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Grandma boogied to what back in the day?

This week's column:

If you’re a Baby Boomer who has a hankering every now and then for old-school Top 40 radio, you probably know the song.

It’s called “Something in the Air” and it’s so smooth and mid-tempo you could practically slow dance to it at the prom.

The song still pops up every so often on wholesome oldies stations. Among the lyrics: “Hand out the arms and ammo/We’re going to blast our way through here/We got to get together sooner or later/ because the revolution’s here/And you know it’s right.”

Yup, an oldie but goodie about armed revolution that some of us probably hummed on the way to Boy Scout meetings.

And you know I’m right.

The song, recorded by a group called Thunderclap Newman, surged to No. 1 in the U.K. in the summer of 1969 and has been covered by artists ranging from Tom Petty to Patti LaBelle (not to mention its use as a soundtrack for British Airways and Coca-Cola commercials).

The oldie but goodie is proof positive that some grandparents and parents may blanch at the crude bravado of rap songs or the suggestive words and images in much of what passes as music today.

But we’ve got a few skeletons in our own closets — songs drenched in sexual innuendo or stuffed with references to drugs or violence. And we’re not just talking about the ’60s, either.

Some of the songs were stoked by the fires of protest. Some were stoked by the fires of funny cigarettes (Rick James’ “Mary Jane,” 1978).

Some were just plain lewd and even juvenile (Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-a-Ling,” 1972).

Remember, those parental advisory stickers on CD cases weren’t prompted by rap lyrics. They were inspired by a Prince song about a promiscuous woman, “Darling Nikki,” more than 25 years ago.

These songs, some of which still may be stowed away in dusty attics and musty basements by today’s parents and grandparents, point out how we grayheads can be just a smidgen, well, hypocritical.

Yes, much of today’s music is crude and violent. Witness the recent dustup over the performance of rapper Gucci Mane at what had been billed as N.C. A&T’s student homecoming concert on Oct. 31.

The rapper, whose lyrics glorify drugs and killing, and who boasts of gang ties, will perform as planned, but A&T has removed its name from the concert and any related promotions and advertising.

But even A&T Chancellor Harold Martin may remember some of the stuff we listened to back in the day.

There’s not enough room in this newspaper to list all of the hard-drug references in 1960s music, not to mention all the memories of drug-addled performances by the likes of Sly Stone. In Greensboro.

As for A&T homecoming concerts, I went to my share as a college student. Even though I attended UNC-Chapel Hill I rarely missed the all-night “predawn” concerts in A&T’s Moore Gymnasium.

One predawn favorite was a group called Funkadelic, whose members were known to perform in diapers and many of whose song titles and lyrics still can’t be repeated here.

Funkadelic rightly has been hailed over the years for its inventiveness and musicianship. But it also could be playfully crude and profane and its album covers were often sexually explicit. Of course, that didn’t prevent you from buying ’em at the Friendly Center Record Bar, no questions asked.

Among other golden oldies that might well have been packaged in brown paper bags was “Brown Sugar” by the Rolling Stones, which references rape, heroin and sadomasochism, among other things, to a killer beat and sax solo.

Does this in any way defend Gucci Mane’s performance at the Greensboro Coliseum? Not one iota. And certainly not with a state university’s name attached.

Many of the artists mentioned above may have delved at times into the bluest themes and lyrics, but even many of the hardest-core rappers flirt with guilt, fear and remorse in some of their songs. Some even sprinkled an uplifting song or two about their children or their mothers in their music amid all the preening and misogyny (Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur).

Not Gucci Mane, who is irredeemably coarse in every title, tune and lyric. He stakes no claim to a higher calling of a cultural revolution, a la Thunderclap Newman in 1969. Or to threads of protest and social consciousness, a la Funkadelic in the 1970s.

A&T did the right thing in kicking Gucci Mane to the curb, even if, as expected, it did nothing to curb ticket sales. (As of late last week, they had climbed to 10,000.)

I’m just warning the rest of us not to get too holier than thou.

I know what’s lurking in your basement.