One of the things I miss about life pre-kids is blasting music in the car while I drive. We have never done the kid-music thing — they can have all they want of it at school — but some music is no longer appropriate for my listening kids.
For example, the boys like The Who. As in The “…who the fuck are you? …” Who. Awesome tune, but I can’t keep having a coughing fit at that point in the song. They are bound to figure it out sooner or later.
Right now I’ve got the Gipsy Kings playing in the car. The boys love it, and all the lyrics are in Spanish! But again, short term solution to a long term problem.
I’ve tried searching for the ‘radio version’ of songs on iTunes — that is what I want. I know you can get de-Explicited versions, but that seems to only be for current hits. I’ve never seen that for older stuff.
So what’s a gal to do? On the short drive from my office to preschool last Friday I got to hear “Dirty Deeds” and “Piece of My Heart” — hell, Janis could sing. And I was joining in as I cruised into the school lot.
And then the party was over. So now what? What do you all do? Do you just listen to what you want to and then deal with your kids saying “Who the fuck are you?” to their teacher? There’s got to be a better way.
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Yeah, blasting music — and driving fast! Oh, how I miss it. What’s the use of having 297 horsepower and a sunroof?
We have music on all the time, in the car, at home, etc. When it’s constant, it just becomes “white-noise” and my son doesn’t really notice. But because he does perk up to certain music (red hot chili peppers and green day, neither with lyrics 100% pre-schooler safe) we try to stay prepared, especially when the words “stupid” and “shut up” are punishable by death in our home. We still tell him it’s not appropriate so that he knows what is and what isn’t, but we have to understand that at some point, he’s going to hear it (and say it) at some point in his life.
If you want safety music, pick up Kids Bop, as that will give you the latest hits watered down to a G-rating.
Right now we’re digging the All-American Rejects-check out “Dirty Little Secret”. The kids head-bang in their car seats to it.
And I don’t need music to teach my kids the f-word. Yes, I AM the Queen… But seriously, I’m working on replacing certain choice words with “fudge” or “fudgie pops” (makes the kids laugh), “shoot”, “freakin’ people”, “goshdarnit”. Now I need a replacement for “Jesus Christ” and “stupid”-apparently there are no safe bad words for me anymore.
Ditto – The Pretenders: “Not me baby, I’m too precious, F*ck off!”
Um, no. Not happening any time soon.
Damselfly, my minivan has a sunroof. Somehow that just seems sad!
DD, unfortunately my kids like to listen to the words of every song, ask me what each song means, and get straight the words they don’t understand. And I think kidzbop might make my ears bleed. See, I’m difficult!
Flo — my kids head-bang too. I think it is just about the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my rear view mirror. And I feel you on the swearing issue. There is nothing as satisfying as a good “FUCK!” — hmmm, that came out differently than I expected…
Jessica, Where’s the version of all these great songs that they play on the radio? Why can’t we buy that? I don’t understand it at all. There would be such a huge market for it!
Kids Bop makes my ears bleed, too. That made the gift of his own personal CD player with ear buds that much more enjoyable for everyone!
He likes to hear all the words, too. I’m grateful for now that he seems to have a serious (and probably hereditarily chronic) case of what I call “lyricsitosis”.
Adams current fave is The Scissor Sisters…screams out ‘I’m gonna take my momma out all night’ at the top of his lungs.
We try to play the ‘bad’ stuff only when the kids are NOT in the car.
When we last had a date night we sat in the car and listened to some ‘oldie’ where the words ‘fuck’ were used a lot and just giggled like school kids.
The kids might not always GET what the words are. For example, I heard one mom wrote in to KFOG to say that her kid always listened to the 5 pm song on Friday, I Smoked Two Joints, but he asked his mom: Who is Joyce, and why does he keep speaking to her?