Forty years ago last week, I sat with a group of middle school friends at the home of one of us lucky enough to have purchased a copy of “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and listened. The rest had gotten to the record store bins too late and found the album of our lifetimes gone. But it was better this way. A bunch of us together could listen in a way different from the same bunch individually. We all heard the album straight through, and then we listened again, track by track, stopping afterward to comment.

I don’'t remember what we all had to say, but I do remember the urgency with which we said it. Perhaps we voiced preference for a favorite Beatle. Maybe we speculated–in the wild, off‑center and usually totally non‑factual way only those on the cusp of adolescence can–on the sexual or drug innuendos of the songs. Whatever.

One thing and one thing only remains in memory that makes any difference: The songs had meaning for us. Music and lyrics collided like oxygen and hydrogen to water our souls. “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” didn’t need to be about LSD to be a bright collage of color and imagery, worthy of spiriting our thoughts away to some secret, private place. We didn’t need to be on the verge of running away in order to appreciate the girl’s plight in “She's Leaving Home.” And no knowledge of East Indian music was required in order to experience the freshness of “Within You, Without You.”

Imagination was key. “Imagination” is almost as overused and as misused as “genius,” but I mean it in this plainly defined way: “the formation of mental images not present to the senses.” What we heard in “Sgt. Pepper” was pure imagination. It characterized the album and it even characterized an important aspect of the entire era. “Pure Imagination” was, in fact, the title of one of the songs from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” the first film made of the classic children’s book, from around the same time. John Lennon, with Paul McCartney the principle songwriter of the Beatles, would, on his own, one day write the song that summarized the importance of this ability to envision things other than they seem to be: “Imagine.”

My question, 40 years later–and I suspect it’s the question many, many Boomers have–is: What the hell happened? Where did imagination flee? Today’s popular music scene is so devoid of it that you think it must never have existed. And I’m not talking only about the subjects of the songs; I’m talking about the content of the songs themselves. You can’t write imaginatively without making imaginative use of your writing skills. Think of “A Day in the Life” from “Sgt. Pepper.” This is two songs welded into one–part by Lennon, part by McCartney–that probes the feelings of an average man and his mundane concerns as contrasted with the subtle, ingrained violence of the world around him. It’s doubtful someone writing songs now could write such a thing, and if someone did, it’s almost certain the song would not get produced. Too much imaginative use of songwriting techniques.

Jordin Sparks seems like a nice girl, and she’s cute and all and has the pop music sound down. But have you heard that song she sang to win “America Idol?” If so, have you managed to clear the stench from your ears yet? There are songs that show imagination–the sorts of songs we have been talking about. And then there are songs that are the aural equivalent of watching expensive cars zoom by–pure, dull literalism. No invention, no freshness. Just expertly‑produced, celebrity‑encrusted emptiness. Sound studio production techniques and celebrity have, it seems, totally replaced imaginative songwriting and skilled performance as requirements for hit music. It  didn’t happen overnight, but the change seems to be complete.

Chalk up my rant to old fogey‑ism, if you wish. After all, pop music changes and the stuff we hear when we are young is the music that imprints on us; we expect more of same all our lives. I admit I expected music to keep growing back when Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play. I assumed pop music would get more and more imaginative as the years went by. “What a time to be alive!” I thought. “Songs will be written that break down borders and set up new standards, songs to coax the mind into thinking new thoughts and the soul into feeling strange new things.”

In my old fogey book, the disappearance of that future is an incalculable loss.