Dear LPG,

I think that many people of all ages assume that older folk spend a lot of their time watching television and they may well be right, although I think that lockdown has quite a bit to do with it too.  A year of being at home has taught me how to spend a lot more of my time looking at that box in the corner of the living room; although it is more likely to be a much bigger screen suspended on the wall these days.

I tend to find myself watching the quiz shows a lot and, the other day I was watching the Chase on television, and they asked a question about a Justin Bieber song.   I have heard of him but have no idea what he sings.  The point is that my ignorance got me thinking that fifty years ago, like most people of my age then, I knew nearly every song in the pop charts, and I just wondered when I lost touch with the whole thing. 

I looked online and found a list of the top 100 pop songs that were around 50 years ago and then I looked at what was in last year’s top 100.   I also found some videos of the songs to listen to and compare and, I suppose what goes around comes around because I remember my parents being really shocked when trying to understand the 1970s music of the time, and I have to say that I found a video of what is considered pop music now which left me shocked too. Looking down the list of older songs I can still remember them all, but I am completely lost when it comes to what was happening last year and I wonder if I am the only LPG reader that the young would see as “behind the times”?

I am guessing that most LPG readers are aged between 65 and 85 now, and that they are all as ignorant as me when it comes to knowing just who is in the top ten at the moment, but I bet that some of the top ten hits from 50 years ago will bring back memories so, now that I have found them, I would like to share them so that while we are restricted in what we can do and where we can go, there is perhaps something else to get those memory juices flowing and help you pass some of that home alone time that we have so much of these days… 

KV, Lewisham.

KV shares the list of top 100 pop songs of 1971…

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And the corresponding list from 2020, although she says that she could not find a video that did not include at least one song that would shock visually or that has included some words she would rather not see on the LPG website…

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