Soundtrack of Your (Early) Life

The kids – the boy, in particular – will not knock it off with this "Firework" song by Katy Perry. I'm not sure how they heard it in the first place, probably at that public school, but it's been non-stop, for like six weeks now.

Beeps is pretty good with the words, but H-Bomb only does the "AYY AYY WHA" part. At least, that was his only part until he started putting verses and choruses together. He still doesn't know the words, but you can tell where he's at in the song.

My first favorite songs were "When I Need You" by Leo Sayer and "Disco Duck" by Rick Dees, so he's getting a well-deserved pass. But man, he just plays it over and over on the iPad. "You don't have to feel like a plastic bag…" oh Lord give me serenity.

Beeps, the five-year-old, was pushing the garbage bin up the driveway the other day, all the while singing "Hey now, you're a Rockstar…" by Smashmouth. I've heard her come home with gospel songs and songs about recycling, but that marks the first time the 90s have leapfrogged into the new generation in front of me.

But she makes me proud. While she's never reacted to John Coltrane or learned scales on the clarinet, she's really getting an ear for music. The boy and I got done watching the "Firework" by Katy Perry video On Demand and had moved on to "Intergalatic". Beeps stopped by on her way to bed and watched the robot fight the squid guy. All of a sudden, they get to the part where Mike D recreates his "Mmmmmm .. Drop?" part from Rhymin' and Stealin.

Beeps gets this happy look on her face and goes, "Wait! These are the Beastie Boys, aren't they?" She's doesn't know about their later years (or their videos), but man, she is down with the early stuff.

OK, that's adorable.

My parents aren't super into music (weirdos, I know) so my the first song I really remember LOVING wasn't until I was 5. It was What a Feeling from Flashdance. I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever heard and used to push up my sleeves and dance around to it with my sitter at the time, Elise. She had amazing feathered bangs and big spiral curls.

The soundtrack to my youth was Michael Jackson's Dangerous.

evie pretty much just knows standard kid stuff like ABC, twinkle twinkle, etc. but now she's in day care so i just yesterday heard her sing the first song we didn't expose her to. i couldn't even tell what song it was but it had the name of her day care in it so she definitely learned it there.

she does sometimes sing "footloose" or "oh yeah" by yello (just the BOW BOW part) or "rosemarie" by the monkees (just "rosemarie" and the BAH BAAAAH horn stab)

Ava's first pop star crush is Johnny Marr, particularly the Electronic era. One of my proudest moments was hearing her, aged 3, dreamily singing the riff to The Fall's Dead Beat Descendant in the backseat of the car, unprompted. So, yeah, I've been throwing stuff at her since day one, seeing what sticks. Dancing to Janacek's Sinfonietta, called an ambient Pan Sonic piece "music for sad ghosts", throwing a tantrum cos I wouldn't let see the video for Propaganda's P-Machinery again, singing her own words to Sagittarius songs, Beefheart, Neko Case, Autechre, Orbital...

Lulu ploughs her own strange furrow. Sometimes I think she might be the more musical of the two, more inventive, but a lot of noisy or atonal stuff freaks her out. She's more into kiddie stuff (she'll go for a CBBC song over a pop video).

Back in the early '70s, it was Mouldy Old Dough, Brain Salad Surgery and Son of my Father than shaped me.

I haven't made any people and am unlikely to do so for the foreseeable future, but when I was a newly made person I am told I was quite taken with Kenny Rogers, Blondie's "One Way or Another," and various Sesame Street and Muppet records.

Not quite on topic: I loved watching records play but naturally wasn't allowed to touch them. So once when I was three or four and the babysitter fell asleep, I pulled a bunch of records out of their jackets, spread them out on the floor, and walked on them in my bare feet. I don't actually remember doing this, but the footprints are there on the records. I guess you always hurt the one you love (particularly at that age).