The hills are alive...

My girls love music. I know, who doesn't love music, right? But you don't understand the depth of their love for their songs.

I like to take credit for their profound connection to song, but Chris plays as large (if not larger) a part in this as well. He has the most eclectic play list I've ever seen, and he shares it lovingly with his daughters. The girls are more familiar with his favorites than I am, and I am endlessly entertained by the special way they have developed of labeling these seemingly illogical songs. Since they don't understand all the lyrics, and since the titles mean nothing to them, they have their own way of understanding and requesting them.

 A request for 'The Fairy Song' yields several minutes of Sleepy Head by Passion Pit. When they start talking about 'Collecting Animals', well, they'll take anything from Animal Collective. 'Beverly Kissed the Beast' means they want Ariel Pink's Beverly Kills. 

Animal Collective

Gillian Welch

While Chris and I share some taste in music, I definitely lean towards a style with a bit more Americana to it. A little bit of folk, a lot of bluegrass, a subtle twang of country. Singable vocals, acoustic melody, the kind of music that makes me want to close my eyes and throw my arms open and sing. Loudly. Anyway, as you can imagine, the requests made by the girls when they're in the green Honda (Chris' car) differ from those made in the white Honda (my car).



In the green Honda, at the top of the charts for the last 16 weeks in a row:
1. Fright Night, by Ariel Pink.
     Followed closely and strangely by,
2. Angels of Light (described by Chris as drone goth music)
3. The Bangles' Manic Monday
4. One Touch by LCD Sound System.
5. Graze - Animal Collective

Old Crow Medicine Show

In the white Honda, it goes something more (predictably) like this:
1. Wagon Wheel - Old Crow Medicine Show
2. No One Knows My Name - Gillian Welch
3. We're all in this together - Wagon Wheel
4. Marry Me - Dolly Parton
5. Skinny Love - Bon Iver






Sometimes, our desire to instill a love for music in our children gets us into trouble in the form of inappropriate lyrics that magically draw the attention of these crazy cuties.


Overheard recently in the playroom/bedroom/bathroom/car/SCHOOLROOM? over the last several months:


From Regina Spektor's 'Hotel Song' - Bela, in tune and perfectly copying Spektor's staccato style  "A little bag of cocaine, a little bag of cocaine, so who's the girl wearing the dress?"


From John Prine's 'In Spite of Ourselves' - Mae, almost constantly from June until August, "He ain't got laid in a month of Sundays, I caught him once and he was sniffing my undies"


And, from the same song, and out of the same girl's mouth: "She looks down her nose at money. She gets it on like the Easter Bunny"

John Prine

Oh man. The Easter Bunny. There was no way they weren't going to love that song. 



Now, Chris and I are good parents. We don't condone foul language (unless we are the ones speaking) and we share the common goal of keeping our children as innocent and as sweet as possible for as long as possible. But sometimes, when we hear them sing these very grown up lyrics, we giggle. 

Until they started singing Akon. Bela and Mae went through a fierce Akon phase, mostly due to his song Lonely that features back up vocals by what I can only describe as a cartoon character. But he has other songs--in particular, I want to love you. Only it's not a song about love. It's a song about a stripper, and it's about as nasty as nasty can be. There are two versions, though, to this song. One is simply foul, proffered up to the general public. The other, I can't even link to it's so nasty nasty.

Akon

Every time I hear Bela begin to sing along to the lyrics of this song my entire body starts to twitch violently. As she reaches the chorus I'm near vomiting. And then she sings "I want to LOVE you, you already know, I want to LOVE you."  As I'm scrambling for the ipod, ripping USB cables from computers, pounding on on/off switches, I'm relieved she has just sang this particular version. Because I know something she doesn't know: she was one track away from the dirtiest thing she has ever heard in her entire life. Just listening to that other version would age her 10 years. Instantaneously.

DISCLAIMER #1: She does not know nor understand ANY of the other lyrics to this song. And Chris swears on all that is good in this world that she has never accidentally heard the other, fouler, version.

DISCLAIMER #2: Obviously, none of these images belong to me, and I may be violating copyright by simply including them in my blog. The thing is, I have no idea. But there you have it.