Musical Parenting
Taylor Swift (feat. Bon Iver), King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Weezer, and musical parenting
They taught me how to make the chords and sing the words
I'm still singing like that great speckled bird
—Jason Isbell
For those of us who are parents, we have the delight of passing down our passion for music to our children. And in time, our children will spread their musical wings and develop their own tastes and preferences, influenced no doubt by the tunes they heard while we hauled them around town day and night. All of us can relate to the idea of musical parenting, either as parents or children or both! This week, our Bonus Track guest explores the process of musical parenting and Mat, Kody, and Adam queue up a song they enjoy sharing with their kids.
Exile by Taylor Swift feat. Bon Iver (Kody)
This doesn’t represent a song I passed down to my children. It was more of a meet-in-the-middle song. Because it featured Bon Iver, I was willing to listen. Because it’s
T-Swift, they were already hooked. Taylor has a way of unifying families when it comes to the car ride playlist. When our family hears this song, no one is “leaving out the side door.”
Motor Spirit by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard (Adam)
“Oh, holy rabble, we art ensnared
To quiver liketh rippled air
Diocese of did melt sand
Worship with thy chroming hand”
My oldest child (7) is very opinionated about the music he likes. He uses Spotify Kids very heavily and has curated a mega playlist all his own. At times he will allow me to show him a song or two and usually, he isn’t a fan. However, I let him dabble in a bit of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and the song Motor Spirit is what he was drawn to. I think deep down he likes heavy metal sounds as well as 808s. Can you blame him? Now in the (motor) spirit of good parenting, I want everyone to know he really loves the opening hardcore riff and usually skips around the album after the first 10 seconds. Don’t judge me. This album is a death metal album on climate change, but if that’s your thing then enjoy!
Mr. Blue Sky by Weezer (Mat)
One of my sons got into this song through “Guardians of the Galaxy.” So, when it showed up on the Teal Album, they were pretty open to checking out Weezer. I have liked Weezer for a while. My friend (and now colleague) Jackie let me borrow a few CDs back in high school and I was hooked. I was into everything about Weezer—their music, their style, their videos. I have had a lot of fun listening to this album with my kids. The fact it is a collection of covers made it a little more accessible for them. I hope their love of Teal will one day lead to an appreciation of Blue or Green. I am only sad that they no longer call them “Weezers.”
Bonus Track: Musical Parenting by Trey Kullman
Ask any parent, and they’ll tell you that raising kids is an adventure. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, your child shifts into the next phase of life with a new set of joys and challenges. We’ve recently made one of these shifts in our house as our oldest daughter turned thirteen. Gah! We’ve got a teenager!
While she’ll always be our little girl, she’s growing up quickly. The adorable childish prints we hung up in her room so many years ago have been replaced by Christmas lights and music posters. She’s traded in her cute frilly dresses for baggy jeans and band t-shirts. Enjoy the blank stare when you ask what her favorite Blondie song is, but that won’t stop her from wearing the shirt with Debbie Harry’s face emblazoned on it!
She’s always liked music, but she mostly listened to whatever we put on. Middle school has brought along new friends, and with them new musical tastes. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. I remember fighting with my parents over the radio dial when I was her age. My dad had pretty wide ranging musical tastes, and was always trying to pull me from whatever pop or alternative rock phase I was in back into the classic rock (Seagar, Led Zeppelin, etc.) and country (Hank Jr., Waylon, Willie) he knew and loved. I, of course, knew better than he did what good music was so I ignored his suggestions until finally discovering this treasure trove of music on my own years later.
While the radio’s gone, the battle for musical control still rages on. Each morning as Mabel and I are backing down the driveway, she silently reaches out her hand. An inaudible request for control of what sounds will greet our ears as we battle the morning rush to her school. Last year (her 6th grade year) I held control pretty tightly. She was still learning to explore music, and I wanted to give my musical catalog a fighting chance to get stuck in her head like it did mine when I was her age. I didn’t control what her ears listened to most of the day, but these twenty minutes were mine to curate. She’d groan as I fired up Hootie and the Blowfish, or roll her eyes when I tried to hype her up with some Nirvana. We dabbled in Creed, tried to catch the beat with Kanye, and explored musical stories with Isbell. Hit after hit, track after track, the year rolled on.
A year later, my Spotify algorithm is essentially foreign to me. I’ve given away the aux cord so to speak. Gone are my glorious bluegrass-fueled, alternative rock-laced, 2000’s hip-hop inspired playlists. They’ve all been relegated to the garbage heap, plunged to the bottom of the pile by the bands and singers that Mabel loves. Most mornings are full of track after track of folks I’ve never heard of rattling my eardrums. My parents think it’s hilarious.
Here’s the best part about parenting and playlists. Your kids are always watching, or in this case, listening. In the ocean of Billie Eilish, Mitski, Taylor Swift, and Suki Waterhouse (who I’ve come to love thanks to my daughter!) are little islands of music that I shared with her and she hung onto. Imagine my surprise when her playlist goes from Summertime Sadness to Feel Good Inc. from Gorillaz! The first notes of No Surprises from Radiohead ring out, and I’ve never been prouder. “Holy crap! You like Radiohead?!?!?!”
Like the rest of parenting, your work is never quite finished. I’m always trying to sneak in new bands or tunes that I think she’ll dig on our morning rides or the occasional long road trip. I still get a lot of headshakes and, “Dad, this isn’t it!” But every once in a while I see her eyes light up as a beat, rhythm, or lyric catches her ear, and an old part of my life finds its way into her latest playlist and sinks into her own experience.
—
Trey Kullman live in The Ville. He’s married with three kids. He co-authored a children’s catechism and he loves visiting national parks, Formula 1 racing, and exploring new restaurants. When it comes to music, he loves watching Tiny Desk concerts on YouTube (Anderson .Paak got him hooked!) and enjoys an album laced with story songs (Jason Isbell, The Killers, and Sturgill).
—
This week’s Bonus Track photo is from the movie Begin Again which features musical parenting as part of the storyline.
What bands/songs are you trying to pass down to your kids? What bands/songs were passed down to you from your parents? Let us know!
-TheMusicSwap