Summertime blues like Eddie Cochran. That will be the only Eddie Cochran reference. Sorry, blue suede shoes fans.

Well, everybody, I've figured it out. You see, for some time I (and other inquiring, efficient minds) have pondered the question: "What the dickens is wrong with music today?"

Now, I know a lot of you will argue that the problem with today's music is that it lacks an emotional quality, has no real message, or that its message is one of, if I may, "money and hoes." Still others may say that the problem lies in the fact that the music is too digitally enhanced or that the bands have to scream too much. Finally, a small percentage of you may take issue with the fact that, in bands of today, a v-neck is considered not only acceptable but necessary.

Up until recently, I would have agreed with you. However, we would all have been wrong if we had taken that route.

Therefore it gives me great pleasure to tell you all the answer to the problem:

Today's music lacks . . . harpsichord solos.

Weren't expecting that, were you? But it's true. How much more would we enjoy music if the occasional 12 minute harpsichord solo was thrown in the middle.

Summer is at hand, yet I find myself still in school. I am ready for summer, although I am sure some of you are saying, "Come along, now, Benjamin. You have only been in school for the last quarter because you lacked foresight and had a less-than-stable moral structure. You cannot possibly be ready for summer." If that is how you feel, you are a bad person, and I would not be the least bit surprised if something negative befell you.

That last sentence had a lot of aggression in it.

"It's summertime and the living is easy. . . ."

-Sam Cooke, a pioneer of soul music who was killed in the winter of 1964 by a hotel manager with an itchy trigger finger. One can only ponder if it had been summertime, would this have happened?