We always have music on when we are in the car. I think most people do. For short trips I take daily I generally tune the radio to a local music station and then my brain sort of tunes out. Most of the time the music becomes almost a type of soundtrack in the background. I often am not really paying much attention to the song (as long as the song is not irritating).
Wednesday’s we take Sean to school. It is a relatively short trip so the radio is on. Meghan is always yapping about something (always with the chattering) but I noticed she was asking me something.
“Why are the diamonds on the ground? Why did he say they are melting? It must be hot.”
Huh? What? Oh, Matchbox 20 is on the radio. Huh. She really listens to the lyrics.
I mentioned to Ryan that night that we will need to be more careful about what we listen to because she is picking up everything.
Fast-forward to the next day. We are (always) in the car running errands. And, once again, I hear questions coming from the back seat.
Meghan: “What’s a disco stick?”
Me: (oh, crap)
Meghan: “It must be some kind of ride. Like a merry-go-round!”
Me: “Um, sure, it must be.”
*************************************************
So now I am creating a “preschool friendly” playlist. At least with mp3s this task is much easier than it would have been in the past. I can remember wanting to watch Flashdance sooooo bad when I was younger. My parents, obviously, had other ideas. But, they tried to censor the movie themselves so I could watch it. One night they sat there while the movie was playing on cable, recording it on the VCR, and hitting the pause button whenever they thought something objectionable was about to happen. Sure, this may not have been to difficult for skipping a scene. However, they also tried to remove the profanity. Yea, not so easy. Also? Makes the conversation a bit choppy and jokes are missing punch lines.
As I go through my road trip playlist there are some obvious songs that should be probably be removed. Examples*:
I Wanna Sex You Up – Color Me Bad (Shut up. There is no judging here.)
The list goes on….
And what about songs sprinkled here and there with un-kiddy-like language? Sure, anything marked “Explicit” in iTunes is easy enough to find. But, I also have many, many, many songs that came from our CD collection. Most I don’t even remember having a curse word in it until I hear it again. I can’t even remember what is wrong with some songs marked explicit. Why is Raspberry Beret marked that way? I can’t remember anything in there.
Clearly this is going to take some time. But it is worth it to not have to listen to five hours worth of Backyardigans songs.
And, just because I have this song stuck in my head, here is something for your viewing pleasure.
* I’m realizing that some people may cringe when reading the list of songs up there. All I can say is that the songs listed here in no way represent our entire mp3 collection. No really. I promise.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment