Soundtrack

I love the fact that sometimes when I sit in my son's car I hear a song that I remember. I remember it from a time when I was young. Anything by Van Halen. Anything by DEVO. Anything recorded before he was born. This is a testament to the way I set things in motion back before he owned a car. Before he picked the music. Before he knew what music was.
It used to be part of the air around him. He came into the world full of Beethoven and Bruce Springsteen. The Bruce was an echo from my youth. The Beethoven was a replay from my wife and my wedding. It was the Ninth Symphony. "Ode to Joy," when my son was born. "Ode to Freedom" when we were married. And all of that came from hanging around the stereo at my parents' house when I was small. Classical music was the soundtrack of my childhood. My mother played piano. We listened to KVOD, the classical voice of the Rocky Mountains. We listened to the Metropolitan Opera on the weekends. With all of those composers, all of those sonatas, symphonies and suites, how did I land on Beethoven?
I blame Schroeder. And Charles Schulz. The bust on the toy piano. The way he obsessed in the way Linus obsessed on the Great Pumpkin. I took piano lessons. I played Mozart, and Bach, and Shostakovich. And Ludwig Van. Later, I started to complain to piano teacher that I wanted to play more contemporary music. I played Elton John. I played Don McClean.
Then I stopped taking piano lessons. All that music was still in my head. Along with the Beatles and the Stones and the Monkees and ZZ Top. Full and overflowing. It didn't occur  to me that it could be any other way when my son came to stay at our house. There should be music. Good, bad, old and new. Pop and punk and dance and mood. The surprise would be if my son would have denied his heritage.
When we sat in the driveway last weekend and he tried to sell me on the merits of video game music, I flinched. How could this be important or worthwhile? Songs played while Sonic the Hedgehog made his way from left to right across the screen acquiring as many gold rings as possible and anything on Van Halen's first album? How could this be? Then I started listening. And I smiled.