Humor: Have electric guitar, will torture

Have electric guitar, will torture

It had to happen some time, I guess. My seven-and-a-half-year-old son Jack has discovered what he thinks is the coolest FM channel on our car radio.

Hey, I have always liked listening to music while driving the car.

But not the kind of stuff this station plays. I like music I know. I like to sing along to classic rock and blues. Eric Clapton. Van Morrison. Neil Young. Heck, I have even been known, in Jack's younger days, to sing along to Bananas in Pyjamas, complete with hand movements (which is not easy when you are driving) or Hello, Mr Whiskers.

But this station, Triple J, which, from what I can gather, is run by and for young people, plays absolutely NOTHING I have ever heard before. Sometimes it even plays cover versions of songs I have never heard before.

No, I correct that. I did hear Pretty Vacant by the Sex Pistols the other day, which gave me a very faint sense of belonging. I have been called a punk (with a silent 's').

But I definitely cannot sing along to most of it. The station plays music, possibly backwards, that makes my tooth fillings jangle, with lyrics that make me think: "What the heck is he/she saying?" and I find it so disagreeable that I wonder if I will ever hear the song again.
It is sooooooo hard to tell if I eventually do because, to my ear, they all sound so much alike: awful.
But perhaps I do because Jack often says, "Oh, I really like this one," and he only ever listens to Triple J when he is in the car alone with me. When my wife Katherine is in the car, the radio is rarely on and never, ever on Triple J.

"Jack, what's wrong with 106.4?" I say in protest as Jack hits the button for "his" station.

"Oh daaaaaaaad," he sighs.

I interpret this to mean he thinks I have become an old fuddy-duddy who has been overtaken by the dreaded generation gap.

This is not true.

It is just that I want better for him. In my youth, we had sensible songs with sensible, deep and meaningful lyrics like "do-wah-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy-do" and "bip bop a lulu, she's my baby."

My father, for some reason used to call it, with disparaging tones, that "ya-ya" music.

"What's wrong with Bing Crosby and Perry Como?" he used to ask.

Sometimes, for good measure, he'd call me a long-haired lout.

"Oh daaaaaaaaad," I used to say in reply.

I guess it will be different in 10 years when Jack gets a driver's licence and insists on taking the wheel.

I am looking quite forward to reclaiming the radio controls.

I only hope my eardrums are still in tact and I can still harmonise with the Eagles and the Beatles.

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it