As you can probably imagine I try to expose my two kids to as much different music as possible. Every album I’ve written about over the last 15 months they’ve heard at least one song off of (I start each trip to and from daycare with one song off my album of the day and try to hold on for as many songs as possible before my four year old daughter inevitably asks for Minnie Mouse or Raffi), and I don’t discriminate based off the subject matter– gangsta rap, heavy metal, punk rock, pop, they get it all.
One of my favorite musical traditions with my kids (besides the Kindergarten Cartel project which features them both on the first song of the album) is a little thing called “Punk Rock Running”. We have a large island in our kitchen that is probably 10 feet long and 5 feet wide, which makes it a perfect place to run laps when we’re feeling like letting loose. Every so often we’ll flip on a special playlist we’ve created filled with all our favorite uptempo songs (“Ruby Soho” by Rancid, “The New You” by The Vandals, “Champs Elysees” by NOFX, “We Are The Roadcrew” by Motörhead– you get the drill) and go absolutely bananas running around the island for 20 minutes at a time. My son started walking a few months back and has started to join in on the fun, kicking his legs high in the air and bobbing his head like a punk rocker patrolling the pit, and my daughter always finds a way to get extra credit by incorporating a balloon or a funny hat to add to the festivities. Our dog Deacon even joins in the fun in these laps (especially when one of the kids has food in their hand) and go on laps with us, which makes it a whole family affair.
Blur’s “Song Two” is a relatively new addition to the playlist as of a few weeks ago (I thought about it on a whim and flipped it on which kicked off that evening’s edition) and man I can’t tell you the light I saw in both of my kids eyes when that first “Woohoo” came through the speakers. My son was doing little eighteen month “woo’s” with his mouth curled like a little wolf, my daughter was yelling “woohoo” in time after the first chorus while wearing a dragon hat made out of construction paper, the dog was making mad dashes around the island, and we just had the best of times.
For me it was a reminder of how precious these little moments in life can be, and how important it is to soak up every last drop of them. There will be a time in a few years when my kids will want nothing to do with their zany dad or his music (let alone run around the kitchen island with him– the horror!) and that’s gonna be completely okay with me because little do they know they will have already given me the gift of a lifetime by just existing and sharing their sheer joy for life with me in a little vignette that played out on a seemingly forgettable evening together.
Standout Songs: “Song Two”, “Death of a Party”, “Beetlebum”, “Chinese Bombs”
Matthew. 