I remember ever so fondly the long road trips taken with my family. We used to strap our 'boogie' boards to the roof and float between seaside towns of beautiful Australia during the glorious sunshiny days of summer.
On a side note > i actually think they were called Body boards, but the coolness, or lack thereof of the McBride clan meant that we always knew them as Boogie Boards. Please don't judge me, take it up with my parents.
The anticipation of visiting new and exciting places led to the overused and often sigh inducing question, 'Are we nearly there yet?' Of which the record for best use was me at about 2 minutes into the 6 hour journey and having not even left our street. Needless to say, that phrase was banned from all car trips from that point on.
But what defined our road trips was the continuously repeated, not super appreciated, music of the parents. In our car, we had 6 cassettes on rotation. We had Neil Diamond, Elton John, Billy Joel, The Carpenters, Bee Gees and some representation from the Beatles. And until the year we all got walkmans for Christmas, we were subject to this extreme punishment of old school songs for hours on end.
Saying this, hindsight allows me to see that most of these songs were actually not bad at all. Lyrically, some were even beautiful!
Let me give you a few super sweet & ultra touchy feely examples...
'I'm all out of love, what am I without you
I can't be too late to say that I was so wrong' - Air Supply
I can't be too late to say that I was so wrong' - Air Supply
'I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day'. - Johnny Nash
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day'. - Johnny Nash
'I'm, I'm so in love with you
Whatever you want to do
Is alright with me' - Al Green
Whatever you want to do
Is alright with me' - Al Green
'When you're weary, feeling small
When tears are in your eyes,
I will dry them all
I'm on your side' - Simon & Garfunkel
When tears are in your eyes,
I will dry them all
I'm on your side' - Simon & Garfunkel
And this brings me to my next point. I have the stress...er...privilege of driving 4 little boys to school most days. I do often wonder how the music we listen to in the car shapes their opinion of modern day society.
Kings of Leon got me into a little trouble with 'Sex on Fire'. I didn't fancy the explanation of this one so every time the word sex came up in the song, I sang 'socks' very loudly. So for a little while, I had the whole car load rocking out to "you, your socks are on fire". They did think it was weird to sing about burning feet, but hey, why would i lie?!
Lady Gaga got me into similar strife after being asked what is a disco stick and why would you want to ride one? As did Katy Perry and her girl kissing antics and LMFAO with a very strong opinion of themselves. Once again, the boys wanted to know what 'passion in my pants' meant. And of course, the oh so humble...
'(Ahhhh) Girl look at that body,
I-I-I work out'
I am not saying our music is morally corrupt nor am I taking any particular stance on the merit of modern music, I am simply wondering what on earth our children will think of us 30 years down the track.
I suppose we will just have to wait and see.
x
