I'm not sure if you know this, but Bob Seger is an idiot. And you are too, if you hear the song Old Time Rock and Roll
and think anything other than, "Whoa, what a load of crap."

See, the musical statement that song makes isn't quite what you think. Bob Seger isn't standing up against bad music: he's standing on his porch, Hot Pocket stains on his ragged plaid shirt, shaking his fist at all those damned kids.

Old Time Rock and Roll was released in 1978, when there was a lot of terrific music coming out. You know who released records in 1978? The Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Jam, Isaac Hayes, Elvis Costello, Aretha Franklin, Black Sabbath, and Bruce Springsteen. But let's listen to the old man's whine:

Just take those old records off the shelf
I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself

This intro clues us in to the scene. An old man wants to play his records, but he can't reach them. "Please get them down," he's telling a relative or a home caregiver, "and then leave." You think about offering to make him a sandwich, but you're afraid it might start him ranting about the effects of lettuce on an antsy colon.

Today's music ain't got the same soul
I like that old time rock and roll

I totally agree. You know what 1978 song is like audio Wonder Bread to me? Shaft.

Don't try to take me to a disco

Yeah, dude, you figured us out. We were jealous of you and your four thousand Yardbirds albums. We only played Clash City Rockers full blast on our car stereos because we wanted to scare you into Oil Can Harry's, where a gay dude with his shirt open to the waist would force you to do the Running Man.

Won't go to hear them play a tango

A tango. You know, that's all that Black Sabbath ever recorded, at least until their accordion player died.

Bob, better sit down for a minute. See, nobody's recorded a tango since 1812. Your radio isn't made of Bakelite, by any chance? Somehow it's still picking up signals from World War I.

Anyway, your worries are unfounded. No one's going to make you listen to a tango. Similarly, you don't need to avoid "Never Mind the Bollocks, It's the Sex Pistols" because the quickstep makes your legs sore, and you don't have to burn your nephew's copy of "Darkness on the Edge of Town" because you just can't abide a waltz.

And to everybody who hears this song as a passionate defense of great music, it isn't. It's idiocy. It's your grandpa watching The Wire and saying that no TV villain will ever be as scary as Eddie Haskell. You know the truth, but you're not heartless. You smile. You help him get his records down. If he's hungry, you heat up a can of pork and beans.

But you're always, always ready to go running against the wind.