When it comes to music and appreciation thereof, I feel sorry for my daughter Poppy having me as a father. I’m just too opinionated (and rather obnoxious) about that art form and I can’t seem to help myself. At home, while I’m composing a white bean chili for dinner, I’ll try to educate Poppy about the virtue of discord in Wilco’s last two albums, maybe tracing some of those dinful origins to Neal Young and Crazy Horse. Or, as I’m cleaning off the old magazines and bills from my desk, I’ll play her selections from Cat Power that I believe might appeal to the kind of girl who can effortlessly multiply fractions in one moment and call a magazine photo of a pug in a top hat “precious” in the next. Poppy is a good listener (when it comes to music) and is open to my miseducation. Always has been. As I chop and dice, she is eager to sway to the post Beach Boys harmonies found on the new Shins CD or march as we rally around The Decemberists.
After Poppy was born, she quickly announced her screaming hatred of the car seat, so I resigned myself to the idea that I had to surrender control of the stereo if it meant any peace in the car and fewer stops on long road trips, a virtue instilled in me by my “we’re making good time” father. In those early years, it meant Barney ballads, Sesame Street serenades, Raffi riffs, but as she grew out of diapers, her musical tastes evolved (if you can call it that). Poppy is eleven now, and we listen solely to a Top 40 radio station out of Albuquerque that has all the signifiers of that genre: a name that has nothing to do with their format; on-air personalities that include a frat boy, sexy-ish woman, and thinly veiled gay man who is the butt of most of the jokes. Poppy enjoys hearing the same songs aired over and over because it means she can quickly learn the words and sing along. The lyrics are so simplistic that her five-year-old brother London has become a “hollaback girl.” For me, I can’t help but feel agitated and slightly snobbish at these so-called latest hits. Unlike my father who ignored the entry of Bad Company into our home, the way I deal with my frustration is through mockery and parody. It’s sad, really. When Gnarls Barkley’s single Crazy comes on for the third time on our drive to horseback riding, I can’t help but act like a low rent Weird Al (if such a thing is possible) and replace the chorus “Does that make me crazy?” with “That makes good gravy.”
Brilliantly clever I’m aware.
And it gets worse. When I hear the All America Rejects sing: “And even when your hope is gone/Move along, move along just to make it through.” I sing: “And even when your pants are gone/Wear a thong, wear a thong and a tap dance shoe.”
Let’s be honest: that’s just idiotic.
In the car, my downward spiral ends without the decency of language. After a few embarrassing parodies that Poppy somehow tolerates (probably because she can’t drive yet and I lock the doors), some whiny ballad comes on like Rascal Flatts’ What Hurts the Most and instead of “What hurts the most/Was being so close/And having so much to say/And watching you walk away,” I just whine and grunt like a constipated caveman for a few miles as the landscape changes from clustered condos to sprawling horse farms. When we view our local senator’s picturesque red barn signaling that we’re only minutes away from tacking up, Poppy says, “Dad, you can turn the radio off now.”
“That’s music to my ears.” I shut both the radio and my mouth, and we both enjoy the silent and rather lovely view.