IN MY ACOUSTICALLY shielded corner of the universe, the day the music died was the one when Doris Day went home to feed the cats and stayed there. The whole racket - and I used that word advisedly - seems to have fallen into the claws of sequined screech owls and the occasional geriatric hiding behind one facelift too far.

This is not to say that, musically speaking, I pine for the good old days. It's tough to get into any sensible pining when what the good old days of pop music offered up were gems like "Cement Mixer, Puttee, Puttee" and "Open the Door, Richard" and Arthur Godfrey yodeling away about "I Don't Want Her, You Can Have Her, She's Too Fat For Me."

But at least the artistes looked like at least associate members of the human race (Tiny Tim decked out in a suit three sizes too small and stomping "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" possibly excepted) and the words comprehensible to those of us who managed to get out of kindergarten on no later than the third try.

Nor were the ballads of yore battered to acoustic oblivion by snare drums, an invention exceeded in undiluted fiendishness by the rack, the telephone and those little price tabs they stick on oranges down at the local Wal-Mart. Snare drums are to music what those fancy sauces are to French cookery - a means of disguising something awful underneath.

Once every blue moon or three, I do trot out the old shoebox radio, plug in the crystal and lend an ear to what passes for pop music on radio these days. (In my case it is the British Broadcasting Corp. mostly, but I suspect it's not much different from anywhere else, the snare drum being an internationally accepted instrument of torture.)

It was on one such venture across the polluted airwaves that I stumbled across a whiff of purity - a singer, Eva Cassidy by name, on a ballad entitled "Fields of Gold." I had heard the song before but wasn't particularly impressed, that performer being obviously too enchanted by his own voice to care much for the words he was singing.

That was the difference - Eva Cassidy's golden, soft voice that seemed not so much to sing the words as to gently touch and lift them through the sky, from her heart to yours. If this sounds maudlin, then so be it - but her little song, which felt as it she were giving something of herself, seemed the breath of angels . Even the sainted Doris couldn't touch that.

So I bought the CD, fittingly entitled "Songbird" (well, actually I bought two, not out of admiration but of a bit of ineptitude in Internet shopping, when I hit one rather important key twice). Eva refreshed an old favorite, "Autumn Leaves," and claimed at least a share of "Over The Rainbow" from Judy Garland. There are three other albums to be bought.

And that will be it. There will be - there is - no more "Songbird." Eva Cassidy died of cancer, three years ago, age 33. A truly wondrous, soul-piercing voice, stilled while yet so much alive.

So there we are. So it's back to the likes of a Whitney Houston, who takes the word "You" and torments it through 42 syllables, or Celine Dion, whose screeching makes you wish fervently you were aboard the Titanic and trapped in a stateroom - a well sound-proofed stateroom. And, of course, ol' Cher, who I gather was one-half of an ancient duo named Sonny and Cher, caterwauling something about "love everlasting," which she seems hell-bent on herself.

Sigh...I think not. So let's dust off a few of the old LPs and see what we've got. Ah, there's Der Bingle and the Andrews Sisters on "Don't Fence Me In," and Phil Harris with "The Preacher and the Bear," and Tom Lehrer's memorably philosophical "Sliding Down the Razorblade of Life."

The songbird is dead, and the screech owls are ruling the roost, so I've got to look elsewhere for a touch of class in the pops. Whatever, I do my best thinking with some soothing music in the background - so where's my tape of "I'd Rather Have a Full-Frontal Lobotomy Than Have a Full Bottle in Front of Me"...?

Thought for the Week: It's lonely at the top, but you eat better.

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