For about the last 10 years, I have become an avid fan of country music. But if you had asked me my opinion of country music growing up, I would have rolled my eyes and grunted in disgust.
I remember being on a family road trip – I must have been around 14 and my sister Hilary was 17 – and Hilary and I had begged our parents to let us listen to “our radio station.” Sitting in the backseat, we were happy listening to those now classic 80″s tunes when my dad said to us, “Girls! This rock music is just a bunch of noise!!!”
We were confused. Hilary and I couldn’t understand why Mom and Dad didn’t like “our good music.” And Lord knows, we surely didn’t want Glenn Yarbrough or Jim Croce to get put in the tape deck.
Fast forward to last week. I was working outside on yet another B that I picked up at the flea market. The kids had just gotten off the bus, and they were acting as my helpers, when Caroline started quietly singing a song that she heard on the radio while on the bus.
Apparently the song is called “Uptown Funk” yet when she was singing it, I didn’t hear that – I heard something else.
My head spun around so quickly, that I had to have given myself whiplash.
Me: “Child!! What did you just sing?”
C: “It’s a song by Bruno Mars, Mommy. It’s called ‘Uptown Funk.'”
Me: “Can you spell that for me? There’s an ‘n’ in there, yes?”
C: “yes”
Me: “Where’d you hear that song?”
C: “On the bus.”
And then Mac chimes in: “I hear it on my bus too. I like that song.”
Me: “Kids, that music you hear on your bus is just a bunch of noise!”
It was at that moment, when I was spray-mounting the last flower on the B, where I thought of my Dad, and remembered him saying those words to Hilary and I. I stepped back and had to smile. Now I know where my dad was coming from. Rock music has now shown my age.
I have grown accustomed to slower music. A whole lot of country, and maybe, just maybe, a smidgin of rock and roll.
And now, to me, Jim Croce isn’t all that bad…