Vinson: In the year 2525...

By MIKE VINSON

"In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may find
In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies
Everything you think, do, and say
Is in the pill you took today . . ."

. . . skipping a couple verses . . .

"In the year 6565
Ain't gonna need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube, Whoooa"

The lyrics above are to the song "In the Year 2525," performed by the rock duet Zager & Evans (lyrics by Richard Evans), which reached number one on the Billboard Charts in 1969 and remaining there for approximately six weeks.

First, we need to clear up that the year 2525 is almost 500 years away, and a lot can happen in 500 years. Secondly, the song jumps a millennium, in time span, as it goes from verse to verse.

The song being set to an easy, yet solid, folk-rock melody, a listener probably would have thought one of two things listening to "In the Year 2525," when it first hit the air in 1969: (1) These cats have smoked too much weed and dropped too much acid. (2) A Higher Power helped inspire these apocalyptically-themed, though believable, lyrics.

Ok, for sakes of being realistic and making a point, I am going to ask the question: What will you be doing in the year 2025, then attempt to correlate the question to what Zager & Evans pose in the verses above. After all, the year 2025 is only eleven-and-half years away. At the rapid pace our world is changing, almost any concept is possible.
* Year 2525
Will man still be alive in 2025? To that, I'll keep the response simple by saying, "I certainly hope so!"
*Year 3535

Telling the truth rather than telling a lie doesn't seem to hold as much moral credence as it once did.
These days, it's more a "Slick Willie" mindset than "Honest Abe," and that goes for politicians, prime time media, celebrities, athletes, etc. Plain and simple, if there's enough to be gained or lost-careers, reputations, pensions, money, lifestyles-then the "truth," merely, is a four-letter word.

Like an older man-a blunt-speaking sort-said to me a few months back, "Those politicians up in Washington have lied so much about Benghazi, the Fast & Furious gun-running, and everything else that they can't remember where the lies end and the truth starts! I bet if you could find out the truth , most of that bunch up there is on dope!"
*Year 6565

I think we all can agree that building relationships, conventional marriage, and procreation are similar to the "Old Gray Mare": ". . . ain't what she used to be." Gone are the days of picking up your date and having her home by midnight on the weekend. A more likely scenario is two people hooking up online at 4 a.m. on a workday and tying the knot three days later. The biggest problem here is you don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Still, in the year 2013 gay couples adopt and raise kids. By the year 2025, would it seem so far-fetched for a child-seeking couple-heterosexual, gay, or otherwise-to special order their ideal child, and a group of doctors, chemists, donors, and whomever else create this dream child in a fertilization tube in some state-of-the-art facility?
So, where do think you'll be in the year 2025?