i LOVE this guys millennial comb-over... shows how hip and up-to-date he is!

"millennial comb-over" is when you realize you're going bald and getting grey hairs and instead of embracing either of these you shave your fucking head like a Nazi punk 'cause you wanna "look young"...

[babylonsister]

4. Ahem. I have two brothers who shave their heads, and a father

who's been bald since he was 18. Some people aren't blessed with hair. I'd rather see bald than comb-overs myself. And none in my family are Nazi punks. :eyes:

[stlsaxman]

5. male pattern baldness is nothing to be ashamed of. comb-over look stupid, agreed.

but when i see a guy like this with a shaved head and making fun of "hippies" i immediately think "skinhead". have you seen any of his other videos? they lead me to believe he shaves his head as a political statement.

oh and please forgive me- i meant no implications upon your brothers or father.

[livetohike]

6. Thanks for the Monday morning laugh

This was great :hi:.

[Tx4obama]

7. Bravo bravo bravo ....

That was great!
Especially after staying up all night watching the news from Iran ... the video was a great couple of minutes that cheered me up!
Thank you for posting it ;)

[madrchsod]

8. i wish i would have had a nickel to save ...

every time i had a good job someone shipped it off asia or mexico.

[Tx4obama]

10. Go on back to bed...

and get up on the other side ;)

[Uben]

9. Your youth may have been pissed away......

......but not mine! And, I did manage to save a nickel or two while I was enjoying my youth. I am gettin older, but damn, I had fun! I'm still havin fun, too, except now I have no job to get in the way of my leisure. Rock on!

[JDPriestly]

11. 1943 Boomer in here to say: I've been married to the same wonderful

guy for oh these many, many years. He's getting better looking and more fun to be with every day.

As for me, I'm happy to look my age. I have two just about perfect children who seem to really enjoy talking to me and being with me. And I'm lucky enough to have a mother who is still living, who has a great sense of humor and whom I love and cherish dearly.

Money -- well, I know as one of the oldest of those that some categorize as "baby boomers," I've never had much. I remember getting water in a bucket from a pump. I remember outhouses at my grandparents' homes. I worked all the way through college, graduate and law school. (No. Not all lawyers are rich.)

I watched it get harder and harder to make a living. I watched as our industrial base and the best jobs were systematically outsourced one sector at a time starting with industry and then moving up to outsource clerical jobs and even middle management positions. I watched our country fight bogus wars from Viet Nam to Iraq. And my generation was the first to protest needless killing. I lived various places in the world and observed how some other countries have more rational societies than we do.

As for saving, we tried, but, like most people, we had a couple of serious illnesses that set us back. Then there were jobless periods followed by jobs that paid less and less. Then there was retraining -- and the student loans you accumulate when you have to keep going back and back just to keep up with the demands of the job market. So, although we have always lived simply, we weren't able to save as much as we need.

We were smart enough to get most of our money out of the stock market before the crash, but right now, our very limited savings are pretty irrelevant since banks are paying no interest

And, by the way, although the MSM loves to paint the Baby Boomer generation as frivolous, self-centered, etc., that is a vast oversimplification. In fact, the term Baby Boomers lumps together people born during a long period in which the economic situation changed drastically.

I am older. I have known poverty. I remember the post-war period, the sugar rationing stamps, the food shortages. I remember how the Baby Boomers who were born right after the war had to go to school half-days because there were too few classrooms to accommodate them. I also remember how hard it was for the parents of Baby Boomers to find housing in the late '40s and early '50s. They could buy tiny houses with their GI and FHA loans, but the houses were in "developments." They all looked alike and were cheaply built. In fact, I remember at one point going with my parents to look at houses that were being sold half-built. You could buy the house, but you had to finish it yourself.

Baby Boomers rebelled and for good reason. They really did not have the easy lives that the older and younger generations claim they had. Baby boomers worked hard, and since both women and men worked outside their homes, they worked more efficiently than any generation before them and much harder than any generation since. The Baby Boomers provided a good life for their parents and for their children. Now, let's see what the children of the Baby Boomers do for their parents and children.

[zipplewrath]

14. Technically you're not

I believe that technically, a boomer was born between 1947 and 1960. That puts you a bit outside of the range.

It's all a bit silly, it started out as a Madison Avenue kind of statistic more than anything else. And that generation isn't nearly as monolythic as some would want to imply. The early part of that generation turned 18 in 1965, the tail end didn't turn 18 until 1978. In many ways, culturally speaking, the whole world changed over that time. The cultural revolution occurred and the early part helped make it real, the later part was in effect "born" into it. The early part of the generation had parents who lived through the great depression, and fought in WWII. By the end many of the parents would have fought in Korea, if at all, and had only known the "dad works all day and half the night" kinda life. The early part can remember their "first TV". The end of that generation always had one. The early part of that generation probably got married in suits and good dresses, the later part had tuxes and the full bridal set. The early part created the sexual revolution, the end of them moved into adulthood to find Aids. And the oldest of the generation lived through Vietnam, registered for the draft and know people on The Wall. The end of that generation had older brothers on the wall, and never registered.

I have a family that spans that generation, oldest is 60, youngest is 47. The life experience from the oldest to the youngest varies alot.

But video is funny.

[JDPriestly]

15. I don't think I'm a Boomer, but apparently I am considered to be a Boomer.

I agree with you. Boomers should be 1947-1960. Boomers are the generation that did not know life before the sexual revolution and Viet Nam. I went to high school in the 1950s. Elvis Presley was still a pretty new fad when I graduated from junior high school. And, by the way, I got married in a dress that I had sewn myself. That is not the image that you have of a Baby Boomer, although even today, my daughter got married in a gown she sewed herself. And I'm sure that if you go to small towns in the midwest, you will find other women who make their own wedding dresses and gowns.

[zipplewrath]

16. The rise of TV

The influence of TV on the boomers cannot be overstated. It "nationalized" cultural trends as they never had before. It also created, often out of the minds of script writers, traditions which only a generation before would have been unknown. The whole "wedding dress" phenomenon struck me because I read about the rather rapid change in that tradition in this country, and it is true that I could look through old photo albums of my parents generation and see that none of them had the trappings of the modern day wedding. Supposedly, TV had alot to do with the image many boomers grew up with for what a wedding looked like.

[Capt. America]

12. Fail

[babylonsister]

13. I'd say your sense of humor failed. nt

[dmr]

17. Holy Crap!

That was funny. It's hard to believe that old age is chasing us. I don't feel old, but the gray and the aches, pains and eyesight tell differently.

:rofl:

Didn't piss my youth away, though, I started working at age 14; and during high school, was working full time.

Thanks for the big chuckle! I enjoyed it.

[bobbolink]

18. Damned good thing you have a whole generation to look down on.

Otherwise, what would you find to feel superior to?