Rocking and Rolling

In class, we talked about why the gain of access to cars after World War II was such a significant social change. While everybody else was mostly sitting in class waiting to hear the answer, I began thinking that we all knew what it was. As a 16 year-old teenager, what one desires most is independence. Yes, as any satellite nation, as any colony knows (can you say 1776), independence is glorious, liberating and scary. With the independence gained by teenagers during this booming time of change (the 1950s), a new culture was born of rebellious (not so new), musically divergent teenagers. With the ability to drive off and have intimate relations without the fear of parental discovery, with the ability to distance oneself from the protective bubble that is one's home, rock and roll was able to spawn roots. I find it to be true that with the commencement of rock and roll, the addition of the electric guitar and the increasingly faster exchange of ideas, culture, the dawn of contemporary music began.