Steer It Up, Little Darlin'

Stir It Up, Bob Marley

I do most of the driving in this family. And I am known far and wide as having terrible taste in music and a very weak knowledge of music that most of my contemporaries know. What can I say? My mom didn't let me watch MTV. I have always been connected to people with excellent music collections and taste and so my philosophy has been if my friends and family can DJ my life there's one less thing for me to do.

When I drive the kids around I let them fight it out about what we listen to. For the last month or so we have been under the tyranny of Johnny Cash. Sumner will sit in the way back of the van and sing, "call him drunken Ira Hayes, he won't answer any more, not the whiskey drinkin' Indian, nor the marine that went to war." He'll shout out requests to me, "Skip 'Six Feet High and Risin''!" But I really don't mind listening to a song 100 times or listening to kid's stuff. Sometimes I listen and sing along to Veggie Tales or Raffi when I am in the car by myself.

Phil is a different story. He is from New Orleans for God's sake. It isn't like he can't enjoy Raffi's "Down By the Bay" or Veggie Tales' "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything". He just can't relinquish all of the car air time to Children's Choice 24-7. So, he opens the kids up to the good stuff. Last Friday he was listening to Catch a Fire and got Ramona to get into "Stir it Up". So she now does this peculiar interpretive car dance to it and requests it constantly. When the introduction begins, she points a couple fingers at me and then swivels her little wrists around, pointing at other things, while opening her mouth when the guitar comes in. It is a sight. She calls the song, "Steer it Up", spoken with a perfect Jamaica accent. Today, when I was listening to it with her, she screamed, "He just said Ramona." Upon listening to it with her several times, I realized that some of his "oh, oh, ohs" could sound a little like Ramona, but the "little darlin's" most certainly are addressed to her.

Maybe there it hope for me. Perhaps my kids can DJ the next 18 or so year of my life and then, just maybe, I can start spinning my own tunes.