If you spend any time around guitarists — or any rock musicians, really — you’ll notice something funny about them: they very often wear swag for bands that their grandparents listened to. Take me, for example. I can remember being a 16-year-old metal guitarist and walking around in a Black Sabbath shirt. Black Sabbath got together all the way back in 1969, a full twenty years before I was born. When you think about it, this is almost absurd: why would young metal dudes be wearing rock t-shirts from bands that played concerts for grandpa in the mid-70s? And what does it mean that they wear those shirts? Some of these musicians aren’t even around anymore!The truth is that vintage rock bands are more than just bands. At this point, they’ve become archetypes, whole industries unto themselves. Let me use David Bowie as an example, although this is also true of other musicians. David Bowie is immortal through his music; whenever it plays on the radio, and whenever someone covers it or sings it karaoke, David Bowie is present as an archetype. It’s similar to how ancient Greek heroes became mythologized after their deaths, until they became the larger-than-life figures we know of today. The modern Achilles or Hercules isn’t a soldier or warrior, though, but a musician. There is David Bowie, the human being who once existed, and then there’s David Bowie, the archetype. And just as the archetype of Hercules is present in all those ancient statues, you experience the archetype of David Bowie whenever you see someone in a David Bowie shirt.

(And don’t think that this just applies to musicians. Some celebrities are flavor-of-the-week and forgotten as quickly as they appeared on our radar. But some public figures leave a legacy and a lasting impression on our imaginations. Remember that the next time you see someone in a Bruce Lee shirt!)

That’s the key: some musicians are so successful that they become symbols more than people. When I wore that shirt at the age of 16, I didn’t do it to show that I’d been to a Black Sabbath show, which is what rock t-shirts used to signify. I did it to evince what kind of person I was by showing a symbol. No matter how old or young someone is, they’ve heard a Black Sabbath song. If you don’t believe me, try and find someone who can’t hum the main riff from Iron Man. Everyone knows that song. And most people know what band first played it. It’s the same with artists like Bowie: if I see someone in a David Bowie shirt, I can practically hear the chorus from “Changes” in my head. We all have these automatic associations with pop-cultural icons, and wearing vintage shirts lets you play those associations. By wearing a certain shirt, you pull certain reactions out of people, as surely as plucking a certain string on a guitar plays a certain note.