As a kid, I remember my parents singing us the oldies.

My mother had goofy taste – her favorite lullabies included She wore an itsy bitsy teeny tiny yellow polka dot bikini and Yellow Submarine and Puff the Magic Dragon.

(Not sure what my Mom was doing during the sixties and seventies but really it’s best not to ask.)

My Dad liked the sappy sentimental singers – Cat Stevens and James Taylor and Simon and Garfunkel. Cat’s in the Cradle was my dad’s jam. Still is.

(Although when he found out I could play anything on Spotify, he did ask me to find In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly. So I’m not too sure about his adolescence, either.)

As my parents before me, I find myself often singing the songs of my youth to my children. SURELY they’re not oldies. I mean it was just a couple of years ago when Radiohead released Creep, right? Not that I’d ever sing Creep and in reference to one of my children.

Ever.

Maybe.

But on an unrelated note it’s really easy to change out the lyrics from I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo to you’re a creep, you’re a weirdo.

But at least I’m not singing Beck’s Loser to them. Right?

Anyway.

I often find that the Oldies of my generation, whether or not I actually listened to those particular songs at the time, apply greatly to my life now.

…When one of my children passes gas, I can’t help but sing The Cranberries Linger.

Do you have to, do you have to let it linger…

…Avril Lavigne’s Complicated comes up a lot, too. Because kids always gotta go and make things so complicated.

Noah can sing Rolling Stones’ You Can’t Always Get what you Want because I’ve sung it to him so many times.

…Oops! I Did it Again is my excuse line when I take too much Mommy Tax and they express outrage at the over-taxation.

The list is endless, really.

But I’ve found that with many of Noah’s endeavors, Jump Around by House of Pain usually applies.

Such as the other day, when he was using his cape to go flying…

(I did a bit of photo magic from this video for him afterward. He’s kind of in love with himself in this picture.)

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And last summer, when he was jumping over his Uncle Leo, the same song applied…

But the most applicable song to parenthood, SO MUCH of parenthood, is this clip from the really awful song Up in Here by DMX really. It describes the act of raising little humans better than anyone ever has before.

Every parent needs that song clip cued up for daily play.

What songs are the soundtrack to your parenthood?

13 thoughts on “On Oldies and Parenthood.

  1. Ha at my old age I have never heard any of those songs. For me I sing Yesterday by the Beatles, righteous brothers and of course the songs your Mom sang. I am big into Peter, Payl and Mary and Leo hates them. You ever heard of them? LOL.

  2. I’ve totally sang Loser and Creep to Quinn before. And often sing Ice Ice Baby as a lullaby because there are only so many songs I know all the lyrics to without music and that happens to be one of them.

  3. I’m way older than you and more in line with your parents’ musical tastes than yours. Anyway – I sang Goodnight Sweetheart from Sha Na Na as a lullaby to my son tonight, lol.

  4. My kids also wanted non-standard bedtime songs. I sang “Help” by the Beatles, the Scooby-Doo theme song and some others that escape me at the moment.
    I also sing the “Can’t always get what you want song” to them – even now that my youngest is 13. So now I get the added benefit of embarrassing them!

  5. If you were to say “stop” at my house, you might hear ” collaborate and listen”, ” hammer time”, or “in the name of love” in response. Most recently, they have latched on to the quirky parodies of Weird Al Yankovic and 80s hairbands when streaming music.

  6. I don’t have kids BUT I worked at Walmart and “Yall Gonna Make Me Lose My Mind” was my anthem. It was for customers/ co-workers/ bosses/ ect.

  7. When my son was a baby, he was so obviously pleased by being in crowds that I used to sing Peter Gabriel to him while we waited for the bus:
    The time I like is the rush hour
    ‘Cause I like the rush.
    The pushing of the people!
    I like it all so much.
    Such a mass of motion!
    I do not know where it goes,
    But I move with the movement, and
    I have the touch.

    The song actually seems to be about an off-kilter person who’s really into touching strangers. But babies are allowed to be like that, right?

  8. So, my daughter has a feeding tube. When she first got it, she was nervous about it, so we’d sing “Push It” by Salt’n’Peppa whenever we’d be pushing fluids or medications or whatever into it. It was comical to hear her tiny voice answer “push it real good!” in response to us saying, “Ahh…push it!” LOL

  9. From “how do you solve a problem like Maria” from the sound of music
    How do you solve a problem like being a baby.
    How do you pick them up and put the down
    And so on.
    And honey pie, the Beatles…. Honey pie, you are making me crazy, im in love but you’re a baby…
    And for baby gas… to the tune of the twist… poor it on out, you know you poot so fine, come on and poor in your diaper now… while patting the back or dancing to work the gas out :)
    I have lots more, but can’t think of them at the moment.
    And my songs seem to be generations older than me :)

  10. Where is Micah? Five Iron Frenzy.
    I’ll have to ponder what others I regularly sing. I don’t sing my kids lullabies because by the time it’s bedtime I’m done.

  11. I seem to always be singing Why Can’t We Be Friends to my boys (just to annoy them as they are normally snarling at eachother at the time)….. :) We are also fans of We Are the Champions! :) :)

  12. When my daughter was 3 we were taking a road trip with another lady who was a bit older. She asked Abby to sing a song for her and I’m sure she was expecting Jesus Loves Me or something like that. Instead my daughter busted out with The Story by Brandi Carlili.

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