We Will Rock You

I think one of the most profound joys of parenting is introducing my young sons to new things for the first time. It's a reminder to me of many seemingly simple experiences in life are, when you step back and consider them, profoundly good. I find myself giving them some new food, saying, "This is cinnamon toast. It's one of the best things ever!" or "Here, these are your great-grandmother's green beans. They are among the best things on the whole planet." And the best part is, I'm not lying or exaggerating in any way; these small things we do daily, these perfectly ordinary experiences is where so much of the joy of life is contained.

Now that they are getting close to two years old, new experiences are coming at them every minute; not only are Hanna and I showing them new things all the time, but so are their grandparents, the day care, and family friends. When they were infants, however, I basically had complete control over what they were exposed to, and when. This weighed on me as an expectant father; here I was, responsible for their first exposure to, well, everything. One thing that I found particularly oppressive was their first exposure to music. When Hanna was pregnant, I'd drive her back from her checkups every few weeks, knowing that the time was coming when I'd be making that same drive with my new sons. And the thing that I kept thinking over and over was, "When they are in this car for the first time, what's going to be in the CD player?"

At the hospital where Duncan and Tristan were born, you'd hear Brahms' Lullaby every or hour or so gently over the PA system. The birthing wing had this whole setup where new fathers would help wash, dress, and start caring for their new child, and part of this process was getting to press a button playing that bit of classical music to announce the birth to the world. (I suspect a lot of this is really just to get new, clueless fathers out of the way while the mothers continued to receive care and much-needed rest.)

This ritual was for uncomplicated, textbook births, however. Since our boys' entrance into the world was not routine, there was no Brahms for them (In fact, Duncan and Tristan didn't leave the hospital for several weeks after they were born.) So, while they laid in the NICU and gained weight, I stayed up at night combing through my album collection, trying to figure out what to play my new sons on their ride home. At one point, I joked to my family that I should play Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine," since the babies were attached to all manner of monitors and feeding tubes when they were first born, making them appear (at least, to a sci-fi nerd like me) to be part of the Borg collective. My mom didn't care for my humor, however; seeing the kids trussed up like that made her sad and worried.

So, no Floyd. But, what, then? Perhaps, I thought, their first music should inspire them in some way. These are my sons, it's my job not only to help them grow into men, but to teach them to be gentlemen. I want my sons to fight for causes they see as just, to grow strong and brave enough to stare at whatever challenges life throws at them, grin right back, and say, "Bring it." Thinking along these lines, I thumbed through my iTunes library. Do I hit them with Queensryche's "Take Hold of the Flame" ("Throw down the chains of oppression that bind you/With the air of freedom the flame grows bright")? Or maybe I should try to inspire them with something like "Land of Confusion" by Genesis:

This is the world we live in,
And these are the hands we're given.
Use them and let's start trying,
To make it a place worth fighting for.

Or, if I wanted to move away from the progressive rock, I could play them some darkwave:

The lips draw words
And hands find actions
Still there is more within one heart
And to the silence, will you answer?
Before the chaos, will you come?

Do not injustice to another
Defend the weak & innocent
May truth & honor always guide you
Let courage find a life within

Or really, I thought, if I want to inspire them to change the world, I could blast them with any number of things from Rage Against the Machine: "Ghost of Tom Joad," "Testify", or "No Shelter". I could give them some James McMurtry. Or maybe I should simply give them something like Black Sabbath's "War Pigs", exposing them at the same time to the grandfathers of all heavy metal and an unsubtle commentary on the follies of the world.

This idea appealed to me for a while; my iTunes library is full of dark, angst-ridden, melodramatic music. Hanna makes fun of me for this, and so do many of my friends. I don't care, however; I've always drawn inspiration from music, and that's something I want to share with my sons. Of course, as much I might want to use music as a vehicle to push my socio-political agenda to my newborn children, I reasoned that it shouldn't be my only concern. After all, humans have created so much amazing music during our time, it's also my duty to share what is the best of humanity. But what to pick? Mozart? Hendrix? Bach? Led Zeppelin? Dvorak? Zappa? BB King? Rush? I had a hard time even picking a genre; should I share with them the bluegrass and folk that is their cultural inheritance, or do I share them something out of all of the rock and metal I have rated as five stars in my personal library? Should their first music be a piece of reverent classical music, or the unabashed fun of something like the B-52s? And what about jazz, funk, or blues? Should I play them something uplifting, or something to help prepare them for the faults of the world that they have been born into?

In the end, I ruled out anything with lyrics; this cut out a huge swath of music, making my decision somewhat easier. Besides, I reasoned, it would be months before they would start to pick up on language, and while it was fun to think of giving my children some subliminal impression, some line from a song that would come back to them decades later when they most needed it, I didn't think it would actually work that way. Music, more than anything, is a means of conveying emotion: love, rage, lust, playfulness, or just rocking out.

It was that last bit that finally helped me decide. Looking at my tiny, sleeping, peaceful babies, even I found myself wanting to care and protect them. There would be plenty of time for raging against the injustices of the world; when your age is most easily measured in days, perhaps you can be spared songs of great social and political import. However, I kept coming back to that feeling of "rocking out" -- that emotion that defies capture by words, the reason so much rock and roll is written about rock and roll. I wanted to convey that to my young charges.

In the end, I chose a combination of two of my favorite genres; rock and classical. Tristan came home listening to "Stairway to Heaven" as performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Duncan came home a few days later, listening to "When the Levee Breaks", also on that disc. Both tracks have the precision and complexity I love about classical music, while retaining the soul of rock and roll.

Both babies also slept through the entirety of their trips home, a doting mother beside them. Perhaps all my worrying was for nothing, the only result some new playlists in iTunes while I was trying to decide. But you know what? Both boys sign "music!" whenever they see my guitar case. And sometimes, on the rare occasions I find myself alone with the boys in the car, I crank up Metallica; and when I do, I can look in my rear-view mirror and see two small toddlers grinning from ear to ear in the back seat. Rock on, boys. Rock on.