http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtxsS_Jfww4
One of the things I like most about oldies — R+B, soul, motown hits from the 1950s and 60s — is that they're unquantifiable. It's hard to explain why they've stuck with us for so long. Songs from the 1970s are dated as 70s songs, dismissed as disco or free jazz; songs from the 1940s are dated as standards; Sinatra, pre-rock'n'roll, and the end of classic Jazz. But the oldies are still somehow relevant; they influence the timbre, tone, and content of modern music in an unusual way. Maybe it's a sliding scale, and in ten years we'll be influenced by the 1970s, but I doubt it. Something about how music was written and produced in the 1950s and 60s was special; still holds value.
This Magic Moment was originally by Ben E. King and The Drifters; most people know the song and its tune; less know the name; nobody knows who wrote it. But it's somewhere in the popular consciousness, along with A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and perhaps The Canterbury Tales: it's outlived its era and it's hard to say why.
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