Emma’s Not So Infinite Playlist

Music has been a major part of my daughter Emma’s life for the past nineteen months. For those of you keeping score at home, you are probably thinking to yourselves, ‘Isn’t the Bug only about ten months old?’ and ‘Doesn’t the old man know his own daughter’s age?’ Well, the answer to both of those questions, astute readers, is yes and yes, but do you honestly think that I would actually wait until she was out of her mama’s belly to commence with her music appreciation studies? Hell no.

The truth is as soon as we discovered that Fehmeen was pregnant, so started Emma’s musical education. It began with morning commute-time selections of Bob Marley, the Beatles, and the Eagles which soon transformed into Oasis, Dr. Hook, and (even a few milder and mellower selections of my hero) Tom Waits. During our evenings together, we would take turns singing to her in Fehmeen’s belly as we lay in bed dreaming about our family’s future. Even during labor in the hospital, Emma’s arrival into her mother’s arms for the first time was accompanied by Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely.

For as long as she has been able to express it, Emma has exhibited signs that she digs music. When she was a newborn, she would stop whatever she was doing in order to listen to what was being played for her. As she got a bit older and was crying non-stop in her car-seat whenever we went anywhere, the only thing that would calm her was her Elvis for Babies cd. Now that she’s older, Emma claps along with and dances to any music that she hears, be it from her toys, the stereo, the computer, or the television.

And believe it or not, she has great rhythm for a ten month old, in addition to good taste.

Here are some of Emma’s greatest hits so far. Click on the link to hear (and in some cases see) what all the hoopla is about. Plus, I think that it would be super cool for Emma herself to find this page when she’s old enough and rediscover what she was into in her early days. (Hi, Bug!)

One of my students, Colin S, bought Emma a Led Zeppelin lullaby cd. Her favorite track was Kashmir.

Emma and I formed an early bond laying around watching abba videos together on youtube.

The Bug clapped along to music for the first time when she discovered internet sensation Golimar.

Remember when I mentioned the Elvis lullaby that was instrumental in soothing Emma’s car-seat anxieties? I couldn’t find the actual version, but if you tune out the techno beat, it’s fairly close. here

Without a doubt, her all-time favorite. No More Monkeys is da baby bomb. Hang on through the low tech spoken word portion for the real treat: claymation monkeys and the funkiest version of the song ever recorded.

I went looking for Beetlejuice and I found the Wiggles. A current chart climber on the list.

The sweetest song on the list. Fehmeen sings this song to Emma some nights as a lullaby, albeit with slightly altered lyrics in the chorus (see the words on the picture below). You get a gold star if you knew this song was our first dance at our wedding.

Advertisement