Let's Bop, Baby! Or, On Second Thought, Let's Not

Somehow we have reached the stage in which the kids get to dictate the music we listen to in the car. I thought that wouldn't happen for at least five more years. I mean, they're six and three, why wouldn't they want to listen to the greatest hits of the 80's, 90's, and today? I had absolutely no say in what I had to listen to until I started driving. Kids today! (Imagine me pounding my cane on the floor next to my wheelchair.)

It all started when McDonald's gave away KidzBop CD's with the Happy Meals. I should have known that a company who can't even spell "kids" correctly is bad news. And "bop"? Who the heck "bops" anymore? That sounds like something you do down at the sock hop in your poodle skirt before sharing an ice cream soda with two straws with your steady boyfriend.

And these songs weren't from that era (the greatest hits of the 50's...). In case you (luckily) were not aware, KidzBop produces versions of popular songs with kids singing them (usually the solos are sung by adults who are impersonating the original artists). These are songs you don't need to search for, too. Just turn the radio on and you'll hear them. They are the hottest hits of today, the one-hit wonders, the bubblegum pop so schmaltzy it makes your teeth hurt. You can't escape these songs, and now they are available on CD so your kids can listen to them over and over and OVER again until you feel like beating your head on the steering wheel. Just don't get stuck in traffic, is my advice.

I felt kind of strange listening to these songs with my Very Small Children. Most of the songs had been sanitized of lyrics that might be offensive (in "Photograph" by Nickelback, the words have been changed to "oh my gosh") but some of the concepts are age-inappropriate. It just seems wrong for a first-grader to memorize all these songs about hooking up and falling in love (although I have to be honest, my kids have heard their share of Love Songs with Delilah). I just don't necessarily want them at this age to be thinking about getting this party started and being hot and then cold and ending up bleeding love. And somehow it seems that having kids sing those songs is almost worse than occasionally hearing the originals in the mall or in someone's minivan. Having kids sing them makes it seem that the concepts belong to kids, and they really shouldn't.

Being inconsistent and also lazy enough to want to avoid a fuss, I let the kids listen to those Happy Meal CD's (which had only five songs each--and believe me, they were burned in my brain) until I could check out some other KidzBop CDs from the library. (Because that's how we roll--free music, at least until the due date.) I chose the 80's Gold and later the Country, thinking maybe they might be less inappropriate than the recent hits. Hahahaha not really. I didn't even know that the lyrics to "Hey Mickey" were so risque.

So come on and give it to me any way you can
Anyway you want to do it it, I'll treat you like a man

At this point I hoped it just went over Miss Pink's head (I know it went over Mr. Blue's.) So far we have not gotten a call from the school saying she's yelled across the playground to a boy that he's so fine he blows her mind. But the country disc was odd in a different way. Some of the choices were fine, like "Life Is a Highway" and "Jesus Take the Wheel" (hey, I just noticed both of those use car metaphors.) But then there were a couple of songs in which the subject matter was just not something kids would relate to: "Why" which asks, "Why does it always come down to you leaving before I say I love you?" Which on further reflection, heart-breakingly, may be something kids are more familiar with than they should be--and in which case, why remind them that grownups can be so bad at relationships? The other one is a song, originally made popular by Leann Rimes, I believe, that tells about a thirty-year-old woman who had "thought by now she'd have a man, two car seats in a minivan" and who now tells the world that "something's gotta give."

[Side note: Something's gotta give...or what? The song is saying something's gotta give you butterflies, and you're not going to settle until you get True Love, but I don't understand the ultimatum. "Universe, you better send me a man...or I SWEAR I'm going down to the sperm bank and starting a family all by myself!"

Judging by how much help I need to raise my children, I don't recommend starting out alone on purpose. And desperation is not all that attractive. I'm just sayin'.]

And my FINAL point in this diatribe is: why remake these songs anyway? Yes, I know the answer is "to get our greedy paws on the huge sums of money spent by preteens on useless crap" but really, wouldn't you rather listen to Bon Jovi rock out instead of a pretender? The way this is going, my kids aren't going to know the difference between songs that defined an era and the cheesy cover versions voiced by overly cheerful fluting-voiced teenyboppers (there's that word again, and again I sound like an old fart!) And FYI, the Michael Jackson impersonator does a particularly egregious version of "ABC"--he couldn't even touch Michael's high notes. FAIL. I noticed while researching this post that the latest KB album includes a remake of "The Climb." Really, KidzBop? Really? Has it come to this, that a song sung by a real-life pop princess who portrays a pop princess on a TV show--in other words, a song written expressly for an audience of preteens--is repackaged and sold to that same audience?

*sound of my head exploding*

Okay, it's late and I need to get to bed because we have church in the morning. Tune in next time for my solution to this perplexing problem, or, How I Saved My Forehead from Permanent Damage.

Part II--Bad Taste in Guys and Music (Until Now)

Happy Valentine’s Day to you! Justin and I are not celebrating per se—we’re going out to dinner with the kids—but since I don’t have to cook or do dishes, I’ll take it. Here’s Part II of my trip down memory lane with the help of some lame songs.

When fifteen-year-old me had a crush on Larry, I loved “Lady in Red” because I had a red dress that I wore to church and I felt so beautiful in it. Unfortunately for me, Larry already had a girlfriend. What was with these guys who didn’t just look into my eyes and decide I was the One for them and get rid of the girls they were already dating? Couldn’t they see that I was the better choice?

Finally Larry’s girlfriend broke up with him (I was thrilled) and eventually, taking his older brother’s advice, asked me out. It was a strange couple of weeks, since he didn’t have a car and there we were in the back seat while his brother drove. Larry was a singer (not in a band, he just liked to sing) and he serenaded me with the immortal New Kids on the Block classic:

I’ll be loving you forever
Just as long as you want me to be
I’ll be loving you forever
All this love’s for you and me, yeah

And…that’s as far as forever went. Larry broke up with me at church on a Sunday morning and by that evening had another date. They stayed together for a year or more, as I recall. I have no idea what he’s doing now.

Next I transferred my thwarted longing onto Larry’s brother Lonnie. (I know, I know.) But at least he was the one with the car! However, he was in love with the prettiest girl in school and it wasn’t until several months later that he offered to drive me home one night even though I already had a ride, parked at the end of my driveway, and laid a big ol’ kiss on me. On the stereo was Debbie (not known as Deborah, back then) Gibson, playing over and over again because it was a single in the tape player. I don’t know why he thought this was ideal makeout music—it was an old song even then, in 1992.

I get lost in your eyes
And I feel my spirits rise
And soar like the wind
Is it love that I am in?

I guess Lonnie wanted to be “friends with benefits” (although more innocently than that term means now) but I was having none of it. I was holding out for True Love. He had no clue why, when he acted like nothing happened, I wouldn’t speak to him. Clueless guys. And I wondered why they wanted to date the girls who didn’t turn everything into Wuthering Heights, with the Tragedy and the Weepy Eyes. I had not yet figured out that guys don’t like Weepy Eyes.

There were a couple of other guys, but I don’t want to write about them except to say that my college boyfriend and I used to sing along with A Whole New World from the Aladdin soundtrack (shudder) even though we really should have known better because a) dorky! and b) our voices weren’t anywhere near as good as Peabo Bryson’s and Regina Belle’s. Also that for a while after we broke up, I couldn’t listen to the radio because happy songs made me cry since oh my God we used to be happy like that, and sad songs made me cry for obvious reasons. I memorized the words to “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough” because it was like the songwriter KNEW somehow about our situation.

But there’s a danger in loving somebody too much,
And it’s sad when you know it's your heart you can't trust
There’s a reason why people don't stay where they are
Baby, sometimes, love just ain’t enough.

Then I met my husband, and fell in love, and what do you know, this time it WAS enough. We are dorky, too (hmmm--what's the common denominator in this equation? it couldn't be ME) and our favorite songs to sing along to are sung by groups since he can harmonize and make me sound better. If “Faithfully” by Journey comes on, we’re going to turn it up. Also many of Chicago’s songs. If pressed, I would say “If She Would’ve Been Faithful” is one of his favorites and “Love Me Tomorrow” is mine.

Basically, I’m just glad we’re singing a duet, and we will be forever as long as I have anything to say about it.

Don't Blame Me for My Musical Taste; I Grew Up in the '90s

Other than certain smells, nothing triggers memories for me like music. A song from my younger days can take me right back to a time of Taco Bell nachos, big hair, stonewashed Guess? denim, and unrequited (usually) love. Every boy I pined for had his theme song, which would a few months later, be replaced by another boy and another song. Here, for your amusement, are some of my musical memories. Try not to be too disgusted at my musical taste. (I stand by the Natalie Cole song, though. I still sing it to my baby.)

"Into the Night" by Benny Mardones (who?)
She’s just sixteen years old, leave her alone, they say
Separated by fools who don't know what love is yet
But I want you to know

If I could fly, I’d pick you up
I’d take you into the night and show you a love
Like you’ve never seen, ever seen

(I HOPE she’s never seen that kind of love, if she’s just sixteen years old. Put that love AWAY, dude, or you’ll get arrested!) I fervently wished the object of my adoration felt this way about me. Except I wasn’t even 16: I was 13, and I had a crush on my 23-year-old volleyball coach. Despite my attempts to seem mature beyond my years when he was around, I think he probably knew how I felt about him because I kept getting hit in the head by the volleyball because I was staring at his wavy black hair and blue eyes. My crush died a natural but painful death when he got married (to a girl from my future husband’s home town.) He is now a physical therapist and I am not attracted to him at all.

Unforgettable, by Natalie Cole
Unforgettable, that’s what you are
Unforgettable, though near or far
That’s why, darling, it’s incredible
That someone so unforgettable
Thinks that I am unforgettable too

This song was popular the summer that I got my first kiss. I was almost fourteen, at a church camp meeting. (In case you aren’t familiar with the concept, it’s a week of church services attended by members of a denomination in one state, and at least in our case, none of the young people thought about Jesus or anything other than how to get a date.)

All week, I had been going out with the son of one of my dad’s friends whom I’d long thought was cute, and we were having a good time. We were actually going out on dates, as opposed to just holding hands at the concession stand, because I had a 19-year old friend who wasn’t dating anyone and who was a terrific sport about driving younger kids around town. The last night, when we had to return to our separate towns and visiting each other was out of the question, we were in the back seat (ooh la la) and when Gina was distracted because she was talking to Michael’s friend in the front, Michael leaned over and whispered, “I’m going to kiss you, okay?” and did so, without waiting for an answer. I’ve always thought that combination of chivalry and confidence was perfect for a young girl’s first kiss. And I discovered I liked kissing. A lot.

P.S. Just to show how small a world our denomination is, Michael and my husband were pretty good friends after Michael moved to a town close to Justin’s. Michael married a girl Justin knew very well and never quite dated. So there you go. It’s a wonder I didn’t know Justin from birth, really.

How Am I Supposed to Live Without You? by Michael Bolton
Tell me, how am I supposed to live without you
Now that I’ve been lovin’ you so long
How am I supposed to live without you
And how am I supposed to carry on
When all that I've been livin’ for is gone

Yes, I owned not one but two Michael Bolton albums [adult me cringes in shame]. There was a guy who liked me but all my friends thought I’d never go out with him because he had a reputation for being “a bad boy,” while I was so innocent I should have been called a Goody-Goody-Goody. This guy (let’s call him Grant because that was his name) let me know that the song that most reminded him of me was this one. I gasped, “I like that song too!” Bad boy reveals softer side = Alison accepts his offer of a date to Homecoming. And then we dated for several months. Several astute people said this was a horrible choice to be Our Song, but a frizzy-haired screamer brought us together and that was just…so romantic to me.

He wasn’t really that much of a bad boy, but we made out a lot. However, I was almost as much of a goody-goody when we broke up (on Valentine’s Day, which was not nice of me, but I just couldn’t take his temper tantrums any more). And then Our Song was a lot more appropriate.

Wow, this is getting really long. I have a few more I’ll write up and post another day.