In the days before smartphones and iPods, before there was satellite radio, people who wanted to listen to music had two choices.
AM and FM.
Growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, especially in the car, most of us only had AM radio, and one thing was definite about that. If a song was popular enough, it would be played so many times that it would make even the person who performed it scream.
There are perfectly good songs from when I was in high school nearly 60 years ago, that when they come up, I turn them down or off.
Songs like “Satisfaction.”
I love Jimmy Buffett, but I wince when I’m listening to his music and “Margaritaville” comes on.
In September 1988, the last full month of my two years in Colorado, there was a song that seemed to be playing every 15 minutes or so. It was huge hit that reached the top of the Billboard chart, but I disliked it the first time I heard it.
“Don’t Worry, Be Happy” was the first a cappella song ever to reach No. 1, but there was a sing-songy quality to it that I just couldn’t bear.
Eventually it went away, though, and I wasn’t listening to radio stations that played it.
Cut to 1999.
My son Virgile was 14 and a true music lover. He was becoming an amazing saxophone player and would go on to college to study music before switching his major after two years. If you want to know how much it mattered to him, he told me that in those first two years of college, he practiced his sax up to eight hours a day.
Yes, he loved music.
So one evening in 1999, I was working on my computer when from his end of the house, I heard him listening to a song.
“Here’s a little song I wrote. You might want to sing it note for note. Don’t worry, be happy …”
My first reaction was that huh, I hadn’t heard that for a long time.
The song ended.
Then it started again.
Oh my.
The song ended.
Then it started again.
I pushed my chair back with the idea of walking to his end of the house and asking him to stop playing that song that I disliked so much.
I figured the choices were either that … or start screaming.
But I was a dad and about to celebrate my 50th birthday, so I paused and thought about it.
Here was my wonderful son, who generally had better taste in music than I do. He had never played any heavy metal or even “Who Let the Dogs Out.”
Mike, that song wasn’t released until 2000.
Well, he didn’t play it then either.
Anyway, age 14 is such a difficult one, and here he was listening over and over again to this goofy song about being happy. I sat back down and figured I could always buy earplugs for future sessions.
I never said a word about it.
It was one of my finer parenting moments, because sometimes when it comes to being a dad, less is definitely more.