The last true democracy: Songs in the car

Our kids will argue about anything. But when I plug in the aux cord and we take turns picking songs in the car, all seems right with the world.

Photo by Dave Weatherall on Unsplash

Do you remember sitting for long stretches, maybe even hours, listening to a radio station and hoping that they played your favorite new song (or at least one of them)?

Are you of the age and inclination that not only did you wait for these songs, but you were ready with your AM/FM radio/cassette deck to dub the song onto a tape, so that you could repeatedly listen to it until the tape wore out? (Bonus points if you’ve ever spliced an irreplaceable cassette back together again with Scotch tape).

I remember this. My wife remembers this. Our children have no idea.

They know how to shout “Alexa, play (whatever song they want),” and that it will almost always play right away. (They also USUALLY know that we don’t say “yes” to the upgrades that Alexa tries to sell us, something they learned the hard way when we had to talk to them about some surprising Amazon charges).

And they know that if we are riding in the car, they can again listen to any song they want, whenever they want it, through the magic of the aux cord.

I plug it into my phone, and the full catalog of any music service is right there – ready to blast through the decidedly decent speakers of our Subaru. It is the perfect way to defuse disputes and set the mood, particularly if it’s just me and the three kids in the car.

Sometimes they ask to see the phone so they can watch the associated video (if we’re watching on YouTube), but sometimes the cord doesn’t stretch far enough.

Sometimes there’s inequity over who gets to hold the phone and get not just control but the best viewing angle.

Sometimes a small finger presses a button by accident and the song disappears and an advertisement starts to play.

These are the things that need to be sorted out far ahead of time because when used properly, the aux cord is our last true beacon of democracy.

Our kids, like the vast majority of the American population, can argue about anything. At the heart of most arguments is fairness.

Did one of them get – or at least appear to get – fewer crackers in a snack bowl? Instant argument, like a bunch of bored adults fighting on social media about the best condiments or 1980s movies.

Was it someone’s turn to put the potatoes in the grocery cart, and then their sibling jumped ahead and grabbed them instead? Things could get ugly. We will leave Trader Joe’s right now, I have said in a hushed threat, to limited effect. Dad, we would love nothing more than that.

But with the aux cord, the spirit of cooperation comes shining through. It’s a simple rotation. One of them gets to pick a song. Then we work our way through everyone in the car until it’s back to the first person. They can even quickly agree on an order, as long as we start with the baseline understanding that my choice is dead last (if it ever comes at all, depending on the length of the trip).

Our 9-year-old gravitates toward fairly standard pop music, often with female voices, so there is definitely a lot of Taylor Swift. And yes, the only reason she was even remotely interested in the Super Bowl was the Taylor and Travis romance.

Our 7-year-old likes good beats and a lot of drama. She wants to be a singer, and she is already writing songs in her head that she sings to us in the car. Some of them have incredibly nuanced lyrics, and sometimes she just surprises us with lines like “You are like my little macaroni.”

I don’t know what it means, but I like it.

Her musical taste is the most developed, I would say, or at least the most eclectic. And she WANTS to see the kiss in the music video, while the 9-year-old shouts BLEH and recoils.

Our 4-year-old just started having real opinions about music. He really likes Imagine Dragons and Fallout Boy, and basically any time he picks it will be one of a handful of songs by one of those two bands. If he gets a second turn on a given ride, it’s not uncommon for him to pick the exact same song that he chose the first time.

But hey, he likes what he likes.

And I’m always the one with the dilemma, with decades of rich musical history from which to choose. Should I … play a song that I really want to hear but that I know none of the kids will like … play a song that I sort of like and I know the kids like … or try to impress everyone with a song that I like AND that I hope they will like.

It’s easiest if I’m in the mood for one of the compromise songs. “Lavender Haze” by Taylor Swift is a jam and a crowd pleaser — by far my favorite of her songs.

Same with “Can’t Feel My Face” by The Weeknd, which also happens to be the best song from the soundtrack of the children’s movie Sing 2 that may or may not be about doing cocaine.

But that’s not much fun, right? We need to challenge these kids. They can’t always have exactly what they want, and they need their musical horizons to be broadened.

Recent scene: We’re about to leave a store, and it’s my turn. I have full control. Before shifting into reverse, I take a chance and press play.

They know they haven’t heard this song before, and immediately they groan. It’s by an indie band that, frankly, I probably love 10 times more than anyone in this universe. I’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to get a lot more people to like this band. But maybe there’s a non-zero chance they will be impressed and like it?

“Why is he singing like that?” the 9-year-old asks.

“I don’t know,” I reply, earnestly, glad that she is listening. “I think he’s sad.”

She thinks for a moment.

“He’s probably sad because his music is terrible,” she replies, leaving me with third degree burns.

I get it, though.

I didn’t like a lot of the music my parents listened to when I was growing up, and I know at least my dad tried in vain to impress me with the things he liked. We found common ground in the legends of pop and rock – most notably The Beatles and Led Zeppelin.

We can’t force our kids to like the things we like. It has to happen organically, and we can’t be disappointed when it doesn’t happen.

But we can be excited in those rare cases when it does.

Recently, it was just my son and I in the car. I really wanted to hear a song by Tool, a band I hadn’t listened to in years, so I plugged it in at the start of our drive and cranked it.

All the sudden, I saw his tiny head bopping up and down in his car seat.

“This song is GOOD!” he exclaimed.

Damn right it is, son. Because your dad is COOL and likes COOL THINGS. He has even subsequently requested that when it’s my turn, I play songs by “The Tools.”

Close enough.

And hey, while we’re on a roll: How about Queens Of The Stone Age? I queue up I Sat By The Ocean, a certified banger.

He mulls it for a minute as it plays and then simply says, “I don’t like this song.”

Shh. It will be your turn soon enough.