One of the best things about raising two little people is bringing them into your world and watching them begin to love the things that you love. In our home – there’s no better example than that of music.
Maybe it’s because Eric sings them to sleep – Slaid Cleaves, James Taylor, Death Cab For Cutie, John Denver… Claudia used to ask for “Sweet baby Dreams” (thats ‘James’).
Maybe it’s because on my 1.5 hour I-10 commute with Claudia, we would listen to Johnny Cash, Jack Johnson, Alison Krauss…
Lately, Claudia has been listening to Alison Krauss – a lot… we’ve finally had to evict it from the stereo…
And then there’s the Badger games. Eric took Claudia to a football game last fall… she loved the music they played there, brought it home with her in fact. Imagine this scene:
Mom: “Come on Clayton (urging him to get into his car seat), Let’s pack it up, pack it in”
Clayton: “Let me begin!”
Too good.
I busted out some of my old CD’s the other day. You know, the music that you listened to before ‘you’ were ‘us’. I was jonesing for some Beastie Boys. I broke out “Check Your Head”… and guess what? It was well received by my kids! Imagine that…
Now – it’s quite common to hear this around the house, “Hey Claudia! Where’d you get your in-for-ma-tion from, huh?”
My most proud moments are when we’re around a group of people, and my daughter starts to sing something like, “Call him drunken Ira Hayes, he won’t answer anymore….not the whiskey drinkin’ Indian nor the marine that went to war”. And, if Johnny Cash is on in the car, she won’t get out until she hears “Ring of Fire”… it’s her favorite you see.
Three cheers for us! We’ve managed to avoid many of the well known mind numbing kid music – and guess what? The kids are still OK… in fact, they’re cool.
I do need to come clean though. Yes, we do have some kid music. We’ve got “The Johnny Cash Childrens Album”…. Jack Johnson’s Curious George Soundtrack… and we have “Science” by They Might Be Giants. To be fair – it’s not all artists that we’d listen to anyway. We’ve got Hoyt Axton’s “Jeremiah was a Bullfrog”… It’s a pretty good album – it compels the kids to orbit around the house until they are completely wiped out.
I can’t wait to see what they decide to like when they’re in control of their own music…. I’m sure I’ll hate it… 
Jack Johnson’s “With My Own Two Hands” on the Curious George soundtrack is a pretty great song. My son grew up listening to the stuff I listened to in college (I was only 20 when I had him) so he experienced a fair amount of Beastie Boys as well. He’s a cop now, so I don’t think it warped him too badly.
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You never know… They’re musical roots are already pretty cool, so they may surprise you.