My kids hate my music.

My kids hate my music. They hate all of it, across the board, from Buffett to Springsteen, from Bowie to Strait. They hate it all. They are indiscriminate in their disdain. They don’t understand that with each note, the soundtrack of their lives is being written. These songs that drive them to say mean things to me will one day, not a long time from now, remind them of a gentler and simpler era.


I, most fondly, recall from my childhood, sitting at our kitchen table, eating Frankenberry cereal, while my Dad drank his coffee and did crossword puzzles before going to work at the water district. Every morning, KJR was tuned in on the little clock radio and DJ, Gary Lockwood, played the music that created my soundtrack. The Doobie Brothers and the other 70’s stars sang through the single speaker and defined my childhood. The soft, sleepy moments eating sugary cereal sitting with my Dad in the mornings before school are what I remember best. Those moments are relived today whenever an oldie hits the air.

Hearing a favorite song is a mood lifter and day changer. We remember and feel what we felt, then. Life is and has always been, for the most part, GOOD!! Music, like nothing else, transports us to our best memories. It is a time machine or a plane ticket to where we were or where we want to be.

Music says things we can’t. It is expressive and inspiring and describes thoughts and feelings better than words. Chords strike deeper than words can reach. “Hey, Jazzman, play me a serenade in a deeper blue… than you’re playin’… in your brain…” The Boss reaches the dark, rarely seen, but often felt, fathoms that we all have and need. The deep blue is felt and understood and where the glory, absurdity and beauty of life reside as real and clear and relevant. It is hope.

For these reasons, I battle the “Not agains!!” and “This song sucks!!” and smile at my poor, ignorant kids who don’t get it, but one day will. In a future nearer than they can imagine, they will have their own favorite songs and some of them will be mine. I will proudly gloat, “I thought you didn’t like this song?” They will smile and I will know why. They will feel their life and enjoy it. Songs will remind them of their youth and their brief time sharing it with me. We will be eternally connected by melodies and guitar solos.

One day, when they hear American Pie and the words, “I was a lonely teenage broncin’ buck, with a pink carnation and a pick-up truck…” they will inform their kids that, “This is Grandpa’s favorite line in any song.” They will be right and these words that now make them cringe and wince will sing to them something else. They will be my words and like all things parents pass to their children, they will become theirs, too.

Until then, I will play what I want and suffer the insults and hurled objects. My kids will complain and whine and I won’t care. They cannot, as I could not, conceive of the notion, that Dad actually had a few things right and my Dad WAS right, “Benny and the Jets” is a damn good song. Thanks, Pops.