The beat really does go on

In the 1960s Sonny Bono made a name for himself as a songwriter before going on to make up half of the duo known as Sonny and Cher. One of the hits Sonny wrote was titled, The Beat Goes On. That sentiment is proving to be true in so many ways.

Sonny left the music business in the 1980s to run for and win the mayoral race in Palm Springs, California. His next step up the political ladder was to the US Congress where he represented California's 44th congressional district. To this day Bono remains the only member of Congress to have charted a number 1 hit song.

He may be the only high ranking political name to have a storied musical past, but Bono wasn't the only one to have a love of music in his heart. The kids who flocked to Woodstock are all grown now, in their 60s, and in many cases they are captains of industry and pillars of their communities, yet they still remember the songs that made an impression on them as young men and women.

Consider the example of former chief justice William Rehnquist, who in a 1980 case cited one of his favorite songwriting teams, Gilbert and Sullivan. The next chief justice, and Rehnquist's replacement, John Roberts has cited Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix in cases involving AT&T and recopyright law, respectively.

Dylan and Hendrix aren't alone in the history of judicial citations, however. Paul Simon is also included, as are others from the hey day of rock music's not-so-distant past.

Judges are people, too.

If we were able to hit the rewind button on time and revisit our youth we might be surprised to find that at least some of the young people singing and dancing in the crowd around us at those concerts we attended would go on to be the lawyers, judges, and justices of our future. That includes current supreme court justice Samuel Alito, who is on record as being not only a fan of Bruce Springsteen, but he also attended a ska music festival at one time. Ska, for those who are uninitiated, is an adaptation of Jamaican music that ultimately led to the reggae sounds of the 1980s.

They may be grey and balding and sitting on the bench today, but under those flowing robes and dignified demeanors there is still the glowing ember of a younger individual who is not the least bit afraid to stand up tall and shout out, “Play Freebird,” at the top of their lungs. Let's hope that never happens in a courtroom, however. That sort of an outburst would not lend itself to the level of decorum that judges and court staffers generally aspire to.