Last week my column was about the poetic nature of singer-songwriter Gary Lightbody’s songs.  (You can read it here.)  The warm response to what I’d written took me a bit by surprise. Most surprising of all was hearing from a couple of senior citizens who before last Thursday had never heard of him.  I think this is my favorite email I received. It’s from a woman in her seventies:

Enjoyed your article about Gary Lightbody.  Went to YOUTUBE and watched him sing with Taylor Swift.  Loved it!!!!

A second senior citizen, a woman at church this morning who’s also probably in her late 70s, came up to me and said how she had enjoyed the column and that she too appreciated good lyrics in songs, even though “sometimes it’s hard to concentrate on them with the other elements of the music that you want to concentrate on as well.”  She said she wanted to hear some of Lightbody’s songs now, or at least read some of the lyrics.  I told her I’d send her some.

This all says two things I think.  One is that Gary Lightbody’s songs have lyrics that are appealing to people of all ages. This really ought not to be some big revelation about quality music and lyrics, but in our relentlessly youth oriented culture it can’t help but be surprising.  It’s a sharp comment on the way that his songs are particularly appealing as art.

The other thing about what I’ve encountered in the past couple of days is that it shows that you’re never too old to respond to good art whatever form it takes.   If art is good, it has no target audience other than human beings.  I’m pleased to have passed this personal discovery of mine onto some people I didn’t expect to respond to it.