As I’ve mentioned before, our 10-year-old boy is a serial song obsessive. He’ll fall in love with a song, then spend the next week or two playing the same song as many as 30 times in a row, learning the lyrics and mimicking every nuance of the vocals. He’s not a big fan of long fadeouts, so his love affairs with The Rolling Stones‘ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and The Who‘s “Getting in Tune” would be cut short and the songs repeated as soon as the extended jams commenced. Once he’s moved onto a new song he will still circle back every few days with a favorite song from the past. Now that I think about it, it’s been some time since he’s started this practice. David Bowie‘s “Changes” was the first song that really caught his ear. This 2008 post developed out of repeated listens to that song.
Anyhow, our younger son lives among 3 other rock snobs. His ear is superb and his taste in music is generally strong, although now and then he does get turned onto Top 40 songs like Adele‘s “Rolling in the Deep” from his school friends. (We may have to consider home schooling…) Past the 15th spin of any song, be it a song I obsessed over as at his age, like The Band‘s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” or “Party Rock Anthem” (as I think it’s called), my wife, 15-year-old son, and I yell in unison: PUT YOUR HEADPHONES ON!
