I Don't Like That Music

As Owen has become more verbose, his likes and dislikes are becoming less obvious. By less obvious, I mean he used to give us an emphatic foot stomp and "NOOOOO!" for things he didn't like. Stuff he likes gets an emphatic foot stomp and "NOOOOO!" when you take the item away or stop the fun activity. Now, he'll actually just tell us if he doesn't like something most of the time.

This is definitely the case with music. As soon as we get in the car, he wants the music turned up and either listens along happily or announces "I don't like that music." His taste is pretty limited so far, BIG fan of Veggie Tales songs and James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)." Everything else is "I don't like that music," stated over and over again until you skip to the next song for another "I don't like that music," or you ignore him. He even hates "Real Gone" by Sheryl Crow, the song they used for the opening credits of the movie Cars. If you were not aware, Cars is the greatest movie in the history of movies to all who are 3 feet tall and male.

I kind of ignored all this, until I started playing my 80s playlist off iTunes one afternoon. Fantastic stuff, some A-Ha, Duran Duran, Men at Work, Rick Springfield. And of course, Europe's "The Final Countdown." If you made a request that "The Final Countdown" be played at your funeral, I will rock out to it with air guitar. Don't blame me, you requested the song, you would have wanted it that way. But Owen hates the '80s. He wanted them off the speakers as soon as possible and almost threw a tantrum over it.

So I tried the Beatles. Magical Mystery Tour, Abbey Road, The White Album, A Hard Day's Night (just in case he prefers the early sober Beatles over the...medicated ones). No, no, no, and no. Ugh, this is not my kid.

Maybe he's got some weird musical tastes so I decided to bust out some of my different loves. A little Irish/Celtic music because who doesn't like a happy jig or a drinking song with innuendo? Apparently Owen AND his mother don't like jigs and/or bawdy drinking songs. Some Classic Rock, like the Stones, Zeppelin, ZZ Top. "I don't like that music." He doesn't like the Oldies, Classical, Jazz, Funk, or Crooners. I know he's not some Emo kid, so Alternative stuff like R.E.M. and Dave Matthews is right out.

If you're thinking The Wiggles, a Rebecca Black, or a Justin Bieber type since he is, technically, a kid, stop it. Just stop it. I consider it bad parenting at best and child abuse at worst to let Bieber into my home and I will cut him out of the will if he ever pushes play on an autotuned song.

For now, I think I'm stuck listening to Veggie Tales and James Brown on a loop. The really cool thing about hearing "I Feel Good" all the time is that he's started to sing along with it. But not the whole song, only one section with the horn licks, "SO GOOD! Buh buh buh bum, BUUUUUUUMMMMMMM!!!!!!!" It's pretty entertaining to listen to him sing along with the Godfather of Soul and I kind of think he's got the creative genius of an Andy Kaufman by just picking one part of the song to sing. We'll have to work on some of JB's other hits, like "Get Up Offa That Thing," "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag," and "Sex Machine." His Mom's going to love that last one.

CK