My wife Alice and I have long made a habit of listening to music on long car trips. I’m not able to do any kind of work while in a moving car without becoming extremely sick, so if we are on a long trip, me not driving is incredibly boring for me. Alice, however, can knit, sew, edit documents, you name it. If there were an oven in my car, I’m convinced she could easily make a pizza from scratch in the car with no negative outcomes. So I usually drive, and she usually gets some work done. Still boring for me, but less so. So I typically put on some music, or lately, a podcast to listen to while we drive.
In the past, the kids didn’t really have an opinion one way or another about the music I listen to. But recently that’s changed. They saw Frozen. And one day, during our last major car trip, I put the soundtrack to Frozen on. They know it’s from Frozen, and they know the song Let It Go. I was actually quite proud of myself. My thought process was something like, “look how awesome and smart I am – I found something that calmed the kids down!”
But once they knew I had the song on my phone, they started requesting it. The song wouldn’t even be over quite yet, and the next words out of their mouth would be, “MORE LET IT GO.” Fortunately the soundtrack has two versions of the song on it – both the Demi Lovato version and the Idina Menzel version from the film. So we alternated between those songs a bit, and then I started slipping in other songs to try and break up the monotony.
I even realized (through searching my music library for Let It Go) that I have two other songs called Let It Go in my library – one is a song by Gavin Degraw, and another is a song by Blue October. The funny thing is the kids didn’t really seem to notice or care at first. But when it got to the chorus of each of those songs, and the singer sang those three words – oh boy. “WRONG LET IT GO DADDY. CHANGE SONG.”
Now understand, I love the soundtrack to Frozen – the whole thing, actually. I don’t have it in my music library because of the kids, specifically. But too much repetition of one song, any song, no matter how much I like it, and I get a bit tired of it. We’ve listened to it enough that the kids can actually sing most of it pretty well at this point – how many kids do you know who know the word fractal at less than three years old?
So my clever plan to placate the children a bit on long car rides has backfired. It’s become an obsession – it’s all they want to hear. They’ve started requesting it at home, too. Which leads me to where I am now, with the song on continuous repeat in my head all day, and me desperately wishing my kids my kids would…
Let It Go, Let It Go
Don’t Make Me Play It Anymore
Let It Go, Let It Go
Turn It Off Forevermore…