Rated EAYA for Early Afternoon Young Adult

I get my day going every morning with the 70s station.  It’s just classic; everyone from Elton John to Olivia Newton- John (no relation) to John Denver.  But the morning music has recently become mourning music.  At 6:30 in the morning, for example, they were playing Nights in White Satin.  The fact that the band is the Moody Blues and the song is sort of eerie; not to mention that it has night in its title, clearly indicates that it is a song only to be played between the hours of 1:00AM and 4:30AM.  It’s for sure not a song that’s going to motivate you to get out of bed.

It is with a heavy heart that I stumble into the shower.  Feeling refreshed, I’m ready for the really loud raucous rock and roll music that I love.  Instead I hear Roberta Flack crooning Killing Me Softly.  Look, I absolutely love that song; surely one of the most beautiful songs ever, but it is clearly an 11:00PM to 2:00AM kind of song.

I’m thinking we could avoid all these problems if we labeled music with the most appropriate listening time.  My morning mix, straying into the 80s, would be more like Van Halen’s Jump and the Rolling Stones’ Start Me Up.  I’d be content with R.E.M. singing Shiny, Happy People with an assist from The B-52s’ Kate Pierson.  I’d enjoy full on B-52s with a blast of Love Shack or Simon & Garfunkel doing Feelin’ Groovy.  Arguably, the best possible morning blast is The Knack singing My Sharona.

There should also be songs labeled safe for the middle of the day (SMOD).  Journey, The Eagles, Billy Joel, and what the hell, maybe a little Paul Simon sans Garfunkel.  The most careful selection of all should be reserved for Getting Ready To Go Out (GRTGO) music; Alanis Morissette, Def Leppard, Guns N’ Roses, Lynrd Skynrd and of course Cyndi Lauper reminding us that Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. 

We probably need a category for Can’t Go Wrong (CGW) for bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Who or The Talking Heads.  I think Fleetwood Mac and of course my beloved Stevie Nicks would fit in nicely as well.  The key is that even though you can’t go wrong with Pink Floyd in general, you still need to be cautious on song selection.  Wish You Were Here, for example, should only be played between 10:00PM and 5:00AM, whereas Time works from 5:01AM to 9:59PM.  A similar schedule applies to Stairway to Heaven and The Song Remains The Same.  And if I’m going to talk about My Generation, it’s going to be between the hours of 6:42AM and 11:54PM.

The only problem with this labeling system is that it would change for each 10 years a person ages.  In college, “morning” was noon, and getting ready to go out time was 10:00PM.  If you blasted Van Halen at 7:00AM, when I had just gotten to bed, there would be hell to pay.  My former roommate Julie tried a stunt like that and watched in horror as I grew fangs and claws.

So maybe we need an age specific labeling scheme, with MMA for morning, middle-age and MCS for morning, college student.  Plain old MC would indicate music appropriate for morning, for children.  You get the idea.

I guess I better get started.  It’s 10:45PM now and time to break out all my SNM (Sunday Night Music) selections…