As we drove to my in-law’s for Mother’s Day, Maria flipped around the radio to find something she wanted to hear. At one point, she got frustrated.
“What is this, Stevie Nicks Day?”
I should have sympathized her because we kept finding bad songs. There was only one problem – none of them were by Stevie Nicks.
Well, one of them was, but that was a long time before she made the comment. We both cracked up because pretty much every conversation we have about music sounds the same.
We have very different points of view when it comes to music. I immerse myself in the music I like. I don’t just know who sang the song, there’s a good chance I’ll know the name of the album and some piece of trivia about the band or the song.
Like when Maria correctly pointed out a Van Halen song, I immediately thought of how they skipped some lines in their version of Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman.” That fact just got trapped in my brain as a teenager.
Maria is just happy if she remembers who sings the song.
Usually, this difference manifests itself in a little game we like to call “Who Sings This?” We can entertain ourselves for hours in the car playing this game.
It doesn’t matter who starts the game. If I ask her the question, I brace myself for a pretty funny answer. If she asks me, I make her guess first.
The funniest part about the game is that she never deviates from her strategy. She has a few names she always guesses regardless of what song is playing.
She’ll throw out Boston and Led Zeppelin and the many variations of John Cougar Mellencamp. Even if I tell her it’s not him, she’ll guess one of his other monikers just for fun. She doesn’t really care if she’s right or not.
That’s how we got on the Stevie Nicks thing last week. She heard a female voice and just assigned it to Stevie Nicks when it was in fact Nancy Wilson of Heart. I wish I didn’t know that.
We can only play the game in Maria’s car since my satellite radio has a display to show the song and performer. That takes most of the fun out of the game.
Sometimes, she does forget to look at the display, so we get to have a fun game. I think she even keeps from looking at the display on purpose so we can play.
The good news about all this is that we now have an opportunity to educate Bridget. I don’t want my future son-in-law to think that I never taught my daughter the basics of rock-and-roll.
The other morning, Maria called to me upstairs to ask a very important question – who wrote “Blinded by the Light.”
I braced myself before I answered because I didn’t know if she really meant who wrote the song or who was playing the particular version which was on the radio at the time.
Undaunted, I went down and explained how Bruce Springsteen originally wrote and recorded the song, but the Manfred Mann Earth Band recorded the more popular version, which was the one that we heard that morning.
I don’t want to know all this stuff. I just do. Hopefully, my wife and daughter can use the knowledge for good, not evil.
Oh, we’ll address song lyrics at some point. I’m married to the woman who thought “10th Avenue Freezeout” was “10 devils who freeze dried” so I have my work cut out for me.
And, Chris, I hope when they asked who sang that song, you told them it was crap. 🙂
But you’re missing the most important thing–not who wrote “Blinded by the Light,” but what the lyrics really say. I know it’s not “wrapped up like a douche, you know, the roamer in the night.” But that’s what it sounds like.
Dave:
I need to feel superior to her in some way. Give me some credit.
Funny post. As my wife was driving back from Florida last week with our 22 y/o daughter, they called me at work with a very important question. They started singing “What’s Going On?” by 4 Non Blondes and wanted to know who sang it.
These are the things you’re supposed to learn before you marry her.
Didn’t Diner teach you anything?