After getting my morning cup o’ joe and catching Billy Joel on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Hannah came bounding in the kitchen in her golden tutu, daddy’s white tube socks (because they make her twirl better), and a shiny gold ballet costume declaring that she needed to dance! We shucked and jived through Jimmy and Billy’s duet of You May Be Right in our living room and over breakfast, it occurred to me just how much music she has yet to discover.
The kids’ current favorites are typical kid songs (Jesus Loves Me, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, etc.) and a few like Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours, and of course the Frozen soundtrack is huge right now. They only know some music because of movies. (They associate AC/DC Back in Black with Megamind. Don’t judge.) But what about the essentials? We would be doing our kids a huge disservice if we didn’t, at the very least, expose them music outside of pop radio. (How many times do we really need to hear the SAME song!?)
Here in no particular order (and by no means a complete list) is what I compiled in the 10 minutes allotted by my 3-year-old because she “just couldn’t wait any longer!”
- Three Little Birds – Bob Marley
- Tell Her About It/It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me – Billy Joel
- Tiny Dancer – Elton John (After Friends, it’s so hard to not say “Tony Danza” in my head. Thank you Phoebe!)
- American Pie – Don McLean
- Elvis Presley
- The Beatles
- Beat It – Michael Jackson
- Isn’t She Lovely – Stevie Wonder
- Mr. Tambourine Man – Bob Dylan
- Layla – Eric Clapton
- Education – Pink Floyd
- James Taylor
- George Strait
- Adele
- Neil Diamond
- Etta James
- Aerosmith
- Musical Soundtracks: Grease, West Side Story, and The Sound of Music
- The Police
- Stand/Everybody Hurts – R.E.M.
- U2
- Rainy Night in Georgia (I really like the version from Conway Twitty and Sam Moore)
What would you have on your “essentials I must pass to my kids” list?
Life and Other Stuff 