When Paige was 7 years old I told her that when she turned 14 I would no longer censor her music. Censorship basically meant that I didn’t let her  listen to anything too explicit or offensive to women. Or basically, shit that I didn’t want to listen to in the car while I was driving her around.

Back then making her wait 7 years seemed like an eternity, but it sure got here in a hurry. As soon as she turned 14 the first thing she said was, “NOW I GET TO LISTEN TO WHATEVER I WANT.” I had no idea that she had been patiently looking forward to her birthday precisely for that reason. Just another notch on the “neener neener, I’m becoming an independent person” post.

In order to make commuting in the car together more enjoyable, I decided to create an iTunes playlist where we both contribute songs to the mix. Surprisingly, this has been an amazing bonding point for the two of us. This is what I call “accidental genius.”

It all started with Hey Jude. You may have heard of that Beatles song. She would listen to it over and over again thinking that the Beatles was some sort of one hit wonder like Barry Mann or Billie Ray Cyrus. That’s when I started introducing her to the entire Beatles’ catalog. And where she was just AMAZED, amazed and dumbfounded that one band could come up with so many great songs and original music. In the day of remakes and sampling, it was almost unfathomable to her.

Since that day, she’s been adding to the playlist and I round out the mix with songs from the wayback machine that I think she might like. Sometimes I give her a musical history lesson. For instance, until recently, she had no idea that the Beastie Boys are Jewish boys from Brooklyn. Or that Reverend Run was the same guy on Run’s House. You should have seen her face when she saw before and after pictures of Lauryn Hill.

Sometimes she schools me on her musical repertoire too. Who knew she new all the lyrics to most of Johnny Cash’s hits? Or that she loves the Doors? And Bob Marley? She even introduces me to music like Estelle or Lupe Fiasco (For the longest time I thought Lupe Fiasco was a Latino rapper. He’s not.) I love it.

Here’s a samplin’ of what we were listening to on the way to the mall yesterday while stuck 3 miles behind a car accident with no where to exit. Oh yeah, it was snowing too.

30 Seconds to Mars: The Kill (yes, that is Jared Leto)

Atmosphere: Guns & Cigarettes

Beatles: Don’t Let Me Down, Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds, Strawberry Fields Forever, Come Together, Revolution, etc, etc, etc.

Britney Spears: Hit Me Baby One More Time, Womanizer, Circus

Cake: Going the Distance, I Will Survive

Coldplay:  Viva la Vida and various songs from all three CDs

Death Cab for Cutie: Soul Meets Body

DJ Kool: Let me Clear My Throat

Doors: Touch Me, Peace Frog

Eminem: Real Slim Shady, Mockingbird, Stan

Jack Johnson: Sitting Waiting Wishing, Better Together

Jay-Z Unplugged Live: This is the best.

Kerli Koliv: Walking On Air

Little Jackie: The Stoop

Lupe Fiasco: Kick Push, Superstar, Daydreaming

MGMT: Electric Feel, Time to Pretend, Kids

Mika: Relax, Take It Easy

The Killers: Mr. Brightside

And on and on …. can you guess whose songs belong to whom?

I hate to say it, but I am a Britney Spears rubbernecker. I can’t help myself. Forget Christina. Forget P!nk. Nevermind Madonna even. Miss Britney’s popcandy is what keeps my legs moving at the gym and consequently I have developed an affection for her music and yes, for her too.

Now y’all may be laughing at me, but hear me out. Seriously. Britney Spears totally took one for the team. The mom team. Who hasn’t looked at their sweet child and then had thoughts of running off, doing drugs and shaving their head? Who hasn’t fallen for the wrong guy and then paid the consequences for it? You can’t tell me that you’ve NEVER worn an outfit that was completely unflattering (if you contest this one, you must not have lived during the 80′s).

I just think that it’s easy to judge. I know that I have been this close saying damnitall and instead of going grocery shopping, I have fantasized about going on a bourbon binge and having gratuitous sex with young bartender(s) who smoke cigarettes and have tattoos on their arms … in Brazil. The only thing different is that Britney just acts out all those impulses (and that she is an international pop starlet who could roll in money all day if she wanted to).

There was a time in my life when I was single and drinking up a huge storm every time Paige went to her father’s house. I felt as though that during this respite I could have some semblance of a “normal” 20-something life for a day or two a week. Except it wasn’t normal to drink that much. In fact, my friends had to have a firm but gentle intervention that basically went something along the lines of, “Baby, that ain’t flattering.”

Nowadays I’ve shifted to the otherside of the paradigm. I don’t think I drink enough. Correction, I am not carefree enough (carefree has traditionally been massaged out of me with a little bourbon neat). As you all know I am working on those changes but feel the need to take massive action. I think I need to launch a comeback.

Bring it on 2009.

When I was 14, I was listening to Ministry and Skinny Puppy and I can tell you that I was into all sorts of no good back then. Innocent were the days when  Jermain Stewart (you don’t have to take your clothes off to have a good time!) and The Jets (I have a crush on you!) were blaring from my record player.  Of course, at that point I was still playing with plastic horses and was reading “Sweet Valley High” books.

And yes, I did mean record player.

As I recall, my life took a dramatic turn at a certain point and the soundtrack to my life switched to Depeche Mode, Violent Femmes, The Yaz and so on.  What I call my “gateway” musical period.  Everyone else was listening to Motley Crue and Van Halen and if you didn’t listen to that, you were an outcast.  Male or female, straight or gay … you were a “faggot”.  But I pretty much didn’t care.

Other snippets of music infused memory include:

Cindy Lauper: “True Colors” - First slow dance with Sean the Mormon (7th Grade).
Belinda Carlisle: “Circle In The Sand” – First slow dance with Chad the sk8ter (8th Grade).
Depeche Mode: “But Not Tonight” – Sneaking out of the house for the first time with Paula (9th).
The Cure: “Close To Me” – Listening to this song when I got in my first car accident (incidentally with Paula) where we flew a Toyota 4 Runner off of a cliff.
Simon & Garfunkel Catalog: Summer of love 1990 … “Eugene Green!”
Charlatan’s UK: “The Only One I Know” – Played every morning for 99,000 days straight by my first live-in boyfriend and he ruined the song for me.

(I could go on and on – going back to the year MJ’s Thriller hit the billboard charts.)

So when the music that blares out of your kid’s room goes from say, Flo-Rida to Bob Marley, as a parent you start to think:  Why is her soundtrack different?  What’s changed?  Then your mind starts to wander into dangerous “paranoid parent” mode.  CALL ME IRRATIONAL, but when I think of Bob Marley this image conjures up in my head:

You know I’m right.  You see it too.

So like any parent, I am just praying that Paige is just a Bob Marley lover because she is a lover of music. But even if it means something different, I can handle it.  She and I can make it through just about anything okay, unless I start hearing this from her bedroom:

Then I just really won’t know what to do.

You may think I am paranoid, but I am really beginning to think that she thinks it’s her job to make me feel like an old hag.

Me: Why do you keep doing that when I tell you not to do that?

Paige: Duh. Because it’s my job to make you feel all old and shriveled up inside.

But once in a while, when it’s really late at night and no one is looking, Paige will crawl into bed with me and we will watch vintage Beastie Boys videos on Youtube.  And then she’ll say something like,

“Please mommy, tell me that story about the three Jewish guys from New York who formed a rap band again.  Pretty please.”

And for one brief second, she actually realizes that it was me who heard the song first, not her.  And for one really small moment in time she knows that I know more than she does.

But she never admits it.

Paige:  “Have you heard that song called, Tricky?”

Me:  “You mean the one by Run DMC?”

Paige:  “Who?”

Me:  “Run DMC.  It’s tricky to rock around, to rock around …”

Paige:  “I LOVE THAT SONG.”

Me:  “That song came out when I was a kid.”

Paige:  “REALLY?”

Me:  “Yeah, Reverend Run is that dad on the show Run’s House.”

Paige:  “Nuh-uh.  I LOVE that show.”

Me:  “Yeah, he’s the RUN in RUN DMC.”

Paige:  “Weird.”