Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music

Part of Brighton Pier

Father and son. The open road ahead of us and Brighton the destination. Father and son. Cruising down the M25 after staying behind in London on our own for a couple of days before re-joining my wife and daughter in the coastal city. Depending on your approach to parenting and who does most of it, you might have added the phrase “to our own devices” in the previous sentence, ideas of haplessness and clumsiness circling your head, a snarky joke ready to slip out of your lips, images of dad and mini-version of dad having an Indian takeaway, pizza or some other “easy” food. Or you might have thought of a father and son working together on various chores around the house and relaxing at the end of the day with a good film and some proper grub, cooked by the two of them. Tarkovsky accompanied by a curry (made from scratch).

We had pizza the night before we went to Brighton.

We also watched Airplane.

We also did various chores around the house such as cleaning the patio, mowing the lawn and ironing clothes. Airplane was my decision, part of what I believe to be my older one’s general education. It’s a classic that has stood the test of time, although I must admit that a couple of times the film made me cringe a bit. I don’t think that many of the jokes would be allowed nowadays in our more politically correct world. My boy enjoyed the movie, though. He laughed his head off. The icing on the cake was a CD I had made earlier on during the day for our trip to Brighton together the next morning.

The idea was simple. I asked my son to bring a couple of CDs of his to play in the car and I would choose two or three from my collection to share with him. We would play DJ to each other. I like a lot of the music he plays (mostly rock nowadays) but he is not acquainted with my broad musical taste. Focusing mainly on rock, but of a bluesy, funky, reggae and pop nature, I was planning to introduce him to some classics.

I could not remember when I had last driven to Brighton (I think I had done it only once before) and being a bank holiday weekend the journey could be two hours or four. We set off mid-morning.

There was only a little hiccup and that was that none of my son’s CDs played on the car stereo. Maybe because of the fact they were burned and not original ready-made. Strangely, though, one of mine (burned, too) did play. That was enough, though. The boy was entranced by the music coming out of the speakers and I could feel it. If you are the parent of teenagers you will be aware of their occasional awkward silences and lack of expressiveness. Grunts are usually surrogates for yes and no equally. My boy is no different. But I know when something’s grabbed him. The CD I burned had a killer opener, Loan Me a Dime, as performed live by Boz Scaggs. For a sixteen-year-old who is mad about playing guitar (and is pretty good at it, that’s not just the father’s voice speaking, he is bloody good, he is) the first chords of this timeless blues, originally written and performed by Fenton Robinson, was like manna from heaven. That was swiftly followed by the first notes on A minor of Bob Marley’s Exodus just as we were about to hit the M25. Exodus on the stereo and we were escaping the city. The boy sat back and relaxed. He didn’t text for the next hour and a bit. By the time the Red Hot Chilli Peppers were belting out By the Way I had joined the chorus. I know that you will call me a show-off and a braggart but when it comes to making compilation CDs I am second to none. Who came after the Chillies? Led Zeppelin. Because if you are going to introduce a teenager to the classics, do not beat around the bush, go for broke, mate. So, I did. Led Zeppelin’s live version of Whole Lotta Love with the blues medley in the middle. Almost fourteen minutes of pure, unadulterated bluesy rock, followed by two bands without which the music my son listens to (metal) wouldn’t exist: Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water and Black Sabbath’s War Pigs. With the latter I saw my son out of the corner of my eye playing air guitar to Tommy Iommi’s opening riff. I wouldn’t be surprised if any time now I hear a similar sound coming out of his bedroom.

Luckily the trip didn’t last long and the queues I was warned about never materialised. As the last notes of the Chillies’ (them again, twice!) Breaking the Girl faded away we arrived on the coast. Did you like the CD, then? I asked my son. Open-eyed and smiling, he said, yes. Who knows, maybe, I’ll have to do the pizza and DVD more often. With another compilation CD as the icing on the cake. Even if others disagree because their approach to parenting is different to mine.

© 2014

Photo taken by the blog author

Next post: “Killer Opening Songs”, to be published on Wednesday 30^th April at 11:59pm (GMT)