“You are beautiful.” Is there as a greeting on the website, completely unasked. Ah. Thanks for the flowers, but you should see my back! And does it even matter since I just want to download some study materials for my daughter? But I’m supposed to be “empowered” here. The Lizzo complex: “I have to empower you – resistance is futile!” And on we go with turbo mindfulness: “Forgot your padlet password? Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us.” What does that mean? For example: “It happens to the best of us, so it doesn’t surprise me that a fool like you messes it up too”?
Well, maybe I’m thinking too negatively and I’m the wrong target group. The fact is: I don’t need empty pleasantries, I need effective help, and I need it fast. Children drag all sorts of things into the house. And as soon as RSV is halfway through, we have another catchy tune at home. Everything sings, hums, whistles that damn “World’s Smallest Violin” to itself; This catchy tune, which was already completely worn out after a short time, is sticking everywhere, and the seven-year-old now also starts with “Goodbye Hollywood Hills”! God, where did they get this crap from? I gotta get this stuff out, at least out of the living area.
A classic 80’s problem
Only substitution therapy with top music can help – potent catchy tunes must be released, which then organically decompose the unwanted melodies and break them down without leaving any residue. I need the Sonic exterminator. The Beatles have to go! Or, wait – try something new: The Beautiful South! Paul Heaton, pop god! Actually infallible, one might think, but the material turns out to be too weak, the infestation is probably too serious. So keep scrolling down in iTunes – there, I’ve got it: Blur! Bingo. And it really works wonderfully, after about 175 runs of “Charmless Man” and “Country House” in 48 hours we are all on the mend.
Incidentally, when it comes to children and pop music, I still have a classic 80s problem in the house: The boys have recently started to like Die Ärzte. In the 80s this was a field of conflict because of joke songs about incest and sodomy, today the matter is more complex: the older one was particularly taken with Bela’s “Song of Failure” and he seems inclined to repeat the refrain line “You’re always best when it’s you don’t really care” as a philosophy of life in the face of the upcoming school challenges.
This sentence has explosive power, and it’s not enough to say “Turn off the filth!” We stay tuned. At least for the moment I’ve won: 3 little pashas of primary school age are sitting in the living room, playing a board game(!) and listening to … Gorillaz! The fact that the medicine chest still has a few remedies in stock against which there are still no resistances: I think it’s wonderful.
This column first appeared in the Musikexpress issue 03/2023.