Music Lesson

My wife works on Monday and Wednesday, and I get the kids ready to go to daycare and get on the school bus. A Pink Floyd mix CD played in my car on the way to daycare. I love Pink Floyd, they're my all-time favorite band.

"The Happiest Days of our Lives" was the first song. It starts with the sound of a helicopter, and then a teacher's voice yells, "You! Yes, you! Stand still, laddie!"

"What's this song about?" my elder son asked.

"It's about a boy who didn't go to a nice school," I explained.

"What was wrong with it?"

"Well, a long time ago, teachers could be mean to kids. They made fun of them sometimes, and could even spank them," I said, hoping he would realize how good he has it. No real problem there, or when the song transitioned into "Another Brink in the Wall- Part II," which, if you are a reclusive ingrate and didn't already know this vital piece of music history, is the "We don't need no education" song.

No problem so far. School isn't fun sometimes. Easy to explain, without going into the depths of the dark sarcasm in the classroom. Plus, both kids love the line "If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?" Maybe because I say it every time they don't eat their dinner and then ask for a treat, so now they know where that line comes from.

The next song was Young Lust.

"What's this song called?" The Inquisitor asked, striving to understand. I told him "Young Love" because I really didn't want to get into the differences between love and lust.

"What's it about?" was the inevitable follow up.

It's interesting, because "A rock star looking to gang bang a bunch of hot groupies" is both the correct and the incorrect answer. It's correct, because that's what the song is really about; it's incorrect, because the person asking is in first grade.

So I did what any of you would do. I yelled at the car in front of me, to create a diversion.

"Ohhhh," David Gilmore sang, "I need a dirty woman..."

"What did he say?" was the inevitable follow up.

"Come on, turn!"

I think that next time we're going to listen to Chicka-Chicka Boom-Boom.