My wife is off galavanting with the cub scouts today. I had to go to work. Therefore, my daughters needed to be watched. As my wife had to be to her designated meeting place at 6:15, I took the girls to our friends’ house on my way to work. During the drive to drop them off, System of a Down’s “Streamline” came on. As the girls were sitting quietly in the back seat and I was semi-half-heartedly (so … does that make it a quarter-heartedly?) singing along, basically to myself, it got to the chorus. “(I wasn’t there for you) You are gone  (I wasn’t there for you) Goodbyes are long, Goodbye … (I wasn’t there for you) Goodbye. I wasn’t there for goodbye …” And so on and so forth. My six year old pipes up from the back, “Hey, daddy! He sounds like YOU!!!”

Well! That’s quite the high compliment! Granted, it’s coming from a 6 year old who thinks Justin Bieber is the end-all of music (which is precisely why I’m playing other stuff around them when I can), but hey–I’ll take it!

Maybe it’s because my throat is really sore … not sure if it’s allergies or a cold settling in my larynx, but either way, today, I just couldn’t keep up with him.  Normally, I can hit that last “BYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYE!” that lasts something like 10-12 seconds or whatever. Today, though … nothin’. Gave it one shot, and decided my voice needed the rest more than anything.

So a bragging moment. Sort of. Mostly because my daughter is starting to be able to recognize voice similarities and such. THAT is excellent. And I will never tell her to her face that I think Justin Bieber is useless when it comes to contributing musically to the world, She will come into her own as to her musical tastes, and I will not quash anything along the way. Unless it’s hard-core gansta rap or incites a riot. My mom gave me the same gift growing up–excellent music. Of course, she bought me stuff like Ravel’s Bolero, William Tell’s Overture … classical music, which to this day I still love. On my own, I discovered Hall and Oates, Huey Lewis, The Cars, Madonna, Journey … bands that *I* liked. At no point did my mom ever try to tell me, “Umm … no. That sucks. Turn it off.” It was only later in life that I learned just how cheesy Hall and Oates were, and how 50s-era rock-influenced Huey Lewis really was, and how risque Madonna was/is/probably always will be. My daughter will have the same privileges that I had growing up, with the added knowledge of my ever-expanding music collection.

So maybe, just maybe, I won’t have to put up with Beiber-esque junkie hud crap when she ends up collecting her own music. Here’s hoping.