I’m a news and information kind of a guy – an AM radio junkie. So that’s usually what you’ll find me listening to during my daily commute to and from work.

News. Sports. Information.

But sometimes, when the mood is right — or when there’s nothing really interesting being talked about on my usual all-talk stations — I’ll flip over to the music channels and see if there’s a song that I’d like to listen to or sing along with. Since my musical tastes are pretty eclectic, I hop from station to station, stopping to listen if there’s a song that I know and like. And then moving on quickly as soon as a commercial or a song by Elton John comes on — whichever comes first.

And yes, I know this is why God gave us CD players in our cars. My car CD player doesn’t work. God giveth, and Panasonic taketh away.

The first music station I always check is the Oldies station because I am, after all, a certified (or should that be certifiable?) Oldie. When I pushed on that station’s button on my radio, I was pleased to hear a catchy Herman’s Hermits tune being played:

Woke up this morning feeling fine

There’s something special on my mind

Last night I met a new girl in the neighborhood

Something tells I’m into something good.

I couldn’t help but smile at the sweet innocence of the lyrics. It was a different world back then, when words like these evoked the exhilarating joy of young love:

I walked her home and I held her hand

I knew it couldn’t be just a one night stand

So I asked to see her next week and she told me I could

Something tells me I’m into something good

When the song ended and the way-too-familiar strains of “B-B-B-Benny and the Jets” started, I hopped quickly to the next station on the radio. Evidently my daughter Beth had added one of her stations to the menu, because I heard the words to a different kind of song about a different kind of young love:

Take me by the tongue and I’ll know you

Kiss me 'til you’re drunk and I’ll show you

All the moves like Jagger

I’ve got the moves like Jagger

Jagger? Mick Jagger? He’s from my generation. And he has really big lips. But I don’t know about the whole drunk-tongue thing. That was Gene Simmons of KISS who had the ginormous tongue, wasn’t it? And didn’t KISS reportedly stand for “Knights in Satan’s Service?” Which might explain the lyrics of this song:

I don’t need to try to control you

Look into my eyes and I’ll own you

With the moves like Jagger

I’ve got the moves like Jagger

So, OK — we’re not in the 1960s anymore. Times change, and I was never all that fond of Herman or his hand-holding Hermits. There are still sweet, innocent kids out there — it’s just getting harder and harder to keep them that way, given the bawdy, tawdry messages coming at them from pretty much everywhere. That’s why parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbors, friends, coaches, teachers and religious leaders have to work together to make sure those controlling, owning, drunk-tongue messages are balanced by . . . well, you know . . . something good.

With – or without – the moves like Jagger.

(Read more from Joseph B. Walker at www.josephbwalker.com)