Video

This may seem like child abuse to a certain fraction of you, but we don’t let Leta listen to music geared toward kids. Or I guess I should say we haven’t ever introduced it to her because we were afraid it would induce seizures and/or homicidal behavior in her parents. We get enough of the repetitive, seep-into-your-brain-and-rot-it-from-the-inside-out tunes in the television shows she watches. DORA I’M LOOKING DIRECTLY AT YOU.

If I say the word VAMANOS! I think I will trigger an unwelcome twitch in a certain percentage of you who have had to watch hour after hour of that little kid running around with her wretched monkey and talking map AND OH HEY I NEED THERAPY.

So she’s growing up listening to our music, and that means she hears a lot of Radiohead and Boards of Canada and lately a lot of Neko Case. And I recently purchased and am constantly playing the fantastic new Dinosaur Jr. album Farm, but she’s always going NO NO NO, THE OTHER SONG, THE OTHER SONG. And people, do you have any idea how many times we have had to listen to the other song? I don’t even have to break out my superpower here, you know the one, where I tear off my button-up shirt to reveal a golden H on my chest that stands for HYPERBOLE! And I run around labeling things THE ABSOLUTE WORST or THE BEST THAT EVER WAS and when I have to wait on the phone for customer support for ten whole minutes I’m all THEY MADE ME WAIT SO LONG I DIED FROM DEHYDRATION.

That kid loves Coldplay, specifically “Viva La Vida” and we listen to it all the time, every day. We’re listening to it right now. It is her favorite song, no other song compares, and she cannot stop her body from moving to its rhythm. Exhibit A, the child in her pajamas:

I know in some circles it is patently uncool to like Coldplay, and well, those certain circles can suck it. In fact I would have to say GIVE ME AN EFFING BREAK, and please go shave your ironic mustache. I grew up listening to Anne Murray, ABBA, and the Bee Gees, so I would say she’s already ahead of me. My only wish is that we can at some point move on to another song. I know, I know, it’s about as likely as her looking up from her bowl of black beans at dinner and saying, “This again?“