Snooping Through Lyrics

I can't believe how much easier it is with my boy Nick now that I'm not quite the big crabby menopausal bitch that I was. I feel calmer with him, happier, able to let go of order when it is obvious that chaos and teenagers go together like hamburgers and French fries, Diet Coke and York peppermint patties, tomatoes and basil. I wanted to say Simon and Garfunkel, but that would have dated me. So would Seals and Croft. What about Jerry and Elaine? Yup.

Oh, I am getting old. And I'm tired.

Teddy is asking if I'll go to bed so he can trade in that warm spot on the carpet for his own bed at the foot of mine. Sorry, hon. I know I should go, but I can't. Not yet.

I've been listening to music with Nick in the car. Some of it is quite good. I was worried there for a while. I thought Nick would never connect with music. Finally, he's daydreaming to it the way I was sure he needed to in order to survive puberty. We listen in the car together on the way home from karate and on the way to school. Sometimes I ask him, during commercials, whether or not he likes the song he just heard. There are no lectures, thankfully. Yes, even I get sick of my own lectures. Music doesn't need that. It's either a balm, a release, an alignment, or we change the station. Tonight, he wrote down a list of his new favorite songs so he can load them onto his iPod. He says he can't find his charger for his iPod, but it'll turn up. He'll get it set up. People, this is the music that will be playing in elevators in the year 2043. Listen up.

Rockin Beats by Chemical Brothers
Centuries by Fall Out Boy 'I could scream forever, we are the poisoned youth'
Happy Idiot by TV on the Radio 'I'm going to bang my head to the wall 'til I feel nothing at all'
Titanium by David Guetta, 'shoot me down but I won't fall, I am titanium'
 Radioactive by Imagine Dragons
Pompeii by Bastille 'and the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we loved'

You know, I love listening to this stuff with Nick, but the lyrics to these songs are pretty intense. Oh forget it. I was young once. Sometimes I forget that. I listened to stuff that would have raised the hairs on the back of my mother's neck if she'd only listened to what the musicians were saying.

Pink Floyd said 'we don't need no thought control, no dark sarcasm in the class room.'
Black Sabbath said 'nobody wants him, he just stares at the world, planning his vengeance that he will soon unfurl.'
The Eagles sang 'you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.'
Elton John said 'think I'm going to kill myself, cause a little suicide.'

I don't know why but that last one was a personal favorite. If my mother had listened to the lyrics of that song, would she have wondered at the volume with which I sang? Would she have called the school counselor, tried to ban it from the radio, forbid me to listen? I don't think my mother had that much time or energy. I was the third child in a complicated life. Maybe that was a good thing. When I became a teenaged girl, I prayed not to get her attention most of the time. It must be hard for Nick, to be an only child. There hasn't been another place for our attention and he endures it.

So in an effort to let him grow unhindered, I'm going to ignore the lyrics to his new favorite songs. He needs me to give advice about managing his time sometimes. He needs a push to do chores and to get started on homework. He does not need me snooping through the lyrics to his favorite music.

Thank you for listening, jb