Youth Group Forever Young Music Video as Intergenerational Text
Friday, July 14th, 2006
Forever Young, covered by Sydney band, Youth Group, is an intergenerational text that provides opportunities to explore faith in everyday language of popular culture.
The music video, released this year, shows teenage skateboarders taking part in a contest at the Coca Cola factory at Frenches Forest, Sydney Australia, footage originally shown on Australian youth show GTK (Get To Know) in 1975.
You can see the music video on RAGE, the Australian ABC’s equivalent of MTV on Saturday and Sunday mornings. More people see the video on YouTube.
What’s made the track so popular? The Youth Group recorded “Forever Young” for the third series of The O.C., a music-saturated teen US television drama series, and suddenly found themselves with an international hit, published around the world on The O.C. Mix 5 and now as an EP, Forever Young.
The original song, written by Marian Gold, performed by German synth band Alphaville in 1982 and re-released on the 1989 CD, Forever Young, picked up the uncertainty experienced by Gen X teenagers as they faced a world in danger of nuclear holocaust.
Let’s dance in style,
let’s dance for a while.
Heaven can wait,
we’re only watching the sky,
Hoping for the best
but expecting the worst.
Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?
Let us die young
or let us live forever.
Forever young,
I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever,
forever, forever?
As I watch this video and listen to the song with my family and friends, I’ll be exploring questions relating to youth, aging and hopes for the future. I’ll be inviting Gen Xers to talk about their experiences of youth in the 1970s and 1980s, along with the realities of their lives now. In turn, teenagers will have their unique perspectives on the world of the twenty first century and what it might mean to become adults with a future.
The conversation could be rounded out with a reference to Bob Dylan’s 1973 song, “Forever Young”, first recorded on Planet Waves. It would be good to hear from people who despite their physical limitations can look back at their lives saying they’ve grown up to be true, courageous, upright and strong, living with joyful hearts, forever young.
Having explored the songs and video, it’s time to introduce a new intergenerational text for conversation, Ecclesiastes 12:1-2, paraphrased here in The Message.
Honour and enjoy your Creator while you’re still young,
Before the years take their toll and your vigor wanes,
Before your vision dims and the world blurs
And the winter years keep you close to the fire.
You can read Duncan Macleod’s music video reviews at www.music-videos.duncans.tv.
